Shadowplays

by W. D. Gagliani

  Then he mocked me, makin’ a face, and went on and on about my freak bird.

  So, when I couldn’t stand it any more I sapped him but good behind the ear and he went down like a sack of elephant shit. I turned around and there was Graken, all twenty inches of him, standin’ at the door - a tv lookin’ blue behind him in the other room - a real gleam in his slitted eyes.

  I nodded. “Looks like dinner.”

  Maybe Jerry was good for somethin’, after all, I thought as Graken began the matin’ dance that would end with a pile of jagged bones and human gristle in the middle of the blue motel carpet.

  I turned away, though.

  Some things you just don’t get used to, know what I mean?

  *

  “I remember like it was yest’day the day I hooked up with Graken,” I say to the hick sittin’ next to me at the scraped-up excuse for a bar they call the Beckon-Inn, “and I’d be sure glad to tell you about it if you’d set there a spell and mebbe spot me a shot or three of whatever you’re drinkin’.”

  * * *

  DEEP TUNNEL

  Published in SHADOWPLAYS (1st edition)

  1

  Just keep moving the legs. Slow and steady.

  Breathe.

  Exhale.

  Watch the bubbles form a halo then melt into the liquid darkness.

  The womb is long and narrow, the water blood-black and cold.

  Cold.

  Cold, seeping through the neoprene and gently caressing my skin like skeletal fingers.

  The tunnel stretches ahead, cold and dark. The water smells decayed, even though the facemask covers my nostrils with a sure rubber seal. It can’t prevent the stench from seeping through like the cold. A voice whispers in my right ear.

  “Jimbo, where you at?”

  I shake my head slightly to clear it, then exhale again, letting the bubbles burst like tiny explosions around me. They don’t have anywhere to go, the bubbles, since the ceiling is only a couple feet above me. Pipes hang like limp bones above, and some of the bubbles catch in the cracks between the pipes and the cinderblock ceiling.

  “Huh,” I say. I fumble with the laminated map that hangs from my weightbelt. Stalling. Knowing I haven’t been paying attention. Knowing that Rich is biting his fingernails like he always does when I’m on some weird job. Which is just about every day. That’s his job, the worry. Mine’s the swimming. I figure it out just then, the lines on the map forming into a familiar pattern.

  “Just past the men’s can,” I breathe into the tiny microphone. My cheeks are squeezed by the full-face mask, but I can still form words well enough for him to understand.

  “That’s it? That’s as far as you got? You’re not even inside the fucking tunnel yet! Get it on, would ya? We’re getting paid by the hour here.”

  “Easy for you to say.” The word say comes out shay.

  I’m hovering in the black water, nearer to the ceiling than the floor thanks to a slightly malfunctioning flotation vest, and somehow I feel strange. Watched. Thirty fucking feet under the ground in a flooded tunnel, and my skin’s crawling - and it’s not the cold, though it’s that too and I’m still at the edge, no telling what’s ahead.

  I look at the map. So many fucking doors.

  “Going in,” I say into the mike. I kick and the fins take me deeper. I’m suddenly afraid.

  But I go in anyway, like I always do.

  2

  The car feels sluggish under my hands, the way a grocery cart with one rattly wheel feels as you swerve it between the aisles. But that’s how a jacked-up GTO with four-barrel and four-on-the-floor is supposed to feel after a few beers.

  Next to me is Shelley. Shelley’s a tiny blonde who dresses provocatively and chainsmokes through rock concerts. She has no breasts, but always opens her mouth while kissing to make up for the lack. And her big nipples poke through the sheer tops and halters. She’s sitting close, as close as my shifting allows, and her hand’s in my crotch. Her tongue’s in my ear making delicious little circles.

  “We almost there, Jimmy?” she whispers into my ear. Her tongue is molten desire on my flushed earlobe.

  I don’t bother to tell her to look for herself. This is not something you do when some chick’s pressing your buttons in just the right sequence. “Sure,” I say and it comes out strangled. Now her tongue is leaving a sheen of saliva on my neck. “We’ll be right there.”

