After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  Conversations conflicted and voices ranged from high to low. I watched from the window. But I only caught bits and pieces. I was feeling foolish. This was not a time for Freddy to revert. The monster would not come back – not with everything he had going for him at stake. It was only a time for me to freeze out of doors. My coat was stolen two days ago while I slept on the bus. I never got around to replacing it.

  So, there was this tension. I could see it flash like lightning between Sam and Freddy. It had been there for a long time now. Only in the last four months or so had it escalated to this. Elsie alternated between deathly pale and deeply flushed. Dinner was ready. Sam started in on Freddy almost before the Cajun crab and brie soup was served. As they settled around the dinner table, I began to get more and more of it.

  “Again, Rajni,” Freddy commented during a lull in conversations, “you look stunning.” He was trying to keep her involved and talking. As Sam smoldered, she only drew into herself.

  There were murmurs of agreement but Sam stiffened as though struck. He forced a smile. His eyes fell on Freddy and stayed there while the conversation went around the table.

  “It was the left one, wasn’t it?” Sam asked suddenly. Elton had been talking about a new wheat beer they were making at the brewery and he fell silent in mid-sentence.

  “I’m sorry?” Freddy asked.

  “You told Jason Flynn you were calling the left one, right – to nut on, I believe was the expression you used.”

  Freddy met his challenging gaze and glanced at Rajni. “It was the right one actually.” He turned his attention back to Elton but Sam didn’t let it go.

  “Are you sure? I could have sworn you said the left one?”

  “Pretty sure,” he motioned to Elsie. “Could you pass the pepper please?” Back to Sam he smiled and shook a loose left fist. “I called the right one so we wouldn’t bang elbows.”

  Ryan coughed on his soup. Everyone had looks bordering shock and bewilderment. Chelsea had taken her dinner to her bedroom and I could hear her music faintly from that end of the house.

  Freddy glanced around the table. “I have to apologize.” He seasoned his soup. “Just bits of an old conversation.” He turned to Sam. “Wildly inappropriate. Talk to me about it on Monday maybe.” He winked and tried his soup.

  Sam didn’t speak through the remainder of the first course. He sat staring sullenly around the dining room while the salads were brought out. Elton managed to finish his story and conversations shifted around the table again.

  “My God, Elsie,” Freddy proclaimed when he saw his salad. “Are these croutons home-made?”

  Elsie beamed. “The store-bought ones are so bland.”

  “I don’t know where you get the time,” Ezra said.

  “Oh, it doesn’t take long – really.”

  “And the bacon,” Elton put in, “it’s enough to make me want to be baptized!”

  “Did you smoke the bacon yourself?” Stacy asked with a smirk. She often made glaring exceptions in her diet – as glaring as Elton’s – where Elsie’s cooking was concerned – or Freddy’s for that matter. They often joked Elsie had the championship belt but Freddy was her upstart contender. She was Carl Weathers and he was Sly.

  “No, silly,” she touched Stacy’s arm fondly. “It’s from the butcher’s.”

  “I’m sure Freddy could have done that for you,” Sam said.

  Rajni murmured something to him.

  Sam turned to her with an angry look. She flinched back. I saw it. Freddy definitely saw it. I think everyone saw it but not everyone knew what it was they were seeing.

  Freddy’s fork clattered to his plate. It wasn’t Samjeet’s comment that enraged him. It was that slim evidence of spousal abuse he couldn’t stand. His gaze grew hard and deadly. The old Freddy was still there. He was hidden just beneath this new, comforting mask of conformity.

  All conversation came to an end. Sam and Freddy locked eyes or Sam tried to at any rate. I have to give him an ‘A’ for effort but his gaze was quickly lowered to the table.

  Elsie missed the jab but she was aware of the conflict. “Is this about that thing with the police?”

  “Darling,” Ryan raised his hand to quiet her but the damage was done.

  “What thing?” Elton asked.

  Rajni was staring at Freddy with a blend of respect and hate – or some blend of the good and the bad the abused tend to express to a would-be savior. I have very little doubt she knew the feel of her husband’s fists on occasion. Freddy had less.

