Castle Danger--Woman on Ice

by Anthony Neil Smith

  The tables were high tops, designed for two people. Lots of couples, faces inches apart, hands mingling next to cocktail glasses, everyone smartly dressed — suits, ties, evening gowns, thin candles between them.

  The bartender brought my orange juice and water, took Titus’s order for a Sidecar, and I reached back for the juice. Took a sip. It was the best fucking sip of fucking orange juice I’d ever fucking sipped.

  I told Titus, “This is fucking amazing!”

  “The bar?”

  “The orange juice!”

  “Just … keep looking.”

  “Will you tell me what I’m looking for? This is some weird shit, sure, but what am I looking for?”

  “What do you think?”

  I rolled my eyes at him, shook my head and sighed because I was a stupid, drunk, high, adrenaline-fueled young cop who should’ve had his wits about him. Who should’ve remembered the photo in his back pocket. Instead, I was hot and bothered. I squirmed out of my coat, stood up and draped it over my stool so the sleeves dragged the ground. Then I sat on it because I didn’t realize all I had to do was give it to the door man.

  The hands first. Not all of them, no, but a few. Big hands, big fingers brushing and being brushed by other big fingers. Big painted fingertips. Then faces. It was very hard to tell. It took the older ones for me to see past the make-up. One couple, the woman with a red wig — had to be a wig — like Joan from Mad Men, except the nose was wrong. The way she sat on the stool, wrong. Maybe that’s hindsight. I could’ve sworn, though. The way the dress strained between her legs because she sat too wide. Another one, this one Hispanic, strong shoulders, an Adam’s apple? Why couldn’t I see that on the others? Yet another, trying to look like Cher in the eighties, which is to say she looked like a clone of Paul Stanley from Kiss. She was in the middle of a conversation with a gray-haired man wearing a big watch, but she kept glancing my way.

  I spun back round, said to Titus, “Got it.”

  “You need to be very careful.”

  “I don’t get all the secrecy.” More orange juice. I vowed to never again drink any other type of beverage. “Isn’t this, you know, acceptable now?”

  “What part? Being transgender, or selling sex?”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Some men can’t afford to leave a digital trail. Some can’t afford a relationship. Some are just paranoid.”

  “So they’re drag queens on weekends?”

  He grit his teeth. “Jesus, you’re thick, you know that? Forget what I said about having a feeling about you. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “Fuck you.” But I didn’t put force behind it. I shouldn’t have taken that ecstasy. I shouldn’t have been trying to do this with tunnel vision. I locked in, finally, on what he was trying to say. These guys weren’t gay. Gay men don’t fuck women, even transgendered ones. Straight men do. I’d watched the porn. It had gotten me hard. It had piqued my curiosity. It had made me wonder about my fucked-up identity, which I thought I had figured out a long time ago. But I wasn’t prepared, not that far into this blurry fucking night, to see it in the flesh. And none of these people were going to whip em out and fuck right in front of me. They weren’t doing it for the camera. They were being themselves.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  I remembered Hans. Hannah. Was he, was she, were they part of this?

  I asked, “Are they all selling it?”

  Titus shook his head. “No, not all of them. But you’ve got to pay for a membership. Cash only. Men and women. But the owner doesn’t tell you that some of the women don’t pay a thing, and they split the dues.”

  “Hannah?”

  “Paid her dues. And had to pay more when the owner figured out who she was.”

  “Fuck. That’s blackmail.”

  “Boy, Encyclopedia Brown, I would’ve had to flip to the back to get that one. Thanks!”

  I was tired of Titus’s bullshit. I wanted to climb into bed and cocoon myself in blankets. I would process all of this and call the detectives tomorrow. There was no way they could’ve known about this, right?

  More orange juice. I drained the glass. I started on the water next. It was the best fucking water I’d ever gulped down in one go.

  Had I not done that, I would’ve walked out, I think. That’s what was on my mind. Just leaving. I’d call a cab if Titus didn’t follow.

  That’s when two women walked over to us, nodded at Titus and one asked, “This him?”

