by Patti Abbott
"They allow synchronized swimming in competitions, don't they," Judith said. "I don't see the difference."
"Maybe we should try swimming," Lilith said.
Wendy was about tell them about her high school swim team triumphs when Judith interrupted. "Do you really want green hair, Lil? Or those gargantuan shoulders?"
Lilith looked at her feet as she often did after offering an unsolicited opinion.
After working at the resale shop until noon on Saturday, Wendy dropped the girls off at the gymnastics center, overnight bags in tow, and began a leisurely preparation for her date. It'd been ages since she took a bath instead of a hurried shower. And even longer since she manicured and polished her nails, both hands and feet. She knew in her heart such elaborate preparation spelled letdown, but dolling herself up felt good even if the date detonated. Craig seemed like a decent guy, but she'd heard too many tales from friends on the hunt to not look at the dating scene skeptically.
Craig had already told her he divorced in his late twenties. The woman had married him on the rebound from a soured college romance and then rebounded again. He had no children but adored his nieces and nephews and hoped to have some of his own. He was five years younger than Wendy and never finished college, taking his computer skills to a tech position at a community college.
"I'm taking a course here or there," he told her, embarrassed. "I'd like to design software eventually."
"A lot of good my degree in anthropology did me," Wendy assured him. "I should be back in school myself, getting a skill that's more saleable."
They both shrugged off the other's failures and ordered: Wendy, veal piccata; Craig, the lobster ravioli. Conversation came easily, and she took that as a good sign and invited him back. She couldn't help but take advantage of the rare evening that the girls were not at home.
"Another glass of wine or some coffee?" she asked, pulling out a box of cookies she'd bought on the off-chance things went well.
"Decaf?"
She nodded.
Later she'd remember pouring the coffee and setting three shortbread and three peanut butter cookies on a plate. Craig stood behind her, saying something about the blue of the Delftware plates that hung on the kitchen wall.
"Is that a dinosaur? The one in the middle?"
She swallowed a laugh—about to tell him that the animal on the dish was an elephant—perhaps painted by someone who'd never seen one—when a veil of gray descended. Cotton balls stuffed her ears. This was the way it seemed to her at least. Her legs went numb, her fingers tingled, and that was it.
* * *
Wendy awoke to the resounding sound of a gong. Perhaps a minute has passed. Perhaps hours. She looked around, and the first thing she saw was Lilith, gong still in her hand and the bowl, dusty, but gorgeous at her feet. Where had they found it?
"She's awake," Lilith shouted. "Mother's awake. How do you feel, Mother? No, don't try to sit up yet." She rushed toward her fallen mother, dropping the gong with a clatter.
"Give her a second," Judith commanded from the other side of the room. "Let her breathe."
As Wendy turned her head, she saw something else: a sight that took her breath away. A man's body was sprawled on the floor, tied at every conceivable juncture with a dozen short ropes. A gag was stuffed in his mouth. Duct tape covered his eyes. Her fear that he was dead ended when he shook his head violently.
Her tongue was too thick to talk.
"What is it, Mother? She's trying to speak, Judith."
"Just listen a minute, Mother. We found this slimy guy kneeling over you when we walked in," Judith said. "You were passed out on the sofa. He probably gave you Rohypnol."
"What?" Wendy had found her voice. "Gave me what?"
"It's a date rape drug. We learned about it in Sex Ed."
Wendy considered this idea. Was this something a grown man did? She'd been about to have sex with him anyway. Surely he could sense that. Although perhaps he liked his sexual partners inert. She'd heard of such things."
"Take the duct tape off, girls. Remove that gag."
"He's only going to deny it," Judith said, not moving. "Let's keep him quiet for a second while we think of our next move."
"Lil, take it off."
Her daughter raced across the room, removing it in one swift movement.
Craig screamed for a second or two, trying to push his shoulder up to his mouth for succor.
"Did you slip me a Mickey, Craig?" Wendy asked, not wanting to wrestle with the name of the drug the girls used. She still felt too weak to rise and instead glared at him from her half-collapsed state. "Is that what happened here?"
