by Lonni Lees
Slut! Shameless hussy! Charlie’s mother whispered the words into his brain. Tramp, disease-ridden whore!
Jan looked at his tanned face and intense gray eyes. There was something familiar about those eyes that looked at you and through you at the same time. She could smell the danger and she liked the aroma. She ruffled through the mail, then handed it to him, ever so slowly—even sensually. If one could manage to hand over the mail sensually she certainly knew how to deliver!
Charlie’s eyes broke away from the young woman’s gaze and glanced around the store. A kid stood at the register with a fistful of licorice. “Looks like you got a customer,” he said as he turned from the devil’s temptation and headed for the food aisles. Been too abrupt, he thought. He did not want to draw attention to himself. He just wanted to be alone. But the child-like breasts on the bitch aroused him. Why would she do that when he was trying so hard to behave? To be invisible.
No Charlie, he reminded himself, you don’t shit too close to where you eat.
He picked up what he needed and unloaded the groceries at the register. Cheese, toilet paper, crackers, crunchy peanut butter, a box of macaroni and cheese, beer, a pack of batteries.
And kerosene.
The damned bastards had probably disconnected everything by now. Never mind that their decision would have been due to his lack of payment. Charlie saw that as beside the point. Every negative result that came from one of his actions was seen as someone else’s fault—someone else to blame for his own failings. Electricity! It seemed as if everything had to be plugged into something these days.
Damn, but he’d like to plug something into that tight little pussy at the counter.
Stop it, Charlie, he told himself. Just get what you need and get the hell out of here.
“Can I ring this stuff up for you…Charles?” Jan said. “Gee, it don’t look like you’re planning on being around long. Too bad,” she winked.
She was prying. Nosy. He did not like that. Not one bit.
“I almost forgot—a carton of Camel Filters. And a box of those night crawlers.”
“You live near the lake?
There she goes again.
“More or less.”
“You know it’s not fishing season yet.”
Then why is she selling bait? He was tempted to say it, but didn’t. Stop it, just fucking stop it, he thought giving her a look that shut her up.
The nosy little bitch packed up his two bags of supplies and handed them to him. He could not see her eyeing his backside as he turned to leave. His cold look had not discouraged her one bit. It had turned her on. She liked a challenge almost as much as she liked the smell of danger. Jan watched as he loaded his groceries into an old Chevy Nova. The license plate read HAWK—the bumper sticker: MEAN AS A RED-ASSED SPIDER.
She hoped he would be running out of groceries real soon—and that he had a big appetite.
Her gaze followed him as his car turned up at the Wagon Wheel and onto the unpaved road that wound back into the mountains until he was out of sight.
Tall pines hovered overhead like treacherous monsters as Charlie’s Nova wound its way home. Potholes were filled with mud and water from recent rains, and snow, no longer winter white, lay in grimy patches along the sides of the road.
He liked the seclusion. No little boys with fishing poles in March. Most of the cabins were empty. Too late for skiers and too early for fishing and camping. This was the solitude he relished. Even in summer Pine Lake only got the overload. Everyone headed for Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead where there was activity and action and plenty of people, leaving this little corner of the San Bernardino Mountains undisturbed. That was its appeal—why he had bought a cabin here in the first place. It was the only thing in life that waited for him. Wherever he wandered the cabin waited for him, like an obedient wife who never asked awkward questions.
Like…where have you been, Charlie…what have you been up to?
After passing a few empty cabins, Charlie reached the familiar fork in the road. The weathered wood sign pointed down to the right and read TO LAKE. He took the narrow road that climbed up to his left. It was barely wide enough for one car, much less a dinosaur Chevy. He was certain that it was meant to be merely a footpath as he gunned the Nova up the steep incline. The engine churned and smoked, the tires spun and gravel spit into the air until he pulled it over and turned off the key. The cabin roof peeked out from over the ridge. He was close enough to make the ascent on foot. No sense chancing problems like when he had scraped the oil pan across some fucking boulder two seasons back.
Charlie was in no mood for problems.
He pocketed the keys, threw the mail into a grocery bag and hiked up the hill. The beer was getting warm and he was thirsty.
It felt good to be home.
As soon as the key slid into the lock Charlie Blackhawk knew that something was wrong. It didn’t feel as if it were locked. He picked up his bags, pushing the door open with his shoulder. Charlie had the instincts of a predator, ever aware of the faintest scent on the wind. Even before his eyes adjusted to the darkness the reek of intrusion assaulted him.