  She was short, tight, and fit, like an Olympic gymnast. Like a woman Olympic gymnast, right down to the hair-pulled-tight-into-a-bun. Because that’s what she was going for. The other, surprisingly, didn’t stand out. Just a pleasant looking dirty blond of average size, with an average face, chubby cheeked, not too made up. Like so many girls from the plains. Like so many I see every year on the farm in Alex.

  “Yeah, this is him.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should shake hands or what. “Hi, how ya doing?”

  The gymnast’s gown was short, way above the knee, and just too tight. She stood with her fists on her hips. Looked pissed off. Her voice was pinched. “You know Hannah?”

  “I met her once. She won’t remember.”

  A sneer. “Cute.”

  “I didn’t mean it to be.”

  The plains girl spoke. “Jelly just meant—”

  “Jelly?”

  The gymnast: “Jelly. My name? Angelica? Can she speak now?”

  I held up a palm. “Okay, sure, I’m sorry.”

  “Jelly was just saying, we’re heartbroken. We haven’t heard from her in weeks, and, Titus says you … you … can we see the picture?”

  I nodded. I reached back and pulled the soggy thing from my pocket. Damn. I hoped she was still recognizable. I handed it to the plains girl because fuck Jelly.

  She unfolded it, held it between the two of them. A shared gasp. Finally Jelly let a “fuck” float out on a long sigh.

  The plains girl folded it again but didn’t hand it back.

  I said, “That’s the last I saw of her before she went under.” Which wasn’t true. Gerard had pulled off that wig first. “Is it Hannah?”

  The gymnast crossed her arms. Those arms, seriously, if you’d ever had a gymnast fetish, those arms, I’m telling you. “You smoke? Up for a smoke?”

  I said I didn’t but would join them for one. Titus already had his lighter and pack of Marlboros out. The girls asked for their coats, while I slipped into mine, the tips of the sleeves wet from my own boots. Once the two of them had their coats on, we all walked through the main room, past a handful of couples slow-dancing to a touching cover of “Holding Back the Years”. Past the bathrooms, down a hallway that got darker and darker, unmarked doors on both sides, until Jelly pushed through a wooden door on a spring and led us out into the backyard. The door slapped each of us in turn, and the final slam made me flinch. There were a couple of picnic tables, mostly cleared of snow and surrounded by hard snow packed down by a lot of other smokers. The girls were out here in high heels. Hardcore.

  Titus handed a cigarette to Jelly and lit her up, then himself. The plains girl and I were left to grin awkwardly and avoid each other’s eyes. She introduced herself as “Luce,” short for “Lucy,” short for “Lucifer.” I laughed at that and she grinned.

  “Bet you say that to all the guys.”

  “Mm hm.”

  “I can make up a name, too, you know. Like, ‘Dick St. James.’”

  “But Titus already told us your name.”

  I shrugged. “You have me at a disadv—”

  Jelly walked up and crushed her cigarette on my cheek. That fucking hurt.

  But not as much as when she kneed me in the groin. I doubled over and shot out my arm to shove her away, but she was granite. She grabbed both my shoulders and shoved me into the table. Slammed my back on the edge, my legs on the bench. I rolled off into the snow and hurt my wrist hitting the ground. But I didn’t have time to feel it because the bitch kicke
d me in the face with a pointy high-heel.

  “Jesus! Stop, please, please!”

  But she kept kicking. Titus had slimed his way to the corner of the barn, cringing but watching. Enthralled. Smoke curling around his floppy hair.

  Lucifer — oh now I got it — stomped over and grabbed me by the hair. Jerked my head up. I followed her lead and tried to push myself off the ground, spatters of dark red beneath me, but she jerked harder and I’m sure I was screaming, though no one came through that back door to see what the hell was going on.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  I was gagging on my own fear. Lucifer had me by the hair from behind. Jelly got up in my face, my bleeding, burned face, and hissed at me through tobacco-breath and bad gin. “This is your one and only warning. Leave it. Leave Hannah in peace. Don’t ask anyone else about her, or about us, or about this place. You understand?”

