by David Wood
“It seems everything I do in this stinking life is about reminding me of all the misery. Not just her death, but everything. I don’t know if I can keep it up. Sometimes I want to forget, but I can’t. I can’t do it.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” Trish kept on massaging the blemished and aching skin on her forearm.
Trish’s touch felt good, soothing. “Thanks for coming by and remembering my mom. That was totally unexpected. Not even Alma remembered, or he just didn’t bother to bring it up. And just so you know, I regret what happened at the tat joint.”
“Regrets only? You’re not sorry?”
Kelly shrugged, allowing a hint of smile to shine through her grief. “Fine. If you’re after a formal apology you’ll get it. I’m sorry. Really.”
Trish squeezed Kelly’s hand and let go. “I can’t stay. Mother wants to take me to Washington Square. Shopping night.”
“Ooh. Wouldn’t want to miss that.”
Trish threw her hands in the air, grinning. “That’s my world. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Go enjoy yourself. I’ll be fine.”
Trish walked through the arbor, her outline already starting to fade from sight as the tree lined sidewalk deepened the pre-twilight shade. She turned, waved and lifted her cell phone. “Call me later if you want.”
Kelly waved back and watched her friend round the corner. Seeing Trish had been a blessing. She felt a slight improvement in her mood, felt better equipped to handle the anniversary of her mother’s death.
Closing the front door behind her, she called out, “Alma? You home?” No answer. She sighed, feeling relieved. He was either working late or getting smashed at Rattigan’s Tavern a couple blocks away. Good. The more time she spent out of the ogre’s presence the better.
As she prepared to leap up the staircase the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Umm, Kelly? I’m calling for Kelly Sage.” The unconfident waver in the voice sounded familiar.
“Speaking.”
“Yeah, Kelly. This is-it’s Justin. Vandermeer.”
Her heart hiccuped. How did he get her number? “Oh. Why are you calling?” She took the cordless phone up to her bedroom, sprawling out on the red comforter.
“Oh, I just wanted to-I guess I didn’t want you thinking I gave you that brochure for religious reasons. I didn’t want you-uh-I’m not trying to convert you or anything like that.”
She almost laughed at his stumbling. “Don’t worry. I didn’t think anything of it. I haven’t even looked at it yet.”
“Oh sure. Well, when you get a chance…”
“Wait,” she said with more enthusiasm than she intended. “I have it right here.” She pulled the rolled up brochure out of her rear pocket.
“If you like strange things, a little mystery, I have one for you. Look at the artwork on page three.”
She opened the colorful brochure. Page three depicted several families, various races represented, performing varied tasks in a park-like setting. Some basked with lions and wolves, others picked trees laden with fruit and some worked on the construction of a farmhouse. Everyone wore ecstatic grins as if unhappy thoughts had ceased to exist.
“What is it?” Kelly asked. “Shangri-la?”
“No. That’s not what I want you to notice.” All traces of tension had vanished from his voice. He sounded excited, passionate, as if he was perched on the verge of a discovery that would change the shape of the world. “Check out the snow-capped mountains in the background. Take a real close look at the snow and tell me if you see anything strange.”
Kelly smiled. This distraction from Justin proved to be just what she needed to negate the negative emotions tied to the anniversary of her mother’s death. “I’m sorry. I don’t see it. What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“You don’t see anything out of the ordinary? Look at the cliff just below the mountain peak.”
She rolled onto her stomach and placed the brochure in front of her. “Wait. A face?”
“Yes.” his raised voice came across the phone line like a shout. “You see it don’t you? The alien head.”
She held the receiver away from her ear. “Yeah. I do. Why would they draw an alien head on the mountain?”
“Don’t know. That’s not all. On page eleven there’s a drawing of Jesus. Looks all kosher until you turn it upside down and look at the top of his head. See how his wavy hair suddenly becomes the face of the Devil? Totally weird. That’s not all, either. These hidden illustrations are in all of the literature. Tons of it.”
“How whacked. Who’s printing this stuff?”
“It comes from our religious headquarters. They have their own publishing operation. I just can’t figure out why the Subliminals are there.”
“Subliminals?”
“Yeah. That’s what I’ve named all the hidden art I’m discovering. The Subliminals. Fascinating stuff.”
“It sure is. Way cool, man.”
“I thought you might like it.”
Kelly detected smug satisfaction in his voice. As much as she enjoyed chatting with him and discovering the Subliminals, she didn’t want to be too encouraging, didn’t want him getting the wrong idea. Trish had warned her he was sweet on her.
“Hey Justin, thanks a lot for showing me this. I have to get going. I have to finish the chores before Alma gets home.”
“Alma being your dad?”
“Yes sir.” Feeling a little guilty about the lie, she added as an afterthought, “Hey. Next time I run into you at school I want to see more of this weird art, okay. Are you guys some satanic cult masquerading as Christians? Because that would be wicked.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Too bad. Okay, then. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Oh, sure.”
She hung up, rolled onto her back and examined the front of the brochure. Advertise The Paradise, published by Adonai’s Attestants. Who the hell were these people and how did Justin’s parents ever get involved with them?
