“If LuAnn pulled this shit I’d smash the guy’s face in. I get it, all right?”
“Would you kill him, Dino?”
“Not unless I had to. Who knows? Maybe I’d kill her.”
When this first happened I told Dino about it but didn’t see him again for more than a week. I ignored his calls, texts and emails the entire time. Instead, I crawled into my misery and refused to come out. There were times in his life he’d done the same thing, so I knew he’d cut me slack and give me the room I needed. There wasn’t anything else to do. Sometimes you have to let people bleed. But now he wanted to help, wanted to be there for me in the only way he knew how, and I was grateful.
“Give me the information you’ve got.”
“For starters, I know exactly where he lives. I followed them that night.”
I tried my coffee again. It had cooled enough that I could get a sip or two in without scalding myself. “What’d you find out?”
“The guy’s name is Curtis Gwynn.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“He’s sixty-three, some old fart college professor. Has a place on a quiet little street in Cambridge. Lives alone. Single, never married. Fucking dweeb.” Dino grabbed his coffee, peeled back the lid and took a cautious sip. “But it gets worse. Last few times I followed her, she’s been going to a different place, a building only a few blocks from here, near the Theater District. Real shithole in a bad neighborhood she’s got no business being in, especially at night.”
“So what connection does the building have to this Gwynn guy?”
“None that I can figure out. When she goes there, she goes alone, stays the night.” He put his coffee down. “The address is Twenty-eight Ross Avenue. Apartment Seven.”
“How do you know which apartment she goes to?”
“Turns out it’s the only one that’s rented. The rest are vacant. From the street the building looks abandoned. This place is days from being condemned.” He pulled a fortune cookie from his jacket pocket and tore at the flimsy plastic wrapper encasing it. “Anyway, I went home with both addresses and did reverse lookups on one of those sites that finds people and gives you all their stats. Usually you can get tons of info on people, their job, phone numbers, relatives, friends; all kinds of shit. That’s how I got the rundown on Gwynn. Thing is, when I did one for the other address, the dump, only thing that came up was the name Errol Charceen. I guess at one time there was a phone under his name there but it was disconnected a long time ago.”
“So Jenna’s seeing two guys?”
“Looks that way.”
I returned my coffee to the holder, lit a cigarette and cracked the window.
“I’ve never actually seen the dude, I just see Jenna go in, nobody else ever goes in or out. But he’s the only one living in the building, and we got the apartment number, so how hard can he be to find? Or if you want we can start in Cambridge, go have a little chat with that douche bag then work our way back to this other clown. If we leave now we can throw them both a good beating and be home in time for dinner. LuAnn’s making meatloaf.”
Snow flurries were still blowing about in the dark, and a thin layer of ice had formed along the base of the window. The idea of rushing over to either address with no idea what I might do was bad enough, but adding to the mix the fact that besides a couple names I hadn’t a clue who we were dealing with made the entire situation even worse. I rubbed my temple in the hopes of shutting down the pain that had settled there. “Christ.”
“You ask me, there’s something wrong with the whole thing.” Dino pulled the fortune cookie free and tossed the wrapper on the floor. “What’s Jenna doing in a neighborhood like that? At least the dipshit in Cambridge makes sense.”
I’m glad it did to someone. I smoked my cigarette awhile.
“I think she’s into something she shouldn’t be.”
“She’s into a lot she shouldn’t be. Maybe we all are.”
Dino cleared his throat awkwardly. “I know you still love her, man, and I can’t believe she don’t love you no more. You don’t just stop loving somebody for no reason. Maybe you should just go home to her and try to work it out.”
“Listen, Dino, I appreciate you looking into this for me, I really do.”
“But?”
“But whatever I end up doing I have to do alone. OK?”
He nodded, albeit reluctantly.
“Thanks for everything.” After a final drag, I flicked my cigarette out the window. “I’ll call you when I can.”
“Why don’t you come back home with me for awhile, have some dinner?”
I reached out, put a hand on the back of his neck and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks for looking out for me. I mean it. I’ll see you, all right?” I hopped out of the van then reached into the glove compartment and took the gun. He made no move to stop me, so I stuffed it into my coat pocket. “Go home, man, give LuAnn a kiss and tell her you love her. You don’t need to be out here with me.”
“You watch yourself, all right? Seriously, man, you don’t look good. You don’t look like yourself.”
“Maybe tonight that’s not such a bad thing.”
Dino made a fist, crushed the fortune cookie to bits then let the pieces fall to the floor, leaving only crumbs and a small sliver of paper in his hand. Taking it carefully at each end between his thumbs and index fingers, he held the fortune up to the dashboard light. “‘Don’t ask, don’t say. Everything lies in silence.’” He looked at me. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
With a shrug I swung the door closed, crossed the street, and lost myself in the swirl of snowflakes.
