DESCENT

by Sandy DeLuca

  “Tonya and I used to watch my mother and her johns through her bedroom window. I don’t know if she ever realized that her children knew what she did for a living—what she had to do to keep us fed and a roof over our heads.”

  He had a faraway look on his face, as if he was seeing the past playing out before him like a movie. I guessed if I saw ghosts then it was possible for Sammy see them as well.

  I knew if there were any chance for me to get away from him, I’d have to steal my money back and somehow get a hold of the bankbook.

  He didn’t notice how my hands shook as I maneuvered the car, or how my clothes were soaked with sweat. I was already scared to death of him, but the more he continued talking, the more frightened I became.

  “I wanted to kill all the guys who climbed into bed with my mother. They were slime, evil men who had wives, girlfriends and lives aside from the little time they spent with her. They did awful things to her—things their wives or girlfriends wouldn’t do. I hated them for it.

  “She was our mother.” His face showed the pain he must have felt as a little boy. “She was so pretty. I wanted to take her away from that, but I was just a kid. What could I do? She was too good for that. But my father left her when she was pregnant with me. She never finished school, didn’t even know how to write her name.”

  He became quiet for a while, his face reflective and indicative of deep thought. After a few moments he said, “You’re soft and pretty like her.” He touched my face, but this time it was gentle and loving. Somehow he was still able to touch me with genuine affection, but these were the same hands that had slaughtered other human beings, that had crucified Star to a motel wall. “I need to protect you, too,” he told me.

  I didn’t want to set him off. I just wanted to keep him talking, keep driving and maybe eventually I’d figure some way out of this hell.

  “How’d your mother die?” I hoped I hadn’t asked the wrong thing.

  “Some guy cut her up,” he said evenly. “Me and Tonya were watching Rin Tin Tin. Remember that show?” He chuckled “It used to come on every Friday night. Sometimes my mother would watch it with us. The Twilight Zone came on later—that was my favorite.”

  He was smiling, remembering what seemed like good times, but then his face changed. “Rin Tin Tin was saving some guy. We were really getting into it when all of a sudden we heard Mom scream. We ran to her room and when we looked in she was laying there.” He was quiet again for a time. “Parts of her were missing. The guy was laughing and jerking off, saying my sister was next. He saw her standing in the doorway and promised he’d get her.” Sammy stared straight ahead into the bright Southern horizon, eyes fierce and equal parts fear and rage, as if he could see that man standing before him. “He was high on some shit, out of it, you know. The knife was on the bed. There were pieces of my mother’s lips on it.” His voice cracked, but he bit his lip and went on. ”I was like lightning back then. I leaped like a wild animal, scooped up the blade, jumped on him and stabbed the fucker. Got him right in the gut. He falls over, grunting like a pig and bleeding out all over the place, looking at me like he can’t believe what this little kid just did to him. He still had that look when I slit his fucking throat.”

  I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, my heart breaking for the innocent little boy he’d once been.

  “I was twelve then.” He shook his head, thumped his fingers on the glove compartment. “You know I still have that knife?” He sighed heavily. “That was the first Friday night I missed a Twilight Zone episode since it started.”

  I didn’t know if Sammy was lying to me or not. He’d lied about a lot of things and often it was hard to tell when he was telling the truth and when his imagination had taken over. Once, when we’d first started going out, he told me that Gerry was tailgating him on Route 2. He said Gerry was holding a pistol and threatening to shoot. I knew it was a lie, something made up, because Gerry wasn’t that kind of guy and would’ve never done something like that.

  But what Sammy told me about his mother—about how she died—made sense, and could explain how he’d become so sick.

  “I need help, Julia.” Suddenly Sammy seemed like a child again, innocent and terrified. Tears glistened in his eyes and his voice became very small, no longer threatening or tough. “Once we get to Miami, will you find help for me?”

