Absent Company

by Steve Rasnic Tem

  Lindy stood with her face against the wall for several minutes, too embarrassed to turn around, afraid of what all those people must be thinking. Looking at her. Pointing and staring.

  She finally turned and walked over to the large concrete tub full of plants in the middle of the hall and sat down on the curved bench there.

  She sat with her back to the plants. There was a cool breeze against her neck. She hunched her shoulders and shivered. Suddenly she was very cold. Suddenly she was terrified.

  Lindy twisted quickly on the bench and stared down into the tub of plants. She saw a thin arm. Then a small leg. And a pale, bruised child’s face, decorated with little red spots like flowers, little tears in the skin like delicate petals.

  “Lindy …” the beautiful face said.

  The boy across the street had given Lindy a new pair of sunglasses. They had big pink plastic frames with little wings at the corners, and the lenses were a light green. Lindy loved them, and was soon wearing them everywhere. With her bright orange knee-socks and scarlet dress she imagined she looked just like a piece of candy.

  Her mother was sick in bed with a headache. She’d been out late the night before, drinking, and when she finally got home she’d ordered the babysitter out of the house, refusing to pay her because the refrigerator had been raided. Then she’d come into Lindy’s room and awakened her, crying, telling Lindy she loved her and how sorry she was she had to leave her with a babysitter who didn’t really know how to take care of her, didn’t know her needs, but Honey I’ve got needs too, she’d said, and I need time to myself, and then her mother had told her how men didn’t treat you right and that Lindy should never, ever trust them.

  Then Lindy’s mother had gotten her up out of bed and they’d both fixed late night eggs and pancakes, making a big mess on the counter and giggling together about it. Her mother had told Lindy what a big help she was going to be once she got to be just a bit older—why, she was going to be a wonderful cook, her mother had said. It was the best time Lindy could ever remember having with her mom.

  But now it was morning again, and the party they’d had seemed like a dream. Lindy looked down at her orange socks and felt a chill along her spine. She stroked the softness of her bright red dress and began twisting the cloth in anxiety. She looked at the mess on the counter: loose flour, dried yellow egg, hardened batter, crumbs, dirty dishes and glassware. She began to cry a little as she dragged a chair to the counter and climbed up to start cleaning. She cried louder as the sticky mess clung to her mom’s good dishtowels and then wouldn’t wash off.

  “Lindy …” the dead little girl on the counter said. The dead girl’s arms moved slowly through the mess as if she were swimming underwater. The yellow egg beneath her torn and bruised body looked as if it had oozed from the dead girl’s wounds.

  Lindy was crying as hard as she could, scrubbing the messy counter with her mom’s ruined dishtowels as hard as she could.

  “Lindy’s in trouble,” the dead little girl said.

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Lindy cried.

  Lindy worked as fast as she could, trying not to touch the dead girl’s body, rubbing the cloth right up to the pale and ruined skin, but not touching it, knowing that she would scream if she touched it. But the little dead girl was making it hard for Lindy, moving and squirming on the counter like a fish out of water, so that several times the dead girl almost touched her hand.

  The dead girl made a noise like a laugh, but her voice seemed raw and cracked so it didn’t sound right. “Noooo!” Lindy began to scream.

  A hand closed over Lindy’s left shoulder and jerked her off the chair. The back of her head striking the floor cut off her scream. She looked up and saw a hazy image of her mother floating above her. She looks just like an angel, Lindy thought groggily.

  “You little bitch! Just look at this mess!” her mother shouted.

  Her mother jerked her off the floor by the hair and slapped her across the face. “How many times have I told you not to mess with the kitchen utensils? Huh? Look at this—you never listen to me! You don’t obey … you’ve got to learn to obey!” She slapped her again.

  “Mommieeee …”

  “Don’t be such a baby! I didn’t hurt you! You hear me? Say it: I didn’t hurt you!”