She understood all too well how fringe groups could suck the disillusioned into their fold. Hadn’t she done the same with piercing. Piercing enthusiasts used to be considered a fringe group, one of the reasons she sought it out with manic devotion.
Lately, however, that had changed. Piercing, as well as tattooing, had wormed its way into mainstream culture. Downtown Portland represented the worst in that growing trend. She was willing to bet one in every five business people walking the urban parks during lunch hour sported a tattoo or piercing, or worse, one of each.
Setting the AA brochure aside, she jumped off the bed and opened her lamp stand drawer. She had forgotten about the other pamphlet. Two elderly ladies, dressed in conservative skirts and blouses, had come to her door four or five days ago. They had been so sweet and grandmotherly that she couldn’t refuse their offer. She had returned upstairs, deposited the brochure in the drawer and put it out of mind.
She took a good look at it now. The cover read Get To Know The Real Jesus. The art looked similar to the brochure Justin had given her. She flipped it over and read the publishing credits. Sure enough; Adonai’s Attestants. She thought it strange she had come into contact twice in one week with a fringe cult group.
She placed her head on her pillow. The long rough day caught up to her. Fiddling with her belly ring, as she often did to induce sleep, her thoughts became a kaleidoscope.
Images married with others, creating an unintelligible mosaic in her mind. Strange shapes she couldn’t interpret joined with others she could. She saw alien heads plastered with 20 gauge captive bead rings and studs. She saw Jesus rotate upside down, becoming the face of the Devil. The bizarre slide show repeatedly played in her mind until she drifted into sleep.
Perhaps it was the chaos of her thoughts, thinking of Justin’s Subliminals and the old lady proselytizers as she fell asleep, that caused the strange phenomenon that forced her awake with a start. One moment her eyes remained shut in
peaceful slumber, the next moment they shot wide open in panic.
She tried to sit up, her heart pounding, a roaring static in her ears. She couldn’t move. An incredible weight sat on her chest. She tried inhaling, but the weight continued crushing her lungs.
Alma. You bastard. Get off me.
How dare he accost her in the privacy of her bedroom. It gave her no time to bolster up a mental defense, no time to retreat to the unreachable recesses of her mind.
Up until this point the ogre had kept his perverted hands to himself. What had changed? See what happens when you forget to dress up as Gothic Lolita. A stupid thought, she knew, but she couldn’t shake it nonetheless.
She looked to her breasts, where the majority of the weight seemed to be distributed. Expecting to see Alma’s leering face, it surprised her to find nothing there.
What the Hell?
She felt awake, but her limbs refused to react to the will of her mind.
Come on, damn it. Move.
Still, her body remained paralytic. Only her eyes functioned. She again looked to see what was pinning her to the bed. If it wasn’t Alma what was it? With the help of the street light filtering through the bedroom window, the only thing she saw on her chest was the static font of the Waking The Cadaver shirt.
As far as she could determine nothing of a physical nature caused the crushing sensation. Yet her lungs fought for air and her body refused every imploring signal to move; to move anything. Not even her toes or fingers responded.
Her mind flashed back to the episode the other day. This was eerily similar, only this time there were no strange visions and creepy mechanical voices.
Only one option remained. She opened her mouth, but even a simple scream for help proved beyond her capacity.
Christ in a bucket. Why did this keep happening?
Without warning the incredible boulder weight lifted from her chest. The oxygen in the warm stuffy room had gone stale but she gulped it down as if it came from a crisp cool mountain breeze.
Shaking arms and legs to release any residual stress from her body, she jumped from the bed and flicked on the light. The soft illumination of the bulb couldn’t erase all her fears.
Eyes wide, she glanced around the room. Dark shadows no longer induced feelings of unease or disturbance. The calm of an early October night settled in, but even so she couldn’t shake her unease.
She had never experienced anything like these events. It shook her to her foundations. Her brain grasped at possibilities. She thought of the day before; the glowing static eyes, the scratchy voices, the man with colorful arms and his drill. Many possible explanations cascaded through her mind. Of all the theories, she latched onto one in particular. Something or someone was reaching out.
It terrified her, jangled her senses like the time she had watched a string of horror movies on Halloween night.
Her thoughts transitioned to William Hendricks, as they often did when she needed comfort in the middle of the night. He suffered episodic bouts of insomnia and could often be found lurking in his tat shop at odd hours.
No good could come from being alone all the time. She decided to pay him a midnight visit.
She thought back to her encounter with Justin Vandermeer and how she had judged him as a social outcast adrift in a sea of loneliness. Tonight, she felt as if she also drifted alone in that sea. That made three; Justin, William and herself.
No man is an island.
What a dumb ass. Obviously that poet had not met the three of them.
Putting on a black faux leather jacket with a belt strap waistline and chains in place of buttons, she left the house and caught the next bus to Inkenstein.
Chapter 7: Sodom’s Sideshow
William Hendricks stared out the clear glass of the front door, mentally willing one of the night owls roaming the streets to enter the parlor.
