Upstairs from James’ inner conflict, the rag doll formerly known as Hallie Winters sat in a small, black, wooden chair. She didn’t feel cold in her tiny tank top and baby blue boy shorts. She was too drunk to feel much of anything. Physically that was. Emotionally, her pain was throbbing at full force. A forty ounce of cheap Vodka was nestled betwixt pale, crisscrossed legs. A year away from twenty-one couldn’t get her much, but being attractive got her something.
Thanks, random dude outside the liquor store who thought this would get him some.
Hallie’s left hand wrapped around the bottle’s neck, strangled it like she was trying to strangle the pain. A small heart shaped necklace dangled from her fingers. The necklace was also illicit, a secret gift from James.
Propped up in front of a silver MacBook, she poured over a batch of photos on-screen - a continual slideshow of a past life. A scattered mess of wadded up facial tissues beside her, evidentiary of her intermittent spouts of tears and snot. The montage on the screen played while she took shots, the heart lightly tapping her chin with each swig. A song with his name played on repeat. She knew it was a tad over the top, and definitely a whole lot masochistic, but she didn’t care. She reveled in the throbbing pain.
Friends faded in and out. James and Nick came on for the umpteenth countless time. Smiles as big as the moon, they showed the camera the ink residing on each of their right-hand wrists. It was Nick’s idea, one he’d had bright and beaming one day after their art history class had let out. “Ancient art with meaning,” he’d said. He came rushing in the door, James and Hallie sitting on opposite sides of Nick’s kitchen table.
“A tattoo, bro!” Nick had exclaimed. Then he walked over to his girl, gave her a long hard kiss on the lips. Turned his attention back to James who was standing in anticipation already. They didn’t need to discuss it much, made the decision spontaneously, as they often did. Hallie wanted in, knew it was a thing between her guys, but still wanted to help. They all agreed that she would play designer. Within minutes, pen scratched paper, tires rubbed roadway, and sneakers stepped into Jay’s Tattoos for the first time.
Now Nick was little more than a bloated corpse they’d had to have a closed casket funeral for. A funeral James never attended. A visitation unvisited. He’d left Hallie alone for that one, left her alone time and time again.
“How did it get this bad!?” Hallie screamed, mucous and alcohol drenched saliva spattering across the screen of the laptop. She knocked the vodka into the table with a loud thunk, felt the bottle slip down, almost out of her grip. She squeezed and brought it back up for another shot. She wasn’t ready to let go just yet. Almost, but not yet.
Outside from the disarray, James flipped up the collar of his leather moto jacket, prevented more mist from caressing his neck. He took a deep breath and watched it go back out into the darkness. His tepid feet couldn’t move another inch. He fished out his cellphone, readied himself to call. His thumb hovered above the appropriate icon. Please pick up, Hallie. Please. Skin and screen connected.
He shifted uncomfortably in his classic black and white Chuck Taylor’s, stuffed his left hand far into the rear pocket of his black jeans. As the phone began to ring, he rocked himself on the sides of his feet.
The electronic jingle overshadowed the melancholy music. Hallie swiveled in her seat to see the phone vibrating on her purple comforter. She stood, swayed in circles and slammed back down on her rear. She cursed, tried again, the second time with better results. Took a few steps to the bed, collapsed thereon. She looked at the lit-up display.
She howled out like a banshee, crying out to the lonely house and pitched her arm like Pedro Martinez, launching the bottle, which smashed into hundreds of pieces, splinters and shards against the wall across the room. Vodka dripped down the baby blue walls, seeped into the white wood frame at the bottom. The necklace still draped from her hand, woven around her small, slender fingers. She bounded clumsily across her bed like a drunken horse, full gallop. She tore away the curtains, threw the small window upwards so hard its glass shattered, the whole thing rebounded a few inches.
James looked up at the commotion, cursed to himself.
“What do you want now!?”
James cursed again, just loud enough for her to hear. Hallie hated confrontation, until a little alcohol got in the mix. Then all the sweetness went sour and there was no containing the fury. “Stay there! I’m coming down!”
