He glances at the Band-Aid on his finger. “Yeah, I…”
“It’s been one of those weeks. Freakin’ Christmas season, that’s what it is. It makes me so bat-shit it’s not even funny. Well, it is funny, but in more of an I-want-to-stab-myself-in-the-eyes-with-scissors kind of way, you know? I keep hoping for something to save me so I don’t have to go to Pennsylvania to see the folks. Something fun, you know, like a nuclear winter or the return of the black plague.” She pulls the duster in tighter around her. “Isn’t it supposed to snow tonight?”
“Yes,” he answers, realizing this is already the longest conversation they’ve ever had with each other. “But they said on the news it won’t start until after midnight.”
“Maybe we’ll get a blizzard, a horribly crippling blizzard.”
“It’s only supposed to be a few inches, actually.”
“Shit.” She casually points at the skyline. “That factory’s probably slowly poisoning us all to death anyway. If only they could step it up.”
Dignon looks over his shoulder at the smokestacks in the distance and the clouds spewing from them. “It never stops,” he says, almost to himself. “It’s always going. For years the smoke’s just been steadily pouring out of there.”
“Hey, better living through chemicals,” Nikki scoffs. “Supposedly that’s why the shit comes out of the stacks white, all the toxic stuff’s cleaned up first, before it comes out and hits the air.”
He’s always considered the clouds more a gray color than white, but nods regardless.
“That’s what they say anyway. I don’t believe a word of it, though, do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it. Nobody’s even really sure what the hell they do in there or what goes on in that place. I know it’s some sort of government sponsored plant, but ever notice how all the employees are out-of-towners and nobody ever questions anything? It’s like we’re all under some kind of freaky mind control or something so we don’t make waves. And don’t even get me started on the whole aesthetic angle. Who builds such an ugly-ass factory right along the shoreline like that? What are we in a Kafka novel? Hardly. Maybe the smoke’s slowly turning us all into cockroaches, though, that’d be cool.” She scratches her chin with short fingernails painted black. “I bet that’s really what’s in the smoke, some drug we’re all breathing in that keeps us in line. And we don’t even know it.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s just a chemical processing plant.”
“Why are they so secretive then?” Her eyes widen. “Maybe it’s a cover for something like the Stasi back in East Germany before the wall came down. The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit was a secret police force, and it had thousands of private citizens working for them and spying on their neighbors and shit. Nobody trusted anyone and everybody was afraid all the time. Sound familiar?”
“Yeah, kind of, I guess. Right now I have to go though.”
The jingle of Dignon’s keys draws her attention away from the smokestacks. A silver piercing in her eyebrow catches the moonlight and reflects it back at him. “It’s cold, I should get inside too,” she sighs. “Nice talking to you Digby.”
* * *
Dignon is so hungry he feels weak. The entire building smells like pork chops. Another of Mrs. Rogo’s meals has apparently gone unattended. Her Christmas music is again in full swing. It’s Rosemary Clooney this time.
Mr. Tibbs hops up on the kitchen table and watches Dignon as he stands in the light of the open refrigerator, staring at the nearly empty shelves. He closes the door then checks the freezer. A small frozen pizza falls out. He catches the box, closes the freezer and shuffles over to the microwave. As the pizza cooks, he pets Mr. Tibbs, who walks back and forth along the edge of the table, raising his haunches to meet Dignon’s hand as it slides from his neck down along his back to his hindquarters. But for the lamp near the easy chair in the other room, the apartment remains dark. Dignon wants it that way and feels more comfortable in low light for some reason. “Quite a night,” he tells the cat. Mr. Tibbs sits and awaits further information. “Bree’s amazing. She’s beautiful, smart and really sweet. But not in that icky way, it’s genuine. You’d like her, dude.” He scratches his head, wonders if he’ll ever see Bree again. After all, he still has her book, he could use it as an excuse to contact her again, maybe make a joke about the whole thing. But he’s sure she would never consider him anything more than a friend. “She could have any man she wants, why the hell would she want me?”
