Her boss noticed the change in her and approached her about it one relatively quiet afternoon between Christmas and New Years. She was cleaning up a mess she made behind the bar at the time.
“You been spilling more lately, Vick. Breaking glasses too.”
“So take it outta my paycheck,” she said looking up at him from the floor where she was wiping up.
“I’m not worried about that, Vick. I am worried about you though.”
“Yeah, sure,” she said going right on with her cleaning, not even bothering to look up this time.
“You’ve even been edgy with the customers lately. That’s not like you. What’s going on?”
“I just gotta lot on my mind. It’s personal.”
“Well, whatever this personal matter is it’s interfering with your job. Maybe you need some time off to work it out.”
“I don’t need no time off.” She finally rose to her feet.
“You got some time coming. You haven’t taken any vacation since you started.”
“Maybe I’m saving those vacation days for something big.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said tossing the dishrag back and forth.
“You’re a nervous wreck. Take a few days off.”
“I don’t need a few days off. I just need for you to quit being a mother hen.”
“Take some vacation days, Vicky.”
“Are you crazy? We got New Years coming up.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll see to it we’re covered. If I get in a pinch, I’ll call you.”
“For how long?”
“Just until after the New Year. Take a few days off and come back after the New Year. And bring back the old Vicky.”
It was Saturday, New Year’s Eve. Vicky was so unaccustomed to being off work on a Saturday, particularly New Years Eve that she scarcely knew what to do with herself. She drove around that morning, visited some of the biker boys, drove around some more, thought about it, talked it over with herself, and finally made a decision. She went home and called Eddie.
“Eddie, I’ve made a decision. Get over here fast, but come by car, don’t ride your Harley. I got something to give you.” After she hung up she paced back and forth in her usual hallway spot and rehearsed what she would say when he arrived. This nagging agitation would not allow her to sit still even for a moment.
This was more than the usual nervousness Vicky was familiar with. This was a fear as deep as the fear of death itself mixed with dread and guilt. In a way she was glad to be inside and away from people. She felt certain that the guilt showed on her face. Indeed her boss had been right when he said this was not like her. The only thing that helped was alcohol.
She poured herself a shot of whiskey, then another. Finally the knock on the door came. Vicky opened the still chained door a crack to make sure it was Eddie. She let the fat little biker in and asked him to stop and wait at the door. She checked out the patio window carefully and closed the drapes. “Did anyone see you come in?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Why? You in some kinda trouble, Vick?”
“Let’s hope not.”
“You heard from Bobby?”
“Not a word,” she said trying to light a cigarette with her purple Bic lighter. It sparked again and again but never fired. Her hands trembled with fear and frustration. “Fuck it!” she said throwing the lighter across the room.
“Calm down, girl,” Eddie said, swiftly and casually producing a book of matches out of his hip pocket. “Look at you. You’re shaking,” he said lighting Vicky’s cigarette. “You been nervous as a jack rabbit ever since Bobby disappeared. Hell, we’re all worried, but this ain’t no time to lose your head. You gotta stay cool. You gotta lay low.”
“I’m gonna do better than lay low, Eddie. I’m gonna lay off.”
“Lay off? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want out. Outta the business. That’s why I asked you to come over.” Vicky picked up a suitcase that sat on the floor between her sofa and her rocking chair. She handed it to Eddie. “Here, this is for you.”
“You sending me on vacation, Vick?” The fat little biker said with a hoarse chuckle.
“The contents of that bag could send you on one hell of a nice vacation, Eddie. If that’s what you want. I don’t no more. I just wanna go home.”
“You are home, ain’t you? Shit, you ain’t making no sense, girl.”
“Look inside.”
Eddie knelt on one knee, laid the suitcase flat on the floor, and unzipped it all the way around. “Towels?” He said looking up. “Whatcha got underneath the towels?”