A shiver traversed the length of James’ body, top of his chilly head to tips of his still rocking toes. He wanted to call out to her, tell her to stop, but it was too late. She was on her way. He shoved the phone away, sprinted towards her front door. He hopped the steps, checking for any nosey neighbors as he did. None, not yet, anyway. The door opened to meet him. Before she could utter a word, he planted his palm flat across her mouth and forced his way inside.
“Stop,” he commanded, his voice was firm and fierce. She bit down hard. He let out a yelp, steadied his hand despite the pain, clasped onto her arm for support. They stumbled further into the house. He kicked the door shut behind him.
“Hallie, stop. Please!”
Her eyes shot wide open. Bloodshot and watery, but furious as hell itself.
“I’ll let you say what you want, but please. Calm. Down.”
Her cheeks flexed, teeth clamped down harder. James winced. They’d told him in The Academy not to say calm down to someone on the edge. Worse than ineffective, it aggravated subjects instead. Too late.
He pulled his hand from the trap. She smiled contemptuously, but said nothing. She stared, still wide-eyed, a tiny droplet of James’ blood still clinging to her lips. She lifted her right hand, his pea coat on display, flung it towards his face. He jerked back, grabbed it, flinched then ogled the wounds she’d inflicted on his hand. Somehow he didn’t feel any anger. He didn’t know what he felt exactly. He tried to look into her eyes, the first time since that horror of that night – what had started in delight. He couldn’t.
“They’re not yours anymore.”
“What?” She spat the word, returning a trace of his blood to him in doing so.
“Your eyes. They’ve changed.”
She slammed both open hands against his chest, throwing her entire body weight into it. He stumbled backwards into the front door, his breath escaped him.
“You did this to me!” she said with a venomous slur.
“I know. I didn’t come here to argue that.” He said it quiet, humble. He was beaten. “I shouldn't have come here at all.”
“No, you shouldn’t have, James.”
“I’m sorry.” It was sincere, but too little, too late.
“You think you can come here whenever you feel like it, asshole?” she asked, walking in uneven circles. Her bare feet nearly tripped over the coat with each full revolution of her drunken gyre.
“But you can’t, James. You can’t do that,” she declaimed, slammed her foot down emphatically, stumbled again.
“I know,” he said, like a child being scolded for eating too many cookies before dinner. “I know.”
“Last time I let you fuck me.” She stopped circling, fixed him with a malicious gaze. “You like how my pussy tasted, you fuck?”
“Hallie.”
“Well too fucking bad. Go eat some fucking Cheerios! You're not having sex with me again, not ever, you bastard.”
James looked at his feet, felt his eyes filling up. He pushed it back. She stood as still as her drunken body would allow, shoved her right index finger at him, a half inch from his nose, hesitated, shaking with impatience, struggling for words.
“You think... you think the world revolves around you. But it doesn’t. You’re a cop!” She kept her finger in his face as she ranted. “I trusted you. Thought what you said was right. But goddamn it! I’m miserable. I should have just said something! Then! It was an accident, James. It was an accident. Now it’s fucking murder!”
She began to weep, her finger dropped first. Then her body
collapsed in a jumble of loose limbs. James reached out to catch her, but she’d fallen too fast. He stood open armed. From the floor she sobbed, grasping, then flinging his coat again.
“Get out! Get the fuck out and never come back here! You fucking bastard. Never.” There it was, now she was ready to let go.
He stuttered a reply, no words came out, though. Well, he guessed, that made sense, even to him. He crouched down. A gesture met with gnashing teeth, more tears, and lastly, a fresh gob of spit to his face. She was unhinged, utterly, a rabid dog, nothing of the girl he once knew. As his own tears broke free, he stood up, taking the coat with him. Clenched fists thrashed at the floor near his feet as he felt for the door handle behind him, his eyes still glued to the disheveled and despondent goddess fallen from grace, lest she attack again.