  “Sorry.” Elsie slipped into her chair. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “It’s okay,” Sam said. He looked at Elton and Ezra. “In addition to being a Hedonist, Freddy is also a killer.” He turned to Freddy. “What is it they call you – Jack Frost? A little campy, wouldn’t you agree? It’s about as lame as you are.”

  Rajni made herself as small as she could beside him. Stacy was hurt but angry. Vague red blooms had risen on her pale cheeks and her eyes were a pair of fine honed flints focused on Sam. The look wouldn’t last. Elsie was different. She was shocked and scared. She was nearly in tears.

  “I don’t think this is appropriate, Sam,” Ezra tried.

  Ryan put down his napkin. “Yes, I think that’s about enough of that.”

  “No, sir,” Sam threw his own napkin down. “I just want to know how it can be that I’m being passed over for this … this person!” He gestured abruptly at Freddy. This had been building in him for a long time. It was all coming out at once. Sam lacked Freddy’s control and I think he had a monster of his own lurking within. It was a monster requiring only the most conventional means of escaping.

  “Freddy was merely questioned,” Ryan said. “He was never a suspect. And there hasn’t been a murder associated with that monster in better than three years now.” Ryan breathed and let his eyes wander over the table. “People like that don’t stop. If Freddy was a killer, I think we would all know.” He was upset now but his gaze lacked the purity of purpose that Freddy’s held. I’m sure what Ryan Childress understood as rage was only a paltry shadow of what Freddy could bring to bear. “If you question my decision, Sam, just look at your behavior this evening.”

  “Oh, come off it, Ryan!” Sam scoffed. “He’s your golden boy. It’s so obvious you’d choose him over the rest of us.” He turned to Stacy. “How many times has he asked to bring other women to your bed?”

  Freddy’s set his wine glass down carefully, but held on to it, a distraction, something to occupy at least one of his hands. Beside him Stacy had gone completely white. The flint left her. She trembled slightly.

  “How often do you wake up and find him staring at you in the darkness? He likes to watch you like that, doesn’t he?”

  Stacy flinched back from him, from his words like fists.

  “Are you trying to make me angry?” Freddy asked. His voice was quiet. It was barely a whisper but I heard him perfectly. His jaw was clenched. His glare was absolute hate. No, more rage than hate. The monster was there again just cresting the surface. For a moment I thought he was going to kill Sam right then and there at the dinner table.

  “Is that what the others did?” Sam managed.

  With a sharp report, the bowl of Freddy’s wine glass shattered in his fist. Decadent purple splashed and mixed with fat droplets of brilliant crimson on the linen tablecloth. Freddy didn’t seem to notice.

  Elsie began to cry. I became aware of silence from her daughter’s bedroom.

  Ryan sat back hard. His chair creaked alarmingly. “I think perhaps we should call it a night.” He turned to Sam. “Thank you. I’m sure you’re pleased with yourself.” He rose and went to his wife. “I’m sure you can let yourselves out.”

  It was my sign to leave. I backed away from the window and made for the street. Freddy had recently sold his old Blazer and replaced it with a new BMW. 5 series. The M model. It came with all the bells and whistles – including keyless entry.

  Fre
ddy didn’t know I had my own key fob for his car. I took the spare from his desk drawer almost as soon as he bought the car. I’ve been using it to hide in the rear foot well ever since. I let myself in and huddled down low. I peered out the tinted glass as Sam and Rajni left. They were arguing – or he was anyway. I couldn’t understand any of it. It was all in Punjabi.

  Not a minute passed. They got in Sam’s car and drove away. Ezra and Elton were still inside when Freddy emerged with Stacy huddled under his arm. He had one of Elsie’s tea towels wrapped around his injured hand. They made three steps down the front walk when the front door opened again. I saw Chelsea slip out.

  “Hey,” she called out.

  Freddy and Stacy stopped. Freddy turned back while Stacy hid her tears. “Hey, yourself,” he said to her.

  “That guy’s a dick. Don’t let him get to you.”

  Freddy stepped back towards the girl. He had one finger curled to hold Stacy’s small hand. He put an arm around Chelsea and kissed the top of her head. “Thanks, Chilly.” Chilly was his nick-name for her. It had been for years.