-3-
I don’t know how long I walked or in which direction I went. The flurries, though beautiful, had caused me to lose my bearings, but there was more to it than that. Something inexplicable was happening. While I’d lived in Boston for years and knew the city well, these last few weeks I’d felt like a stranger, a lost and weary soul stumbling across an alien landscape without a clue as to where I was or what might be waiting for me around the next corner. And it was getting worse. It felt similar to a dream, like when you’re in a familiar place—your own home, for example—and you know that’s where you are, but it looks nothing like it should, nothing at all like your real house. Everything felt that way, the world around me, everyone in it, even myself. I had no idea how or why such things came to be, only that I felt uncomfortable in my own life and skin. It was as if I’d been transported somehow into someone else’s body and life with neither my knowledge nor consent, and was only just then coming to realize it.
Eventually I came across a bench, dropped down onto it and held my hands out before me so the nearby streetlight could better illuminate them. They were red and aching in the cold. I should’ve worn gloves, I thought, or at least taken along the cup of coffee Dino got me. Mabel came to mind, and I wondered if she’d gotten herself a coat with the money I gave her.
As I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets, sat back and squinted through the swirl of flakes, I noticed headlights moving along the avenue a block over. The street I’d wandered onto was apparently deserted, no traffic, no one on foot, yet I suddenly had the feeling I was being watched. I pawed moisture from my eyes and focused on the dark silhouette of an old church diagonally across the street. Monstrous in size and intricately designed, it sat in shadow, an ominous gothic cathedral blocking out much of the skyline.
My mind was still reeling from the information Dino had shared, but that all faded to black as something moved out into view from behind one of the church pillars. A smudge of red separated from the darkness then fell still.
I slowly sat forward. Someone in a red hooded sweatshirt was standing on the front steps of the church. Someone small. A child. Just standing there. Due to the distance, the flurries and the hood, which was pulled up tight over the child’s head, I couldn’t make out any features. I couldn’t even be sure if it was a boy or a girl. Regardless, the figure stood watching me, o
r at least facing in my direction, still and lifeless as the sculptures adorning the church walls and ledges, vestiges of dour angels and crouching demons alike, gazing down over humanity with soulless eyes of stone. From height alone I knew the child could not have been more than perhaps eight or nine years old, so what was someone that age doing out alone after dark? I watched awhile longer, waiting to see if an adult emerged from the church to join the child on the steps, but no one came.
Instead, a hideous noise cut the night, the growling rumble of machinery. Grinding and scraping, metal screeching and wheels turning, it sounded as if a giant elevator was slowly descending from the heavens directly overhead. Within seconds it became a deafening roar I was sure would split my skull in two, but just as I brought my hands to my temples, the sound ceased.
My head began to spin, and I was suddenly extremely drowsy. Afraid I’d fall asleep or pass out right there on the bench, I struggled to my feet and paced about until the sensation left me.
In the interim, the figure in red had descended the church steps and was standing on the curb across the street, head bowed so I couldn’t make out any specific features. I took a step closer.
The child turned and ran.
Without thinking, I followed, doing my best to keep up even when the kid disappeared around the backside of the church and I found myself sprinting through a large cemetery. Quite a ways ahead of me, the red sweatshirt glided through the flurries and darkness like a mirage, maneuvering around and between the headstones with startling familiarity. It wasn’t until I was deep into the graveyard that I questioned my actions. What the hell was I doing? Why was I chasing after this child?
Before I could answer, my foot clipped one of the headstones and I fell forward, crashing to the ground in a heap. I rolled over onto my back and lay there a moment, watching the snowflakes descend upon me from the black sky. I rolled over and fell back against the side of a nearby tomb. I collapsed, panting on the cold hard ground. I wiped at my eyes and looked in the area I’d last seen the child, but there was no longer any trace of the red sweatshirt. The cemetery had been built on the side of a large hill, and beyond its gates and iron spike fence sat a row of old tenements and a small park. No sign of the child down on the street either. A granite angel stood guard in front of a crypt to my right, staring at me with sadly benevolent, questioning eyes.
The snow flurries gradually tapered off before stopping completely, and it was then that I saw the child in the red hood come wandering out from the sea of graves. Head still bowed, the child moved to within a few feet of me and slowly extended a tiny hand.
I reached out and took the little hand in mine. It was cold as ice.
As the child stepped closer, I saw that it was a little boy. But as he raised his head and the hood shifted to reveal a pale face streaked with grime, I realized this was no child at all. It was an adult, a grown man with shocking, incomplete and only vaguely human features twisted into a grimace of longing, grief, and finally, rage. With his smudge of a nose, grotesquely spherical mouth and black sunken eyes, he looked as if he’d never fully formed in the womb. And yet, despite my terror, somewhere in that deficient face, I saw traces of myself.
When his grip suddenly tightened, clamping down with impossible power, I was afraid he might crush my hand. I tried to pull free but couldn’t. Pushing myself against the wall of the tomb and thrashing my legs about as the monstrosity let loose a feral growl and drooled a thick string of spittle, I heard screams split the night—my screams—as darkness crashed, pulling me deeper into night and all the madness that resided there. But I was not alone with these things.
The past, my memories, they were there too, waiting in the dark.
