“You’re tuned to Widowmaker Radio, and this is The Friday Throwback with Steven Sibald.”
Lester returned to Iris’s neck and slipped his hand under her nightgown and over her stomach. “Mmm. This should do it.”
Iris’s earlobe rarely received much attention from anyone else. Now, it seemed Lester was obsessed with it, as he wrapped his tongue around the flesh.
“Up next as part of our Seventies Hour, we have this classic from 1977,” the radio announcer continued.
When the first few beats of the next track played, all hell broke loose. Iris moved her head to the side, extended her earlobe between Lester’s teeth. The skin snapped away from his mouth as she began to freak out.
“Uh, uh—”
“—First time you’ve made a sound today, baby,” Lester chuckled, somewhat relieved she was verbally contributing to the proceedings, finally. “Just relax—”
“—This is Andy Gibb with I Just Wanna be Your Everything.”
Lester pushed himself back and let Iris do whatever she needed to. “What is it?”
The first vocals flooded out of the TV speakers.
Iris hopped to her feet and covered her ears with her hands.
“Nuuuuuuuuh,” she cried with her eyes fully shut. “Nuh, nuh—”
“—Jesus Christ,” Lester snapped over the volume of the music. “You’re not some kinda Prizm junkie, are you? I don’t want no drugs in here.”
“Aggghhhhh.”
Iris booted the small table by the couch. The overturned picture of Lester and the two females hit the carpet. The glass frame burst into a frenzied spider’s web.
“Oh, you stupid bitch.”
Before Lester could reach it, Iris snatched the photo frame in her hand and threatened him with it. In a state of near convulsion, she tried to block out the music blaring from behind her head.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, her head close to exploding.
“Muh, muh, muh—”
“—Calm down.”
As Lester spoke, he stared her out. All was not well with Iris Goddard. She clutched her nightgown with her free hand, as if to reveal what was underneath.
No such luck for Lester, though, and he knew it.
The look in her bleary eyes said it all.
“Put that picture down,” he threatened. “I’ll beat you upside the head so hard.”
Iris grunted and swung for Lester. The edge of the photo frame clipped him across the forehead, cutting the skin open and pushing an envelope of blood down his eyes.
“Agh, Jesus Christ.”
He covered his eyes and fell to his knees. The perfect opportunity for Iris to scream bloody murder and slam the bottom of the frame on top of his head.
Crack.
It was enough of a blow to knock the guy out cold.
The picture frame slid through her fingers and hit the carpet by her feet. Constantly harassed by the music, she held her ears once again and let out a prolonged shriek of pain as she ran to the door.
All it took to get out of there was a swift boot to the handle.
The door flew open, slammed against the wall, and afforded Iris a quick escape…
***
Iris stumbled down the two flights of stairs that took her to the street outside. Her knees threatened to buckle as she bawled down each step, and through the door…
… and into the fresh night air.
Her eyelids grew heavy, squeezing the last of the tears down her cheeks.
A voice called out in the darkness as she regained her composure. “Hey!”
She opened her eyes, and took in the road ahead. A few parked cars were all there were, save for the distant echoes of a frenzied Friday night from the main street around the corner.
Blink, blink…
A strange vision loomed around fifty feet up the sidewalk.
Black, but white.
Bulbous in nature.
Iris wiped her face and cleared the scum from her eyes. Then, the vision pulled into sharp focus.
A black man wearing a white wedding dress with the arms of an unconscious body in his hands.
“Hey, you,” the guy called out once again.
Was he addressing Iris, or someone else? Unsure, she kept perfectly still just in case it was the latter.
The man pulled on the arms of the body and lifted its waist over the curbside. Whoever it was surely weighed a ton.
“Damn, man,” the bizarre fellow exclaimed. “He’s the weight of an elephant. Help me get his legs.”
Curious, Iris found herself drawn to the spectacle. Without her permission, her left foot moved forward, taking her closer to the action.
She stopped and squinted at the man’s ass as he bent over the front of the body and inspected it. Apart from his weird choice in clothes, he was in great shape. Fit and healthy, by all accounts.
Just then, the body’s legs lifted, having been held by another guy who Iris couldn’t quite make out.
“Man, get this nigga in the place quick before somebody sees us.”
“Yeah, yeah. True dat.”
Hoist.
Iris was about to scream, when her better judgment choked the desire back down into her belly. Her gray pupils dilated as she witnessed the man in the wedding dress holler over his shoulder at the gargantuan sliding door.
“Man, keep that door open. We’re comin’ in. Let’s go.”
The night air seemed to have cooled since before Iris went into Lester’s apartment. She ran her hands up her arms and almost shivered, but the warmth from the strange episode unfurling up the street was undeniable.
Just before the wedding dress disappeared forever with his dead goods, he shot a look - quite by accident - in Iris’s direction.
Both she and the man held their gaze for a split second longer than she’d have liked or wanted.
The man in the wedding dress released the top half of the body to the floor. “Shit.”
“What?” asked his buddy.
Flump.
The dead body’s head hit the ground as the man pointed at Iris.