  A wave of relief washed over me. If he really wanted help, then I could find a doctor and maybe he’d turn himself in. “Yes,” I told him. “I’ll help you, OK?”

  He nodded desperately, tears still filling his eyes.

  “Sammy, what happened to you and Tonya after your mother died?”

  “They sent me for the usual psychiatric testing,” he said, resentment rising in his voice. “I was traumatized, they said. Yeah, no shit. The guy was getting ready to go after Tonya next, what was I supposed to do?” He drew a few deep breaths. “Her and me ended up wards of the state, going from one foster home to the next. They helped Tonya finish up school and found her an apartment when she turned eighteen. She was legal age and could care for me. But she had shit luck, too. She met some guy from the South Side and fell hard for him. He knocked her up—father of all of her kids. Then he conned her and before she knew it she was working in a strip club. After that he got her into coke and hooking. It got to a point where there was no turning back.”

  “The state let you stay with her?”

  “The system’s fucked up, corrupt, and sloppy. They don’t give a shit about anything.”

  “Is your sister still...?”

  “Tonya had crazy johns sometimes, too,” he said. “When it was necessary, I took care of them.”

  * * *

  I turn up the news report. They’re still talking about the ongoing murder investigation. They’re still talking about that nametag.

  Snow is falling again. I’m chilly despite my warm clothing, so I turn the car heater up a notch. Cars pass by and the dead smile at me from behind steering wheels, from pickup trucks and vans.

  Another mile and I’ll be home, but they still come to visit me there. They still haunt me.

  CHAPTER 33

  The cats greet me. Mother cat sniffs at the snow on my boots then looks up at me with wide eyes.

  Something dark and vile is mixed with the snow. It trickles across the kitchen floor like a snake. Its coppery smell nauseates me.

  I reach into my purse, pull out the vial, tap white powder onto my index finger and rub the coke across my gums.

  Only puddles of melted snow are on the tile now. I smile. What else can I do? Sanity visits me now and then, but never stays long.

  * * *

  I was still driving and doing fine as we left North Carolina. Sammy seemed different now, calmer and less violent, but I was sure it would only be a matter of time before something set him off and he went crazy again.

  “We’ll get a nice room in Miami and then I really want to sit and talk,” he said. “My head’s still screwed up.”

  “Sure,” I told him. “We’ll crash and then when you’re up to it we’ll make some plans.”

  Georgia fascinated me with fireworks and pecan nuts for sale at roadside stands. Fireworks had been outlawed in Rhode Island, even things as innocent as sparklers were banned on the Fourth of July. Poverty stricken black people sat in front of houses that looked like chicken barns and looked at us with blank stares as we passed. By the time we reached Atlanta, the brakes had begun to grind.

  “We should stop at a gas station, get them checked out,” Sammy said as he sucked the remnants of a joint held by a roach clip.

  I slowed down when I saw a red and orange sign that simply read: Gas and Service Station. “This OK?”

  “Looks as good as any place down here in the sticks, babe. Just pull in.”

  The mechanic said it’d be a couple of hours because there were a few jobs already scheduled ahead of us. Sammy didn’t flinch, just smiled and thanked him.

  We sat in the air-conditioned w
aiting room. They had iced tea and cold water. We just sat there enjoying the cool air and break from the road like normal people.

  Sammy sat close to me and talked more about his childhood and his younger days.

  “I made a lot of connections on the street when other kids were sitting in school.” He laughed, shook his head like another guy would brag about sports triumphs or making it into a good college. “I learned how to pick pockets from this colored kid named Willy Slicks. He was so smooth, taught me to come up behind a guy; pretend I’d accidentally bumped into him. While I was patting him on the back I’d reach into his pocket and lift his wallet. The first time I got busted I was thirteen.”

  “You ever spend time in—”

  Brakes screeched as a car came to a stop outside. The radio was blasting Me and Bobby McGee.

  Sammy peeked out the window. “Some jerk-off just peeled in. Southern hillbillies.” Then he laughed and slapped his leg. “Holy shit; can’t be. It’s Andra and Lucy from back home.”