"God, no," he said after a few seconds. He looked at Wendy. "Are you kidding? What am I—sixteen?" he paused. He turned his head to the girls, standing together in solidarity. "And I'm thinking of filing charges, you two hellions. Your Mom may have been out cold, but I heard enough of your conversation to figure out what went on here."
"We came in, and you were wrestling with Mother on the couch," Judith said piously. "Probably getting ready to rape her."
"You gotta be kidding," he said and turned to Wendy. "They had those ropes all ready. I saw them drag a bag of snakes—I mean ropes—out of their bedroom. They planned this whole thing."
"You were practically on top of her." Judith looked to Lilith for confirmation and received a curt nod. "Deny it!"
"That's true. I was trying to get her to come 'round. I thought maybe it was food poisoning or some sort of female problem." He looked back to Wendy. "My Mom fainted now and then around menopause."
This was the unkindest cut of all. "I am not around menopause."
She detected a blush beneath the ropes. "Well, I guarantee that if a drug was administered it was not by my hand."
"Maybe it was something in the food," Wendy said. "Some sort of allergic reaction. Why don't you untie him, girls, and let him go. How did this happen anyway? Did you wrestle him to the floor?'
She was beginning to have a sense of pride in the girls. Not many thirteen year olds could dispatch a grown man this handily. And surely their actions spoke of some sort of feeling for her. Did they have the ropes ready? If so, they must have sensed her vulnerability and were ready to step in. But being ready to defend their mother and manipulating the situation were two different things.
"They hit me over the head with that damned gong. At least I have a memory of a similar sound. When I came to I was wrapped like a mummy." A twitter from the girls was squashed by Wendy's glare. He put his hand on his head. "A lump, yes."
"I guess there was some sort of misunderstanding here, Craig. Maybe you should just go."
"I'd certainly like to." He wriggled to demonstrate his position.
"Mother," the girls said in unison. "You're going to just let him get away with it."
"You were positively comatose when we came in." Judith's voice was calm, assured.
"Why are you here anyway, girls?" she asked. "What happened at your Dad's?"
The twins looked at each other. "We had bad vibes," Lilith said. "So once he went out, we came right over."
"We took a taxi even. To get here quickly. We both felt something was wrong and we turned out to be right. He was all over you, Mother. Had a hand down your blouse. Your skirt was up around your waist."
"I was unbuttoning your top button to see if that helped," Craig said. "I was seconds away from an emergency call. Look girls, grown men don't use drugs like that one. What woman wouldn't report him afterward?"
"If she even woke up," Judith said. "If your heinous plot didn't include her death."
Although it was unclear whether or not Judith was correct, Wendy couldn't help a grin.
"I think if Craig had given me a serious drug—like—"
"Rohypnol," her three companions said together.
"Right. Well, if he had, I doubt I would feel right as rain already. So let's unloosen him, please."
Making the same face, the two girls began their task.
"It might go quicker with a knife," Lilith said, hopefully.
"No," both Craig and Wendy said together. Within a few minutes, Craig was gone, shaking his head and muttering something about crazy women. Something about witches or perhaps, bitches.
Wendy knew she should be angry and deliver them the lecture of a lifetime. But all she could concentrate on was that her girls had saved her from what they thought was a threat. Now the three of them would be as close as the mothers and daughters she admired in the shop. The ones at the mall, the ones at the movie theater, chuckling over a rom-com.
"So they'll be no more of that, right Mother?"
"What?" she asked coming out of her reverie. Both girls stood in front of her, their eyes hard. "No more of what?"
"No more picking up strange men and bringing them into our home." Judith's voice was as stern as hers might have been if she'd chastised them properly.
"I hardly picked him …"
"The next time we may not get here in time," Lilith said. "We can't always be on guard."
"Or we may not want to," Judith said. "We only have so much … patience."
In a minute, the girls had gone off together, shutting their bedroom door firmly. She heard the crunch of carrots, the sound of a shared giggle. She was alone again—any idea of a change in the climate, squashed.
