The Bleeding Season

by Greg F. Gifune

  “No,” Donald said, “we just thought there might be some personal mementos he left behind. None of us have anything of Bernard’s and sometimes it’s nice to have—”

  “I know what you mean.” Sammy’s eyes shifted between the three of us, lingered on Rick the longest then returned to Donald. “The duffel bag is still downstairs. I been meaning to run it over to the Salvation Army bin but I haven’t had the chance. You guys can go through it if you want. Ain’t nothing special, some clothes and stuff, that’s about it, but if there’s any of that shit you want—whatever—you know, you’re welcome to it.”

  Even as he moved to the door I knew he didn’t plan to simply go into the basement and retrieve the bag. Something in his eyes, in the way he sauntered to the door and hesitated, the knob in his hand, told me we’d be accompanying him into the cellar.

  “Come on,” he said, “it’s down here.”

  The door opened and I forced a swallow. Donald glanced at me; he was on the verge of a major panic. I looked to Rick. He offered a quick wink and moved to the front of the line, but I could see through his cavalier routine, he was just as uncomfortable—if not more so—than Donald and I were. Yet like he so often did, Rick led the way, stepping through the doorway, old stairs creaking beneath his weight as he disappeared into darkness.

  * * *

  A musty odor filled my nostrils before I’d reached the bottom. Sammy flipped a switch from somewhere behind me, and the small section of basement Bernard had converted to a living area appeared. There was no fixture, only a single but powerful light bulb at the end of a thick wire dangling directly from the ceiling. Once we reached the bottom of the stairs I realized that the cellar had been divided into two separate areas. Directly in front of us another door stood closed, concealing what was undoubtedly the larger of the two areas.

  Sammy was the last one down the stairs, but hesitated at the foot, bent forward and pointed to an old cot against the far cinderblock wall. “Bernard stayed there,” he said, his voice distorted and unfamiliar as it bounced along the tomb-like cement cell. “We use the rest of the basement for storage.”

  At the head of the cot was a makeshift nightstand fashioned from a cranberry crate turned on end. The blankets he must have used were folded neatly at the foot, and as my eyes panned across the tiny cellar, I ignored the beams overhead and instead focused on the lone small window I had seen outside. The idea of living in these cramped and dingy quarters for any amount of time was nearly beyond belief, but nothing indicating the remnants of life resided here. It looked and felt and smelled like death, like a dungeon of sorts, a chamber where one might be sent to wither away and die, and that’s exactly what Bernard had done. Yet I had no specific sense of him here, no trace of his or anyone else’s presence, as if he’d never really been there at all, or perhaps it was this place itself that was void of even the echo of anything alive or vibrant.

  Sammy pointed to a canvas bag propped against the wall next to the stairs. “That’s his duffel there.” He leaned further into the room without leaving the staircase and leveled a finger at a particular rafter perhaps a yard from where I was standing. “I found him right there.”

  Rick crossed the room in two strides and grabbed the duffel. Donald and I stayed where we were; it felt good to have a little elbowroom. We’d been cramped from the moment we’d entered the house, and the claustrophobic feel had only worsened upon descending into the basement.

  “He’d already been dead a while when I found him,” Sammy added.

  “You sure you want to go through that here?” I asked Rick.

  “It’s OK, I’ll be upstairs. Come on up when you’re done. Just make sure you shut the light off and lock the door behind you.”

  He left us, and I wished I could’ve joined him. There was something final about the way he closed the door behind him, and again, the nightmare I’d had began to play in my mind. I forced it away. “Come on, man,” I said to no one in particular, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “What was that shit about the Marines?” Rick asked. “How could Bernard lie about being a Marine and us not know it?”

  “Let’s talk about this later, OK?”

  “Don’t go getting all spooky now.”

  “Bernard died here, man. Right fucking here. I want to leave, this place is creeping me out.”

  “I know it’s freaky, but it’s no different than standing in a hospital,” he said. “People die in them all the time.”