The microwave answers with an annoying beeping sound. The pizza is done.
“Thing is, Tibbs, I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Dignon opens the oven, pulls the pizza out and slides it onto the counter. It smells better than it looks. His stomach growls and grumbles with anticipation, but those sounds stop him cold. Earlier he changed into nightclothes, a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Even in loose clothing, his gut is evident, hanging there like a gargantuan tumor. He slowly raises his shirt, looks down at it. Stretch marks slash across his skin like knife wounds, scarring him. With his other hand he reaches beneath the flesh, lifts it up then releases it, watching as it bounces back into position and jiggles like gelatin. Carefully pulling his sweatpants out and away from his body, he realizes that unless he has an erection he cannot see his penis. He releases the pants then cranes his neck so he can look back over his shoulder at his rear end. It’s misshapen and sloppy. He wasn’t heavy as a child or as a young adult, so when did this dramatic transformation in his body take place? Surely it didn’t happen overnight. It crept up on him, a gradual process that began inside him, in places he couldn’t see or hear or feel, and by the time he realized what was happening, it had already overtaken him and turned him into something other than what he’d been before. Like death, he thinks.
He remembers every insult Bree’s ex-boyfriend used on him. He hadn’t called him ugly or short or stupid or even bald. He called him fat. As if this somehow defined who he was, not just how he looked. Lard-ass…fat boy…
Dignon tosses the pizza on the kitchen table. “It’s pepperoni,” he tells Mr. Tibbs. “Knock yourself out.”
As the cat closes in on the food, Dignon grabs a beer instead then picks up Mythical Beings in a Mortal World and flips through it while making his way to his chair. He sits down, sips his beer and continues to scan the various entries in the book.
This is the one that begs to be read:
~SIRENS~
Thought to have first appeared in The Odyssey, these creatures, sometimes referred to as nymphs, other times as fiends, are famous for their unearthly beauty and for the lure of their song. Sirens’ singing is so enticing it often lures sailors to rocky shorelines where they shipwreck and drown. To avoid this, Ulysses once had his crew plug their ears with beeswax. Temptresses who possess great knowledge regarding the secrets and mysteries of life, Sirens use beauty rather than violence to destroy those helplessly drawn to them. Around 1400, a Siren was allegedly briefly captured in Europe. Astonishingly attractive, she appeared to be human, but was not, as she could live in water as well as on land. Sirens are immortal, except for those rare occasions when a man fails to fall under their spell. When this happens, a Siren will throw herself into the sea as a means of escape, but will instantly be transformed to stone.
He remembers vague nightmares…flashes of fog-covered ocean…
A sudden urge to urinate forces Dignon up and out of the chair. As he passes the kitchen table, Mr. Tibbs looks up from the remains of the pizza and meows gratefully, grease and cheese staining his whiskers.
Without bothering to turn the bathroom light on, Dignon stands over the toilet and pees, listening to it splash the water and echo across the tile walls and floor. A brief bout of dizziness comes and goes. On an empty stomach, the beer is going straight to his head. With a sigh, he turns and looks out the window to his left. Directly across the small space between the buildings is Nikki’s apartment. Only one window faces his
bathroom, and in all the time they’ve lived next door to each other, with the exception of particularly hot and humid summer nights, he can never remember the shade being anything but drawn.
Until tonight.
Though the light is on in her apartment he can’t make out much beyond a dingy bureau and a closet without a door. A shadow moves along the wall as he finishes peeing. He shakes himself off then pulls his sweats back into place and stands in the dark, watching the shadow move slowly closer to the window.
Nikki steps into view with a pile of laundry in her arms and dumps it on top of the bureau. Her head bobs rhythmically, indicating she’s listening to music.
Dignon doesn’t flush the toilet. He doesn’t move. He barely breathes, worried—however illogically—that she might somehow hear him through the buildings and open space, through the night.
