Bottled Abyss

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  Oh Herman…

  She lost it again and returned to the bed, sobbing. After giving herself a tremendous headache and burning eyes, Janet got control and pulled herself into a tight ball. How did this Fury Person know about that bottle? For Christ’s sake—what was this all about?

  For an hour she prayed for another phone call, but none came.

  “Something’s going on at Sam’s house.”

  Janet opened her eyes and saw Evan standing over her. He smelled richly of that cologne she should have never told him she loved. He had a different shirt on than last time she’d seen him, this one green with black stripes, almost Freddy Krugerish; the pattern struck her as very annoying at this time of morning.

  It wasn’t really morning though. The clock read 11:52am.

  She pushed up on her shaky arms. “Why are you in my bedroom, Evan?”

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “What?”

  He pushed his glasses up his nose. Despite his shirt, she had to admit he looked very handsome in the slats of light coming though the blinds.

  “Your neighbor, Sam. There’s an ambulance and police outside his house.”

  Janet threw the comforter off, slid out of bed and snatched her robe off the door hook. She thrust her feet into her slippers.

  “Did they just get here?”

  “Not too long ago,” said Evan, following behind her, “I thought you’d wake up with the sirens, but you were pretty out of it.”

  She hurried out the front door into the sun drenched world outside. Her hands came to her mouth as she saw the paramedics pushing the stretcher down the driveway. She glanced at Evan in disbelief. His face was grim.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, turning back around. “Sam?”

  She crossed the street and immediately a cop with a stringy red mustache moved to intercept her. “Good morning, ma’am. My name is Officer Myrtle.”

  “Hi. Janet Erikson.”

  “Did you know Mr. Gerdes?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, “we were… friends.”

  Janet looked over his shoulder. The young woman who took guitar lessons from Sam spoke to a short police officer with a piggish nose and sympathetic blue eyes. The scene was dreamlike.

  “Do you know Ms. Derry?” Myrtle asked Janet.

  “Only that she takes music lessons from Sam—what happened here?”

  “We can’t share that right now, I’m sorry.”

  Janet could hear the younger woman explain, “Yes, that’s when I saw through the window to the living room— the vomit everywhere— I thought maybe he’d just become very sick.”

  Myrtle overheard this as well and winced. “Could you stand just over there, Janet, back a ways—”

  “He was sick?” Janet asked.

  The cop pressed his lips together forcefully, tweaking his mustache in the process. “Sam a heavy drinker?”

  Janet huffed. “You wouldn’t find even a light beer in his house. He doesn’t touch booze. Straighter than straight edge.”

  The cop frowned. He turned, making a hmmph sound. The other interview ended and Ms. Derry and his partner walked down the lawn.

  The dumpy cop leaned into Myrtle. “Yeah, they blew this one. Should have left it open. There weren’t booze bottles or pills in there at all.”

  “Could have come home from a bar?”

  The pig-nosed cop arched his eyebrow and lowered his voice even more, though Janet could still pick up the words. “He backed his pickup into the driveway. No way you’re gonna be that fucked up and back in perfectly straight like that.”

  “Why would you think he was drunk?” Janet interrupted. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Myrtle’s mustache smiled with him. “We’ll have to determine that at another time.” From his back pocket he gave Janet and the Derry woman business cards. “That’s not me. It’s a Detective James Ettings. He may contact with further questions. Please try to remember and write down all your recent interactions with the—”

  “Sam,” his partner supplied, tucking his thumbs into his belt.

  “We are so sorry about your friend,” added Myrtle.

  Janet took the card and watched the cops climb into their squad car. Taking a long breath, Ms. Derry stepped closer to her, a smallish woman, just a few inches taller than Faye but carrying more weight and looking several degrees more severe.

  “They think it’s alcohol poisoning,” said Derry. “I can tell by the questions they were asking.”

  “He didn’t drink.”

  “That’s what I told them.”

  “Poor Sam.”

  “Yeah,” said Derry. The woman silently moved away and headed for her powder blue Buick. An acoustic guitar leaned against its passenger door.

  Janet wheeled around for the house. Evan had watched everything transpire from the sidewalk.

  “What happened to Sam?” he asked as she walked by. “You gonna tell me?”

  “He died,” she said, “just like everyone else.”

  “Hey,” he snapped.

  She went through the front door and noticed now that the living room had been tidied this morning. “Where the hell is Faye? She knew Sam too.”

  “She’s out doing errands.”

  “Next time go with.”

  “Don’t worry, I will. She just didn’t want you to be left alone without a vehicle.”

  “What?”

  “She took your truck to get washed.”

  Janet couldn’t believe her ears. “Why would she do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” said Evan, “maybe because it hasn’t been washed or vacuumed in over a month? She’s on the job. Busy, busy. That’s what Faye does, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Holy shit. The coin and the bottle were still in the truck. She didn’t care if some car wash employee stole the coin; they could have the filthy thing. But the bottle…if she lost that, she lost a big piece to the puzzle of Herman’s disappearance, as well as an item of infinite curiosity.

  “Does she have her cell phone?”

  “Of course she does. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Give me your phone.”