  “I hate hospitals.”

  “My God,” Donald whispered as if mesmerized. “What an awful place.”

  “Hurry the fuck up,” I muttered.

  Rick defiantly hoisted the duffel onto the cot, pulled it open and emptied the contents. Mostly dirty clothes tumbled free, wrinkled and old, many of them I remembered Bernard wearing at one point or another. I did my best to zero in on the contents of the bag, but noticed Donald gazing apprehensively at the rafters. His eyes brimmed with tears, so I pretended I hadn’t seen him.

  “Hey,” Rick said, crouching over the items, “check this out, Alan.”

  My legs felt like they’d been filled with lead but I forced myself over to him. He held up an aged photograph that had been taken at my wedding. Rick, Donald, Bernard, and myself, together at the reception, smiling, holding up drinks or beer bottles, broad smiles spread across our faces. We looked so young. “I remember when that was taken,” I said.

  “Me too.” Rick resumed rummaging through the pile.

  The photograph trembled and I realized my hands were shaking again. “I remember that moment…that exact moment.”

  “He’s got a bunch of them.” Rick handed me a small stack and continued his search.

  I rifled through them—six in all—four from my wedding and one of Tommy’s high school yearbook picture, wallet-size. The sixth was of a woman I didn’t recognize. I handed the rest to Donald. “Who is this?”

  Rick glanced up and shrugged. “Dunno, some broad he knew I guess. A relative, maybe?”

  There was something that told me she wasn’t a relative. There was casualness in the woman’s posture and facial expression that signaled she might have been more to whoever took the picture. She had a medium complexion, thick auburn hair to her shoulders, and dark eyes. Her lips were curled into a combination smile/smirk, like an inside joke had been cracked just before the picture was snapped. The shot was from the waist up, and she wore a low cut shirt knotted just above her navel. Something about her seemed overtly sexual. The smile was more than a friendly one, the glint in her eyes telling yet mysterious. The picture had been taken in what appeared to be a kitchenette of sorts; the woman leaned against a counter. The setting was not familiar. I showed the picture to Donald. “You know who she is?”

  He took it and studied it a moment, then shook his head in the negative.

  Rick found an old Walkman and a handful of cassettes amidst the clothing. “Anybody want these?”

  “This is just too morbid,” Donald sighed.

  “Yeah, please, Rick. I’m begging you, man, let’s roll.” I felt like a buzzard picking through a carcass, gnawing scraps of meat from human bones.

  He tossed the items aside and began stuffing everything back into the duffel when a small package fell free. We watched as it bounced soundlessly along the mattress, and as it came to rest, Rick scooped up a shopworn nylon appointment book and planner. After a quick inspection, he realized it was zipped shut, but as he opened it several papers and things fell free. “Jesus, it’s stuffed.”

  “Probably left over from his job,” I said.

  Rick smiled and it struck me as obscene to do that here. But I saw that one of the things drawing his attention was a sports card in a plastic holder that had fallen free. He picked it up and looked at it a while. “It’s his Bobby Orr rookie,” he said. “I’m surprised douche bag upstairs didn’t snag it and sell it. He must’ve missed it.”

  Rick stuffed the miscellaneous papers back into the planner and zi
pped it shut, but his eyes remained locked on the card. For the first time there was something in Rick’s eyes beyond the usual. “Hey, you guys mind if I keep this?”

  Before I could answer Donald dropped a hand on Rick’s shoulder and said, “I’m sure Bernard would’ve wanted you to have it.”

  Rick held his smile and gave a slow nod.

  “Definitely,” I agreed. “Now please, let’s go, all right?”

  Rick stuffed the card in his jacket and Donald hung onto the photographs. It was then that I realized I had nothing, so I grabbed the planner, tucked it under my arm and explained I’d just as soon go through it later.