Watching his neighbor perform the mundane task of putting various items of laundry away in bureau drawers transports him back to New York City, all those years ago.
There was a large apartment building directly across from the second floor studio he and Lisa were renting, and soon after they moved in he began noticing a woman in one of the apartments. She was a professional of some sort. Always nicely dressed, she worked banker’s hours, normally leaving about eight-thirty in the morning and returning home about five-thirty. Dignon was sure he had neither a lascivious design on the woman, nor any particular interest in her at all, as he was madly in love with Lisa at the time. But there was something fascinating about watching this young woman come and go, and contemplating who she was and what her life entailed. A few times he had watched her return from work, quickly undress then throw casual clothes on and head back out. He often wondered why she was always alone. She was quite attractive, yet he never saw her with anyone, as if she kept her apartment as a separate and private place apart from the rest of the world. Sometimes he tries to imagine what became of her. They’d had this odd relationship of sorts without her even realizing it. She never knew he existed, and yet, he still sometimes thinks of her to this day. She’d be in her forties now. Does she still live in that apartment building? Does she still live alone? Does she still live at all?
As he watches Nikki putting clothes away he wonders how much of life happens outside one’s awareness. For all he knows, someone could be watching him at that very moment too, wondering the exact same thing.
Another memory finds him. One morning a few years ago, Wilma had invited him to breakfast. He’d been running late doing some errands and stopped at a payphone to call her and let her know he’d be there soon. As he stood listening to the ringing on the line, a man walking past on the street made eye contact with him. Dignon had never seen the man before, and never saw him again, but had maintained eye contact with him until he’d disappeared into a crowd of people near the end of the block. There was something about him, something in his eyes, sorrow perhaps, that he’s never forgotten. To this day he has no idea why he felt compelled to return this man’s stare, but it seemed the right thing to do at that moment in time. It seemed necessary. For them both. This strange brief connection, there then lost. Was it significant? Was it simple chance, completely meaningless? Or was it a sign, just one more piece of an intricate puzzle spanning his entire life, carefully planned out ahead of time by greater, more powerful forces and designed to be fitted together gradually over time, never making total sense until the puzzle is completed?
Even tonight was curious. Why had he and Nikki had their lengthiest conversation with each other ever on this night specifically? And why was the shade to that room lifted in winter for the first time in the three or four years she’d lived there? Could these things all be coincidences, or were they more signs?
“Signs,” he whispers. “Signs of what?”
Nikki reaches deep into the pile of laundry and pulls out what appears to be some sort of undergarment, a slip, or something similar. As she pulls it free of the pile, Dignon notices a peculiar discoloration to the otherwise silky white fabric. She holds the garment up to the light, inspecting it nonchalantly, as if for lint. The lower half is soaked with what appears to be blood.
His stomach feels like someone has reached inside him and squeezed his intestines, and his heart hammers his chest.
Nikki grins, brings the bloody garment to her face and rubs it across her cheeks, nose and chin, covering herself in a shiny crimson mask.
With a hand to his mouth, Dignon slams shut his eyes.
After a moment, he forces them open.
His neighbor is still there, still putting away her laundry. She holds a red shirt up to her face and smells it, perhaps enjoying the fragrance of a particular detergent she uses. There is no blood on her face, no bloodstained undergarment, no blood at all.
Dignon trembles in the darkness a moment, shaken. He runs his hand from his mouth up over his forehead and exhales a deep breath. “What the fuck,” he whispers. His vision refocuses as an image emerges from the dark windowpane to reveal an anemic ghoul. It takes several seconds before he realizes it is his own reflection in the glass.
Something blinks and the reflection is gone.
The light in Nikki’s window has gone out.