“Look,” Vicky said exhaling smoke out her nostrils. She watched him remove the neatly folded towels and watched his eyes grow wide with surprise. “Merry Christmas–a little late.”
“Goddamn!”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“How much dope you got in here?” he said lifting a plastic bag containing miniscule purple pills. Vicky shrugged her shoulders trying to look as nonchalant as she could. “Dollars and cents worth? How much Vick?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Do what you want with it. Just get it outta here.”
“How much of a cut you want?”
“None. Profit’s a hundred percent yours. It’s blood money as far as I’m concerned. It’s what killed Bobby. I don’t want no part of it no more. I would’ve flushed it all down the toilet, but how you gonna explain that much dope suddenly vanishing without a trace. Bobby’s customers might start asking questions. Start thinking I turned narc or something if all at once I come up empty handed. This way I can just say I’m taking a break on account of Bobby disappearing and all. Wanna make sure the heat’s entirely off before I make any false moves. You’re taking over for me for a while. Time will pass and folks will forget I was ever a part of this business.”
Eddie gave her one last look then zipped up the suitcase and rose to his feet. “You sure about this, Vick?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. And by the way–you can keep the suitcase. It belonged to Bobby.”
Vicky walked Eddie to the door and looked carefully to the right then to the left down the hallway before addressing him. “Spread the word, Eddie. Spread the word. The heat’s on me big time. Make sure you tell them. My porch light ain’t gonna be on no more. Least not ‘til things die down. Whatever you do, don’t let on I’m out for good,” she whispered. “Drive careful now, Eddie. This is one time in your life I’m begging you not to speed. You don’t wanna get pulled over with that in your trunk,” she said pointing to the suitcase, her voice disappearing into a throated whisper.
She dismissed Eddie with a forced smile and a playful smack to the upper arm then she closed the door ever so quietly behind him, slowly turning the knob until it latched, not wanting to make a noise, as if she feared waking someone. She tiptoed over to the patio window, still afraid of making too much noise and peeked out the drapes just long enough to watch Eddie pull out of the parking lot.
Vicky thought she would feel a sense of relief after unloading herself of such a heavy load, but instead she was still so afraid. She poured another shot of whiskey and found herself back at the worn pathway in the hall, pacing and talking to herself.
“The money, the money. What am I gonna do with the money?” She said stopping suddenly and smacking herself on the side of the head as if this would somehow set her brain to moving in the right direction. She made her way quickly down the hall and was in the back corner of her bedroom closet before she had time to think about it, back where she used to keep Whisker’s pet taxi. Feeling around in the darkness behind boxes and into the shadows she retrieved the old dusty cracked cowboy boot without a mate. The boots had been Bobby’s. He had to get rid of the mate because Vicky had thrown up in it so of course, it was never the same after that.
“You left them right by the bathroom door, Bobby. I didn’t quite make it,” Vicky said remembering with a shake of her head an
d a nasally noise that was a sort of half laugh, half cry. “You was so mad at me, Bobby. For an injun you sure thought highly of shoes. Couldn’t run without them like me. Remember, Bobby. So you left me the mate.” She wiped some of the dust off the boot with a sweater sleeve and tried to stave off thoughts that Bobby had once walked around in these boots, and not so long ago at that.
She reached deep inside the boot until her arm was nearly immersed up to the elbow, then turning the boot upside down, the palm of her free hand pounding against the side of the boot then the bottom just beneath the pointed toe–her other hand with grasping fingers worked quickly to loosen the contents. The folded and crumpled bills began to fall out on the floor. At last when she was satisfied that all the money was out she began counting, smoothing out one bill at a time as she did so.
