“Well, there you go.” She raised her hands, palms up, then let them fall and slap against the outside of her thighs. “You both had a dream where Bernard came to visit you. In both, he wasn’t alone. In both, he had come to say goodbye, and in Donald’s he said he had gone to see you. Is that the size of it or did I leave something out from what you’ve told me?”
“No,” I sighed, “that’s it.”
“Just like lots of other people, you had similar dreams. Similar, Alan, not identical—and I’m not saying that isn’t sometimes a little unsettling in itself—but there’s nothing unique or even unusual about it.” She returned to the counter to fuss with the salad. “Besides, when you two discussed this Donald was blasted out of his mind. Add to that the fact that you’re exhausted and haven’t slept or eaten and the two of you are still dealing with the shock and stress and emotional turmoil of the death of someone you loved, and you’ve got a situation that would almost certainly blur your sense of what’s real—or more importantly, accurate—and what isn’t.”
“You’re—yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s just…” I shook my head both in confusion and in the hopes of clearing it a bit. “Neither of us had a good feeling about it. It wasn’t like a nice, reassuring dream. This was a nightmare.”
“Well if one of your best friends was dead in it, of course it’s a nightmare, sweetie.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I was wringing my hands without even realizing it; my palms had again begun to perspire. “There was a darkness to it, a sense of—I know this sounds silly, but—a sense of evil to it. It was like Bernard was going to Hell.”
Toni covered the salad with plastic foil and slid it into the refrigerator. “Honey, Bernard committed suicide, and it was a total shock to you guys. What’s worse, he didn’t even leave a note explaining or maybe shedding some light on why he did it. It’s a horrible and hideous and painful thing.” She looked at me, compassion in her eyes. “You probably feel some guilt—which is wrong but inevitable—and you have confusion and anger and God knows how many other emotions all boiling to the surface at once. What happened is a dark and evil thing, and you’re dealing with it, working through it, trying to make sense of it. That’s all, Alan—and that’s enough—but that’s all.”
Something similar to a smile twitched across my lips. “Not bad.”
“Can’t work for a shrink for ten years and not learn a couple things.” She grinned, but it left her quickly. “Death is a huge factor in a lot of the cases Gene sees.”
Toni worked as a secretary for a psychiatrist in town with a private practice, and had learned quite a bit about human nature in her tenure there. Unlike my rent-a-cop gig, which I loathed, she had a job she genuinely enjoyed, where she got along with and was respected by her boss. Still, if there had ever been a person who should have continued their education beyond high school, it was Toni. She’d always had tremendous interest in psychology, and though I’d encouraged her to take some courses over the years, she never had. Whatever small bit of extra money we had always went directly into the “house fund,” a savings account she’d set up right after our honeymoon. It grew at such an anemic rate we were consistently three or four hundred years away from ever owning a home, but she never closed it out or lost faith. In many ways it reminded me of our marriage, and why despite our failings, she remained with me.
Certainly her physical beauty had lured me originally, and although we were the same age she looked considerably younger than I did and had maintained not only her figure but a good deal of the vibrancy of her teenage years. Still, her visceral advantages aside, it was the genuine connection between us that kept our relationship afloat. I knew better than anyone that I had not become the provider she’d expected—that I was trapped in the same lowly security guard job I’d held since right after high school—and that after twelve years of marriage odds were I probably wouldn’t ever do anything else. For Toni, that was a realization she had accepted and learned to deal with long before I had, and at the end of the proverbial day, she’d chosen to stay.
It was something neither of us had ever voiced, but we were both somewhat disappointed in each other, in the often-monotonous routine our lives had become and in the robotic patterns we executed day in and day out. But there was comfort here, safety, trust, and there was something to be said for those things. Familiarity and reliability had replaced the passion that weakened after the first few years of marriage, and instead of panting lovers we were steady companions, friends, sound and dependable roommates who now and then made love, as if mistakenly.
