The long drive back home had given me plenty of time to piece it all together. Or at least some of it. I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get rid of it but I wished they’d done it the right way so none of this had ever happened.
When I got back to my house, Claire’s white Toyota was sitting on the right side of the driveway facing the front porch. If I’d done all of that research on my laptop at home instead of doing it on my phone, I would’ve been here when she got home. I checked the time and date on my cell phone, slapped myself playfully across the forehead and gave a foolish sigh.
Every Thursday, Claire and her best friend-slash-coworker Joanie left work an hour early to head out to Kingston Mall and browse the stores. If I’d gotten back here in time, I would’ve just ordered pizza, stretched out on the couch and watched a movie.
I climbed out of my car, hurried to the end of the driveway to pick up the mail, tucked it under my arms and carried everything inside. I hung my keys on the hook, kicked my shoes off into the cubbyhole beside of the door and strolled into the living room. I set the mail on the dining room table, wandered toward the bedroom and paused outside of the doorway.
Claire’s bright yellow jacket (the large white one with the gold COOPER REALTY badge stitched onto the left front side) sat in a crumpled heap at the foot of our bed. Her briefcase was open, lying face down on a square of papers and file folders that’d spilled out across the bed. My senses tingled because her jacket was always draped over the back of her dining room chair and her briefcase had always sat beside of the front door.
I hurried out of the bedroom and out to the living room when that same thick coppery odor I smelled at Troy’s hit me like a pie in the face. I grimaced and, face scrunched together in disgust, followed it into the kitchen. I pushed through the white bat-wing door, slid the front of my tee-shirt up and over my nose to ward off the smell and paused next to the refrigerator.
Claire stood in front of the sink, gazing silently through the thin butter-colored curtains draped across the kitchen window. Her shoulders bowed, her pale blonde hair glinted in the patch of mid-afternoon sunlight flooding the countertop. She’d slipped out of her work clothes and into her ribbed cotton-white wedding dress she wore five (six next April) years ago.
“Hey, baby.” I said. “I know you told me to take it–”
“Do you love me?”
“Of course I do.”
I sauntered over, grasped her shoulders in both hands and spun her around to face me. When I gazed down at the front of her dress, a chill trickled down my spine; a jolt of surprise struck the base of my brain. My flesh prickled as a wave of nausea churned inside the pit of my stomach.
I stumbled back, a mixture of sadness and shock tearing through my chest, and struck the fridge hard enough to jar the contents inside. My fingers trembling, I bit down on my bottom lip to suppress the acidic gorge rising toward the back of my throat.
She glanced at me with sunken heavy-lidded eyes, her skin glowing like creamy porcelain. Her lips twitched into a half smile as beads of sweat broke out across her forehead and slid past her temples. A strand of bleached-blonde hair clung to the crown of her forehead above her left eye like a hook that snared the very fabric of my soul with the intent of tearing it apart.
Sporadic drops of blood coated the front of her dress, the largest one staining the V-shaped tip of her neckline. I peered over the top of her left shoulder and saw chunks of bright red flesh clinging to the stainless-steel basin. A second onslaught of fear raked at my heart and pinned my feet to the kitchen floor; my eyes widened and my hand slid away from my mouth.
“How could you say those cruel things about my hand?”
“Wha-wha-what are you talkin–”
“Don’t bullshit me, Justin.” She hissed, her left hand cinched into a fist. “I read what you wrote in your precious goddamn book. I deserve to hear the truth from you. Tell me right now.”
“What did the book say?”
“I didn’t ask for it but I guess I’m too busy using it as a way to get sympathy, huh?”
I snatched a quick breath and sighed, uttering a tiny childish wheeze; tears brimmed in my eyes. I couldn’t convince her that the only time I said those words were to myself in anger some time ago when she told me that a customer friend of hers had referred her to a plastic surgeon. This was one scar I’d caused myself; a scar that would never go away.
“Do you think I need sympathy now?” She said through a twitchy sarcastic grin.
A rhythmic tapping sound echoed from somewhere inside the kitchen. The last time I’d heard that sound was last night while I was crying over my best friend’s body.
The thought escaped me as soon as I stared at the pool of blood spreading across the floor beneath her feet. She slid her left arm out from behind her back and raised a flat pulpy-red stub that used to be her right hand; bits of manicured bone jutted up from the middle of the stub like star-shaped sprinkles on a child’s cupcake. Jagged rivers of bright red blood slid down her forehead and dripped off the end of her elbow.
She peered over at her handiwork, her eyes wide with sinister approval, and gave a wild maniacal laugh that rattled her voice. The sound of it seemed to plant my feet harder onto the floor and soak my bones in a fear-induced paralysis.
“Do you think I’m pretty now?” She pleaded, her legs wobbling. “Am I, Justin? Tell me honey am I pretty enough for you now? Tell me I’m pretty tell me tell me tell me–”
Her eyes fell shut like an opera curtain and her body went limp; her arms slumped down from her sides and her hands curled into tiny pale fists. My body racing with both adrenaline and fear, I pushed myself away from the fridge. I threw my arms out to catch her but it was too late.