  Evan shook his head and dipped into his pocket. He handed her his Blackberry. Janet pulled up Faye’s number and called.

  “Hi honey,” said Faye on the second ring.

  “Faye, it’s me.”

  “Oh hi babe.”

  Evan leaned into her ear with a cautious whisper, “Don’t freak her out about Sam. She drives nuts when she’s sad.”

  “Faye, did you see a bottle on the front seat?”

  “Bottle? Again with this bottle, what is it?” asked Evan.

  Janet put her hand over his mouth and he stepped away, indignant.

  “Sure did,” answered Faye. “I put it in the center console. There wasn’t anything in it. Pretty thing. Where’d you buy it? I want one.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Waiting for them to finish up the interior. I also found this weird coin on the dashboard. What is it?”

  “Nothing, a knickknack.”

  “Oh okay, well I’ve got it,” Faye lowered her voice, “you know, so nobody would be tempted to steal it.”

  “That’s fine. Just make sure the bottle’s there too.”

  “Oh babe, don’t worry. I’ll kick these people’s asses if they try to take your stuff.”

  Janet smiled. “Love you.”

  “Love you too, bye.”

  Janet handed Evan back the phone.

  “So this bottle…” he started.

  In the bedroom, Janet’s phone rang. The sound sent shards of ice into her stomach. Was it the Fury again?

  She hurried into the bedroom. The phone’s display indicated she’d missed many calls from the same person this morning. Must have slept right through the ringing. She was strangely relieved the caller had been Officer Davis.

  “Hello.”

  “Oh great. Hi. Finally reached you. I just wanted to check in, Mrs. Erikso
n. They’re moving on Herman’s case.”

  “Thanks, Officer Davis.”

  “You can call me Becca.”

  “Thanks Becca. I need to—”

  “So terrible what happened, huh? I feel half insane with disbelief.”

  Janet straightened. “Oh, you already heard about Sam? Did you know him?”

  “Sam? I’m sorry?”

  “My next door neighbor. He died this morning.”

  “Oh no, I’m so sorry. No this isn’t about that… God. No, I thought you might have heard from one of the other parents at the Horrace daycare.”

  “No…”

  “Mrs. Horrace had some kind of fatal accident.”

  “What?”

  “Things are a bit confused over there right now and we’re not going to get any straight answers for a while. One of the parents I know, Jerry Barron’s mom, she said the last people to see Mrs. Horrace were some of the older kids. Jerry had just had an argument with her before she disappeared. He says she took his play money away and headed right for the bathroom, which, you know, from her injuries wouldn’t make sense.”

  “What injuries?”

  Davis hesitated. “You want to know? Really?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “She was likely hit by a car, probably by somebody she knew. That person must have dragged her into the house. None of the kids saw this, but how else could it have happened? People don’t get half their bodies crushed in the powder room… Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so flip.”

  Janet was numb. “No, that’s okay.”

  “I mean, another hit and run, a year later…”

  “Yes, uh, Becca, I need to go.”

  “Sure. We’ll talk later about the search. Sorry to hear about your neighbor.”

  “Yes. Goodbye.”

  The call ended and Janet still had the phone pressed to her ear. Evan tapped his foot anxiously. “Someone else you know passed away?”

  Dread claimed Janet, bodily. She blinked at black stars before her eyes, fighting the dizziness overcoming her. From the bottom of her gut, a scream lay in waiting. The coins from the bottle were behind this…

  “We have to find Faye.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you explain—”

  She throttled Evan by his striped shirt. “We have to go now!”

  11

  Evan stamped the gas as he turned onto the main boulevard. “You’re flipping me out, Jan. Can you please tell me now?”

  Janet scanned the road, tapping her teeth in a frenzy. Glacial sweat beaded down her back. Her heart seemed to roll in place rather than beat. “Stop talking and watch for the truck. If Faye passes us, we need to U-turn.”

  “I talk when I’m nervous.”

  She tried Faye’s number again. It rang four times before going to voice mail. Hiya, this is Faye. Leeeeeeave me a message!

  “There’s Lucky’s.”

  Evan pulled into the busy car wash, worked his way around several idling Ford 350s and then coasted by a bank of vehicles being rubbed down with chammies. A few attendants had long accordion hosed vacuums stretched inside cars.

  “Not here. You said there’s another place she goes?”

  “United Star or something like that. It’s just a few blocks away.”

  “Go,” said Janet.

  Evan breathed out in frustration. “Yes, master.”

  He made a sharp right turn and drove past an industrial laundry. Janet watched the blue uniformed workers hanging around their cars, talking, smoking cigarettes, unaware. Janet envied them.

  Evan came to a stop at a red light.

  “Bust it.”

  “Janet, are you kidding? That’s illegal.”

  “Goddamnit, bust the light!”

  “Fine!” The Jeep lurched forward with an anti-climatic shutter. As they crossed the intersection Evan searched around in a panic. “Is that a cop?”

  Janet glanced back. “It’s a mailman.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re doing fine, Evan.”

  “I don’t feel fine.”