“Not everyone can handle death,” I heard her say. “Most can’t. But it touches us all.”
That was true, of course, but I’d come to believe Death had his favorites. In my thirty-seven years, death had not only visited my life far too frequently, it had been there from the very start, as if gleefully lying in wait for the carnage to begin, when my father, a mason, was killed in a construction accident only weeks after I was born. While still in high school, Tommy had been struck by a negligent driver and killed right before my eyes. Toni’s parents had both died while still in their fifties, her father from a sudden heart attack and her mother from the same only a year later. My mother had suffered a series of strokes and died in my arms not long after. And now Bernard had taken Death’s hand and stepped off the edge as well. It all seemed so pointless—arbitrary—as Donald had called it, yet I had to believe that somewhere a cogent reason, a plan of sorts did exist amidst the mayhem.
“Look, dinner’s not going to be ready for a while yet,” Toni said. “Why don’t you go lay down and get some rest?”
I stood up, took her by the waist and pulled her close. Her arms found my shoulders and she looked up at me with a smile, but I could feel the tension in her body rise. I was willing to at least entertain what she’d said as fact—I was exhausted and my judgement probably was fogged—but I still couldn’t shake the fear. “I just have a strange feeling about all this.”
“You’re probably worried about Donald,” she said, stroking my neck with warm fingers.
“Well, that too.” I held her tight. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” After another quick kiss, she removed my hands and flashed a behave-yourself smile. “Now go take a nap.”
* * *
This time my sleep was dreamless. I barely remembered crawling onto the couch, but that’s where I was when Toni woke me more than an hour later. I emerged from the dark gradually, like a diver rising toward the surface in a slow and steady glide through murky water. For the first time in recent memory I slipped away from sleep as if unnoticed, instead of being jolted then torn from its grip. Still, it felt foreign to come up out of sleep without feeling the warmth of Toni’s body against my own. In those few seconds before I truly understood where I was, I reached out blindly for her but caught only air and a quick glimpse of her as she moved away, back toward the kitchen.
I lay there a moment, eyes again closed. Toni had turned the stereo on and was playing a CD; tranquil piano tunes tinkling softly from nearby speakers. A steady wind and periodic bursts of rain spraying the windows distracted me from the concert, but it was the sudden vision of Bernard—his face gawking at me as if pasted to the inside of my eyelids—that forced me into a sitting position. I drew a slow breath, released it, and pawed at my eyes.
We ate at the kitchen table; small talk interspersed with the occasional clang of silverware against plates, the muted sound of chewing and the seemingly endless downpour drenching the world outside. The meal was delicious, the conversation somewhat guarded. We were both reluctant to pursue the topics we’d discussed earlier, though I’m sure for different reasons. Toni was able to stay removed from it all—and no doubt found it easier that way—while I felt too connected, more level-headed than before, perhaps, but still unable to evade the fear, despite her solutions and explanations. Something was happening, or was about to happen, or perhaps had already happened, but something wa
s going on; there was more to the nightmares and unshakable sensations of dread than Toni was willing to consider or I was able to realize. Of that much, I was certain.
After dinner Toni curled up on the couch with a novel and I went off to the bedroom with Bernard’s planner and the photograph of the woman I had taken from Donald’s apartment. Sitting on the foot of the bed, I went through the planner, searching the scribbles and notes for anything unusual, anything that might stand out. I found nothing out of the ordinary, and other than the photograph, nothing that would raise even remote suspicion. I slipped the picture inside the planner, zipped it shut and put it on my nightstand.
“Was that Bernard’s?”
I saw Toni in the doorway. She’d changed into her bunny slippers and a pair of satin pajamas. The light from a lamp on the nightstand cast her in a subtle yellow glow. “Yeah.”
She looked beyond me to the window. “Is this rain ever going to stop?”
I’d always loved rain, found it more peaceful than depressing. “I hope not.”
“You’re so weird.” She smiled, revealing great teeth.