* * *
It is very late at night, but still no snow. Dignon walks the street bundled in a heavy winter coat, a knit hat pulled down over his ears to help ward off the icy winds blowing in off the ocean. But for the factory, the city is quiet, asleep. He has no precise recollection of leaving his apartment and coming here, but Dignon finds himself standing near the tall chain link fence that surrounds the factory, staring blithely at the smokestacks. Along the top of the fence is barbed wire, and a bevy of surveillance cameras are mounted on the buildings within the cordoned off complex. A small security hut just beyond the locked front gate sits empty and dark. From his position on the sidewalk, Dignon can see lights on through a few of the tiny windows near the roof of the factory, but little else. Could Nikki be right? Could there be something horrible happening inside these gates, some unspeakable conspiracy?
As if in response, a door to a small trailer next to the main building opens and a man dressed in security garb saunters out, struggling to get his utility belt secured around his waist as he makes his way across the lot to the fence. He is an older man, perhaps in his sixties, his hair thinning and gray. “Can I help you?” he asks while still quite a distance away.
Once the guard reaches the other side of the fence, Dignon answers him. “I’m just out for a walk. I was watching the smokestacks.”
“At two-thirty in the morning? Move along. We got laws against loitering.”
“But I’m on a public street.”
The guard smiles condescendingly. “Is that a fact? A public street, you say?” With his belt now properly fastened, he reaches for a long nightstick dangling from one of the loops and pulls it free. An enormous ring of keys suddenly appear in his other hand and he moves toward the lock on the front gate. “Let’s just see about that.”
Dignon takes a step back, toward the road. “What are you doing?”
Lights suddenly appear behind him, bathing the security guard in blue.
A police cruiser has pulled up along the curb behind Dignon. A young officer with a buzz cut gets out, says something quickly into the radio transmitter on his shoulder then waves to the guard. “Evening, Johnny.”
The guard puts the stick and keys away. “Evening, Roy.”
“We got a problem here?”
“No,” Dignon answers for him. “There’s no problem. I was just—”
“I observed this young man staring at the facility in a suspicious manner, so I came out to see what he wanted. Told me he was out for a walk. I asked him to kindly move along, and he told me he was standing on a public street.”
The cop glances at Dignon with a disgusted expression. “OK, Johnny, I’ll take it from here.”
“Thanks, Roy.” The guard heads back to the trailer from which he came. “You have a good eve
ning now.”
“Will do, you too.” The cop gives a bored sigh. “Gonna need to see some ID there, bud.”
“I don’t have it with me. I was just out for a walk.”
“Come here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come here.” He points to the section of pavement in front of him as if summoning a disobedient dog. When Dignon complies, the cop reaches for his handcuffs. “Turn around, put your hands behind your back.” As Dignon does as instructed, the policeman explains, “You are not under arrest at this time. This is strictly for your safety and mine.” He slaps the cuffs across Dignon’s wrists, clicks them tight then spins him back around so they’re facing each other. “Now, let’s try again. Do we have a problem here?”
“No, I was just out for a walk, I didn’t do anything wrong. I was standing on a public street minding my own business, I have the right to do that, I—”
“Oh, I’m sorry, counselor. I didn’t know I was talking to F. Lee Bailey.”
Confused and frustrated, Dignon stares at him helplessly.
The cop rolls his eyes and begins patting him down. “Got anything in your pockets I need to know about? Sharp objects, needles, weapons, anything that might stick me or in any manner cause me bodily injury?”
“No.”
“Hope not, ‘cause if I get stuck it’s gonna be the worst night of your life, you read me?” He finishes the pat down. “What’s your name?”
“Dignon Malloy.”
“Do you live here in town?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes sir.”
Satisfied, the cop relaxes his stance. “Mr. Malloy, let me explain something to you. It’s the middle of the night, and you’re out here staring at a chemical processing facility. The folks in there work with some very volatile substances. One of the eggheads in there mixes test tube A with test tube B by mistake and ka-boom, there goes the neighborhood. That means a place like this could be of potential interest to terrorists and other malcontents.”
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