“Her. She’s seen us.”
Not wanting any trouble. Iris took a step back and shook her head.
“Goddamn it,” the man said before screaming at his friend. “Go and get her. No witnesses.”
Iris backed the hell up and went to turn around as the man’s buddy ran from out of the shadows and into the streetlight.
An ugly, chubby man in his early thirties smiled at her and licked his blood-red tongue across his top lip.
“Yo, lady.”
Iris froze on the spot as man reached into his belt. He pulled out a revolver and pointed it straight at her. “Y’all goin’ nowhere, ya hear? Get your ass over here.”
Terrified, Iris held her hands out sideways.
“I said get your sweet lil’ nigga tush over here before I ram this strap up your ass and pull the trigger—”
“—Yo, Big Six,” the man in the wedding dress screamed. “Stop touchin’ yourself and go get her.”
Iris sucked in what felt like the entire street’s oxygen through her nose and prayed she wouldn’t collapse.
The chubby man chuckled and waved his gun to the door. “Ain’t gonna tell you again, lady. Come with us, now.”
Chapter VIII
The cell phone read 1:30 pm, which concurred with the roman numerals on the clock above the serving counter.
Turning back to her phone, Iris scanned the blinking digital red dots separating the hour and minutes. They flashed on and off, and would continue to do so until the battery - or time itself - came to an end.
The latter certainly felt that way to the owner of the eyes looking at the read out.
Time.
Coming to an end.
The green eyes belonged to Iris. Shifting left and right in decreasing motions. From the “one” to the zeros, back and forth.
A couple of blinks scraped the liquid that had collected in the pit of her eyes.
It was all Iris could do to block out the chatter from the surrounding tables and booths.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” came a soothing, familiar female voice a few feet above her head.
Iris looked up and released her phone to the table in one swift action. “Oh, hey.”
The woman slid into the booth opposite Iris and offered a smile of contrition. “Traffic was an absolute nightmare. You know how the freeway gets just after lunch.”
Iris couldn’t help but catch sight of the woman’s peculiar earrings; a pair of scaly goldfish, the mouths on each hooked through the rings.
“I know. It’s okay.”
The woman scratched her brow and shook the trauma of her journey away from her arms as she grabbed the coffee menu. “You been waiting long?”
Iris shook her head. “No, a few minutes. I was a bit late myself.”
She had been waiting long. Half an hour, to be precise - a typical occurrence whenever she met Irene for coffee at the Kaleidoscope’s Bean There, Done That coffee branch each month.
Iris smiled and produced a small, square envelope “Here, this is for you.”
Irene looked at it before she took it, “Oh! Thanks, sis.”
“Yeah.”
Irene slid her thumb under the flap and pulled out a card. It read “Happy 40th Birthday!”, along with a cartoon picture of a drunk woman sitting on a rickety chair with her panties around her ankles. “Get drunk or go home.”
Irene sniggered and opened the card. “Ha. You know me a little too well, sis.”
Iris tried for a smile, but it didn’t register on her face. She allowed Irene to read the contents of the card. As she did, a wave of warmth and wellbeing emanated from her body.
“Oh, Iris. That’s so nice of you. Thank you. But you know my birthday isn’t until next week.”
“I know. I wanted to get in early.”
“Why?”
Iris knew this day was coming. She closed her mouth and looked down at her black coffee, wanting to avoid the question entirely.
Her slight action caused Irene concern. She knew her sister well, or so she thought. “Okay, sis. Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
Iris chewed hard on her lip. Her hands shook under the table, not that her sister could see it.
“My God,” Irene whispered. “Are you okay?”
A teardrop splashed against the table, having rolled off her Iris’s cheek.
Irene reached for a napkin from the table dispenser. “Good Lord. Here, take it.”
Iris couldn’t move, seemingly paralyzed by something. Her sniffles and throat rumbles abated an otherwise all-out crying assault right there at the table.
Irene fished as carefully as she could for whatever was causing her sister’s upset. “Is it Nicholas? Sam?”
Iris shook her head - no, it wasn’t them, though the tears continued to flow.
“Then what? I don’t understand.”
With all her might, Iris lifted her vibrating left arm and pressed her elbow down to the table top. The colored butterfly on her wrist was known to Irene - but the letters written underneath in magic marker were not.
706 T3
“What’s this?” Irene said with concern as she mopped her sister’s cheek with the napkin.
Instead of using her rumbling throat of upset to explain, Iris extended the index finger on her right hand and tapped on the black text on her wrist.
“What is that? 706. T3?” Irene guessed whilst keeping up her sympathy. “A flight number? Are you going to the airport?”
Iris shook her head, no.
“Are you going—”
“—I found him, Irene,” she blurted, much to her surprise, before whispering it again. “I found him.”
“You found him?”
Iris nodded, utterly frustrated at her inability to elucidate the information that surely came across as maddeningly cryptic to her sister.
“I don’t understand. Found who?”
Iris directed her bleary eyes at Irene’s. Determined, focused, and seething with anger. In a pang of symbiosis, Irene feared the worst, and chanced at who this “him” might have been. The guess turned to stone and slotted into the pit of her stomach.
