And then he dug into the top curve of my ear and dragged the Q-tip along it. This was my absolute favorite and I made a looooooooooooong sound because I couldn’t even help it.
“Did that feel good honey?” he asked, smiling.
I nodded.
“Don’t nod.”
So I stayed still. And watched the show. And I fell asleep. And when I woke up Herman was downstairs on the phone and it was almost time for work. Just enough time to tell you about my ears, diary. And now that I’ve told you that I can probably tell you fucking anything. Because that’s the weirdest thing I do. I think.
That and, also, maybe I mangle cats and leave them smeared across cold basement floors. That would be the weirdest IF IT’S TRUE. It’s probably not true. I’m probably just bored.
Or maybe it’s only true in patterned space. Which means it may as well not be true at all.
Either way, as soon as I get to the inn tonight I’m going to have to check the basement.
Tenth Entry
When I first got to work I considered telling Alf about my weird diary dream thing. Mainly because I didn’t wanna have to go down and search the basement by myself.
But then I realized that the idea of telling Alf that I might have killed one of the cats, and running the risk of having him look at me like a crazy person, was a lot scarier than just going down into the basement by myself.
If I really killed one of the cats I definitely don’t want Alf knowing about it. He would hate me. I would hate me. I like this relationship better when I know something terrible about him 29 and he doesn’t know anything terrible about me.
Scene of her digging at her head. Really loud and wet and fleshy so the sound overtakes the image.
The spot on my scalp is so raw I can barely touch it. But it’s also so full of new snags that I want to pick at, flaps I can pull up and dig deeper under. I started thinking about what my skull will look like when I eventually reach it. Will it be smooth? Or kind of abrasive like a cheese grater, all congested with flesh. How’ll I get through it when the time comes?
Oh don’t worry, diary, I’m JOKING. As if I’d crack open my skull, you fool.
I can’t believe you’re actually this worried that I’ll crack my own skull open.
You must think I’m retarded.
Anyway, so, the basement is kind of crazy. I should explain it to you so you don’t think I’m just being a pussy.
Nathanial Holcomb built it with the intention of making it a safe haven along the Underground Railroad, with big, thick, soundproof walls so no one can hear anything upstairs when the door is closed.
He was a doctor, too, and promised to give those slaves who ended up in his basement all the medicine and care they needed to heal up the scrapes and cuts and aches and pains accumulated on the journey so far. He used the big main area as sort of an examination room.
Along the wall farthest from the staircase are a bunch of little hallways that end in private rooms, where I guess different people and families could have some amount of privacy, or be able to hide in case any suspicious person came over.
That’s just what Olivia told me, though. I’ve never seen any of the rooms myself. Because it’s one of our rules to absolutely never ever go down any of the hallways. They’re fucking scary. Completely dark, cobwebs draped across the thresholds, and sometimes we hear weird noises inside. Alf said once he’d heard a woman laughing.
And the cats hate the hallways, arch their backs and hiss and bounce away on the tips of their claws when they get too close.
Anyway, this was supposed to be a sort of ideal shelter for people in trouble, the kind of food, water, clean beds and special care they had never seen anywhere else. Nathanial made himself seem like someone they could trust. Which is a really nice idea. If it were true.
But according to town history, Nathanial Holcomb was a monster. He’d use the information he had about the people to make them do things. A lot of the kinds of things you’d expect, like he’d make them have sex with him and stuff. But also some things that I bet you wouldn’t expect, like he’d make them fight each other. And he performed experiments on their bodies, like administering strange drugs that made people sick and documenting the effects. He performed unnecessary abortions on pregnant women and even amputated a man’s leg.
My friend June’s great-great-grandmother had been a maid here then. She told June’s mother stories and June’s mother told us, about how the help never knew what was going on in the basement, but the doors were always locked and bloody sheets always needed washing, and Holcomb himself was always covered in scratches and bruises, the kind a person might inflict before being quieted by a chloroform soaked rag. Once, June’s great-great-grandmother found a picture sticking out from beneath a pile of papers in Holcomb’s office, a diagram of two cadavers arranged in a way she’d never forget for as long as she lived. June pressed her mother for more details, but she just shook her head and began to burp, a prologue to vomit, and said, “I can’t, June, it makes me sick. It makes me sick to even think about.”
We get a lot of stories like this from June’s mother, 30 dramatic build-ups with very little pay-off. It drives June insane.
Anyway, Holcomb lived here till he died. Brain aneurism. Keeled over right there in the basement.
So, though Alfred and I talk tough about wanting to see a ghost, neither of us really loves being in the basement for long. Or all alone.
When you first go into the basement, you’ve gotta walk down this very tall staircase, with slats for steps, no risers in between, so anything could stroke or grab one of your unsuspecting ankles as you walk down the stairs. So you’d trip and fall and break your face or your neck and become just another permanent resident of The Boy Eats Girl Inn.
