“Still taking it one minute, one hour, one day at a time.” He drank some coco. “As you can see, I still clean. A lot.”
“Are you still writing?” I asked.
He crossed his legs and looked at the floor. “It amazes me how people feel compelled to ask writers that question. Do they ask plumbers if they’re still plumbing, teachers if they’re still teaching, or salespeople if they’re still selling? Has anyone ever asked you if you’re still an accountant? Writing is, after all, what I do. It’s my chosen profession, has been for years. Yet people still ask me that question all the time, as if they’re asking if I still enjoy a hobby, like the occasional game of tennis. Just once I’d like to say, ‘yes, I’m still writing, are you still doing your job?’ Instead, I usually just smile, nod and suggest they find something shiny to play with.”
“You’re right, it’s a moronic thing to ask. Of course you’re still writing, I—”
“No, I—Christ—I’m sorry, that was rude of me.” Grimacing with remorse, he reached over and quickly patted my hand. “You didn’t deserve that. Living like a hermit has its advantages, but keeping one’s social skills honed clearly isn’t one of them. I’m an absolutely insufferable bitch. Forgive me.”
“Done,” I said, feigning humor but still flushed with embarrassment.
Alan put his mug on the coffee table and sat back as silence fell over the room for what seemed forever. “Have you guys considered professional help?” he finally asked.
“She’s seeing two different guys, and now she frequents this strange building and…” I lost my voice and couldn’t seem to get it back.
“Do you know who these other men are?”
“I have names and addresses, that’s about it.”
“Will she talk to you about any of this?”
“She kept lying the night I caught her, and tried to convince me to stay. Since then I haven’t heard a word. I haven’t been to work in a long time, so I’m sure I no longer have a job to go to. I’ve been staying in motels and rooming houses, living like some vampire, asleep during the day and roaming the city at night. I left her and haven’t looked back.”
After a few sips of hot chocolate he said, “Do you want my advice?”
I nodded.
“Look back. Look back long and hard as you can, no matter how frightening it may be.” His eyes grew moist. “Kafka once said, ‘my fear is my substance, and probably the best part of me.’ And I think he was right. It is the best part of us, if only we can embrace it as such. Don’t spend the rest of your life asleep, Charlie, drowning in nightmares of regret. If we find one person in this god-awful life, one special human being who makes us laugh, who makes us feel alive and loved and complete, they’re worth everything we have to go through, good and bad. They’re worth it to us, and we’re worth it to them. I’d give anything…anything…for even five more minutes with Gary. You’re deeply wounded right now, as you should be. Jenna’s done wrong, but she’s hurting too. Have you been perfect? Haven’t you made bad decisions too? Find her, get to the bottom of whatever this is that’s haunting her, and do whatever you have to do to fix it, to help her fix it, before it’s too late.”
I finished my coco and placed the mug on the coffee table. “When I was a boy, I had a cat that I was very close to. Sounds pathetic, I know, but I was a lonely kid and that cat was my best friend. He followed me everywhere. If I went out to play, so did he. Every day when I got home from school he’d be waiting at the bus stop for me. If I went to bed, he did too, slept curled up next to me every night. As the years came and went the cat got old and his health started to fail. One day, when I came home from school, he wasn’t waiting for me like he always was. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find a trace of him. A few days later there was a terrible smell coming from under the porch. My father crawled under there and found my cat’s body. He’d gone under there to die. Why not in my arms? Why down there, all alone? I buried him in the backyard. Next day, I crawled under the porch to try and see why he’d chosen such a place to die. Once I was under there, in the cool dirt, I understood. I was alone. Really, truly, completely alone, just as he’d been. Just like we’d both been right before our births, just as we’d both be at the time of our deaths. I was alone down there, and then I was no more. I closed my eyes and pretended I’d died too. And I understood. No one had to see me go. In fact, it was better that they hadn’t. I was just gone.” I looked at Alan. His eyes were still filled with tears. “That’s how it feels now. Like it’s already done, already gone away while no one was looking. Like she’s already taken my life from me and I’ll never get it back.”
“What’s worse?” he asked. “Taking someone’s life, or taking their soul?”
I stood up, drifted over to the window and looked out at the street. I didn’t want him to see that there were tears in my eyes too.
Down on the street, a haggard woman stood at the corner. A car pulled up and she leaned over, had a quick exchange with the driver then hopped in. Had I not known better, I would’ve sworn it was Jenna.
“Charlie,” he said from behind me. “I’m under that porch. I’ve been down there for some time now and I just won’t die, so I’m trying to find my way back out. Don’t come down here with me if you don’t have to. You don’t want the cool dirt, not when there’s even a chance at still having the sun. Go home.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“No, you wanted to see the old Alan. The Alan I used to be, in the hopes that maybe you could find the person you used to be, the Jenna she used to be. But it doesn’t work that way. I wish it did but it doesn’t. Those days are gone. All that’s left are the days to come. One or one thousand, they’re all we have.”
Down on the street the wind was growing angrier, blowing city debris about as somewhere beyond my scope of vision what sounded like a large sign of some kind banged against a wall. “Are you sick, Alan? Are you dying?”
