As an Old Memory

by Vic Kerry

  No one deserved that. A boy would have trouble getting over that. The whole school would know and laugh about it. Sim hated the feeling of complete humiliation. The whole town had laughed at him and his family after his sister got tangled up with that house slave of Harrington’s. Years later, it niggled at him. The Smithson boy started to seem more and more like that Tobias Abernathy. He even tried to steal his grandson’s girl. Her name was Jessica. For some reason, he could remember it. She was a real beauty for a girl her age. Her peaches-and-cream skin glowed. Her pouty lips looked polished even when they weren’t. As he sat staring up at the building, his thoughts drifted to that very girl, naked. He could see every line of her body, the plumpness of her breasts, and every shade of her nudity.

  The air perfumed his imagination as it became more vivid. His groin tightened. It had been a while since that had happened. Jessica morphed into Connie. Not much had to change. Connie and Jessica looked a lot alike. If Connie were still alive, Jessica could have been her granddaughter. The hair color was different, as was something about the nose. Josh’s girlfriend’s teeth were a little more prominent than Connie’s.

  In his imagination, Sim felt like a man of twenty-eight again. He made love to Connie or Jessica or whoever it was. Before he had time to truly get into the rhythm of things, he felt a warm dampness. Reality came back to the old man as a small area of moisture spread across the straddle of his pants.

  Headlights blinded him as the cars left the gym. He’d intended to follow and threaten them. Boys could still be intimidated, and he could be scary if he had to, as long as it didn’t look like he’d peed himself. No one feared an incontinent old man.

  Sim cranked his truck and shifted it into gear. He looked into the rearview mirror to check the traffic behind. The face of Tobias Abernathy stared at him from over his shoulder, as clear and real as forty years ago. The face made the sound of a woman in mid-orgasm. Sim screamed and punched the accelerator. The truck’s tires squealed and left burning rubber smoke in the air. He tried to race away from the image, but he could see it even without looking into the mirror.

  The clock on the wall read 7:30 p.m. Alan sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair in a cramped room. Claustrophobia began to bother him, as did the fact that he hadn’t been able to enjoy his evening of freedom without football practice, but Dr. Vanhouten had called him. Apparently, the doctor needed to talk to him about Charlotte. Instead of leading him to the very nice room from his last visit, the nurse had put him in this closet of a space. A bank of television monitors against the wall made the room even smaller, and far warmer. Beads of sweat formed at his hairline under his bangs.

  The door opened, and Dr. Vanhouten walked inside. He carried a video cassette. Alan started to stand, but the doctor waved for him to sit.

  “Thank you for coming,” the doctor said. “I did what you said and had Charlotte’s room watched during the time after supper. We found nothing until tonight.”

  “What happened?” Alan asked.

  “I’ll let you have a look.”

  Dr. Vanhouten put the video cassette into a VCR by the television bank. One of the TVs flickered. The view was of Charlotte’s hospital room, taken from a high corner. She sat on her bed with her face away from the camera.

  “So?” Alan said.

  “Keeping watching. When the time stamp gets to 18:35, the screen will static.”

  Alan watched. The screen became fuzzy. When it cleared, a woman stood in the room with Charlotte. Alan recognized her.

  “Do you know her?” Dr. Vanhouten asked.

  “It’s my son’s friend. Her name is Jessica. How did she get in there?”

  “We don’t know. Charlotte is still on visitation restriction, and we have no record of someone matching that girl’s description visiting.”

  “She just appeared?”

  “Keep watching.”

  The time stamp ran the time up to 18:40. Static obscured the screen. When it cleared again, Charlotte sat alone. Alan looked back at the doctor.

  “What did she say when you asked her about it?” he asked.

  “She denied anyone was there,” Dr. Vanhouten said. “I was hoping you could talk to her.”

  “Certainly. Let’s go right now.”