“Fucking hippie misfits,” he said.
He walked across the room and into the kitchen, putting his bags down on the kitchen table. Crusted dishes lay in the sink, crawling with ants. He smashed a line of them with his fist, then turned on the hot water spigot to scald them. It sputtered and belched air. No hot water. His frustration escalated. He checked the inside of the cupboard and let out a yelp.
“Bastards!” he yelled, spinning in circles. “You fucking creeps took all three boxes of my Peanut Butter Patties Girl Scout Cookies! Those were mine!”
He walked back to the main room, assessing the damage. The stone fireplace was heaped with trash and the sofa bed was opened. Three empty bottles of Jack Daniels lay on the bare mattress. But nothing else appeared to be disturbed. How the hell did they get in? Had he left the place unlocked? Shit. Damn. If he had left it locked they would just have broken a window. They did things like that. They broke into places. They used them and trashed them. They had no respect for anyone or anything. But it didn’t look as though they had destroyed or stolen anything—except for his cookies—and that alone was beyond forgiveness. He thought how good it would feel to find them and wring their skinny little necks until he felt the vertebrae pop. Like that stupid kid on the road. That greedy kid who smoked dope and begged rides from strangers.
Someone had invaded his space.
Soiled his sanctuary.
Who’s been sleeping in my bed? Said Papa Bear.
Charlie was pissed.
He opened a beer and pried open a can of Hash with a hand-opener, setting them on the dresser next to the sofa bed. He lit a match to the trash in the fireplace, then sat down on the mattress and imagined a naked teenage girl screwing some pimply-faced geek on his bed. He watched the flames as he ate. He sat and watched the fire as if it were some TV set receiving its signal straight from the bowels of hell. It spoke to him. He watched until twilight fell and the flames had turned to smoldering embers.
Charlie’s eyes fixated on the Girl Scout calendar nailed onto the wall. It was turned to October 1974. The page was yellowed with age and dotted with fly crap. He smiled and the little girl in the photograph smiled back. She stood in her green uniform surrounded by a fall landscape painted the colors of her hair. The dim light from the fireplace danced across her face and Charlie knew that she was smiling just for him.
God, how he loved that picture—the little girl who looked like Lucy Mae. When the light hit it just right she was Lucy, smiling sweetly at the big brother she loved. As hard as he tried, there was nothing in the world that could fill that void. “I love you, Lucy Mae,” he whispered.
Reverend Churchill’s voice droned from the radio. “Y’all come to our tabernacle now, y’here? We’ve got everything for the family. All that’s needed to nurture their little spirits right here in downtown Oklahoma City. Sunday s
chool and pot lucks, prayer meetings and penance, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops all sponsored by your generous donations in the name of the Almighty.”
“What’s a Girl Scout, Momma?” Lucy Mae had asked.
“Nothin’ but a bunch of dirty little girls in green dresses with nothin’ better to do with their time.”
“Can I be one? Please? It sounds fun…being with other girls.”
“Fun is nothing but foolishness…and the devil can find little girls, even in churches.”
Lucy didn’t ask again.
But one day, in one of her kinder moments, Momma came home with an old Girl Scout uniform she had picked up in a thrift shop. She threw it at Lucy and said, “Here. This is as close as you’re gonna get.”
Lucy Mae loved her green dress and that was all she wore from that day forward.
Charlie awoke to a noise, like a muffled wind chime. He opened his eyes to a darkened room. The fire was dead and the cabin was meat locker cold. He exhaled as quietly as possible, listening intently for the source of the noise.
He heard it again.
Not wind chimes—more like metal—like his keys were being jostled where they lay on the dresser beside him. A noise like a sneak thief in the night.
He knew what it was.
Cunning little bastard, he thought. It was probably trying to take off with the whole damn key chain. And what was it planning to leave in its place? A pebble? A dead flower? A brass button or somebody’s shiny new dime held safe in its nest for future trade?
Charlie Blackhawk hated pack rats.
He detested all sorts of fluffy, sneaky little things but he hated pack rats most of all. They would scurry into a room at night like felonious little smurfs, seeking their shiny treasures. They always left something in its place—like that didn’t make it stealing at all! When Charlie stole, no one was left with the illusion that he had done them a favor. He damned well took what he wanted with no apologies.