“We’re all dying.”
Something moved in the shadows across the street, stepping up and almost to the reach of the streetlight before darting back into the safety of darkness. “You know what I mean.”
“And you know what I mean.”
We sat quietly with our demons awhile.
“No matter what happens,” I said, “I want you to know I’m here for you.”
“Don’t worry about me, doll. You be there for Jenna.”
I wanted to turn from the window and look him in the eye, but couldn’t. “And who’s there for me?”
“She is.”
“I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Stay the night,” he suggested. “I’ll make up the couch. Come on, we’ll get into the vodka and stay up all night drinking and talking just like…”
I finally found the courage to face him. “Just like we used to?”
He gave a knowing wink. “I guess it wouldn’t be the same without Gary and Jenna, would it?”
Of course that had been his point all along, but just for a moment I allowed myself to once again remember the couples we’d been, young and fearless and unapologetically alive. Part of me wanted to stay here forever, to make up for lost time with Alan and all our memories of better times. But I’d only be chasing more shadows, grabbing for phantoms in the dark I could never hope to catch.
I suppose I’d gone there for redemption. In some ways I’d found it.
I hugged my old friend, told him I was sorry and that I loved him. He told me the same. As I left the safety of the past, the wind howled once again.
Night was calling me back to the streets for more of its deadly games.
All right you sonofabitch, I thought. Let’s play.
-5-
Chin tucked to chest, I pressed on through the bitter cold. Each burst of wind felt colder and more violent than the last, and the temperature was getting worse, plummeting fast and locking the city down in a deep freeze. There were fewer people and cars out now, regardless of where I went, and after walking only a few mi
nutes I understood why. The cold was beginning to hurt. I ducked into a doorway, waited for a break in the wind then quickly lit a cigarette.
Somewhere in the distance, church bells rang, at once enchanting and haunting in the otherwise quiet night. They chimed ten then fell silent. I looked at my watch. Ten o’clock. How was that possible? It was just before eight when I got to Alan’s apartment. Had I stayed that long? How long had I been walking since I’d left? I drew a deep drag on my cigarette, hugged myself and stepped back out onto the sidewalk.
“Where the hell am I?” I asked the night.
As if in answer, the wind whistled and the long shadows stretching just beyond a nearby alley shifted in the limited light. I looked to the skyline for my bearings, but tall duplexes lining either side of the street blocked everything out.
I realized then just how dark the area was. A streetlight nearly two blocks away was working, but the rest between here and there were out, and all the buildings sat dark as well. The familiarity I’d enjoyed in my old neighborhood was gone. I had no idea where I was. And there was something strange about the buildings surrounding me. They were too dark, too quiet. There were no cars parked on either side of the street, no bicycles chained to posts or any indications that people actually lived here at all.
Determined to get out of the area as quickly as possible, I started toward the distant streetlight. I hadn’t gotten far when I was distracted by something in the corner of my eye. I turned, looked down an alley to my right. No, not an alley at all, but a dead-end little cobblestone side street so narrow it could only be negotiated on foot. At the far end, a modest spotlight burned through the darkness. Positioned over a squat, decrepit building and pointed at the front entrance, it illuminated a battered red sign with white lettering which read: Théâtre du Présent.
Though I couldn’t figure out why, something about the building stirred deep primal fear in me, and I instinctually stepped back, down off the curb and into the street. Still, despite my uneasiness, there was something mesmerizing about the spotlight and eerie red sign. I couldn’t look away.
Until the bizarre deafening sound I’d heard earlier that night returned with a vengeance. Screeching sounds of scraping metal and rusted iron wheels turning against taut, strained wires shattered the quiet from above, sounding once again as if an ancient elevator was descending from directly overhead.
Hands to my ears, I looked up and stumbled farther out into the street. There was nothing above me but an endless canopy of night, and as before, the noise vanished quickly, just as it arrived, leaving me drowsy and confused.
Before I could think any more about it, another sound emerged without warning. A roaring car engine, along with a light so bright it temporarily blinded me. Dropping my hands I spun in its direction but it was too late.
Headlights. Coming straight for me.
I dove for the sidewalk in a spray of sparks from my cigarette, unsure if I landed against the pavement or if the impact I felt was because the car had struck me. All I knew for sure was that I’d violently collided with something and all the wind had been knocked out of me.
Rolling along the ground, the night-world spun and tilted and swept past in blurred flashes. When I finally came to a stop, the pain set in. It felt as if I’d been worked over with a baseball bat. Struggling to understand where I was and what had happened, I tried to lift my head but couldn’t quite manage it. I was lying on my stomach, facedown in the gutter. The pavement was freezing, and there was a metallic taste in my mouth I recognized as blood. More of it was dripping from my nose to form a small crimson puddle on the curb.
At the very outskirts of my peripheral vision, just before the darkness closed in and took me, I saw what appeared to be an old checkered taxicab streaking by.
Someone puts hands on me, pulls and lifts me to my feet. My heads lolls forward. I don’t raise it for fear I may see who or what has joined me in the dark.
I can hear someone whispering, a woman, but can’t understand what she’s saying. She speaks in a language foreign to me—French—she’s speaking French. Jenna speaks French fluently, but I know only a few basic words.
