First Edition
House of Rain © 2013 by Greg F. Gifune
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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For Greer. I’ll never know you,
but there are days I wish I had.
“I am still here. Like a spirit
roaming the night.”
—Son of Sam letter
(BEFORE)
The nightmare had awakened him. Something had been in the room with them, something standing by the window…something not…human. As he lay in bed in the dark, looking at the ceiling, he noticed lights panning across the walls in a rhythmic pattern, sweeping through the room over and over again. As his head cleared, and he slowly became more coherent, he realized they were blue lights.
He rolled over, swung his feet around to the floor and sat there a moment, rubbing his eyes and wrestling a lengthy yawn. With a look back over his shoulder, he saw his wife was still asleep, curled up right next to where he’d just been, her head on the pillow and her body wrapped in blankets. He reached over, gently stroked her cheek with his fingers, then rose from bed and ventured over to the window facing the street.
It had been raining when they’d gone to bed, but now a gentle snow was falling. Three police cars were parked at one end of the block, two more at the other, all with their lights on and all of them positioned in a way so that they effectively blocked off the street at both ends. On the curb sat two men. He couldn’t make out much detail, as they were cloaked largely in shadow. One was holding something in his hand, resting it in his lap, and appeared to be staring up at their apartment.
He glanced back over his shoulder. His wife had come awake and had propped herself up on an elbow, her eyes dreamy and still seeing glimpses of sleep. “What’s wrong?”
“Not sure.”
“I was sleeping so…soundly.”
There was something wrong about this, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what. All he knew for sure was that things he had feared for years, things that he’d put to sleep so very long ago, were coming awake as well.
In him. In her.
“I think the lights woke me,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he lied, “me too.”
ONE
It was raining the night they called about Katy. A hard, primal kind of rain, it pummeled everything in its path and ended up lasting several days. Gordon hadn’t seen the weather report, so the rain had been a surprise. But he knew the call was coming, had known for some time, in fact. Not exactly when, of course, but he knew. The doctors had told him it was only a matter of time. But then, isn’t everything? He’d always assumed the call would arrive late at night—as those sorts of calls so often do—and that it would roust him from a deep sleep and frighten him awake. He imagined he’d switch on the nightstand lamp and lie there in bed a moment, staring at the phone before finally finding the courage to answer. But it turned out to be nothing like that at all. Instead, it came a short while after he’d finished his dinner. Night had fallen but he was wide-awake and slumped in his recliner with the remote in his lap. An old movie flickered on the television, providing the only light in his small apartment. The Women, he remembered, the original, with that great cast of classic actresses. It was one of Katy’s favorites. A love of classic movies was something they’d shared, so maybe it was fitting (if not a little eerie) that the call came while he was watching it.
Even before he picked up the cordless handset on the coffee table, he knew what was coming. And somewhere deep inside him, he found the strength to face it. Perhaps he was just exhausted and couldn’t take anymore, who could say?
“Mr. Cole, this is Dr. Lynch. I regret to inform you that your wife Katharina passed away just a few moments ago. I’m very sorry for your loss, sir.”
Sometimes death is preferable to waiting for its imminent arrival.
Sometimes not.
The memories grow fainter. It is almost over. Night rolled in like always, slow and sensual and dangerous as the dark dreams scraping at the inside of his skull. But the sun is rising now, burning through darkness, illuminating the city, killing night and easing the fear, quieting the whispers of demons and fading his horrible memories to black. Some nights he sleeps, though rarely soundly. Most are spent struggling through long, dark and frightening hours of deceptive silence where the past is still alive and treacherous, its death clutch strong as ever.
Sometimes liquor helps. Drugs always do.
Gordon packs his small glass pipe with weed, sparks it up with a lighter and draws the smoke deep into his lungs. Exhaling, he watches the city beyond his apartment window momentarily vanish in a haze of pot smoke. A warm tingling feeling spreads through him as something akin to relaxation kicks in.
The old devils fade and swirl away into nothing, much like the smoke, yet something of both remains, lingering in the air and trapped within him.
Like a disease, he thinks.
And for Gordon Cole that’s exactly what the past is.
In the same recliner, he sits in silence and smokes three consecutive bowls, leaving the room shrouded in a pungent cloud of marijuana. How many hours has he spent in his dreadful piece of secondhand furniture? he wonders. Whatever the tally, he’s certain it’s too much. When Katy was alive and well, he’d been far less sedentary. Couldn’t help but be with such an active woman.
And then, the sickness…
What’s wrong, sweetheart?
Not feeling well. Just don’t feel right. So tired all the time, and this cough.
You’re awfully pale lately. You’d better make an appointment with the doctor.
Already have. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.