  “You … didn’t … hurt me.” Lindy began to cough. She looked up at her mother’s face and started to back away. Her mother was looking at her dress, scowling.

  “What’s all this crap you’re wearing?”

  “It’s pretty, Mommie, I …”

  “It’s crap, you hear me? No wonder you’ve got so many problems, dressing like that. How do you expect the little boys to pay any attention to you when you dress silly like that?”

  Lindy hung her head. “I don’t know …”

  “Maybe you don’t want little boys to notice you, is that it?”

  “I guess so.

  “I guess so, I guess so,” her mother whined in imitation. “I guess I am just going to have to send you some place special, some place a good ways from here. I just can’t handle it anymore. I used to be young and pretty, you know that? Well I’m not young and pretty anymore. Who’s ever going to look at me now?”

  “Oh, mommie; you wouldn’t really send me away!” Lindy began to cry again.

  “Damn right I would! I don’t need this aggravation, not for a little bitch who won’t even try to be good!”

  “Oh, I’ll try, Mommie. I promise I’ll be good!”

  Her mother was smiling a little lopsided, and that always made Lindy nervous. “Then you promise to take your punishment like a good little girl, and not complain?”

  “Oh, I promise, Mommie. I really promise!”

  “And do you promise not to tell anybody?”

  Lindy looked up at her mother solemnly. The dead little girl was sitting on the counter, looking over Lindy’s mother’s shoulder, grinning widely. But there were no teeth in the grin. Lindy knew they’d all been broken out. “I promise,” she replied.

  As her mother raised the wooden spoon high over Lindy’s head, Lindy bit her tongue so that she wouldn’t cry out, hoping that maybe her mother wouldn’t beat her so much if she wasn’t crying. And as the spoon smacked again and again into her skin she thought about how it was kinda nice, really, what the spoon was doing to her. She was looking a bit more like her friend the little dead girl each day.

  Lindy took the long way to school most days; she liked the scenery better. There were pastures and fields and long rows of barbed-wire fence just like out in the country. And like most days she carried the lunch her mother had made for her in a special brown paper sack.

  She stopped along the wide, curving ditch, just as she did most every day. It was the last place along this road she could stop without being seen from her school, which was just around the bend.

  She looked around, then opened her lunch. There were two plain mustard sandwiches, just as there were most days. Nothing else. Lindy’s mother knew she hated mustard.

  Lindy threw the sack down into the big ditch, as she did most days. The sack caught on some weeds, and she had to slide part way down to kick it. This scared her a little, but she did it anyway. Then she got up, brushed herself off, and walked on. The bell started ringing so she had to run. She’d been late too many times lately; her mother might get mad if she found out.

  She could hear the little dead girl calling her from the ditch, but Lindy ignored her.

  The teacher had been mad at her all day. Lindy couldn’t understand why; she’d tried to be good. She really had, but she just always seemed to get into more trouble.

  The teacher yelled at Lindy all the time for bothering her when she had things to do with the other kids, or for interrupting too much. Lindy didn’t mean to interrupt, but sometimes she just had to say something, to have the teacher pay attention to her. Sometimes when the teacher was talking to the other kids Lindy would get all nervous, and the skin on her legs and arms would begin to itch. So she had t
o say something to the teacher, ask something. It was the only thing that would stop that itching.

  “Lindy, stop it!” the teacher finally said.

  Lindy would tell herself, “Now Lindy, don’t you get yourself in trouble!” and shake her forefinger up and down. But telling herself never seemed to work very well.

  She tried to play with Olive and Marcia at recess, but the two girls turned their heads away. She’d got mad and screamed at them. She knew that didn’t help, that her temper was one of the reasons they all stayed away from her, but she just couldn’t help it. They’d looked at her as if she were an ugly old frog or something dead and mashed on the ground.

  “Naughty Lindy,” said the dead little girl in the playground; but Lindy didn’t care.

  Lindy had to spend most of the afternoon sitting in her seat by the door for yelling at the teacher for not paying any attention to her. Just before the bell she got up and went into the bathroom.