She shut her eyes, even as she shed more tears, her fists pounding the floor, flakes of old paint and fibers, cat hair and dirt, sticking and scattering as she thrashed. Her chest heaved with wretched sobs and James left the house. He walked home in the rain, holding his navy blue remnant, a leftover from the night that changed everything. The rain seemed to beat down harder upon him the further he walked from her house. He looked back several times on his journey; Hallie never once showed her face, neither at door nor window. Even as slowly as he walked, eventually, he couldn’t see the house anymore.
His clothes were wet and weighted, cold against his skin as he reached out and opened his own front door, pulled it shut behind him. The entryway was marked by a wooden peg from which a yellow Northface jacket belonging to James’ mother still hung, covered in dust. Neither he nor his father had the heart to remove the item; it remained, a constant reminder of her, a small token keeping her memory alive. But she wasn’t alive. And James wondered if he had any right to be either.
What good is a life if it does no good?
He threw his own coat on the rack, went feebly up the steps, two doors down the hall of the second floor and then a left into his celadon blue bedroom. He flicked on the switch. Everything was neat, placed with purpose. But purpose was the furthest thing from his mind. He looked at the bed under the window. He wanted rest, but not that kind. He looked at the sleek black desk and matching chair under the opposite window. He wanted to sit, but not there. He left his room, crossed the hall and went to his father’s closet. He slid one giant mirrored door in front of the other. He watched himself vanish from reflected view, wished it was be a more a permanent action. He knelt down on one knee, went to the small safe in the back corner of the closet.
Dials whirled, numbers lined up in correct order, the latch to the shiny black box snapped open. His mistakes played on the reel to reel of his mind as the roof of the box raised in his hands. Within, his father’s old plastic service weapon lay idly. Just like his own, the one taken from him during his never-ending investigation.
The gun looked as harmless as a toy, docile. It was also as black as his soul had become.
James sat down, his intentions cold and measured, every failure fresh in his mind. He brought his breathing to a smooth and shallow progress. His heart thumped at a rapid rate despite himself. He thought through each intake of air as he rested the gun in his open, upraised hands. Slowly, his right hand closed around the handle, his thumb leaned heavy against the back end. The gun was light, still far from dangerous.
He bowed his head, closed his eyes, leaned forward; with his left hand he took the fully packed magazine from the box. He held the decision in his hand, sweat enveloping the plastic shell of murderous projectiles. He snapped it into the gun. Reprobate meditations reined his body. He chambered a round. The noise reverberated through his psyche, echoed the hallways of his troubled conscience. His eyes widened, fixated on the weapon, on death.
Time ticked by. He barely blinked, superglued to the Glock. More time slipped by, a wicked hatred swarmed within him, a horde of bees, all stinging en masse, sparing neither his soul nor his flesh. His vision started to blur. Slowly, his eyelids toppled closed, fluttered back open, dropping at last, to sleep.
The click-clattering noise of the front door opening jerked him awake. His eyes flared wide and he sat up straight. The gun tumbled from his chest into his lap. The downstairs door shut.
“Hello?” James called out with a hoarse voice.
“Yeah.” His father. He didn’t say anything else.
James cursed to himself and grabbed the Glock. He dismantled the gun, put it back the way he'd found it and got out of the room. He shut his bedroom door as he stepped in. Resumed his position on the floor.
Thursday
November 29, 2012
Terms
James couldn’t go back to sleep. He had work in three hours, but he lay awake in his still-damp clothes, staring at the ceiling from the Pergo wood floor. In between thunderhead induced haziness, sunlight came and went through his windows. He checked his phone every fifteen minutes. No calls from Hallie. He knew he wasn’t going to get any. He wasn’t about to be the one to call her, either.
At two, he went to work a little bit earlier than usual, sat in front of the monitors, drifted off. Kent finished his tour and went straight home. He watched some TV, climbed into bed, even though he doubted sleep would come readily. Thinking reading might help, he cracked open a worn and dog-eared copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle; it had been Stacey’s.