  We’re driving County CC, a twisty little stretch of tar and gravel that forms about half the shortcut to my apartment in Clarkston. Pretty soon the second half of the shortcut’s going to come up and twenty minutes later I’ll find out if what they say about Shelley is true.

  I glance down and see her long fingers splayed out over my jeans, her painted nails black in the dim light of the speedometer. Some stupid song comes to mind, but I can’t remember all the words - something about a dashboard light. Right now there’s just too much on my mind. Too much beer, too much vodka, too much car, too much Shelley.

  “I need it so bad,” she whispers so’s I can hardly hear. “I need it so bad I could die.”

  Now I know that this is the same Shelley that wouldn’t look at me just a week ago. The same Shelley who told Rhonda and the rest of their sleazy friends that she’d die if she ever had to touch me, zits and all. Now here she is eating me alive and talking about dying if she doesn’t. My zits don’t bother her now, I guess, cause her tongue’s lapping behind my ear where I’m always scratching and flaking.

  We’re almost there. My headlights pick out the signs:

  Clarkston Stoneworks, Cal’s Diner - Trukers Welkome, Ronson AutoBody 3 mi., and SLOW. The cluster of chipped signs seems to waver as I pull up even, then disappears behind us and we’re in the homestretch and my mind’s confused with pictures of what I’ve heard about Shelley and I’m in those pictures but all fuzzy-like because I can picture it but I can’t quite see it, know what I mean?

  So then when she screams into my ear the first thing I notice is that the sound destroys my right eardrum, and the second is that there’s a semi in our lane with all his lights on and the driver’s door open, and a car’s just pulling even with him but facing us and that means I got nowhere to go so I jerk the wheel roughly to the right hoping to stop right behind the semi and the gravel of the shoulder feels like soap under the mag wheels and then we’re spinning into the rusted chainlink fence all overgrown with weeds and her hand grabs onto me down below and squeezes and -

  3

  Those damned pipes hang above me like stretched-out arms. Valves cast hand-like shadows, so it’s like I’m entering a nest of rippling narrow limbs. The shivers go through me again, the kind you get just after pissing. The thought brings a burning sensation from my groin and I surrender.

  Fuck it, who’ll know? I think of the useless toilets and urinals in the men’s can next to me and, three meters further, the women’s, their doors slightly ajar in the current, and I thank God for the full-face rubber.

  Still, the sensation of urinating in the water brings shame, like when you do it in the neighbor’s pool and the water’s so clear you imagine everyone can see the cloud as it spreads from your trunks. The momentary warmth turns as cold as the rest of the water and your face flushes, and then the deed is done and you feel foolish.

  Breathe, I remind myself. In. Out.

  The rattle of the regulator is loud in my ears. Reassuring. Life itself.

  I think I can hear Rich breathing in my earphone, but I can’t be sure if it’s him or an echo of my own breath. I always play this game, try to trap the breaths into admitting they belong to Rich, but I usually give up because they seem to belong to someone in the water instead.

  The women’s restroom door swings sedately, in and out, just like my breaths. It’s dark behind the door, even darker than in the tunnel itself. Too many fucking doors in this tunnel. The halo from my headlamp just barely reaches the door, and I glimpse its movement from the corner of my eye -

  “Jesus!”
<
br />   “What?”

  “Oh, Christ,” I gasp into the mike. “Shit.”

  “What the fuck’s going on?” Rich is yelling now, his voice crackling in my ear. “Jimbo!”

  I gather some saliva and wet the inside of my mouth. It still feels like asphalt.

  “Okay, Rich. I’m okay.”

  Breathe. In. Out.

  “What the hell? Where are you?”

  “Any people caught in this thing?”

  “What?”

  I open my mouth carefully and form each word slowly. “Were any fucking people caught down here? Anyone trapped in the tunnel when the main blew?”

  “Huh, no one reported missing.”

  I know his official voice when I hear it, even over the damn bud in my ear. “Jesus, what the fuck’s that mean? Could there have been someone -”

  “Look, I don’t know, Jimbo. No word from this end.”

  I can imagine the greasy suits shaking their heads urgently as my voice leaks out of the speaker. No bad publicity for the university, at least not yet. No one reported missing. A very minor crisis. Nothing for the evening papers or broadcasts.