“Six-thousand seven-hundred and forty dollars,” Vicky said unfolding the last bill. “What am I gonna do with it? What am I gonna do with it? I can’t keep it. It’s blood money. I just can’t keep it.” She put the money back in the boot, shoved the boot back into the darkened corner making sure it was concealed, closed the closet door tightly, and went back to her pacing spot. “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?” She felt condemned to this path in the hallway until she got some kind of answer. All she heard were the church bells from down the street. “What time is it I wonder?” Vicky asked moving to the patio door to get a better listen. She stuck her ear against the cold glass. The chimes struck three. “Three o’clock. Three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. New Year’s Eve, no fucking less, and I ain’t working. I gotta get outta this apartment before I go completely stark raving fucking nuts.”
Vicky’s coat was on and she was out breathing the cold winter air before she even had time to think about it. The cold was a relief to her. It reminded her she was alive as she saw the visible evidence of her breath upon exhaling. It woke her up and snapped her out of the dream world which had become such a nightmare of late. She found her feet treading the same path she had tread so early Christmas morning. She didn’t know where else to go. She didn’t know what else to do except follow the sound of the bells.
Chapter 16
Vicky stepped into the warmth of the church vestibule and found herself engulfed in a silence so complete and disturbing–so different from her experience at Midnight Mass. It was a silence that evoked only a whisper, even from the likes of Vicky who usually spoke loudly to everyone–even herself. She felt a little better, as if somehow she could claim sanctuary here.
“Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the door and where are the people?” Vicky mouthed the words of the children’s rhyme in a low whisper. She walked past the rows of candles and the large holy water font and all those things which seemed so foreign to her. She pulled the heavy wooden door that led into the main part of the church. The silence and emptiness was even more pervasive in the worship space and it filled her with such an immediate awe that she involuntarily gasped.
The only light in the darkened space came from the late afternoon sun sending shafts of light through the stained glass windows. She sat down in one of the pews and unzipped her coat. “Now what do I do?” she said barely loud enough to hear herself. “Shit, I don’t even know why I came here. It’s New Year’s Eve. I should be out partying.” She thought for a moment about throwing her coat back on and bolting for the door. She felt so restless, so anxious. She stood up, put her coat on, and zipped it. A moment later she sat down again
It was the silence, Vicky realized with a smile. That’s what made her uncomfortable and made her want to leave. It was also the silence that wouldn’t let her go. It was never silent at her place. The stereo or TV were always on. And, of course, it was never silent at work. She often longed for the quiet, but now that she had it she found it hard to take, like some awful tasting medicine–the kid in her squirmed away but the grown up in her knew she had to swallow it for her own good. She thought about it long and hard. She really didn’t want to be at a party. She really didn’t know where she wanted to be, but she thought maybe she was where she was supposed to be. She had to get some answers, and after all, didn’t people go to church to get answers? It’s what her grandma always said would answer her heart’s riddle though she never really believed her.
Vicky unzipped her coat, and as she did she heard the heavy wooden door behind her open. She turned around to see a short, well dressed man in his late fifties enter the church. He settled in a pew on the other side of church and Vicky watched as he pulled a kneeling bench down, knelt upon it, and made the sign of the cross. Vicky didn’t want to appear suspicious so she decided to do what he did. When she pulled the kneeler down it landed with a loud thud, which caused the man to glance over at her. She knelt down quickly. “There must be some trick to these kneeling things,” she whispered into her cupped hands which were folded in front of her face just like the man’s.
Vicky continued to observe the man. After a few minutes he got up, walked to the back of church and disappeared into a room, more like a closet door with a green light above it. The green light switched to red after a few seconds. She thought of Alice in Wonderland and the white rabbit disappearing into the rabbit hole.
She was puzzling over all this when, again, she heard the door from the vestibule into the central part of the church open behind her. Soon a plump, white-haired, grandmotherly looking lady made her way up the center aisle in a too tight vinyl coat that made noise with every movement she made. She knelt on one knee before entering a pew a few rows up from her. Vicky watched as she did the same thing as the man–kneeling, crossing herself, and praying. At least Vicky guessed she was praying.