  “You’re kidding. Here?” The last time I’d seen them was at Xavier’s, before my brother Paul died.

  The two scantily dressed girls walked into the waiting room and balked; just as surprised to see us as we’d been to see them.

  “Sammy!” Andra said with a laugh. “What the fuck you doing down South in hick-land?”

  He put his arm around me. “Cruising down to Miami with my chick here.”

  “That’s Paul Benetto’s kid sister.” Andra, as cold and wild as she was, looked concerned. “Sammy, you ain’t getting this girl into deep shit are you? Her brother and me go way back, you know.”

  He kissed my forehead. “Not over your dead body.”

  She didn’t smile. “I felt real bad when Paul died. He was good people. I promised him I’d watch out for her. I dreamed about him recently. He told me to send you back home if I saw you.”

  “I’m watching out for her now,” Sammy said, a bit of anger rising in his voice. “She’s not fucking going anywhere, you hear me? Besides, I heard a rumor the cops were on to you before I left.”

  “Fuck them. We’re on the road, doing what we need to do and looking for adventure—just like in Easy Rider,” Andra laughed.

  I noticed an inverted cross that had been tattooed on her right shoulder. It must have been new because I couldn’t remember seeing it on her before.

  “Made some heavy scores, too,” Lucy said.

  “You know if any of the others went by to see my sister?” Sammy asked.

  “Don’t know about nothing like that—but they found Stanni. That was so fucked up.” Andra cocked her head to the side. “You took it, didn’t you?”

  Sammy turned to me. “Wait here a minute, I’ve got to have a few words with these young ladies in private.”

  He nodded his head at the girls and they all walked outside. On their way out the door I heard him say, “Sweet ladies, the powers do invent strange happenings once you’ve taken the vows—” but the rest was cut off by the sudden growl of a drill in the garage.

  I peeked through the window and saw them all leaning against a car, looking tough, looking like they belonged in one of those vampire flicks drive-ins showed at midnight. It struck me even then how such beautiful young people could be capable of so much pain and terror.

  Andra made stabbing motions with her hand and I saw Lucy laugh. Sammy patted both of them on the back like a proud father.

  I hoped we all wouldn’t end up in some motel room.

  The girls went to talk to the mechanic, and their conversation immediately became an argument.

  Sammy came back inside. “The car’s ready. Let’s split.”

  I gave a sigh of relief. No orgies or murders or God knew what else. They were going their way and we were going ours.

  “They’re heading west.”

  “Good,” I said quietly.

  Sammy started his car and we drove slowly through the parking lot, past Andra and Lucy. They’d cornered the gas station attendant in between two cars and were saying something to him, but they were too far away to hear. The attendant’s face was white but I couldn’t see theirs. As we drew closer, on our way out of the lot, we passed close enough to hear Andra talking. Her voice was cool and even. “Do you know that the ancient Aztecs prepared humans for sacrifice by ripping out their spines?”

  I told myself I’d imagined it, but wondered if that poor guy lived to see the end of the day.

  I later heard that Andra was killed up in the Colorado Mountains. Lucy and some guy had done it. I also heard that they were guilty of several murders throughout the country. The FBI had been looking for them a while, and were wanted and on the run the day we ran into them.

  “Of all the places to see those guys,” I said. “Can’t believe it. My brother was friends with them before he…”

  “They were friendly with a lot of us,” Sammy said quickly. “They hung out at the pool hall down by the water in Providence a few years ago—long before I got the job over at Xavier’s. They liked to fuck, used to bang two and three guys at a time. They even fucked each other.”

  “Were you ever with them?”

  “I balled Andra a few times.” He laughed. “Let me tell you, that bitch loves sex, she’s a fucking bold one.”

  I nodded, not sure what else to do.