“Nous devons nous dépêcher. Il attend,” the woman says, louder now.
As I fall against her I see cobblestones moving beneath our feet. She’s taking me down the side street toward the theater. I raise my head, and although I’m still groggy and the world is slightly blurred, I force myself to look at her. She is young, no more than perhaps thirty, and dressed in a black leotard and black ballet slippers that against the backdrop of night make her appear nearly invisible. Thin, with dark hair pulled up and away from her face and held in place with ornate-looking sticks, she is ghoulish and shockingly pale.
“Nous devons nous dépêcher,” she says again, “Il attend.”
Looking more closely, I realize her face is covered in theatrical makeup; the base clown-white, her lips blood red and her eyes made-up to resemble enormous wings, black and feathered. She hurries me to the entrance of the theater then knocks on the scarred front door. I look up at the sign.
Théâtre du Présent.
The door opens and another stark-white face emerges from the darkness to reveal a man made-up and dressed identically to the woman. They look like demonic mimes. Together, they help me inside, one on either side of me, and as the door closes behind us we move quickly through total darkness. It smells musty here, like a dank basement covered in mildew.
“Nous devons nous dépêcher,” the man says. “Il attend.”
I tell the dark I don’t understand.
“We must hurry,” he says. “It awaits.”
I ask him what awaits us but he refuses to answer.
A lone sliver of light appears before us, and as we get closer I realize it’s seeping from beneath a door just up ahead. We arrive at the door and pass through into a small theater. Old and dusty, it looks as though no one has been here in ages. The stage is hidden behind a thick black curtain, and the dim lighting in the theater casts just enough illumination to reveal several rows of built-in seats facing the stage, and glimpses of dramatic frescos painted across the badly worn walls and ceiling. The murals depict acts of unspeakable violence and mayhem perpetrated by hideous demons, blood-soaked warrior angels and a bevy of other creatures, some human, some not.
I’m brought to a row not far from the stage and dropped down into one of the seats. My hosts sit on either side of me, the man staring straight ahead and smiling eerily like a mentally disturbed child, the woman leaned closer to me, one hand on my shoulder, the other caressing my chest. She watches the stage and whispers to me with a French accent, but this time in English. “He’s here. Can you feel it?”
Before I can answer a squeaking sound echoes through the small theater and the curtain slowly begins to rise. As it moves higher, a spotlight appears from somewhere behind us, punching a pool of light onto the otherwise dark stage. In the center of the spot sits an elaborate throne that appears to have been fashioned from human skin and bones. Stained and dripping with blood, urine, fecal matter and other bodily fluids, the nauseating smell mixes with the pungent odor of sulfur and wafts through the theater in waves of gut-wrenching stench. I am sickened and horrified, but have no real understanding of true fear until I look upon the being sitting on that hellish throne.
Clad in hooded bloody robes, it sits slumped and watching me with its reptilian eyes, its hideous face scarred and cracked like a desert floor, its black tongue slowly tracing its bloody lips as if savoring a coming meal.
The man next to me barely suppresses a giggle, clasps his hands together and brings them to his mouth, overcome with emotion.
“Do you know who that is?” the woman whispers in my ear.
My entire body begins to tremble uncontrollably, and tears of horror fill my eyes, thankfully blurring the vision before me. I try to move, to flee, but can’t. I am literally paralyzed with terror and unable to process what I’m seeing and experiencing. Panic strangle
s me, throttles me like a ragdoll, but still I cannot move, still cannot look away.
The spotlight is extinguished, and as the man and woman gasp in unison, I am plunged back into darkness. The awful stench remains, slithering about in the dark like a nest of dying snakes.
No light comes to rescue me, but in time, I once again see. Up there, on the stage, it remains pitch-black. Yet I see so clearly the things that have taken the place of the nightmare on the throne, visions even the thief of light is not powerful enough to stop. I see unimaginable scenes of war and carnage, poverty and hunger, cruelty and hardship from across the globe.
It is the children I see first, those who will die on this night, some with their families huddled around them, destroyed and crippled beyond any hope of repair, some alone and crying in the dark for mercy that will not be granted. Those killed in war, those taken by hunger and disease, those slaughtered behind banners of politics and religion, mountains of dead little bodies, like so many dolls tossed onto a dump heap.
I see other children as well, suffering, lying in hospital beds with tubes and wires coming from their bodies, a myriad of machines surrounding them, perhaps keeping them alive, perhaps not. The wards decorated for the holidays, an unintentional reminder of just how obscene this life can be.
Those little ones who have been badly burned come to me next, watching me with what remains of their precious eyes, their bodies wrapped and oozing, their agonizing pain written across their scarred faces. There are stockings hung along their hospital beds, an image that is enough to break my heart and send me into a rage all at once.
I see the frightened and abused, the neglected and unloved. I watch them cry and die their slow, cruel deaths. Merry Christmas.
The stage fills with people suffering from all walks of life. The alone, the forgotten, the thrown away, the destitute, the broken and the damned all converge on the dusty stage and begin a macabre dance of death.
Apartment Seven Page 5