  Alan led the doctor out of the small room. They walked down a small corridor and through a large metal door that the doctor had to unlock. Alan recognized the layout of the unit after that. He made his way toward the women’s wing. Dr. Vanhouten had to trot to keep up with him. As they passed the nurses’ station, the doctor waved to the nurses to stay seated as two of them started out to stop Alan.

  Charlotte lay on her bed reading a Harlequin novel. She propped up on her elbows when Alan hurried into her room. She looked surprised, but precocious, in her 1956 mindset.

  “Alan, why are you here? I’ve not got visitation yet,” she said.

  “Dr. Vanhouten called me. Who was in this room with you?”

  “Connie Dearborn. She comes lots of nights after supper.”

  Dr. Vanhouten walked into the room. “How did she get in here?”

  “The same way she always comes. I’ll be doing something, and she’ll be here.”

  “You don’t find that unusual?” the doctor asked.

  Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. “I assume she walked in the door like you two, and because I’m not paying attention, I don’t notice when she walks in.”

  “How does she leave?” the doctor asked.

  “She’s gone.”

  “Aunt Charlotte, why do you think that girl was Connie Dearborn?” Alan said. “Does she look like Connie?”

  “A little bit,” Charlotte said.

  When Alan heard that, the resemblance between Jessica and Connie Dearborn hit him in the face. There was something about the eyes. Pictures, especially old faded ones, could be deceiving. All the real memories he had of Connie were from photographs, except for vague ones of her piercing eyes.

  “But I know it’s her because she tells me so, and she knows things that only Connie knows.”

  “Like what?” Alan asked.

  “Don’t push too hard,” Dr. Vanhouten said. “I want to know about this mysterious woman.”

  “Let me handle this,” Alan told the doctor. “You might have the degree in psychiatry, but I know my aunt. What does she know that only Connie would?”

  Charlotte looked embarrassed and shook her head like a child not wanting to tell. Alan looked directly in her eyes a stern look. Usually that was enough to pry stuff out of her while she was in her 1956 mind frame. His aunt sighed and appeared to deflate a little.

  “I’m a virgin. Connie knows that all those rumors about me making love to Tobias were lies. I never admitted they were true, but I didn’t deny them either. People assumed. I hoped if people thought I was okay with him enough to do that, they would be okay with him.”

  “Is that true?” Dr. Vanhouten whispered to Alan.

  He shrugged. All he’d ever been told was that his aunt had had a relationship with that boy. His father had always implied that it was sexual, but in truth, everything had been circumstantial. Charlotte would never address it directly. When Sim would go on one of his rants, she’d storm out or go nuts.

  “I told her right before I went to old man Shannon’s store for more streamers.” Charlotte stopped and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face took on its contemporary visage. She looked at her nephew. “She was killed after that. The only people she possibly could have told died with her.”

  “You’re sure that girl was Connie Dearborn?” Alan asked.

  She paused for a moment. In her present-day frame of mind, her eyes seemed to search her memory. “No, it was Jessica, Josh’s little friend. Why would she say she was Connie?” Charlotte leaned toward them looking very confused. “How would she know that?”

  “I don’t know,” Alan said.

  “Can you remember how she gets into your room?” Dr. Vanhouten asked.

  “She appears
and disappears,” Charlotte said.

  “That’s impossible,” the doctor said. “You must be hallucinating.”

  Alan looked at him. “We saw it on the video.”

  The doctor looked confused and shook his head before walking out of the room. Alan and Charlotte looked at each other for a few minutes. During that time, she transitioned back to her 1956 persona. He had never seen her cycle so quickly.

  “Alan,” she said. “Something bad is going to happen to us.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “Don’t think like that. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “It isn’t. Connie told me so. She said bad things had to happen. An eye for an eye.”

  Alan looked at his aunt. Her eyes were sincere and terrified at the same time. Ice-cold terror filled him up at that moment. Something bad was going to happen.

  “Did she tell you what would happen?” he asked.