I always run up and down the steps as fast as I can so if there’s anything hiding in the space behind them it won’t have time to grab me. Another one of our stupid rules. 31 Probably if there are ghosts down there it wouldn’t matter how fast I was running up and down the stairs. Or how many times Alf and I flicked on and off the lights before going down.
The great big main room, what was once Nathanial Holcomb’s operating room, now has an industrial-sized washer and dryer as well as lots of cans. Paint cans. And cans of deck stain. And old brooms and mops and trays and rinsed margarine containers of bolts and other little shiny things. Hammers, mallets, screwdrivers. A shovel, a rake. A pickaxe. 32
Great murder weapon! I see posters, Halloween costumes. The sequel is ten years later, the inn now a popular wedding venue.
A pickaxe. What about that pickaxe? Something in me wanted to pick it up. Big and heavy in my hands, swoosh, swoosh through the air so it nearly pulls my shoulders out of their sockets.
It made me shiver.
There are lots of weird noises down there all time too, and not just stuff coming out of the hallways either, but stuff right in the main room. A nail rolled off a shelf, the cat’s window suddenly slammed shut, the dryer door groaning open out of nowhere. And these noises, these little disruptions to regular basement stillness, seem to increase in frequency the longer you’re down there. More and more. Almost as though the sounds, the little irritations, are coming to something. Culminating. Threatening you to hurry up and get out.
So with the hallways being just too goddamn scary to venture into, and the sounds creeping me out every five seconds, this basement would be very difficult to search thoroughly.
The cat’s window is newer, added when the inn was converted into an apartment building. It doesn’t let in a lot of light, but enough so a person doesn’t feel quite so totally enclosed down there.
I searched that big main room for a long time, behind the washer and dryer, in and around all the shelves, behind the big panes of glass that were meant a long time ago to be used for a sun porch that was never built.
The sounds were b
ecoming more frequent than I’d ever heard before, warning me to get the fuck out. The sound of a creaking door closing shut oozed from the deep dark of one of the hallways.
I knew I really should check the hallways. I really, really should. Down one of those hallways is definitely where a dead cat would be. Break a rule and search the private rooms. Just the thought of it made me sick. They were so dark. So untrustworthy. No lights in there because we never used them. I’d need a flashlight. And to spontaneously grow an enormous pair of balls. Each dark-as-night open doorway seemed to be growling, daring me to come closer, you’ll see what happens to you if you come closer. Large lolling tongues fixing to curl me into their basementy bowels.
And then I realized that not only had I not found a dead cat yet, I hadn’t seen any cats at all the whole time I was down there.
Which was very weird.
Usually that open window had at least one cat peeking in from the outside, another one jumping through it, just missing Dean, asleep on the humming dryer, stirred awake by the sound of another cat landing next to him. Frank’s yellow eyes staring from a high wooden shelf. Joey scratching at one of the thick wooden beams down here. The Rat Pack loved people. And just about any time they heard the basement door open, they all rushed in or at least pried open sleepy eyelids, hoping to weave between feet, press up against pant legs or get some food.
But there were no cats at all. None. And the thought made cold hands wrap around the base of my spine, work their way up tight as though they were climbing a rope.
And suddenly the phone rang and I jolted and ran up the stairs as fast as I could.
I just knew it would be my stupid fucking dad. I knew it would be my stupid fucking dad because it’d been a WHOLE HOUR since the last time he called.
29. Presumably she’s referring to the fact that he watched and laughed while his sister drowned.
30. It’s hard to determine the validity of these accusations against Nathanial Holcomb. He was never convicted nor suspected of any crime while he was alive, and is in fact mentioned favorably in a number of historical texts about the Underground Railroad. However, many people in the town maintain this opinion, when you can manage to get them to talk about Nathanial Holcomb at all. Mention of his name to older locals, or even mention of the inn itself, elicits nervousness, discomfort, and in some cases aggression.
31. Rule 7: RUN up and down all staircases.
32. Presumably the murder weapon.
Eleventh Entry
I went to the front desk. Alfred was playing one single low note on the piano in the lobby.
DUN.
DUN.
DUN.
DUN.
“Boy Meets Girl Inn, this is Noelle.”
“Hi sweetie.” My father’s small voice.
A lower note from Alfred.
DUNN.
DUNN.
DUNN.
DUNN.
“Hi Dad.”
I waited for him to go next. I could always tell what the call would be about based on the length of time it took him to speak up. He was going to ask me a goddamn favor, that son of a bitch.
“Can I get you to pick up a roast chicken on your way home tomorrow morning?”
Okay, not so bad.
“Yeah, okay, I can do that.”
“From Ollie’s?” 33
DUNNN.
DUNNN.
DUNNN.
“Dammit, Dad, that’s way in the other direction!”
“I know, but I just got a flyer, they’re on sale.”
“I would pay the difference for that extra half hour of MY time. I bet the difference isn’t even what I make in half an hour at this shit job.”
Alfred noticed now that we were arguing. He offered a sad sort of smile as he closed the piano lid and politely went upstairs.
“Please, Noelle, you know how I love the chicken from Ollie’s.”