  In a way, leaving that cellar was like saying goodbye to Bernard for the first time. Since it was something none of us had been given the opportunity to do except in dreams, we stood quietly at the foot of the stairs, finally able to take it all in, even the rafter he’d been found hanging from. Now that we understood its finality, for the first time it seemed like it was truly over, like Bernard really was dead and gone, and the time for quiet mourning and contemplation, fond memories and moving on had arrived.

  In our own ways, we made our peace with that horrible little cellar, then headed back up the stairs. But like the tangible entity it often is, darkness followed.

  It was far from finished with us.

  CHAPTER 3

  Nobody said much on the way back to Potter’s Cove, and that was probably best. The rain continued to pour from dark skies while the three of us, together yet apart, retreated into ourselves for the ride. I considered bringing up the lie Bernard had told about being a Marine but there seemed little point, and along with the nightmare, I pushed it away and remembered happier times instead.

  Before I knew it, we were back in the diner parking lot.

  Rick parked but left the engine running and the wipers going. “I gotta get home and get some sleep.”

  “Me too,” Donald said softly.

  I believed Rick but knew Donald would first stop at a bar or package store and hide out with a bottle for a while. Had he leveled with me I’d have joined him, but since he didn’t I tucked the planner inside my jacket and prepared for the sprint to my car. “I’ll call you guys,” I said absently.

  “Why do you suppose he stayed in the basement?”

  Rick glanced at me, then away, just before I looked over the seat at Donald. “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t he stay upstairs?” Donald stared at me as if I knew the answer and had refused to share it with him. “Why would you have your own cousin sleep in that terrible little space when you could just as easily put him up on the couch?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it was just easier to—”

  “Why? Why would you do that?”

  “Donald, I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t like that fucker,” Rick said.

  “You don’t like anybody,” I reminded him.

  He shook his head, the dangle earring dancing as if alive. “Nah, there was something about him, something not right. Almost like the whole thing with Bernard scared him.”

  “Well shit, finding someone hanging in your basement is frightening stuff,” I said.

  “I don’t mean like that. It was like he was scared having Bernard living there, so he put him down in the cellar, out of the way.”

  “Why would he be afraid of Bernard? No one was afraid of Bernard.”

  “What about this business with the Marines?” Donald asked suddenly. “Why would Bernard lie about such a thing? It makes no sense, I can’t figure it out.”

  Neither could I, but I was relatively certain we wouldn’t solve it right then and there. I rubbed my eyes, a vague headache had settled behind them. “Listen, we all need some rest.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t slept since yesterday afternoon and I have to work tonight,” Rick sighed. “Let’s hook up in a couple days and have dinner or something.”

  “Sounds good.” I looked into the back. “You going to be OK, Donald?”

  His eyes darkened and I wasn’t sure if I’d unintentionally struck a nerve or if there was something he wanted to tell me but for whatever reason couldn’t. “Of course.”

  “Drive carefully,” Rick said. “Nasty out there.”

  “See you guys soon.” I pushed open the door and darted into the rain.

  * * *

  A coastal town south of Boston, Potter’s Cove had once been a prosperous mill town, but as with the rest of its storied past, the economic affluence the town had once enjoyed was now little more than a vague memory.

  Main Street housed an array of inexpensive eateries, independently owned shops and a number of empty storefronts. Several enormous buildings sat boarded up along the northern part of town—reminders of a former status only the elderly could recall with clarity. A clothing manufacturer and a national department store giant employed more than five hundred residents, but Potter’s Cove was mostly comprised of working-class folks who had no choice but to seek employment elsewhere.

  I drove across town, turned onto the main drag and parked behind a local pizza joint. Once out of the car, I hesitated and looked out at the train tracks and water beyond—the cove, as it were. I watched a pair of ducks glide along the surface, oblivious to the rain, and was suddenly confronted with the memory of my mother. Before her death several years prior, we’d stood together on that very spot countless times, feeding the ducks and talking quietly about whatever came to mind.

  I thought of her often in winter.