“Yeah, but you love me.”
She shrugged. “You’re OK.”
I laughed, and it felt wonderful. Like the nightmares, it was disruptive, but in a positive way. A dull and uninteresting life suddenly interrupted by death, suicide, bad dreams, or nothing more than simple heartfelt laughter, existence seemed so easily jarred, so amazingly fragile. I watched her there in the doorway, beautiful and alive, and wondered if I was losing my mind. “Come here.”
Her smile drifted away. “We’re both tired, Alan.”
My heart sank, as it always did, and I could only hope my expression hadn’t betrayed me. “Awful early to sleep.”
“You need to rest.”
“I need…” My voice faded into oblivion.
Toni moved across the room with a purposeful stride, crossed to the other side of the bed and turned down the blankets. “Come on, let’s snuggle a while.”
It felt nice beneath the covers, our bodies cuddled together, arms and legs and fingers and toes touching; her cheek nestled against me in the curve where neck meets shoulder, her breath a warm and steady pulse on my chest. With the wind and rain raging so near, we lay still, silent and undisturbed in the serene eye of the storm. Like lovers.
Dim, but not wholly dark, the room was still awake too, shadows and phantom lights gliding along its walls and ceiling, writhing ghosts slinking from hiding places, beckoning night.
Toni shifted and let out a soft mewling sound. I slid my hand from her back to her shoulder, then down across her breast. She tensed immediately. “Alan, don’t ruin it.”
I stroked her hair instead, brushing renegade strands back and away from her forehead, my eyes closed, welcoming memories of the night my mother died.
We’d been in this same bed, in this same room, probably in this same position, until I’d slipped down between her breasts, nuzzling and kissing them, in need of that warmth. But when I took one of her nipples between my lips, Toni pushed me away. “Stop,” she’d whispered, as if someone might hear. “For God’s sake—now?” What had never occurred to her, what she’d never understood, was that at that moment, that exact and spontaneous moment, I needed to feel strong and masculine and sexual and alive. For her, making love was somehow inappropriate just hours after the death of my mother. For me, it was an essential expression of enduring love, our love, the love that would survive and define and support and protect us both.
Our sex life had not been the same since. Now, more often than not, Toni was disinterested, preferring to snuggle, as if anything more was distasteful, a destroyer of an otherwise wonderful moment. And when we did make love, it was almost always as studied as the other routines we’d come to know so well. Where the sexually charged woman I’d married had gone, I couldn’t say. She wasn’t talking. And I’d stopped asking long ago.
She sat up a bit, looking back at me with an angelic glow. “Tomorrow morning we’ll do something, OK? But tonight let’s just—”
I pulled her close, nibbled her neck. As her head fell back against the pillow she slammed shut her eyes, and I knew I’d lost her. Had never really had her, I suppose. I kissed her gently, without passion, and felt her body relax.
“When did we become these people?” I asked.
She gazed at me with what could only be devotion, stroked the dark hair in the center of my chest and whispered, “Go to sleep, my love.”
And when I did, Bernard was waiting for me.
CHAPTER 4
The shrieking whistle from the morning train slithering through the back of town awakened me with a start, as it did most Sundays. Only a few dozen yards from our apartment, the tracks squealed as the first train of the week transporting garbage from Cape Cod made its usual pass between seven and eight o’clock, giving the whistle a precautionary blow as it moved parallel to the street. It rumbled by, throttling the entire apartment in the process. Glassware and place settings rattled behind cupboard doors, and as I rolled from bed and planted my feet against the floor, I found it impossible to hide my amusement. The fact that most of the trains along this particular route only transported trash seemed darkly apropos. Even things generally associated with romance and intrigue were reduced to inelegant terms when crossing my path, as if indicative of the dismal nightmares haunting me.