Katy’s been gone more than a year, but most days it feels like a matter of weeks. Gordon has tried everything. He’s read the books about loss and recovery for survivors—even the ones specifically aimed at widowers—he’s spoken to the woman from social services and has even seen a psychologist briefly, a soft-spoken middle-aged man named Spires. His office calls now and then to see if he’d like to resume his visits, but he always politely declines and explains he’s feeling much better now. They don’t believe him—they’ve no reason to—so they keep calling. Instead, he’s begun attending a group meeting for survivors. Run by another psychologist, this one a Japanese-American woman named Amaya, the group meets once a week and has no rules regarding individual participation. Gordon likes this. He’s been there twice, but has yet to say anything. No one makes him speak, so he doesn’t. He just listens. It seems to help somewhat. Or perhaps it simply distracts him. He can’t be sure yet. Maybe he doesn’t care.
Gordon closes his eyes. In the darkness, he glides, riding the high, and for just a moment remembers what it is like to be young and strong and agile. He remembers going for a run, or riding his bike. He remembers being alive. And always Katy, his Katy, right there with him, reminding how life can so suddenly become something worth living—something dizzying and magical as any fairy tale—then just as quickly…this.
He opens his eyes, puts the pipe aside and pushes himself to his feet. Shuffling across the den, he slowly makes his way to the kitchen, his worn moccasin slippers scraping the bare wood fl
oors. A chill sets in before he’s made it. He’s always so goddamn cold these days. Wrapping his cardigan tighter around his pajama top, he finishes his trek to the kitchen. Christ, he thinks, I could spit from one end of this shithole to the other, why do I feel like I just ran a marathon?
If he listens to the quiet long enough, he can hear Katy answer him.
Because you’re an old fart, that’s why.
Something close to a smile curls his lips. He dismisses it and gets his cereal down from the cupboard. Normally his shoulder is sore, but the pot is a natural painkiller, so he feels nothing. Well, that’s not exactly true. Giggling. He feels like giggling, actually. So he does. By the time he’s added milk to his Product 19, the laughter has subsided. Strange how he only laughs when he’s high as a kite, and even then it’s soulless, empty. Meaningless, that’s what it is.
Regardless, the giggles return. He is helpless against them.
Damn fool. Stoned out of your gourd at your age.
“Are you on the dope?” he says aloud, using his best authoritarian tone.
Gordon pulls out his chair and sits down at the little table. Another winner from the Salvation Army store, he thinks. He sometimes wonders who these things belonged to before, and remembers how one day, while shopping there, a young couple walked by, the man bitching about how he wanted to leave because “all this crap, these clothes and the furniture and whatnot, most of it ended up here because somebody died, you know. You’re rummaging through dead peoples’ belongings.”
Little fucker was right too.
When Katy died and he couldn’t maintain the nicer, larger apartment they’d shared for years, he sold or gave nearly everything to the Salvation Army. Now people are sitting on Katy’s furniture, using her silverware, even wearing her clothes. And he’s doing the same with someone else’s things. It gives Gordon the creeps, but he continues to think about such things as he eats his cereal. Here, in this tiny apartment in this less-than-desirable neighborhood, because when Katy died their lives together died too, and with it a huge piece of Gordon.
He finishes his cereal, drops his spoon into the bowl and pushes it aside. The munchies are kicking in. Brownies. He wants some brownies. But he doesn’t have any. Why the hell doesn’t he have brownies? Can he make some? Would it be worth it to walk down to the convenience store at the corner and get some? Do they even carry brownies? The mix, maybe, but it’ll cost a fortune at a place like that. What about those individually wrapped bastards with the nuts? Do they still make those? Maybe pie. He could go for pie, if he can’t find a brownie. A fruit pie would be good. One of those Hostess jobs, a blueberry one would—no, wait—cherry—a cherry one. And chips. Yeah, need some goddamn Pringles in this house.
Gordon gets up, finds his wallet on the counter. Imitation black leather, it is battered and badly worn. He checks it for cash. Eighteen dollars. He looks to the refrigerator, and the little magnetized calendar on the door, a free one some real estate office sent him and probably everyone else in the city. It’s nearly the end of the month. His Social Security check is still a couple weeks away. Wearily, he tosses the wallet and his eighteen dollars back to the counter, and moves across the apartment to his bedroom.
The shade is drawn on the only window—since it faces a brick wall it normally is—casting the room into darkness. He switches on a lamp on his bureau, then goes to a small writing desk on the far wall and slides open the drawer. He finds both his checkbook and savings account book beneath some papers. Though he just checked them a few days ago when he paid his monthly bills, he goes through them again anyway. There’s two hundred and four dollars in his checkbook, and just shy of five hundred in his savings.
Seventy-two years old, and I have a whopping seven hundred bucks to my name. Christ Almighty. No money for extras this month, no money for those…wait. What did I need the money for again? There was something I wanted to buy but I can’t remember what the hell it was. Goddamn pot makes me forget things, I…
His stomach grumbles.