  I felt something sharp at my crotch. Looked down. Jelly was pressing a screwdriver against my jeans. A Philips-head. I instinctively pulled away, but Lucifer pushed me into it, far enough for it to rip my jeans and stab me in the sack.

  Lucifer’s voice in my ear. “Let Hannah.” Yank “Rest. In.” Harder yank. “Peace.”

  She threw me to the ground, did it so fast I couldn’t brace my fall. Just banged and scraped myself as I slid a good two feet across the ice. I turned my head as far as I could and watched Jelly lift one foot, take off her shoe, and put it back down. Then the other. She handed the heels to Luce, took a deep breath, and stomped the living shit out of me.

  8

  I didn’t regain full consciousness until late the next morning, waking up to a hospital room full of cops I most emphatically did not want to face under these circumstances.

  But let’s rewind to the barely conscious moments. The things I clung to because the alternative was dying. I wasn’t down for that. Not yet. I would finish my story in my own time, in my own way, thank you very much.

  The sort of thing you say once you survive and get perspective. Truth was, I was scared I was going to die, even in the throes of whatever they’d doped me with.

  After my stomping — the gymnast somehow hurt me more in her stockinged feet than the pointy shoe to the groin, working up and down my torso, sure to leave bruises, sure to crack ribs, sure to make my nose swell until I could barely breath, sure to split my lip wide open — Luce lifted me into a sitting position, then braced my jaw between her hands while Titus pilled me like a dog. I tried hard to refuse. I spit the first one into his face. Luce braced harder. Then two at a time. I grit my teeth so he couldn’t get them in there. I bit his finger.

  Then Jelly brought a flask of god knows and pinched my nose shut until I gasped. Titus shoved three pills in. Jelly dumped the flask in right after, and I nearly choked on God knows what, but I must’ve swallowed something, because it only took a few more minutes of gasping, every muscle aching on the ragged inhale, hurting worse on the exhale, until I was anybody’s puppet.

  Memories or dreams? After that I couldn’t tell.

  Me being carried between Luce and Titus, my feet dragging the snow. One saying, “You can’t kill a cop.” The other saying, “Nobody said kill, but leave him like this in the woods, it’s up to him if he dies or not.” “Jesus. Nobody’s going to believe him.” “All it takes is one.” “Trust me, okay?”

  They dropped me once they got to Titus’s car. Leaned me against the side. No idea for how long. I saw bunny eyes out in the woods. Glowing. Eyeing me up like a meal. Carnivore bunnies, right?

  More talk: “This is a printout. He’s got more pictures.” “So do the cops? So what?” “I’m not worried about those. I’m worried about his.” “I’ll take care of it, okay? I’ll handle it.”

  Me in the passenger seat, my cheek against the freezing glass. I was floating on a wave of pain. Tried to talk, but it was to my grandmother, five years dead, sitting next to me at her house, a very grandmotherly type indeed, cooking biscuits or something. Pancakes. My voice was just whispers. She raised her eyebrows and said “Oh my” as if she understood every word, which was impossible, but it made me feel better. She always seemed to understand me, much more than my mom. Same wavelength.

  But it wasn’t her voice that told me, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Hey, can you hear me? Don’t come looking for this place again. Don’t tell anyone, anyone, you hear me? No one wanted to hurt you. No one wants to hurt you again. But you’ve got to swear.”

  I gurgled.

  “Listen. Shit. I gave you too much. Shit. Don’t tell anyone about any of this. You’ve got to understand me.”

  I laughed.

  Next, me and Grandma on the front porch of the lake house she and Grandpa had retired to, the one where he had died. The one she had sold soon after, before moving to the assisted-living home in Duluth — which was why I loved Duluth so much, visiting her in those final days, giving her a reason to smile. She wanted her ashes spread on Lake Superior. Mom didn’t want to, but I had insisted, and so had Uncle Froggy and Aunt Babs.