In the mirror across from the apricot sofa, she barely seemed to exist at all. It seemed like those two blonde heads were imprinted on it somehow—a permanent discolor. Perhaps she was slowly disappearing as their image achieved dominance. She'd look for that wedding ring quilt tomorrow—before it was too late.
†
Flickering phantoms, winking in and out to the eye. Two of them propelling toward me, fast, like bullets from a chamber. I've seen them several times now, and though the 'faces' seem familial—like expressions in an old photo album—I can't get a fix on them. Whenever the phantoms appear, they are always leap frogging in accelerated time, circling me. Initially, I thought the flickers were remnants from my LSD days. A kind of lucid nightmare my mind is manufacturing, mystic delusions of some kind. Of course, I'm not losing it if I know I'm losing it. That much I do know.
As they close in, a whispered, gibberish chant passes between them, "Eraweb Fo Elbon, Eraweb Fo Elbon."
I hurry across the century-old red bricks of Ithaca, the apparitions flanking to my left. I misstep and splay headlong onto the hard asphalt and, almost simultaneously, hear college girl laughter. I push-up from the pavement, picking up the pace, heading past the shops that make up The Commons and slip into a cloistered passage between a bank and used bookstore.
Slouching—preposterously trying to blend—behind a gutter drain, peering around to see if they've pursued. This can't be residue from a bad trip. No. More like reality's structure has been bent to the point of exhaustion. I turn, seeing a lone presence I hadn't noticed. Against the wall, at the far end of the alley, an old man wearing a puritan hat. A quirky staple about town. He's holding on to his ever-present, gnarled walking stick, observing me with apparent amusement. Above him on the bank's parapet my assailants materialize. I lunge in the other direction, muscling my way through an "Employee's Only" door—into the bookstore's stockroom.
"Just passing through," I assure a startled, young worker who's rolling a joint and continue on deeper into the establishment. I cut around customers perusing bargain books to the checkout, craning my neck from corner to corner of the front window trying to get a glance of the bank's rooftop.
"May I help you?" a wall-eyed blonde demands with annoyance at my nervous squirrel routine.
"Do you see them?" I ask.
"Excuse me?"
"Look. On the roof."
She steps closer, places a hand on a stack of J.K. Rowling's and scans the skyline. "I don't see anything," she snips.
I glimpse again. She's right. Nothing.
"If you're not buying anything I have to ask you to move aside for paying customers."
I check over my shoulder but there's no one in line. As I turn back around, my eyes fall to a book on false awakenings. "I'll take this," I say, digging into my pants pocket and pulling out a crumpled twenty dollar bill.
"Good choice. I have that dream book too."
I smile as she hands me change and the bag, making one last look outside. It's presently void of hostile gargoyles so I take my leave while it's clear.
* * *
I'm clutching the package, crinkling the inadequate comfort object hoofing it down the sidewalk. I had parked my car three blocks, retracing my steps that started this day with no remembrance of where I was headed. This, of late, has become an uncomfortable reality: circumstances stringing me along, a back seat driver with no control.
A blur of students, business rubes, and homeless as I zig-zag my route. Not looking back nor to the side. Self-imposed blinders. I sense the evil breathing down my neck. Still hear that susurration, echoing, "Eraweb Fo Elbon."
I leave The Commons, ignore the flashing Do Not Walk sign. Finally, my Ford Taurus is in view, parked in front of Mayer's Smokeshop & Newsstand. A sharp reflection of light from a passing truck casts a blinding palm over an ebon shape straight in front of me. Salvation in a traditional habit dress, sent to protect me? Silliness but for that briefest of instances, I was willing to sign away a lifetime of pious doubt to accept a little assistance from the good sister. The vehicle passed as did the hope. Her saintliness was of the Princess Leia variety standing next to a Wookie. A day before Halloween and already reveling.