  “One time we were all shooting pool,” he went on, “and it got to be past closing time, but the owner used to let us stick around if we had a good game going. He’d just lock the doors so nobody else could get inside. So anyway, Andra says she’s hot, right? So she takes off her top, one thing leads to another, and before you know it she’s getting fucked by one guy and sucking off another one. There were six of us there. She did all of us that night, didn’t miss a fucking beat, that one.”

  I pictured the scenario in my mind. “You’d like me to do that too, wouldn’t you.” It wasn’t a question, and he knew it.

  “Only when I’m controlling it—only when the dope makes me so horny that it’s the only way to go—” A light turned red and he slowly brought the car to a stop. “But Andra and Lucy are different. They’re wild and they’re not nobody’s old lady. You’re mine.” After a moment he said, “Why all the questions? She’s just a great lay. She’s a good friend from the old days, a kid who’d come to the gym and hang out sometimes. Poor girl, her father shot her mother when he caught her in bed with some young guy. Andra was just a little girl. Guess her mother liked to fuck too.”

  Once again I wondered how much of what Sammy said was fact or fiction. Drugs do potent things to the mind. The years have taught me that lesson.

  Among others.

  * * *

  The doctor’s voice is almost condescending as he explains that my mother’s hip isn’t healing as well as expected.

  “We may have to operate again. She’s not responding to the medicine, to the therapy sessions we’ve begun here. Looks like it’ll be a while before we can move her away from here and into a regular program.”

  I don’t know how to respond. I mumble something that seems cold and distant. “You’re the doctor. Do what you need to do.”

  I hear diabolical laughter in the background followed by a crackling noise.

  “We’ll need to sign the papers so that we can operate again.” He’s silent for a moment. “There’s a chance she won’t survive. It’s her age. She’s frail. This is all up to you—”

  “I’ll think about it then. I’ll be there later today. Thank you for your honesty.”

  I hear the laughter once more.

  CHAPTER 34

  I must decide what’s best for a woman who never made those decisions for me. The ironies of life never end. Maybe her pain would be too much to bear without the operation, and it’s best to take the chance. Or maybe it’s easier to put her in a nursing home where they’ll pump her full of pain pills and allow her to merely exist, slumped over in a chair, eyes staring into space.

  How can a woman who is mad herself decide the fate o
f another?

  * * *

  My hallucinations had stopped—for the time being. I hadn’t taken any dope since before we’d run into Star. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and had the jitters from coming down off speed, but I had to stay awake and keep driving. Sammy kept popping pills, oblivious, or maybe just pretending to be. I could never be totally sure.

  He slapped my butt at one point and said, “Got to fatten you up. Seems like you’ve lost some weight since we started out.”

  I had, and it was no wonder.

  We must have looked like vagabonds when we walked into the restaurant. Two men sat at the counter, one about fifty and bald, the other was in his twenties and had dark hair to his shoulders. He looked like he might have been part Native American. They’d been drinking coffee and talking to a thin guy behind the counter who looked to be in his sixties. They all stopped and watched us as we sat in a booth by the window.

  There were posters from old movies hanging on the walls. James Dean from Rebel Without a Cause, a scene from Easy Rider and Marlon Brando from A Streetcar Named Desire. The tablecloths were red. Overhead fans turned slowly.

  A waitress, who’d been cleaning a nearby table, approached us. She had long, thin, mousy brown hair, a sprinkle of freckles on her nose and an expression that seemed set in a permanent scowl. She wore a crisp pink uniform and a clean white apron. Her plastic nametag read MARLA.

  She was a year or two older than me, but looked like she’d already lived through some hard times. She glanced at me with dark eyes. There was wisdom in those eyes, knowledge earned from living tough and fast. I thought about being on the road with Sammy, and wondered if I’d look like that eventually, or if maybe I already did.

  She set menus down in front of us, didn’t even wait for us to open them. ”What’ll it be?” she said in her slow Georgia drawl. Her eyes rested on my bruised cheek for second.