  The place was called Star Wash USA, not what Evan had named, but then he’d never much been one for details. Empty spaces abounded at this car wash, the other having been four or five times more crowded. Yet, from car to truck to SUV to mini-van and back, people were everywhere Janet looked: a large family waited at umbrella-topped tables, a man raised a towel over his head and honked the horn of a Suburban, two young blonde high-schoolers yapped loudly as they strolled along with Wienerschnitzel bags. All of this, but no Faye.

  Evan ran his fingers through his dark, coarse hair. “Should we go inside and ask somebody if they saw her?”

  Janet shook her head. “They won’t know. That’ll just waste time.”

  “So what do we do?”

  She drummed on her teeth some more. “Get back to my house as fast as we can. If she isn’t there, we’ll have to hope she shows soon.”

  Evan sighed and put the Jeep in gear.

  FURY

  Shortcut through my orange groves—heaven—so many memories here—my secret place where I don’t need to please anybody—yes, Faye’s Wonderland— this place hasn’t lost its magic since the day I found it—that day; crying so hard about Melody and the Jeep went off road for a moment—saw that dirt path calling me—a simple whim: I wonder if I can bypass the freeway and just shoot through the groves instead—? It didn’t save as much time as I’d hoped for, but after all that had happened, the grove was the perfect place to transcend melancholy—

  Drive, watching rows of silhouetted orange trees flicker with the sun’s intermittent drum beat—remember the times coming here to reflect about happier, less tragic things, to pick fruit, to meet with the immigrants and practice español, practice being alive—there was so much talk of death that I only had my orange grove kingdom to hide in—this place was another life, something beyond Evan—and at first, I was ashamed of keeping it all to myself, but as time passed I relished the secret—enjoy my visits here—among my mistakes, all of my trips out here have been a blessing—

  Want to get out and find some avocados—only a few avocado trees grow out here—Juan and Antonio said their parents planted them for fun, but the trees choked off the irrigation, so some had to be culled back—the three trees still had abundant avocado growth—Juan said I was welcome to them whenever—miss him, miss Tony as well, miss them all, even their two sisters who hated me; haven’t seen any of them over the last couple months—different faces appear between the trees, strangers with questions in their eyes—my secret friends have moved on, but that doesn’t mean I have to—

  Something big moves in the trees—almost animal-like, but now it’s gone—an illusion—

  Stop the truck at the big avocado tree near the storage yard—the tree always looks like a wooden monster with a thousand arms held out—no workers hang around today—makes me nervy—

  Guacamole dip would be nice—just need to stop by for some chips—and Janet loves my tacos—

  Tears come to my eyes—you think tacos will sew up that hole in her heart, how stupid you are—a surge of futility—shake it away—my special place is supposed to combat these feelings—don’t want my private Neverland to ever lose its power—someday, would love to bring the baby here, see if he or she will also fall in love with the orange blossoms and warm shadows—

  Everything will be okay—mantra, mantra time—close the truck’s door, realize I forgot a grocery bag for the avocados—doesn’t matter now—keep walking toward the tree—oddly compelled, but then that’s how this place works on me—shoes crunch old dead leaves—pass right through a spider web and don’t even bother to wipe it off—! My head conjures baffling ideas of loneliness and self hatred—forget the baby; it’s doomed too—what baby—? There is a sound behind me—someone is approaching—Juan—Antonio—will they try to stop me—? Stop me from doing what—? But I know—I can’t wait to slip that rope around my neck—this was a long time coming—finally
understand you Janet, understand the black-black place you were in, understand why this can be a precious self-serving gift—can remain here in my wonderneverfantasyland forever more—Evan will not miss me—

  Trees reveal another glimpse of the shifting thing—some fruit picking machine I’ve never seen before—? Wind blows strong, leaves dance above—eyes are playing tricks—nobody’s out there—am alone—which is perfect—which is right—which is how it should be for my ending—grabbing onto the tree trunk, hug it, shimmy up, haven’t climbed a tree since maybe I was a teenager, forget how long— difficult to climb with this coin still in my hand—

  Weird—have been holding this coin the entire time—reach lowest set of branches, brain misfires and pick some avocados, let them fall—you aren’t here for avocados missy, and you know it—

  Ground isn’t so far down—wouldn’t even break a leg jumping off—crawl out, branch bends, not enough room—wind picks up again, can smell the blossom fragrance, can remember all the beloved senses, can taste the oranges, smell the lingering rainstorms, feel the tear-damp shoulder of Juan Cabrillo as my heart pours about the little girl who might have been my god-daughter, and there was nothing I could do to change the outcome of her death, no controlling the situation at all, helpless to help my friends and their little girl—Juan held me and told me the world didn’t work that way, that it’s difficult but it is entirely possible to accept that some lives will be shortened—oh but it was so unbearable, and it was too late—there was no comforting them—! No fixing them, no telling a joke that would defibrillate them back to life—

  A growling breath blows across my neck—

  Slip off the branch, watch the ground rush at me, never reach it—head whips upright, spine jars—hang in the air, suspended, something clutches my throat powerfully—my legs beat back and forth, running in place—pressure builds in my face—black lasers shoot across my cherished grove, incinerating them from my view—