  “No, but all my friends are with her, including Tobias. She took me there the other day. I told you that. They’re all mad, especially toward Sim, Johnny House, and Marshall.” Charlotte changed back to 1996. “I’ll have to stop her from hurting Josh. I’m the only one who can.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Connie wants to hurt Sim. She plans on doing more than just kill him. She wants his line gone, our family line.”

  His aunt’s comments were like a punch in his stomach. Josh was in the most danger. Jessica, or Connie or whoever, had him in the crosshairs.

  A melancholy Toad the Wet Sprocket song ended when Josh pulled into his driveway. After taking Jessica back to her house, he’d driven around for at least an hour listening to music and letting the wind blow through his hair. Pinehurst looked ready for Halloween as he meandered through the old downtown and out onto the bypass where a bunch of the fast food joints were. The stores had pumpkins and corn stalks in front of them. A few even had cutesy scarecrows propped up. A costume and decoration store had opened in the old Fred’s building. It had been the first year that ever happened. He’d wanted to stop in but had no reason to get dressed up for Halloween. After driving out to River Park, Josh headed home. It was a school night and tomorrow he would have to wake up early to ride the cheese wagon into alternative school.

  When he got out of his car, Bush’s “Machinehead” was playing. He’d grown a little tired of that song. It had gotten too much air time over the summer. As with most of his drive around town, his thoughts were lost in Jessica and what had happened between them. He hoped that Thomas wouldn’t waylay him with a lot of questions when he went to his bedroom. Although his recent after-school activity took up a lot of space in his mind, he didn’t want to relive it with his little brother.

  No one moved around the house when he walked inside. The television was off. It usually squawked from the time his mother got home from work until after the Nightly News. Only dim light came from upstairs, like it did when Thomas was in his room with the door closed. A hint of light brightened the hall from the kitchen. Now that his ears had time to adjust to the quietness of the house, he could tell his parents were whispering in there.

  “Is that you, Josh?” his dad called down the hall.

  “Yeah,” Josh replied. “Sorry I’m late. I lost track of the time.”

  “Come in here.”

  His dad’s voice sounded stern but not angry. Josh didn’t know what to expect. His dad seemed pleased with him after the fight, although he doubted he was pleased with the punishment, and his mother may have convinced him to change his mind about additional grounding. She had a tendency to see things a little more black and white than he did.

  His mother got up from the table when he walked in. She sucked in air through her teeth as she passed. It was the first time she’d gotten a look at him.

  “It’s not that bad,” Josh said. “It looks worse than it feels, although it doesn’t feel good.”

  “Put a warm cloth on your eye before you go to sleep tonight.” She rubbed his face with the soft touch of a caring, loving mother. “That way if it oozes or something it won’t glue your eyelids shut. I don’t want to have to pry your eye free from goo tomorrow.”

  “I will, and thanks for being loving,” Josh said in a joking tone.

  His mind eased as he took a seat by his dad at the table. If his mother was joking, additional punishment was not coming. However, the look on his father’s face made him quickly change his mind. Deep worry lines furrowed his father’s brow. He rubbed his chin like he did when he was about to tell Josh something disturbing, or when he punished Josh.

  “Do I have to take Grandpa Sim to another funeral?” Josh asked.

  “No, I want to talk to you about Jessica.”

  A hot rush of embarrassment rose through Josh’s face. He hoped that the blush didn’t show, but it certainly would. His mind raced, trying to come up with how to answer a question before his dad asked anything.

  “What did Thomas tell you?” he asked.

  Alan shook his head. “Nothing. Should he have?”

  Now instead of embarrassment over the impending dad talk about the importance of responsible sexual behavior, he almost revealed something that he didn’t have to.

  He tried to cover up the mistake. “No, but you know how he can be.”

  “How well do you know her?” Alan asked.