In one strange, frightening and oddly beautiful moment, I see it, all of it. Everything at once plays before me like a film projected onto a giant screen. My childhood…the woman I almost married…the children I never had…the life I never led…
An impish little boy, just a wisp of a thing, plays outside a house I recognize as the one I grew up in. No more than six or seven, he’s all scraped knees, big ears and bigger brown eyes. Decked out in a cowboy hat and boots his father bought him while away on one of his many business trips, the boy plays Cowboys and Indians, his holster and gun belt cinched around his waist, his plastic six-shooter in one hand and a rubber hunting knife in the other. As he crouches down in the modest yard and pretends to check the ground for evidence of the Apache warrior he’s tracking, something changes in him. It’s as if in that very moment he realizes just how alone he is. How alone he always is. He sinks to the ground, goes limp, and stares at the dirt.
A large white and gray cat emerges from the nearby woods and joins him.
“Buddy!” I gasp, wishing I could scoop him up in my arms like the little boy does, holding him close and listening to his comforting purr. But instead I recall with horrible clarity the pain of that isolation, of never having many friends, of spending so much time by myself or playing with Buddy, creating people and worlds, stories and adventures to distract me from the awful loneliness.
In an instant, I see my father, a sweet man with a big laugh and a kind, though battered heart. A salesman, he spent his life traveling and hustling, doing his best. Even now, when I think of my father, I see wrinkled suits, stained ties, worn shoes and a weary smile. I remember awakening some mornings to see comic books or other presents at the foot of my bed, the signal that he’d returned from the road, and how even before I’d look at what he’d brought me I’d jump from bed and dash down the hall in the hopes of catching a glimpse of him—or better yet, experiencing one of his all-encompassing bear hugs—only to be stopped short by my parents’ closed bedroom door.
I also remember a broken man addicted to the painkillers he’d been prescribed after he fell on an icy sidewalk and damaged his back. I see a man stumbling about, falling over, crawling along the carpeted floor in our living room searching for pills he swore he’d dropped there, and how he’d make me help him move all the furniture so we could look under it just to be sure. I remember him sitting alone very late at night in a dark kitchen, drinking and weeping, and how I’d stand in the doorway to my bedroom in my pajamas and watch him. I’d cry too, but quietly, so my father wouldn’t hear. In those moments, I never felt closer or more connected to this sad man who wanted so desperately to pay attention to me, to be my friend and father, but who no longer possessed the ability to be either, destroyed by pills, booze and never-ending bouts of self-loathing.
And then, my mother, she’s there too. A quiet and dignified woman, a factory worker who slaved for hours slumped over a machine stitching fabric. Pretty, reserved and anxiously thin, I remember her as a woman for who pain, disappointment and the helplessness born of both was a cross she bore in silent desperation. I see her reading to me at bedtime, stories and newspapers and anything else she thought might be of interest or in some way better me. When I remember those times I cannot recall much of what she read but instead think about the time we spent together, and how I felt special and necessary and profoundly loved, if only in short intervals.
But mostly I remember my mother sleeping a lot and how she was often overcome by migraines. I remember her going to bed for hours at a time, and sometimes for entire weekends, tucked away in their bedroom, where I was not allowed to go unless I’d been summoned there. I remember my father being away on his frequent business trips, and how I’d sit in the hallway outside my parents’ bedroom, unsure of what to do or where to go, knowing that somewhere on the other side of that closed door my mother was all alone too. I see the same little boy in a cowboy outfit, the same little boy I once was, sitting in that dark hallway with his cat Buddy, afraid and uncertain and so terribly alone, and the emotion is too much for me.
“Please,” I say to the darkness, “take me out of here.”
And it does.
It sets me down on a small stretch of empty beach. I see a young man in his late teens sitting on a blanket on the sa
nd. Next to him is a young woman, Erin, a raven-haired beauty with an hourglass figure and the unintentional look of a 1940s movie queen. Together, they watch the waves crash shore. I remember that they have been there for some time, on this chilly but comfortable late September afternoon. There is no one else around. The beach, the ocean, is theirs. They hold hands and talk quietly about everything and nothing at all, and although they are very much in love—the intense and unbridled love teenagers often feel—he knows that this will probably not last.
“One day,” he says rather suddenly, “you’ll leave me.”
Erin blanches. “Why would you say that?”
“Because sooner or later, everyone does.”
What he doesn’t know then is that his is a self-fulfilling prophecy. This troubled young man will eventually drive Erin away. Although she adores his tenderness, kindness, sense of humor and nearly unconditional love (he loves her, after all, with the wide-eyed innocence of a puppy), she will not be able to tolerate his mood swings and often-manic need to numb himself with alcohol or drugs. She envisions a life for them, with a family and a home. But he cannot see such things, isn’t convinced it’s even what he wants, and can’t imagine ever being able to deliver that life to anyone, much less someone as deserving as Erin. He loves her and she loves him, of that there is no doubt. Their problem is one of need. He believes he needs her desperately, but she knows she doesn’t necessarily need him. She can have any number of lives and loves that will help her reach her dreams. For him, the sort of life Erin proposes will only be found through her. She is his only chance at what one might call a wholly traditional life—a family and a house in the suburbs—because once she’s gone, he will gravitate toward different kinds of women with different kinds of wants, needs and dreams, women who want a nice life and a good marriage but who also want the fast paced life only a city can offer, and a career rather than a family.
Apartment Seven Page 3