He could feel the thumping base from the nightclub a few doors down vibrating the dull wood floorboards. Most nights he could count on a few drunk strays, emboldened by liquor, to carry the excitement of the club over to his parlor.
They were always annoying with their raised voices and chumminess, bolstering their courage with back slaps and whoops of encouragement. Despite their bravado, most left with blips; tiny conservative ink jobs such as a musical note or someone’s initials that could easily be concealed behind an ear or underneath an article of clothing.
However, he would welcome any customer tonight. The Mother Mary ink job had lasted well into the early evening hours and Inkenstein had been closed all that time. Factoring in the cost of the Virgin’s blood, which had burned a huge hole in his pocket, William knew he definitely needed to make up for lost business.
He still hummed with excitement over his fresh ink. Every so often he lifted the gauze and stared at the striking portrait of Mother Mary clasping her hands. Chung had done a detailed job using mostly black and gray wash. Very faint hues of red streaked through the Virgin’s cheek as if she was either blushing or stimulated from her prayer with the Lord.
Although pleasing to look at, none of the tattoos on his skin had been done for cosmetic value only. He knew the potential power lying dormant under his skin, knew there had to be a way to activate the fusion of blood and ink married to his dermis.
Pushing a finger up under his tiny circular glasses, he rubbed his twitching left eye then looked down at the black magic tattoo book on his illustrated desk. He had read the text too many times to count. Try as he might he couldn’t grasp its meaning. It spoke of relying on self-discovery and intuition which to William sounded like an admission of ignorance.
So much power had been needled into his body; the reptilian scales of a Komodo dragon on his neck, Mother Mary on his right bicep, a Maltese knight on his left, the Grim Reaper above his navel and much more. Every single one of them remained useless, dormant as a doormat.
Frustrated, he banged his fists on the desk and glanced at the clock on the wall. 12:45. Not a single customer so far. Time to close shop and head back to his studio apartment off of 21st and Glisan.
Shrugging into his Inkenstein logo jean jacket, he grabbed his keys. As he concentrated on working the lock, a loud rapping on the glass startled him. He jumped back, peering outside into the orange murk created by the sodium vapor light poles.
“Can’t go home now,” Kelly shouted loud enough to be heard through the closed door. “Too bad. So sad.”
“You have incredibly bad timing,” William said, feigning irritation. He threw the door open, letting her in.
“Come off it, silly Willy. You know you’re pleased as punch to see me.”
“As always. Make yourself at home. You always do.”
She undid the click style chain fasteners holding her fake leather jacket closed, exposing the Waking The Cadaver shirt she till wore. She plopped herself up on the maple wood desk, one leg bent at the knee, the boot resting on the surface, the other leg dangling over the edge.
“So, another night of insomnia?”
“You bet,” he said, a crooked smile stretching his upper lip. He removed his jean jacket. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
A stretch of awkward silence ensued. He studied her as she perched on his desk, smiling as if nothing was wrong with the world. Here they were, though, two eccentric subculture enthusiasts stuck in a tattoo parlor in the middle of the night. That spoke volumes about the quality of their lives.
“So is this a friendly social visit or what?” William sat down in the leather chair, resting his hands on the bamboo arms.
He looked up at her. From that angle she looked exquisite. Night; you temptress, you conjurer of desires.
He quickly steered his thoughts in a different direction. “So why couldn’t you sleep?”
“I don’t know. You ever hear of this religious group, Adonai’s Attestants?”
“Barely. Why?”
“Kid at school is in it. Cool guy. He gave me this awesome booklet with weird hidden illustrations
in it. I think you’ll like it. I’ll bring it by sometime.”
“Great. You can’t sleep because of that?”
“No. Something else.”
The grin on her face dispersed, replaced by her trademark frown. Whenever her brow furrowed, he knew a secret was forthcoming.
“This is hard to explain. You ever wake up from a sleep not able to move, as if some invisible force is holding you down?”
William shook his head. “Do tell. You’ve got me totally curious.”
She fidgeted with her captive bead septum piercing. “Wait until you hear this.” She proceeded to relate to him the details of the strange phenomenon. She spilled forth every detail from the paralysis to the suffocating weight crushing her chest, not forgetting to mention the visions of orb eyes and the drilling.
“There was a roaring in my ears like, I don’t know, static from a radio. I can’t explain any of it.”
He fiddled with his goatee, pulling at the brownish red hair with two fingers. “Could be some sort of night terrors.”
“Night terrors?”
“Yeah. Plenty people get them. The best way I can describe it is your nightmares carry over into your waking life, creating hallucinations and other odd experiences. Could be that.”
“I don’t know, Willy. This felt like something more. I hate to say it, but it felt like something or somebody was trying to cross over.”
“Cross over from where?”
“Don’t know.”
William leaned forward, his head to the right of her dangling knee. “Are we talking spirits from another dimension? Or ghosts with nothing better to do than haunt beautiful young girls?”
Kelly extended her leg, playfully shoving him in the shoulder with the heel of her boot. She laughed as his torso shot back into the chair.