  “If you want, I’ll kick his ass.”

  Stacy laughed. She turned and joined in a kind of three-way hug.

  “My dad’s not pissed at you guys,” Chelsea went on. “Shit happens – that’s all.”

  The first lonely flakes of snow had begun to fall. The temperature was barely below freezing and the flakes fell as fat as peas and grapes. I could hear it falling. It was the sound of memories and it muted everything else. The sound of snow falling was always nice. It was the promise of hot chocolate and a book in front of the fire. It was the memory of someone else’s childhood.

  Freddy and Stacy just held the girl and she held them back. Water beaded on the glass in front of me. They became only a blur of color under the porch light.

  “You kids go straight home,” Chelsea commanded when she let them go.

  Freddy laughed and Stacy hiccupped. “Get inside. You’re not even wearing shoes,” Freddy told her and gave her a final squeeze before she slipped back in.

  They came to the car. Freddy opened the door for Stacy and waited until she settled herself inside.

  “I got it,” she whispered. I could hear the hurt in her voice. “Can you get the car started please? I’m cold.”

  Freddy rounded the car as Stacy pulled her door closed. The car shifted on its springs slightly as he settled himself into his seat and rocked once as he hauled his door closed. He started the car but only let it idle.

  “I’m sorry,” Freddy tried. This was a Freddy-voice I barely recognized. It took me a moment to register concern and compassion. They were real and I was hearing them.

  “Just take me home, Freddy,” she asked. “Please?”

  “I thought you were staying over tonight.”

  Stacy might have shaken her head.

  “Are you mad?”

  “I don’t know what I am.”

  Freddy sighed. He was quiet for a moment. I heard him work the gear shift and drop the park brake. “Okay,” he said finally and pulled away from the curb without spinning his tires on the snow-dampened pavement.

  The trip to Stacy’s house was a silent one. Neither one of them spoke until Freddy pulled up in front of the duplex. It was her parents’ house of course. She was still in school and the ol’ Chateaux du Mom and Dad offered free room and board. She did not want to live with Freddy until after the wedding, until after she graduated in the spring. But she had no issue spending every weekend with him. This weekend would be an exception.

  “Can I see you in?” He asked her in a small, tentative voice.

  “That’s okay.”

  “Is it?”

  A moment of silence followed. The snow fell and the sedan purred its sedate rumble beneath us. “I just need,” Stacy tried. “I need to be alone right now. I’m sorry. Call me, okay?” Without waiting for a response, without kissing him, she stepped out and shut the door. I imagined her running headlong for the front door, heedless of the slick steps.

  Freddy watched her. I heard the faint thump of the front door closing. For a long minute he only sat there. Finally, he sighed. The car eased away from the curb and idled down the street at a sedate twenty kilometers per hour. Freddy sighed again. What pressure he did have on the throttle eased off. The car began to slow.

  I waited. I saw him turning around and heading back to Stacy’s house. He needed that kiss. He needed closure to the evening. The leather wrap on the steering wheel creaked in his grip. He was torn.

  “Fuck it!” He decided aloud. Freddy stirred the shifter around to find first. He gunned the motor and dumped the clutch. The sedan walked sideways as rubber howled. The tires found purchase and the car lurched forward.

  I clung to the rear mounts of his driver’s seat. I pressed myself into the rear foot well with all my strength but still I felt my body trying to rise out. Freddy drifted his corners. He alternated between full brake and full throttle. The engine screamed into its highest ranges, dipped with a new gear and soared again.

  Streetlights blipped by the windows. The back of his seat was peppered with light faster and faster as the weight of his foot on the pedal pushed the car, faster and faster. I knew how fast the car could go. I saw the brochure on the coffee table. I didn’t know where we were going but we were definitely getting there.

  But I should have known where Freddy needed to go as soon as I heard his hands gripping the steering wheel. He needed that kiss. Or a kiss. He needed closure to the evening.