At three-thirty-three, the phone on the nightstand, just a few inches away, started buzzing and jumping. James had fallen asleep without realizing it. C.S. Lewis lay open on the blanket next to him, his lamp still on. Slowly, he realized where he was, what time of night it was. He looked around, grabbed his phone, but the vibrations had stopped. He checked the missed call, his old friend Marc. It’d been forever since they’d spoken and James wasn’t in the mood for a late night catch-up call. Bathroom, toothbrush instead.
He hit the toilet first, stared at the wall for what felt like a lifetime as he listened to the water ricochet inside of the bowl. It was another few seconds before he got his body to respond enough to flush. He pushed himself through brushing his teeth like it was torture. Finally, he made it back to his bed.
He glanced at his phone as he climbed under the covers. Three more missed calls. Marc was persistent. Still didn’t warrant a call back, though. James pulled the blankets up to his shoulders and made himself comfortable for another night of abysmal rest. The fourth call began.
James huffed and cursed, shoved the covers off, answered the phone with an angry hello. The man’s voice on the other end was high pitched, strained, neurotic. James had never heard Marc sound so worked up. His back stiffened at the sound.
“We’ve been trying to reach you, man. We called a thousand times!”
“Yeah well, some people sleep at four in the morning, Marc,” he said casually, trying to quell the riot in his stomach.
“James, it’s... uh, fuck. It’s Hallie.”
Suddenly James felt wide awake, his heart began pounding wildly.
“Hallie what, Marc?” But somehow he already knew.
The other end of the line was silent, leaden. James heard a voice in the background - Jessica. She told Marc to say it, to tell James what had happened. She was saying that he had to know, he needed to know.
James’ eyes began to well up with tears. He sure as anything didn’t know how it had happened. But he could put the obvious pieces together. Christmas for the Winters was going to be all kinds of jacked up. Wouldn’t ever be right again. Every holiday ever after would be different.
September twenty-third, Hallie’s birthday, just became a memorial day.
He could predict Marc’s next words. Those low and mumbled words. It was no surprise. But it was still ever earth shattering when Marc said them. When he broke the news.
“Hallie’s dead.”
Friday
November 30, 2012
Diner
“I don’t really know what to say, bro.” Locke’s words were quick, but compassionate.
James looked at his friend through blood shot eyes. “There really isn’t much to say, I guess. Just do me a favor and don’t bring up God. Not tonight, man. Please.”
Max nodded.
Staten Island would never reach Manhattan standards, but there was always at least one good place open to make a post-midnight food run. A spot for two friends to sit and talk. To talk about how life had gone straight to hell, a one-way ticket Hallie purchased with a bottle of vodka and a razor blade.
James and Max sat in the back right booth of a fancy diner that the owners liked to call a lounge. Their seats were gold-hued pleather, with shiny brown wood framework. James propped his arms up in a praying motion on the plain white tabletop. He buried his head within his hands. Max’s gaze drifted between the details of the diner and whoever happened to wander in. There were few patrons to distract him from the architecture, the décor. He wondered idly if the wooden framing was just veneer.
As usual, when he wasn’t drinking tea, Max’s straight and even teeth gnawed at a small stick of wood. James looked around, in between sips of soda from a frosted glass with a white straw, not paying mind to much of anything. After a minute or two, James realized he’d been staring at two old timers sitting silently in a booth opposite theirs, against the far left wall. The extremely thin and balding white guy with the pear shaped head, looked to be the younger of the two. He was doing little more than sitting, perhaps lost in his own thoughts, not unlike James. A half empty glass of water in which the ice had long since melted. The second man, a good deal larger than the first, sat before three different plates bearing the decimated remains of now indiscernible origins. He had unkempt, curly, grey hair atop his own pale, round head. He wore glasses and perused a Staten Island newspaper.
“Think you’ll have friends like that when you’re old?” James asked, gloomily looking over at Max.
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