  Except …

  “- have been in the tunnel. Should’ve been empty. Did you find something?”

  Voice carefully modulated. Exploratory. Let’s not jump into this, Jimbo. Let’s make sure the corpse is a corpse, call a spade a spade, whatever that means. Translation: you’d better get your fins over there and check it out, buddy, that’s what you’re there for. But don’t talk about what you don’t see. Symptom: a subject change. Over to you, Jimbo.

  I backpaddle a little and turn in the narrow space. Then I remember that the space isn’t all that narrow, just the perimeter of my light. In a second I’m back in front of the swinging door. It’s closed, just now, but I can see it about to open again.

  As if someone’s hand is wrapped around the big stainless steel handle on the other side.

  It swings open a few more inches and I can’t tear my eyes away.

  I’m a little kid again, entranced by the magic show. Like the other neighborhood kids, but not as much as Petey Rondelli - whose big blue eyes stare at the street magician with unconcealed awe and trust, whose mutilated and molested young body is found the next day stuffed in a culvert three blocks from my house.

  I can’t tear my eyes away from that door.

  A cold current streams past me in the murky water, and the shiver it brings snaps me out it.

  “Jimbo -” And the rest is lost in static.

  Then the door starts moving again, opening slowly like a huge vertical mouth. The image jolts my brain and I’m seeing Shelley’s pink lips parting seductively. It’s the same picture I’ve often conjured up late at night, but never while on the job. Why now, after all this time?

  Breathe.

  Her teeth nibble and her lids blink slowly as she gazes up at me.

  I feel a stirring in the groin of my wetsuit.

  Bubbles rush past me and I’m hovering in front of the door, in the flooded tunnel again.

  But Christ, I’m just about touching the damned door with a shaking hand. I don’t remember getting here.

  4

  Cold, shocking cold. The water pours into the open windows and the shattered windshield, through which I can make out the buckled metallic-blue hood by the light of the brights, which are still burning fiercely. Shelley’s steel-like grip on me loosens as we feel ourselves plunge straight downward, into the depths of the quarry, until a jarring stop starts to settle us onto the roof. I open my eyes to slits and see that the right front of the car seems buried in silt, lights glowing like a huge lava lamp, and then I’m aware of Shelley’s claw-like fingers digging into my leg, her eyes wide with fear and her mouth gaping, tiny bubbles streaming out.

  And I know she’s seconds from dying, even while my body is carefully storing enough air to reach the surface - hell, I’ve dived the quarry dozens of times before, with and without scuba gear, and even though my car’s a waterlogged wreck I know we can both survive if I just pull her out the side window and head for the surface.

  Shelley, sweet Shelley. Is it all true? I wonder, as time slows down and I gaze into her shocked eyes, if sweet Shelley with the reputation would have let me enjoy her body. Or would she have done what all the guys whisper behind her back she’s raised to an art-form? Would my flesh have known hers, her lips, her pointed nipples? Or would she have caused as much physical agony as possible only to withdraw her slender, red-tipped fingers and laugh hysterically as my face reddened and the bulge in my jeans rapidly dwindled in shame?

  Now I gaze into her crazed eyes, black in the dark and

  glowing water, and in the fraction of a second see that she would have stroked me to a fever only to douse me with water icier than that which surrounds us. Her high school friends would have roared over the college boy’s humiliation.

  She regains enough of her senses in the last few seconds to note that I am conserving my breath and making no move toward the open windows. Large goose-bumps stand out on her tanned arms, now as gnarled as carved wood. She tries to push past me, out the driver’s side, as if she could save us both, but I maneuver and - locking my feet into the steering wheel - block her way. Then she tries her side, bottle-blonde hair a halo in the brackish water, and I grab her clothes from behind and pull her toward me.

  Hands slapping uselessly at my face and feet rapping

  against the roof with muffled thumps, she twists desperately in my grasp. In her eyes is understanding as well as fear, and I savor both.

  Her mouth opens then, maybe to scream, and her last few breaths escape in a single burst and she goes limp in my hands. Her eyes roll upward until her pupils disappear.