  Sam and Rajni Dalwal lived in a condo on the west end of the beltline. Technically it was downtown but the people who live there prefer to call the area ‘the hip’. It’s a trendy area with art galleries, restaurants, pubs, clubs and about two dozen coffee shops.

  Their parkade was ground level with the street side closed off by the storefronts of a vintage boutique, a bank and a used book store. Old sodium lights did an inadequate job of lighting the intersecting alleys and the parkade itself. There was no attendant and no security. Freddy let himself into the visitor section and backed into a stall.

  He let the car idle. It was the new V-10 model – small next to the Impala’s seven-liter displacement but I could hear the power its Bavarian engineers were able to strap into it. The car didn’t rumble like the Impala but it did emit a velvety purr that – if not outright aggressive – held the promise of violence only heel to toe away.

  “Easy-peasy,” Freddy said to himself. He didn’t sound right. He didn’t sound quite in control. I don’t think he was in charge anymore. The monster had taken the wheel at the curb near Stacy’s house. He cackled and my skin crawled. “Easy-peasy – make ‘em bleedy!” The laugh that followed was a quick bark, the slap-crack of an ax striking wood. He killed the motor with a sharp twist of his wrist.

  “No,” he said in a clearer voice. “She’s just upset and who can blame her. She’ll be better tomorrow – you’ll see. It’ll be cool tomorrow.” Freddy seemed to be pleading with himself. “It’ll be cooool!” I began to suspect I wasn’t the only one he talked to. “They’ll burn you for this,” he added. I had heard him mumbling to himself in the past but this was the first time I ever heard that other one reply.

  A quiet gurgling laugh escaped him. It came from deep in his throat. “Nu-uh!” In the sickly, yellow glow of the parkade I could see his slowly shaking his head. “Easy-peasy,” he repeated. His seatbelt hissed along the front of his coat as it furled into its carrier. Briefly he fumbled in the glove box and straightened. His hands drummed on the steering wheel. “Buh-duh bum-bum, bum,” he sang in a whisper. “Another one bites the dust!” He clapped his hands once and reached for the door handle.

  I gave him twenty seconds and followed. I needed to be careful – more careful than I had ever been. Freddy was preparing himself for the kill. But he was more than just Freddy. He was this other one as well. His senses were engorged. He was the jungle cat. He was the circling eagle. If he caught me now, he would pounce.
r />   Steel flashed in his hand. I recognized the triangular blade punch-knife he had bought out of the back of a van four or five years ago and had yet to use. He told me it would open a hole in someone and they would bleed out very quickly. The wound would not fold over itself and under pressure it would only open further. It would just bleed and bleed and bleed. When he showed it to me, he held it like the stereotypical suburban man holding up a new power tool. He held it with absolutely innocent smug pride.

  I darted from car to car, keeping low. I didn’t care if anyone else saw me. Freddy was all that mattered. The steel in his hand disappeared up his coat sleeve as he neared the entrance. His hands were now clad in shimmering black leather. The cuts on his left one would leave no trace. The last fifty paces were wide open. I would have no cover until he was inside.

  It was only then did I realize what I was doing, what I was planning. It was something I could not have done before. The old fear closed in on me then and I beat it aside. I felt he had betrayed me, fooled me into finally believing – truly believing – he was better now. New strength filled me. It didn’t matter how stealthy I was. No one would see me. I was sure of it. I am sure of it.

  I made to rise and rush him – end it right there. He was always more fit than me and he had been training. I thought if I rushed him, I could surprise him, put him down and get that cruel little piece of metal out of his grasp. And then … I don’t know. I don’t know what I was going to do. I was ready to leap but I didn’t know where I would land. Before I could she called out to him.

  “Freddy?” Amused, surprised and delighted she called out to him. “Is that Freddy Cartwright?”

  The first domino was nudged when Samjeet spoke his mind and ruined Elsie’s perfectly prepared dinner. It did not fall but it did teeter. It wavered, a milligram of force away from overcoming its center of gravity. The cascade would begin. Once it began it would go on until the very last had fallen.

  When she called out, her heels thocking a haphazard beat on the cement, echoing off the walls of the parkade, that pressure began to apply itself again. I recognized her at once just as the last milligram of force was applied.