Pies! That’s it. Hell, I have more than enough for a couple cherry pies. I can—
A loud crash on the street below distracts him. It’s definitely the sound of glass shattering, probably a bottle. Muffled voices come next. Angry, aggressive voices followed by a scream—a man’s scream—and then more shouting.
Gordon makes his way back out into the den and looks out the double windows on the front wall facing the street. His apartment is on the second floor, so it’s above street level but still close enough to clearly see what’s happening below.
A homeless man he’s seen numerous times sleeping in the park across the street is stretched out across the sidewalk. Probably a good six or seven years older than Gordon, he is lying on his stomach and looks as if he’s fallen and landed there from a great height, his ratty long coat spread out around him on the pavement. Nearby, the shattered remains of a wine bottle lay just beyond his reach. Shards of glass litter his back, and blood leaks from a large gash on the side of his head, forming a halo that trickles over the curb and into the gutter.
Circling him like a pack of banshees is a group of older teenagers, laughing and hopping about, stopping now and then to kick the man in the side. The man attempts to crawl away, but they’re on him again, kicking and kicking until he stops moving. People cross the street or hurry past, not wanting to get involved. Cars pass. No one stops.
Gordon recognizes the little punks. They live in the neighborhood, in the projects around the corner. He feels his hands curl into fists as anger rises within him. “Little bastards,” he mutters. But he knows he cannot embrace this anger, he must push it back into the darkness where it belongs.
But I should do something, I—do something, for Christ’s sake!
“Fucking bum!” one of the kids yells loud enough for it to be heard through the closed window. “Get a job, you begging piece of shit!”
The others laugh and congratulate their friend as the homeless man tries again to crawl away. They allow him to get a few feet away before one of them, the leader apparently, an older boy of perhaps eighteen or so with a baseball cap worn sideways, straddles the fallen man and begins to urinate on him.
A couple of thirtysomething women suddenly appear from the park across the street. One of them is on her cell phone, while the other waves her arms and shouts at the boys, as if this might somehow intimidate them. Instead they laugh, and one of them lunges for her with mock aggression. She stops and stumbles back into the street, where she is nearly hit by a van that swerves, lays on the horn then speeds off. The woman on the phone announces at the top of her lungs that she’s called the police and they’re on their way.
One of the boys swats the phone from her hand. Another circles behind her and grabs her ass. She spins to slap him, but he’s already stumbling back toward his friends, all of them laughing.
Two men join the fracas, one younger and one middle-aged. They step in and protect the homeless man while also positioning themselves between the boys and the two women, one of whom is so angry she has to be restrained from attacking them.
Words are exchanged, threats leveled, and finally the boys move on. As the Good Samaritans check on the homeless man, Gordon steps back from the window. His heart pounds like a hammer in his chest. A bit light-headed, he returns to his recliner for a moment. He does not close his eyes, because he knows the kinds of visions and memories his brain will summon if he does.
His buzz is nearly gone.
Goddamn neighborhood, he thinks. Not even safe to go out and buy a fucking pie if I want one.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he mumbles. “Go someplace safer.”
But no such place exists. Not for Gordon. He knows this.
Katy loved the city, but he’s never had much of an affinity for it one way or the other. Why does he stay then? Why once Katy was gone and he could no longer afford to live in a decent neighborhood did he move to this dump? Why didn’t he leave when he had the chance? It seemed
disloyal at the time. He needed to stay in the city Katy loved. Truth is, he hoped remaining in the city might keep part of her alive for him. He was wrong.
He can hear more commotion and talking outside his window. Hopefully an ambulance has arrived and someone can help that poor old man.
Old man…
Christ, he thinks, that could be me out there on the sidewalk covered in blood and piss and God knows what else.
In the distance, an odd rumbling sounds. It takes Gordon a moment to realize it is thunder he’s hearing. He looks to the windows. Rain begins to fall, tapping the panes and gradually blurring the world beyond his windows.
Katy, is that you?
The rain increases, as if in answer. Or was it only his imagination?
Tell me what to do, sweetheart, I—I don’t know what to do anymore, I...I’m so lonely, Katy, I…I’m doomed without you…damned without you…
He despises his weakness. Worse, Katy would not have been too keen on it either. She was the most loving, compassionate, patient and understanding person Gordon has ever known, but she was so strong and practical as well, so no-nonsense. Even she couldn’t make this right, but at least she’d have been able to calm him and make the fear subside, if only for a little while.
The phone rings, startling him.
He grabs the handset from the coffee table, the arthritis in his little finger throbbing from the tight fist he made earlier. “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Mr. Cole?” a man with a thick Indian accent asks.
“Yes, this is Gordon Cole.”
“Good morning, Mr. Cole, my name is Andrew and I’m calling you today from the American Eagle Vitamin Company. I would like very much to tell you about a special offer on our multivitamins designed especially for the needs of seniors. We can ship them directly to your door, and just for trying them today and paying with your major credit card, Mr. Cole, I am authorized to offer you free shipping and a special free gift…”
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