  Josh immediately started to panic a little again. What did his dad mean by that? He might in fact get a sex talk after all. “What do you mean?”

  “How much do you know about her? Where is she from? What’s her family like? All I know is they have only one car, and she’s a pretty good student.”

  “She transferred from Northport. She said that her family moves around a lot. I think she was born near Florence, maybe Muscle Shoals. I don’t know very much about her family, except that they both work.”

  “You’ve never met them?”

  “No, every time I pick her up or take her home, they’re not there.”

  “Every time? Haven’t you and she been out late sometimes?”

  They had gotten in very late before, well after midnight. Her parent’s car wasn’t there. Nothing seemed very strange about that to him, but Jessica acted more provocative on those late nights. One time her top was unbuttoned enough to get a glimpse of her breast. She didn’t have on a bra, and he’d spied her nipple, small and pink.

  “Their car is never there,” he said. “Even when I’ve taken her home late. She’s never let me come into her house either.”

  “Why?”

  Josh searched his memory. She’d never given him a reason why. Every time he brought up the idea, she would either completely change the subject or offer an alternative suggestion. Now that his dad brought all this up, something seemed suspicious.

  “I don’t know. I guess I always assumed they were poor, and she was embarrassed about her house. It’s kind of rough looking on the outside. You saw it, pink walls and red shutters.”

  His dad’s look became very serious, as if he were about to let loose some great epiphany that could tear his whole world down. “Where were you two about 6:30 tonight?”

  “I was driving around, thinking. I dropped Jessica off at her house about 6:15, give or take. She hurried in without barely saying thanks or goodbye. Dad, please quit being mysterious. What’s up?”

  “I was called in to talk with Aunt Charlotte’s doctor again tonight. They found something strange on the monitor in her room. Someone appeared and vanished.” His dad made deep eye contact with him. “It was Jessica.”

  “She visited Aunt Charlotte, what’s the big whoop?”

  “Charlotte said she was visited by Connie Dearborn. One of the people killed at the massacre.”

  Josh shrugged. “She’s accidentally called Jessica that before.”

  “When I say that she appeared and disappeared, I meant that literally. She didn’t walk in and leave. No one reported her on the unit. It’s like magic.”

  “Jessica is an ordinary girl. Are you calling he
r a witch or something?” His dad had no right to come up with far-flung theories and conspiracies about his girlfriend.

  “Settle down. I don’t know what I’m saying, but I needed you to know what’s happened. It was not normal. If you think about it, a lot of not-normal stuff is happening.”

  Josh could think of nothing but Jessica and how much he wanted her. Thomas must have told his parents about his and Jessica’s activities. Now his folks had made up some elaborate story to try to drive them away from each other. His parents were embarrassed that Jessica was poor. They couldn’t have that.

  Without saying anything else, Josh stormed out of the house. He got in his car and drove down the street. As he drove, he kept turning down streets until he sat in front of Jessica’s house. Her parents’ car was gone, and only one window was lit.

  He parked across the street and hurried to her door. No one answered when he knocked or rang the doorbell. Even if Jessica’s parents were gone, she would be there. He rang the bell again.

  “Jessica, it’s me Josh.”

  No one answered. There was no sound of movement inside. He tried the doorknob, and it turned. Without thinking about it, Josh stepped inside. The light came from a floor lamp sitting near the window of what should have been a living room. The floors were bare, as were the walls. No furniture sat around. He looked into the kitchen area. Appliances lined the walls like in any other house, but the refrigerator didn’t hum. No table sat in the room. There seemed to be no evidence of food. Jessica’s family was much poorer than he realized. No wonder she liked eating dinner with his family.

  “Jessica?” he called.

  No one answered.

  Josh walked through the empty living room down the small hall. Doors lined both sides. They were all opened. Every room was empty except the bathroom, which had a sink, toilet, and shower, without a curtain. The hall ended at a door. He tried it, and it opened. Inside was a scantly furnished bedroom.