I roar the Taurus to life and pull away as fast as I can. Is there a chance my roving demons are earthbound tricksters? In the rear view mirror, an answer, at least a hundred feet in the air, I catch a better glimpse of my stalkers, their mouths warped in Munchesque screams.
* * *
I'm at my friend Fox's house to hit him up for some of his ostensibly endless supply of heroin. He never goes out of his way to offer it, but it's always there.
I clear a spot on the over-worn couch and sit. Leaning forward, I put my elbows on my knees, clasp my hands together in front of me, and take a look around the cramped room. He works nights stocking shelves at Walmart, and I don't get how he's able to afford all the smack.
"Man, where do you find the money?"
"I have a contract with Mr. Noble."
"Noble."
"Yeah. You know, the old guy that hangs out at the bars 'round town."
I lean back on his couch, stretch out. "You mean that Aleister Crowley wannabe who carries a skull-knobbed cane? I saw him not too long ago trawling in an alleyway like he was lining up fresh recruits."
"That's him." Fox laughs, reaching for his needle. "He believes he harvests souls or some horseshit like that." I glance past Fox. The bustling Monday soldiers heading to a gloom-and-doom existence come in frame of the picture window then leave. No signs of supernatural assassins. Not for a week now.
"But where's the junk come from?"
"Dunno. Noble arranges it. Package shows up on cue once a month. Before George died—" at the mention of that name, we both throw a two-finger salute templeward to a snapshot tacked on the wall next to an Arak Brandy ad. George's childlike features uplifted into a brilliant smile, arms draped over the shoulders of two stunning stoned blondes on each side of him. He died a year ago of heart failure.
Fox lowers his hand. "He told me about Noble's contracts and hooked me up."
"This set-up for anybody?"
"Don't see why not. He seems to prefer young people."
"Sounds kinda twisted, amigo."
"Maybe. But who's borrowing from who?" Fox rolls up his sleeve and ties off his arm, looks for a good vein. "I think he just likes being seen having a beer with a young crowd. His boys, as he calls us. Makes him feel youthful again, I think. That's all. He has old money to burn. Never asks for anything in return." Fox pushes the needle into his skin, and, a few seconds later, his eyes roll back in sweet abandon. "C'mon, Poet. Give me some of your
lyrical wisdom."
"Sure, Fox. How 'bout this latest one I'm calling "the needles."
kissing heads of familiar transition
the claiming stretches of phalanges
into the skins
pushing forward, begin
the procedures of the empty trenches
snow white servants with robes and wrenches
into the skin
swimming sodomy of the pins
He smiles, "Must be nice. Summoning … arranging words … at your beckon call."
"They're over-embroidered by a stitch or two. You're just an easy audience."
"Now … now … no reason to insu—"
"Dream on," I whisper, yanking out my last Marlboro Red, setting it alight. I've decided against tripping for the time being, but watching his joy reminds me of the William S. Burroughs passage, "Here time has little or much influence. A million years can pass in an injection, an orgasm, a glimpse of 'pure lyric happiness'." Or was it Paul Bowles?
* * *
The bartender sets another Jack Daniels in front of me and a water in front of Noble.
"When you come from a warm climate like I do, you learn to hydrate. Helps against a hangover." He raises his glass with a wink and takes a swig.
At the bar's counter, up close, Noble has a strange appearance. His eyes seem different, drained.
"You want a contract, then?" he asks.
"No strings attached, I was told."
"That's right, no strings."
"Whadda I have to do?"
"Nothing. Or, rather, next to nothing. Let me explicate …"
Noble's spindly fingers are still wrapped around his glass of water as he continues to dribble on, slow and deliberate. I hear his words, but I'm distracted—my thoughts steal back to his peculiarity. The fingers are seemingly too long, even for a concert pianist if that's possible, and the bones beneath the skin of his hands bellow out to be released from the taut casing that contains them. Sunken-in cheeks give way to an old maid's mouth. Grounding his tapering face is a pointed chin. Wide nostrils flare on his thin, razor-straight nose. And his eyes, set too far apart, appear to move independently of one another, almost like a chameleon.