The back of her head slumped to the left and rapped hard against the edge of the countertop with such force that it rattled the windows. Her head snapped to the right, emitting the loud brittle snap of bone; the sound alone clawed a painful divot across my chest and tore through my soul like frayed fabric. Her body jolted forward from the impact and struck the floor face-first, bouncing her head off the linoleum.
Waves of fear and panic pulsating through my body, I knelt down beside of her and cradled her in my arms. Tears burst from my eyes, a salty white concoction I thought I’d shed enough of last night and blurred my view of her dead lifeless corpse. I screamed her name over and over again until it echoed inside the dark chasms of her unconsciousness.
*****
IT’D been a week since Claire died and I haven’t slept or eaten in days. Not even since the funeral which coincidentally occurred one week after Troy’s. I pretended to appreciate the endless caravan of apologies and notes of encouragement from mine and Claire’s co-workers but after a few weeks The Sympathy Train had done left the station.
I’ve scanned every inch of this book from front to back and I still don’t understand how it does what it does, how it dug so deep into two people’s minds that it drove them to commit violent acts to themselves.
I didn’t even see any words on any of the pages. Each one of them were blank; all two-hundred and sixty two pages. I’d spent the night counting them, flinching every time the pipes creaked or a car came passing by.
I haven’t been to work in days and everyone who comes to the door to see what I’m up to but they always end up walking away, feeling both confused and disappointed. The second I realized Claire was dead I made a promise to rid the world of this vile disgusting thing as quickly as I could. Every attempt to destroy I’d made were just prime examples of pure stupidity.
I tore out page after page, tearing it free from the adhesive that held them together. When I came back, the book was still laying on the floor in the same condition it was when I bought it. The next day, I set it inside of the charcoal grill–it’d been the first time I’d gotten out of the house since last summer–and soaked it with gasoline and dropped a lit match on top of it; my eyes burned with the same wild desire as the flames that consumed it.
>
After a few minutes, the flames didn’t have a chance. They died, leaving the book in the same condition I’d bought it in. That night, I carried the book back inside, tossed it across the room, knelt down and cried.
If I couldn’t burn it, then there was only one other way to cast this cruel object out of my life forever. I wasn’t proud of myself but there wasn’t any other way around this. Sure, I could wrap it in some kind of binder’s twine and stick it in a box in the attic and pray that no one-not even my future children and grandchildren no matter how imaginary they are-will ever discover its true
I collected a few of Claire’s things into a cardboard box and drove out to the second-hand store on the west side town next to that community outreach center. I waited until it was dark before I’d done it because I didn’t want anyone to see me; even wore a dark-blue baseball cap pulled down just far enough to hide my face from the surveillance cameras they warned me about. I popped the trunk, stuck the book inside of the box, dropped it into the giant gray plastic trash bin marked DONATIONS and drove away.
I was a good distance away from the store before I uttered the same maniacal laugh I’d heard coming from Claire the day she died. The more distance I’d put between myself and that book, I began to feel that same sense of elation and freedom Mary Lee and Flo felt that day.
I know what I did was wrong. I know what dangers await the book’s next owners and I hope they can forgive me for what I’ve done just as I’d forgiven the two women who sold it to me and to the people who sold it to them and so on and so forth.
Oh God, I hope.
DARK AVENUES
I woke up one morning and wrote three writing topics on a small notepad and examined each one of them. Out of the three of them, only one caught my interest: write something from your childhood. I’d gone to summer camp when I was eight and one of the things we did was go to a local cemetery and do headstone rubbings.
I vaguely remember the names and dates chiseled on all the tombstones and marveled at the time they’d spent here. I felt like I was carrying the memory of their existence around with me. Whether it be a picture or a family heirloom, we’ll always be reminded of the mark they left behind.
This story is for those who still carry them around; who know that when they’ve entered the room and for those who never give up the hope of seeing them again. It was published on Amazon as a Kindle book in July of 2012.
1
“HAVE a good weekend, Kevin.”
“Thanks, Angel. I’ll see you on Monday.”
Kevin Perkins hurried out the back door of Angel’s Pizza, the sharp tangy smells of herbs and sauce trailing out behind him, and into the cool July air. He peered over his shoulder and shook his head at the row of employees’ vehicles occupying the customer parking lot at the rear of the building because he knew Angel would blow a gasket when she found out they were parking there.
He considered going back to help but he knew Angel wouldn’t have any of that. To those that knew Kevin Perkins, they knew better than to pull him back inside after five o’clock on a Friday night.
He looped the strap of his black nylon canvas bag up and over his head, slid it across his chest and strode across the street toward a spacious parking lot at the rear of a two-story brick apartment building. He knew he wasn’t the only one who disliked having to park over here and then walk all the way across, but they didn’t have a choice.
He greeted some of his other co-workers along the way (trading a few handshakes and nods with the men and a few gentle hugs with the women) and walked over to the driver side of his car. A trio of female college students in scantily-clad clothes paraded out the back door of the apartment building, giggled about something one of them said and climbed into a bright yellow Mini Cooper. They sped off in the direction toward town, spewing a loud chorus of laughter from the Cooper’s open windows.