  I wait as long as I can, until my lungs ache, then drag her rag-like through the side window. The surface is a dark mirror above. Below, the lights wink out and the GTO is gone.

  5

  In. Out.

  Jesus, I’m breathing too fast. Check the gauge. Not low, not yet.

  Crackling in my ear.

  The door swings some more, and I start inside. A straining at the crotch of my wetsuit distracts me before I can push the door aside.

  A fluttery hand suddenly touches my shoulder and I’m shot like a cannonball into the ceiling and pipes, and bubbles explode around my head as my body’s twisted by the gripping fingers.

  My mouth open and screaming and my legs flailing emptily into the darkness of the tunnel and then my headlamp blinks and in a split second I see a thin rope floating in front of me.

  I follow it up with numb hands and it’s tied around one of those pipes. Just a piece of rope. Probably been there for years. The lamp frames the door of the ladies’ can and it’s closed now. I reach out and push, but there’s no give.

  My head clears a little and there’s Rich, shouting incoherently into his mike.

  “Everything’s okay,” I say over his squawking. Throat dry. A scratchy sound. “I’m okay.”

  Eventually I’m listening to his famous lecture. Be careful. Give me a play-by-play. He doesn’t ask - why did I scream like a madman and refuse to answer his frantic calls. I know why. We’re getting paid by the hour, and the suits are worried about straining their bloated budgets.

  A last look at the door (still closed) and I’m off again.

  Breathe.

  I wonder briefly what brought Shelley and Petey back for me and shake my head. Nitrogen narcosis happens at much greater depths. Why are their images so vivid?

  Check the gauge. How long is this damn tunnel, anyway?

  I adjust the flot vest’s trim, but it’s still acting up so I drop a little toward the floor. When I kick off again, I feel my fins brushing the tiles on the downstroke.

  “Are we back on track?” Rich’s voice is strained and cigarette-laced.

  “On track.” I check the map in the light beam and let my feet do the work, carrying me deeper into the gallery. Ten meters ahead is a ninety-degree bend in the t
unnel, a dead Coke machine standing guard in the corner like a lonely sentry. A long bulletin board covers one wall, with tacked announcements and fliers curling into gaudy parchment.

  I squeeze past, careful not to catch the tank harness or regulator hose on the soda machine. I turn right, the only direction available.

  A series of doors is next, six per side, each an oblong shadow.

  “Coming to the offices now,” I say. All those fucking doors.

  Rich crackles an answer I don’t catch.

  6

  My head breaks surface. A flashlight beam sweeps the water nearby, and I drag Shelley into its fluid circle.

  “Get help. Quick.” Steely water sloshes in and out of my mouth.

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry-”

  “I’ll get her out. Just shut up and go get help. She’s not breathing, goddamit!”

  “Should I leave the flashlight?”

  “Fuck the flashlight.”

  He hurries away, through the hole the GTO tore in the

  fence. I grasp a handful of Shelley’s clothes and slowly stroke toward the limestone ledge, from which I’ve dived countless times. Shelley’s a tiny little thing, but so waterlogged that her dead weight seems doubled. The water’s still cold, but I’m used to it now and get more of a chill from the night air. Gasping for breath, I heave Shelley onto the ledge. Her body makes a squishy sound, like a bundle of soggy newspaper ready for the dump.

  I climb out of the water and gaze at the road. The guy’s semi is still there, but he’s nowhere in sight. Good luck waving down some dipshit driver. Most good people in this county wouldn’t stop for Jesus himself.

  Standing there, the cold night air brushing my skin, I see that Shelley’s mouth is frozen in a silent scream and her eyes are open and glazing. Her nipples are hard and the halter has slipped off one breast. I feel a surging in my groin and then I’m on her, tearing my nails on her sodden jeans and ripping the halter off completely. Her right nipple is a solid button in my mouth and I can feel the surge coming. It crests, burning. Then I slide off and wipe myself, hitching up my waterlogged pants. The same cold air that raises goosebumps on my skin ruffles her wet hair listlessly, and I’m staring into her dead pupils and feeling something like glee.