The pizza place downstairs didn’t open for another couple hours, so none of the smells that normally invaded the apartment (no matter what we did to try and cover them) had seeped up through the floor yet. I sat there groggily for a moment, noticed it was still overcast and cloudy but the rain had stopped and the apartment was quiet. I looked back over my shoulder, the bed was empty, Toni’s spot a clump of wrinkled sheets.
Apparently, I’d slept through the night without incident, but I still felt worn out, as if perhaps I’d spent the night doing something else. Like lugging cement blocks. Or digging ditches.
The phone rang just as I made my way out of the bathroom, and Toni arrived holding the cordless a moment later. “It’s Nino,” she said, rolling her eyes.
I took the handset and sat on the bed. “Nino, what’s up?”
“Al,” my supervisor’s harried voice answered, “listen, man, I got a scheduling problem, need some help.”
In all the years I’d worked for Battalia Security, Nino Battalia, the owner’s brother and my direct supervisor, never called me at home for any other reason. “OK.” I sighed, glanced at Toni, who stood at the foot of the bed, hands on hips and head cocked. “I’m listening.”
“Craig called in sick, he won’t be in tonight.”
“The new kid?”
“Yeah, you know how these newbies can be. Says he’s sick—got a flu or some shit—I don’t give a rat’s ass what he got, you see what I’m saying? But the thing is, he’s covering Bantam Motors. I can’t piss them off, Al, that’s a nice account.”
I recognized the name as a car dealership in the south end of New Bedford, only blocks from where Bernard had killed himself. “First of all, that’s not the greatest neighborhood,” I said. “Second, that’s a nightshift gig.”
“Yes to both, but—”
“Come on, Nino. Jesus, I don’t do nights anymore, and I don’t do shit details. I’m senior guy. Besides, I just woke up. I would’ve stayed up and slept this afternoon if I knew you needed me tonight. I spend Sundays with my wife, dump it on somebody else.”
I could hear a big glass of Alka-Seltzer fizzing; Nino drank it like most people drank Pepsi. “Al, you think I called you first? I hit everybody on the roster, man, can’t nobody fill the shift. You’re the only one I ever been able to count on. You know that. Just cover this shift for me and you can take Monday off. I’ll toss a couple bucks extra in your check this week too, OK?”
“How much?”
“How’s twenty sound?”
“Like it’s not enough. Fifty, and I want cash.”
“Forty.”
“Nope, leave the piece home. Strictly stick on this one.”
“Good. You on tonight?”
“Yeah I’m working dispatch. I won’t be around on supervisor rounds though, so youse can all relax.” Nino gave a hearty laugh, which was interrupted by gulping sounds as he downed the Alka-Seltzer. “You need directions?”
“Nah, I know where it is. Report time?”
“In at eleven, out by seven.”
“Am I sitting in my car all night or what?”
“Nope, inside. They got a nice desk for you and everything.”
Toni crouched before me and rubbed my thigh. With the heat in my groin rising, I said, “OK. I’ll radio in tonight when I get settled.”
Her hand slipped beneath my underwear, and her fingers curled around my scrotum.
Nino was still babbling, thanking me when I hung up and tossed the phone aside. Toni already had my briefs down around my ankles. I watched her pull them off entirely, and spread my legs wider as my erection grew, reaching for her. One hand moved from the back of my calf to the inside of my thigh, the other gripped and slid me into her mouth. I moaned and held her head as I pumped slowly, timing my subtle thrusts with her motion.
I stroked her hair and leaned forward, draping myself over her and pumping harder as she increased the pressure and tightened her lips. “Jesus,” I gasped, but the words caught in my throat as she released me, still kneeling and just visible over the edge of the bed.
She laughed in a way that struck me as nearly dutiful, then flopped next to me on the bed, the mattress bouncing. My heart racing, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her over on top of me, but she pushed away and stood up.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said, straightening her pajamas.
I reached for my underwear and pulled them on over my dying erection. “This is fucking ridiculous, what is the problem?”
The Bleeding Season Page 5