Vicky heard another door open only this time it was not the heavy wooden door leading in from the vestibule. It was a much lighter door with somewhat of a squeak. Vicky looked around. It was the man exiting the little closet like door with the light above it. The light above the door was now green again. The man returned to the same area where he first knelt. He genuflected and knelt once more. Then the grandmotherly lady in the noisy vinyl coat made her way back to the broom closet. Vicky watched curiously as the green light, once again, turned to red moments after the woman entered the door.
“Well, I’ll be a fucken’ monkey’s uncle,” she whispered into her cupped hands, now far too curious to think about leaving. Vicky watched the door. She’d become adept at watching out of the corners of her eyes without moving her head much. It came from tending bar. She watched for customers coming up to the bar from all sides and kept mental tabs at how long they’d been waiting. It came from the drug business–always checking, always watching, always making sure you knew who was coming up from the sides and the back.
Soon the grandmother in the vinyl coat came out the door and carefully closed it so it barely squeaked this time. The light switched back to green. The woman made her trek back to her area of the church where she knelt down and prayed. Vicky felt a little more comfortable with the quiet now, and she soon realized that the fifteen minutes or so she’d been sitting in church just observing that something had happened to her. She wasn’t so afraid anymore. In fact, her old devil-may-care attitude was resurging. She looked back at the little door. “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” she whispered to herself.
Vicky got up and walked to the back of church, back to the little door with the strange little stop and go light above. There was a name on the door–Father Mudd. Vicky smiled, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
She walked into a darkened vestibule with a worn kneeler in front of a partition. She could hear the sound of someone moving around behind the partition. She heard him clear his throat and saw a black loafer sticking out. She wondered if she was supposed to kneel on the kneeler or what.
“Hello in there,” she called.
“Yes,” the man’s voice called back.
“I’m not sure just what I’m supposed to do.”
“Do you wish to go to confession privately or face
to face?”
Confession. She’d heard the term before. She knew it was another strange Catholic ritual, like going to church in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. Her grandma had a Catholic neighbor, a widow lady about the same age as her grandma by the name of Mabel Murphy. Grandma liked Mabel, they were friends of sorts, but she always worried about her–worried Mabel wasn’t saved on account of her being a Catholic and all. “Them Catholics are given to idolatry,” grandma would say. “They got some strange beliefs–believe they got to go confess their sins to a priest before they can be forgiven.” She prayed every day that Mabel would be saved and she never missed an opportunity to witness to her too, though her efforts became fewer and further between when Mabel began to avoid her. Even still, this never stopped grandma from praying and worrying about Mabel.
So this is how Catholics do it, Vicky thought. They go to a little closet in the back of church and confess their sins. How appropriate that it be in a closet, Vicky thought. So many dirty little sins get hidden in closets, like Bobby’s cowboy boot without a mate containing all that drug money.
“Hello. Are you still there?” Vicky heard the voice of the priest call to her from behind the partition.
“Yes, I’m sorry. What do I do again?”
“If you wish to confess privately you may kneel on the kneeler. If you prefer face-to-face then please step around the partition.”
“I’m a face-to face kinda gal.”
“Then step around the partition please.”
Vicky’s legs were trembling. She hadn’t planned on this. She didn’t know what she would say or do, but she felt it was too late to back out now. She commanded her shaky legs to move forward and step around the partition.
The man sat across from an empty chair where he motioned her to sit. His face showed the first faint etchings of lines between the brows and around the mouth so characteristic of someone in their early forties. His hairline receded in such a way it was difficult to tell where the hair stopped and the forehead began. His hair was light brown and his skin washed out by the winter weather. His cool grey eyes met Vicky’s with a disturbing lack of spark, and though his thin lips smiled at her as he gestured for her to be seated in the empty chair, his eyes were not smiling. Vicky didn’t know if it was apathy or sadness which she perceived in the eyes. He was a thin man and very nervous from the looks of his long fingers with nails bit down to the quick.
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