  I climbed the battered staircase at the rear of the building and slipped into the apartment. The building itself was a two-story zoned for both commercial and residential occupants. One half of the first floor housed the most popular pizza place in town; the other had sat vacant for more than three years. Our apartment constituted the entire second floor, and while it was safe and passably comfortable, we’d lived there for more than a decade. It was to be our “first” apartment. Twelve years later we still hadn’t moved into our second, and unless we hit the lottery the idea of ever having an actual house was, at best, a wild fantasy.

  The apartment was dark but for a lamp on an end table in the den. I put Bernard’s planner on the coffee table, shook rainwater from my jacket, hung it in the closet and went looking for Toni.

  I found her in the kitchen standing at the sink, staring through the double windows overlooking the fire escape. I wasn’t certain she knew I was there, so I moved deeper into the room, my weight causing the floor to creak. Shadows wrestled with the sparse bright patches filtering through the windows, cloaking her profile in alternate bands of light and dark. She still hadn’t turned to look at me, but I could tell from her expression that she knew I was there. Her eyes blinked slowly; gazed at the row of clay pots on the fire escape.

  “In a few weeks it’ll be spring,” she said, wiping her hands with a dishrag.

  “Can’t come fast enough.”

  “For me either.” She draped the folded towel over the faucet. “I’m going to plant some herbs this year. Parsley maybe. It’s been so long I can’t even remember what it’s like to have a yard…an actual garden, but…”

  As her voice trailed off into silence I went to the cupboard, grabbed a mug and poured myself some coffee from what was left in the pot. “I can’t believe you’re giving me shit today. I do the best I can, Toni.”

  She finally turned from the window and leaned back against the sink. “That wasn’t a slam.” Suddenly she was wide-eyed and innocent. “Not everything is, you know.”

  I sipped my coffee. Lukewarm piss. “Think I’ll take a shower.”

  “Do you want breakfast?” she asked. “I have to run to the store but we have some eggs.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was only a little after eleven but seemed much later. “No, I’m all set. I just want to get clean and sit down, go through some of Bernard’s things I brought home.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “We’ve got some questions, but I suppose
that’s always the case when someone takes their own life.” I reached around her and poured the coffee into the sink then put the mug on the counter. She smelled vaguely of coconut and some other soap-induced scent I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “You’re not surprised he did it, are you?”

  She recognized it as more statement than question but responded with a subtle nod anyway. “I’m sorry he did it,” she said softly, “but not surprised.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sometimes life is harsh. Not everyone’s cut out for it.”

  “You never really liked Bernard much.”

  “I didn’t know him that well.”

  I studied her eyes. “You’re an awful liar.”

  She left the counter and strolled to the table. “Let’s not do this, OK?”

  “You knew him for years too.”

  “And I’m sorry he died, Alan.” She snatched her purse from one of the kitchen chairs, slung it over her shoulder and faced me. “But you asked me if I was surprised. No, I’m not. Bernard was a strange guy. He lived at home with his mother until she died, he never had a girlfriend or any sort of relationship I know of with a woman—a man or anything else for that matter. He sold cars for a living without ever seeming to realize he was a walking caricature of a used car salesman, and while he could be sweet and was never anything but nice to me we both know he had a penchant for stretching the truth and being evasive. There was something inherently creepy about him, Alan.”

  She was right and I could think of nothing to say in his defense.

  “He was also very sad,” she continued. “You could see it in his eyes, if you bothered to look for it.”

  “Right,” I said, glaring at her now. “If only I’d bothered.” The nightmare had crept back into my mind and I was weakening against its resolve. I’d always had nightmares—even as an adult—but nothing like this, nothing that refused to let go even once I was fully awake. My hands were shaking again and I felt for a moment like I might collapse. I gripped the counter as casually as I could and felt my weight shift against it. Toni stood staring at me with those big brown eyes, the natural curves of her figure concealed beneath a baggy cotton sweat suit.