  “You’re gonna get hurt again, you’re so bad,” the dead little girl said from the mirror.

  Lindy took the clay out of her pocket and pressed it against her cheek. It was still slightly moist and felt good on her skin. She put a little on the wall, liking the way it looked there—grey, and brown, and green against white. She put some more up there. She started smearing the entire handful across the wall.

  “Bad, Lindy,” the dead girl said from the toilet. Lindy walked over and flushed it to get rid of the voice.

  She wiped the clay along the wall in wide, thin strokes. It felt good. It felt wonderful.

  “Lindy!” She wished she had lots more clay. She’d love to lie down in it, it was so cool.

  “Lindy, stop it!” She wondered why her mother was at school. Was she in trouble again?

  “Lindy, look at me!” She turned and saw the teacher standing in the doorway, staring at the wall with an odd look on her face. Staring at Lindy as if there was something badly wrong with Lindy.

  “You’re not going to send me to that special place, that special school, are you?” Lindy cried, her head throbbing. She just knew the little dead girl was back at her home now, lying in Lindy’s own bed, and laughing at Lindy. As hard as she could. Lying in Lindy’s bed and laughing.

  When Lindy got home from school that day her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen. “I got a call from your teacher,” she snapped.

  Lindy bowed her head.

  “Do you think I have the time to leave work just to take care of something you’ve done? I have to have that job so we can eat!”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Do you want people to think I haven’t raised you right, that I don’t take care of my daughter?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You’re a liar, Lindy, and I don’t like lying little bitches!”

  “I didn’t lie, Mommie.”

  “Don’t you tell me! Do you know who called me this afternoon, who came by to see me? Child welfare, that’s who! Said I’d been beating you!”

  “Oh, Mommie! You’d never hurt me.”

  “Damn right. I take care of my own.” Her mother looked at her in a funny way. “You didn’t call them did you?”

  “Oh no, Mommie. I’d never do that.”

  “No … I suppose not.” Her mother looked at her nails. Then suddenly looked up in anger, as if Lindy had missed something, as if something had happened to anger her mother and Lindy had forgotten all about it. “Why’d you mess up that bathroom?”

  Lindy looked away in shame. “I don’t know, Mommie.”

  “What am I gonna do with you!” her mother screamed. Then suddenly she grabbed Lindy by the hair and pulled her towards the bathroom door. “I’m just going to have to give you a bath! All that filthy clay on you … what else can I do?”

  “Mommie … noooo!” Lindy screamed, and began to kick.

  Her mother ignored the kicking and soon had Lindy stripped to the waist, her head over the sink. And scalding hot water pouring over her hair.

  “First we’ve got to get your hair clean, don’t we? We’ve got to do that first of all!” Her mother shouted over Lindy’s screams.

  Lindy kicked and fought, but her mother was too strong for her. She began to throw up into the sink.

  “Ahhh, look at this mess! Well, you’ll just have to clean that up later!” Her mother jerked a towel off the rack and began rubbing Lindy’s raw, sore scalp. Lindy continued to cry. “Guess I’ll have to use the hair dryer so you won’t catch cold—this way takes much too long—huh?”

  Lindy cried out even more. Her mother turned on the dryer as high as it would go and pressed the nozzle directly against Lindy’s scalp, neck, and ears.

  Lindy screamed as loud as she could.

  When her mother finally finished with her Lindy slumped against the edge of the tub. She felt sick, but tried desperately to hold the sickness in.

  “Look you little bitch; pull one more trick like today’s and I’m sending you to that school for sure.”

  Lindy turned her head so that her chin was resting on the tub. She opened her eyes. The little dead girl floated at the bottom of the tub, her eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. Lindy wasn’t sure, but she seemed to be smiling.

  On her way to school the next morning Lindy tried to remember the dream she’d had the night before, but couldn’t quite, just knowing that the little dead girl had made an appearance several times, each time being much scarier than the last.