I did know.
I have this memory of him eating his roast chicken from Ollie’s. Greasy fingers slipping and sliding over goose-bumpy skin. Digging under and guiding those fingers between crisp dermis and flesh, easily rubbing away the unknowable sinews that had once held them together. Then pulling the skin right off. Stripping the little thing of its only protection. And eating it first. Pulling its bare flesh apart, slurping slivers of white and dark meat, sucking animatedly on each bone, rubbing grease against his teeth like a wired cokehead. His lips quivery, unable to predict where exactly his own fingers would be coming from in the torrent of his feeding.
I hate his lips so much. Too much saliva. Delicate, reluctant, and shaky. Like a pair of blind, just-born pink puppies. When they look as tiny and foreign and squishable as bugs.
“It will literally tack an extra half hour onto my walk. Do you have any idea what that’s like when you’re working a nightshift? You’re asking me to enter into a fucking grocery store too. With all the people who have just woken up and the fluorescent lights. It’s another wavelength, Dad. Please don’t make me.”
Of course you fucking don’t know what it’s like, you lazy bastard. I’m sorry I’m sorry. I know you can’t.
“Please, Noelle. Could you just do this for me without a fight for once? I know, okay? I know I don’t know what that’s like but goddammit do you know what this is like? For me to be lying here, a crippled shithead, asking his daughter who has to more or less wipe his ass every morning and every night, to pick him up a goddamn roasted chicken? A seven-dollar pile of cheap meat and grease that’s truly one of my only joys in life.”
“Trust me, as the person who cleans the toilet, I know all about your love of grease. It’s one of the other reasons I’m mad.”
He laughed a bit. Because we had to laugh about things like that because otherwise it would just be too grim.
“Noelle, are you going to make me beg?”
“I should make you beg.”
“Noelle.”
“Fine, I’ll get you the chicken from Ollie’s.”
You fucking nagging old worthless bitch.
“Thanks, honey.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Have a nice night at work.”
“Okay. Oh Dad, are you on hot water treatments 34 again?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, can you just try to make sure to leave me enough hot water for a shower?”
“Of course I’ll try, Noelle. I always try.”
“Yeah, alright. But you don’t always succeed. I’m asking you to really TRY to SUCCEED on saving me hot water. Especially if I’ll have just walked an extra half hour in the heat, to get you your goddamn roast chicken.”
“Okay, yeah, I get it. See you, honey. I love you.”
“Bye.”
I slammed the phone down hard as Alf came back down the stairs.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah, just the usual.”
Alf knew all about the usual stuff. He knew how sick Herman was and I admitted to him that I found it so annoying I almost wished he’d just die. And Alf said he understood, said that it must be hard for me, and he rubbed my back, which should have been nice but part of me wondered if he just liked the excuse to rub my back because he liked me, not because he actually cared about making me feel better.
I know, diary, I shouldn’t be so negative. I know that Alf really cares about me, more than just my hole.
“I’ll take the buzzer tonight,” he said.
“You don’t have to, Alf. It’s my turn.”
“No, I think you should get some sleep.”
“Well, thanks,” and I smiled at him.
Then we were quiet for a while. And he was looking at me, trying to form some kind of message to me with his eyes that I was pretending I didn’t notice. But I could see
it, quite plainly; see that he wanted to say something that would ruin everything. Looking at me in THAT WAY. It made me want to slap him across the face really hard, the way women do in old movies. Men seem to recover so quickly from that in old movies, like it was nothing, but I’m pretty sure if I flat-palm slapped Alf across the face he’d shriek and clutch his face and get very worked up. It would be a whole thing that we’d probably never stop talking about for as long as we lived.
And then he said my name:
“Noelle?”
“What is it, Alf.” I tried to make it sound like a warning instead of a question. Like, don’t you dare say it. And he must have noticed.
“Um, nothing.” He coughed. “I, um, do you want to, did you ever get around to turning over the laundry? Or do you want me to do it?”
I didn’t want Alf going into the basement. I didn’t want him seeing anything down there I’d somehow missed.
“No, no, no, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
“Okay,” and he cleared his throat.
That wasn’t what he was going to say but I didn’t care. I’m glad he didn’t say what he wanted to, because I don’t wanna deal with it right now.
I went downstairs to flip the laundry.
No cats. No cats at all. Did I kill them all? Or have they run away? Because they’re scared? Scared of what I did to Sammy, or what you say I did to Sammy? How can I trust you, diary, maybe you’re lying. Maybe now that you’re alive you wanna take over. Kill me and be the better me. Well it’s not gonna happen, alright?
I don’t know why I’m so mistrustful of you. I guess because—I don’t know. You’d betray me. You’d let anyone at all open you up and read about me. You’re very disloyal, diary. I don’t know why I put so much into something so very, very disloyal. And you make me look at myself in a way I hate. You make me see how crazy I am and you’d show anyone else too. Would you trust you if you were me? Jesus christ this is all fucking crazy too.
The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated) Page 7