“Oh no.”
Iris nodded and wiped the buildup of slime from her nostrils on her wrist.
“Yeah,” she managed as she cleared her throat and rammed her right knee against the underside of the table.
Irene turned to see if anyone looked their way, and then lowered her voice. “How?”
“About a month ago, I—” Iris shuddered and struggled to finish her sentence. “—About a month ago I thought I saw him. It all came flooding back. So I got someone to follow him.”
The sudden impact caught Irene by surprise. She nearly coughed her entire body out of her mouth in fright.
“Follow him?”
“Yeah.”
“On a whim? A stranger? Why on Earth would you even do that?”
“I can’t do it anymore,” Iris said. “I want it to stop.”
“Want what to stop?”
“Everything.”
Deep down inside, Irene knew what her sister talked about. A lifetime of embittered history in the family couldn’t be shaken off.
“So, what happened? What did you find out?”
Iris covered the black text on her wrist. “It’s not important.”
She lifted her coffee cup and took a sip. For the first time in a long time, the black liquid soothed her body as it ran down her neck and pulsed through her body.
Irene couldn’t help but emote in front of her sister. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like drinking a damn thing. She could barely operate her own mouth.
“I don’t want to know,” Irene said. “That asshole doesn’t deserve to live. I thought this was all behind us.”
Iris moved the coffee cup from her mouth and licked her lips, immediately fascinated by an elderly black gentleman at the neighboring booth. The man caught her glance, turning away from the twenty-something woman sitting opposite him.
The name badge on his overalls reflected the strong light coming from the ceiling - his name, as evidenced on the lapel of his shirt, was Willy. Much like Iris, he, too, was a person of few words. The girl opposite him continued to chat, and acted as if he was paying attention to her.
Iris blinked slowly, which forced Willy to do the same. Irene’s talking dampened into a muddied slew of low and high tones, forming one, constant, bore of a sound.
There was no need to listen right now.
The silent man Iris made contact with seemed to know precisely what she was going through. A complete and utter stranger, now a duo, speaking to each other - and reading one another’s thoughts - amongst all the hubbub of Bean There, Done That within the valley’s most prominent shopping mall.
Irene’s voice sharpened and drifted into Iris’s right ear. “Iris? Did you hear what I said?”
“Huh?”
She turned back to her sister just as Willy did the same to what was surely his daughter.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I, uh—”
“—No, no,” Irene insisted. “This is important.”
Genuinely confused, Iris shook her head with a pang of innocence. “What?”
She felt a pair of hands cover her own under the table. The warm, comforting sensation came from Irene’s hand. She meant business, whatever it was she was insisting.
“Don’t pursue this. Please.”
Iris fanned her fingers out and ran them across Irene’s palm.
“Sis, listen.”
“No, I don’t wanna hear no more of this bullshit.”
Iris shifted into a more take-no—prisoners tone. “No, listen to me, Irene. This is my thing, okay? Nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with Nick, or Sam. This is my thing, and my thing alone.”
“Does Nick know anything about this?”
Iris’s face fell withou
t answering, not that she needed to.
Irene couldn’t bear the reality of the situation presented before her. “You haven’t told him, have you? He doesn’t know. Sis, listen. Don’t do it. Don’t do anything.”
“Don’t worry about me, okay?” Iris said. “I won’t do anything, and I certainly wouldn’t ever do anything to put myself or anyone I care about in danger.”
Iris released her grip on her sister’s hands and returned them to the table.
“I really hope so. I really hope you knowing that fat fuck’s whereabouts gives you some peace of mind.”
“It’s the not knowing that’s the hardest. The wondering about what happened,” Iris explained with quiet contemplation. “Every time I pass by someone who looks even remotely like him. It all comes back. When I’m out driving, even. Things remind me of what happened. Complete strangers—”
“—I know, I know,” Irene offered. “I get that, too.”
“Mom and Dad did fucking nothing. Dad especially.”
Irene’s throat tightened and threatened to squeeze the upset in her heart out through her eyes. “No, no, no. Don’t bring that up again—”
“—Damned coward, taking the easy way out like that, and leaving us to pick up the fucking pieces.”
“Iris, stop.”
“Did they think I’d just forget everything?”
“Sis, you’re getting angry again.”
The sisters relaxed in each other’s company, aware of their surroundings. Irene cleared her throat and pressed her hands together.
“Iris, you know he’s out there. But listen very carefully to me, okay?”
“What?”
“If you act on what you know, it’s going to be your elephant in the room for the rest of your life. Don’t undo thirty years of good work. Don’t pursue it any further. It never goes away, but it gets better.”
“I want him dead.”
Irene shook her head and dismissed her sister’s feelings. “I know you do. But, please. For your own sake. For my sake. For Nick and Sammy’s sake—”
“—Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all, and especially fuck him.”
“Sis, please—”
So riled by the reintroduction of the person she spoke of, Iris released the pent-up frustration with her fist and slammed it onto the table top, causing the two cups of coffee to dance a few inches closer together.
Somnambulist Page 8