  So here we were, the porch at sunset, me wheezing, her looking like she always had. It was strange to know someone for twenty years and realize you can’t remember them ever looking any different. She was smaller near the end, her skin drooping, covered with age spots, easy to bruise, but she was still her. Just like this dream. I told her I didn’t really want to wake up. She told me I had to. I told her I was scared. She told me of course I was. And then she said, “So is your Mom. So is your Dad. So is Marcia. Everyone alive is scared. We just learn to laugh about it.”

  I liked that. I turned to her, and I swear, for just a second, she was a man.

  So I woke up laughing, covered in puke, in my car while a cop banged on the window and yelled at me to unlock the door. My eyes glassy, but I saw the flashing lights of the patrol car and the ambulance, and I managed to get my hand to slap at the button to unlock the car. The cop opened the door and caught me before I fell out, and then there were hands all over me. By the time they had strapped me to the stretcher and I had gotten a look at the EMTs, a cop I didn’t know, and a guy I was pretty sure was the bartender at O’Dickey’s, the dawn sky was gray-purple-orange, and I was breathing oxygen through a mask. Still laughing.

  Before we get back to the cops in my hospital room …

  Turns out they had called my dad, and of course he dropped everything to drive up. He didn’t get there until noon, and I was still asleep, but he was there when I woke at two, and I could tell he’d been crying.

  I asked where Mom was, because it would be just like her not to show when her son was in trouble, and I was going to make sure to let her know how I felt about it one day, but Dad told me, “I didn’t want her to worry. Call her later, when you feel like it.”

  So she hadn’t even been at the house. Great how growing up fucks up everything. There should always be a protective glaze of unknowing around our parents, don’t you think? We should never, at no age, have to realize they are just as stupid as we all are. Just as fallible.

  He asked how I was. He asked what happened. I told him what I had told the cops — hold on, I’ll tell you, too, soon enough — even though I knew it would sound stupid and phony and lead to my Dad taking my hands and thinking …it’s about time.

  “Son, you know … whatever you have to tell me, I’m fine with it. You know I’m not going to feel any different about you.”

  “I’m not gay, alright?”

  “Even if it was curiosity …”

  “Jesus, Dad!”

  It hit me that so many actual gay kids have had this same conversation, or a much worse one, and … I don’t know. Really. I started that thought, and now I don’t know how to end it.

  But I told my Dad I wasn’t gay, and this was all a misunderstanding, and he probably believed me. The truth was much, much worse, of course, but the truth as it was versus the truth they had all expected? I thought of Robert Frost’s two forest roads, that clichéd metaphor about picking your
path in life, and then I thought of the path I’d picked, the third one, the one that had taken me right the fuck through the brush, the one only an idiot on a mountain bike might try. Yeah, that sort of “truth”.

  Then Marcia, an hour later. Then Mom, on the phone, giving me a list of excuses for not being there. At least Mom didn’t ask if I was gay or not. And neither did Marcia, but then she really didn’t have to, did she?

  Back to the cops.

  I woke up in a room full of cops.

  Helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless.

  That’s not really fair to the cops. I was probably asleep when they started showing up, and it was one or two at a time over, say, forty-five minutes. But I was dreaming about visiting my grandmother, even if the front porch was now in front of the hospital.

  So, there was The Captain (whose name I can’t remember being said aloud. I mean, yes, I had heard it aloud. I just couldn’t remember it. And it’s spelled weird. So I just think of him as Captain Pfft), my Lieutenant, “Pop” Mauer, Chelsea Tischer (the detective who shooed me away from the case), Sergeant Urbaniak, and, for some reason, Joel Skovgaard.

  And Chief Bosack. Swear to God.

  In fact, she was sitting on the edge of my bed, which I thought was inappropriate, but I guess that’s why I wasn’t the Chief. She patted my sheets with a chummy grin and said, “You sure can take a beating, kid.”

  I wasn’t sure of my voice, but I said, “Thanks. Had ’em right where they wanted me.”

  Some laughs. Then I noticed that the only one seated other than the Chief was Joel Skovgaard. Everyone else hovered around. I thought about the end of A Clockwork Orange.

  Bosack talked about bravery a few more minutes, as did the Captain. About how they would give me their full support during my recovery time.