  She was only a short distance from the wide curve in the road that had the big ditch beside it when she heard the dead girl’s voice again.

  “Lindy, don’t go … don’t go, Lindy.”

  She ignored the voice as best she could.

  “Don’t go, Lindy … don’t go.”

  When she rounded the curve she saw her mother and her teacher standing there by the ditch. Her mother looked really angry.

  Lindy walked slowly towards her mother. “Lindy … Lindy,” the voice said in her ear.

  Her mother pointed down into the ditch with a scowl. Lindy looked. Someone had cleared some of the weeds away.

  There were dozens of paper lunch bags in the ditch, some of them damp and molded over, some of them broken open and with little bugs and lizards and other things crawling in and out of the bags.

  She looked at her mother and felt sick again. The teacher looked sad, and shook her head slowly.

  “Maybe it would be best …” the teacher had said. “Maybe it would do her some good,” she’d said. “I know I’ve tried everything I know to do.”

  The special school for kids looked a lot like other schools, with their halls and bright lights and lots of doors all in a row. Lindy walked down the long dark hall with the superintendent. He was a nice old man, almost like a grandfather, and spoke almost too softly to hear.

  “You won’t be here too long, Lindy, I’m sure … just until you straighten out a few of your problems. Your mother … can’t take care of you now.”

  “My Mommie’s wonderful! She’s real good to me!” Lindy shouted defiantly.

  The superintendent smiled. “Of course … of course she is.”

  After a while Lindy left the man. He’d had a phone call, and told her to wait right there, but she’d left, and started walking down the great, dark hall. It was almost night outside. Lindy went up to door after door and looked into the glass there.

  She could see herself.

  Then, as she admired her reflection, the little dead girl gradually took over the reflection, until finally it was the dead girl looking out at her from every door. She tried every one, and they were all filled with the dead girl.

  “Here I am,” Lindy said. “I’m all ready to start in the special school! Will you be my friends?”

  “We’ve always been your friends,” the reflections of the little girl chorused.

  “A special place for kids, a special school for kids!” Lindy sang.

  “You’ve always been in a special school for kids,” the little dead girl said.<
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  In a Guest House

  Sometimes Brian thought he heard voices. They began in the worst heat of summer, and he thought they came from the marshland, or maybe the forest. Christ, I must be dying. But he was never sure if they were really voices, or just white noise made more articulate by the pressures he was feeling.

  He’d hear them when he was doing the bills, and there was never enough money in the account to cover all the checks that had to go into those envelopes. His company was doing well, but he was only a junior salesman. There’d be a soft murmur that distorted the voice on the TV his kids were watching in the next room.

  He’d hear them when he was trying to get to sleep, but couldn’t sleep for worry about those bills, and for all the things the family needed but couldn’t afford, for all the things he could not do with his life for worry over the bills. Under the fan blade whirring, growling, and whining because they couldn’t afford an air conditioner.

  Sometimes he thought he might be hearing the neighbors, drunk at a party further up the embankment. Most of them were rich here on the hill; there were lots of parties.

  But voices shouldn’t carry that far.

  Sometimes the voices would bark in his ear, tearing him out of a hard-won sleep. He’d sit up in bed staring out the window into the heated dark, trying to rub the pain of their sharp speech out of his temples, wondering if the dogs had jumped the fence again and were about to earn him another fifty dollar fine.

  He slept uneasily in the house they could not afford, but required. Too large to afford, and yet not large enough to feel safe in. With his first healthy raise Elizabeth insisted that they take this house. All she could see was the largeness of the house, the prestigious location. What she didn’t see was the small yard, the fact that it was downhill from some of the largest homes. Some rich man had once housed his servants here, and the older residents of the neighborhood would know that. The large house payments made them dangerously vulnerable to any financial setback, and all to buy their continued status as interlopers.

  He wondered if the house would ever be theirs completely. But more than that, he wondered if he would ever feel at home here.