As he opened the back door on the driver side, something rose up from the corner of his eye and screamed, “Hey, Kevin!”
Startled, he flinched and slapped his chest. Erin Deeds leaned against the passenger door, her long red hair spilling down the sides of her broad pale face from a part in the top of her head. Her horn-rimmed glasses glinting in the waning sunlight, her floral-print dress hugged the contours of her pear-shaped body. He thought he could’ve avoided her just this once, but he didn’t think it was possible.
“Hey, Erin.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going home for the weekend.”
“Will you be busy tonight?” She asked with a lisp.
“Yes.”
“What cha doing?” She asked.
“I’m going to the cemetery.”
“I just thought you’d like to go to the movies some time.”
“I’d like to,” He nodded. “but now is not a good time.”
“Do you want some company?”
“Maybe next time.”
“You want to have dinner at my house.” She pleaded. “My Mom makes this delicious tuna-noodle casserole.”
To say that Erin Deeds hadn’t become infatuated with him since she began working here six months ago was like saying that water wasn’t wet. Although he wanted nothing more than to be her friend and co-worker, she’d always eat lunch with him and never take her eyes off of him.
At this rate, she’d ask him if he wanted to count the cracks in the parking lot together if it got a “yes” out of him. It was cute that she’d found him comfortable to be around, but it was inhumane to watch someone beg.
“I’ll take a raincheck.” He said and opened the driver-side door. “How about next weekend?”
Her face and eyes beaming with joy, she said, “That’d be great. Thanks, Kevin.”
“Take care, Erica.”
She waved and strode across the parking lot toward the restaurant with a spring in her step that was hard not to miss. He opened the back passenger door, tossed his canvas bag casually onto the back seat and shut it. He turned and peered through the copse of trees rooted along the back of the real estate company, saw the parade of vehicles pulling up out front and fought the urge not to rush back inside.
Angel’s Pizza sat on the corner of Greene Street inside of a red brick building with a flat-tiled roof and three large storefront windows; the sign stood on the far right corner of the parking lot, displaying a neon image of a skinny woman in a flowing white gown with a pair of angel wings holding a pizza box in her left hand. The words ANGEL’S PIZZA were scrawled below her bare white feet in cursive white calligraphy; a comic-book dialogue balloon above the angel’s head proclaimed it was “heavenly good since 1956”.
He’d only eaten the food here once when Angel offered him a slice during his interview and even then it wasn’t “heavenly good”, but he understood the rigors of advertising. He climbed behind the wheel of his dark-blue Toyota Corolla, backed out of his slot and sped off in the same direction that the Mini Cooper had gone.
He turned left and followed Greene Street through a cluster of more brick apartment buildings, one and two story clapboard houses, two-story Greek-style houses with Greek letters stamped above their front doors and a string of local businesses he’d heard of but was never inclined to try out. He coasted onto Kisor Avenue, a rising slope of bars and nightclubs throbbing with techno music and brightly-lit neon windows that beamed across the pavement. The throng of people parading past him, dressed in their own selective attire, reminded him of moths hypnotized by the warm ambient glow of a porch light.
He stopped off at an all-night convenience store to pick up a bottle of orange juice and thanked the chunky brunette woman in the blue tee-shirt on his way out. He followed the main drag toward the overpass above I-33, took a sharp left onto another residential street and drove on for three miles. He took a right onto another street and steered his car through a tall black-iron gate fixed onto the heads of two white-stone pillars; the words HAMILL CEMETERY were stamped across a scarred bronze plaque fixed to the front of th
e left-side pillar.
Light and dark marble and granite tombstones scattered the hillside, jutting up from the ground like half-dug fossils of no substance; each one decked out with wilted or freshly-blooming flowers or wreaths. It was backdropped by a wall of leafy oaks and gnarled poplar trees that bowed softly in the breeze. He parked his car along the shoulder of the road and, the sound of gravel crunching softly underneath his tires, sighed; the clock on his digital radio said five-fifteen.
He twisted around in his seat, retrieved his bag from the back seat and climbed out. He thumbed the button on his key fob to engage the locks and slid the strap of his bag back over his head and across his chest.
On his right, a middle-aged woman in a cream-colored gypsy skirt and red blouse was kneeling before a white marble tombstone with a small American flag rooted in front of it. She was flanked by two teenage girls, one brunette and one blonde; the brunette wore a pink shirt and a denim skirt while her sister donned an ankle-low white dress and a light blue blouse. When the blonde met his gaze, he greeted her with a curt nod, waited for her to return it and sauntered away without saying a word.
The scene itself filled him with a nostalgic sense of pain and grief. He’d sat many days and night pressing his fingers against the words and numbers chiseled across Terri’s tombstone until he could draw them in his sleep. His cheeks flared like red-hot pokers; no matter how many times he’d come here to get away from her it was as if his mind never strayed too far away from her in the first place and he was fine with that.
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