He was entitled.
Pack rats, he thought, as him arm reached slowly outward. He cocked his head and listened intently. Following the rustling sound, his hand moved with the silence of a snake through the blades of darkness.
Wham!
It squealed and squirmed in Charlie’s closed fist. His giggles and the pack rat’s screams filled the room as he stumbled through the darkness into the kitchen.
“Gotcha this time, don’t I, you fucking little fuzz ball?”
He held it tightly, tiny ribs cracking beneath his grasp, as his free hand searched the cupboard for a Mason jar. He held the jar, pushing it against his body with the hand that held the rat. His free hand unscrewed the lid.
Plop! Slam!
He re-screwed the lid as the sounds of frantic claws made a high-pitched scraping noise from inside the jar. Like fingernails on a blackboard. Or worn brake pads scraping against the bare metal of old brake drums. He shook the jar hard, like he was making a martini, then laughed as he set it on the counter. It took a few minutes for Charlie to find the kerosene lamp and fill it in the dark. (Gotta pay the electricity.) The lamp provided enough light for him to watch the pack rat as it flopped in terror, seeking a route of escape. But there was no escape. Charlie had it now.
He searched the cupboard for the old bottle. He always knew that bottle of chloroform would come in handy. He knew it on that long ago day when he had stolen it. There wasn’t much that got past Charlie. He soaked a wad of toilet paper with some of the chloroform and shoved it into the jar. Then he replaced the lid tightly so that no air could enter. The pack rat jumped and screamed, dancing a frantic jig as it slammed against the glass. He watched it for a long time and as he watched his mind wandered. Lucy Mae and hot cigarettes and pretty little girls with skinny legs. As the pack rat twitched, he thought about his erection and what he wanted to do to make it better—to make it okay. He didn’t want to be a bad boy, oh no, not Charlie. As the pack rat lay in death throes at the bottom of the jar, Charlie watched. And as he watched he thought about finding people for the watching games…. an alleyway in Hollywood…a pimp who had a stable that perfectly suited his tastes. And it was all only an hour and a half away.
Tomorrow he would take a little ride.
Charlie smiled as the helpless creature gasped a painful last breath. When he shook the jar the pack rat hit the sides with a thud. No more fighting. No more stealing what wasn’t his. You don’t NEVER take what’s Charlie Blackhawk’s. He continued to watch—as if he expected it to spring back to life.
But it didn’t.
It didn’t move at all.
He turned off the kerosene lamp and returned to the bare mattress. It smelled damp and felt cold against his body.
(It didn’t move).
Charlie curled his body into a fetal position. Forbidden visions danced to a wild drum beat behind his closed eyelids, and he felt safe.
Charlie Blackhawk slept like a baby, but not for very long. He awoke restless. Tomorrow was too far away and he needed to do something about his gnawing thirst right now. He grabbed his car keys, bolted from the mattress, and slammed the door behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Earlier that same day the school had called Jerry Hamill at the law firm. Unlike many lawyers who look forward to being high profile trial attorneys, Jerry found his comfort zone in the law library surrounded by the books. He shunned the spotlight, finding it an uncomfortable place to be. There was a balance and logic to the written word. A stability in the laws. So he did the painstaking research that gave fodder to the other attorneys so that they could grandstand before a jury, their captive audience. He furnished them with the laws as they were written and the precedents that would serve them best and they would twist them and distort them to suit their own purposes, in classic lawyer fashion.
Jerry had come home to wait for his daughter and before Amy arrived there had been yet another call. Amy had been seen digging up flowers from a neighbor’s lawn.
It was after three-thirty when he heard the door slam. He walked into the hallway, scooping his daughter into his arms. “Hello, angel,” he said.
“I love you, Daddy,” she smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Amy, tell me about the flowers.” He saw the confusion on her face and his heart ached as tears welled in her eyes. Her hands began to tremble as she choked on her response.
“I didn’t mean to. I don’t mean to be bad. Honest I don’t. I…I, there was a girl, Daddy. She told me that she loved crocuses and that her mom wouldn’t let her have them. I wanted to make her happy so I took them, but when I looked up she was gone.” There was a long pause before she continued. “I really did see the girl,” she said. “Oh Daddy, it’s just getting worser and worser.”
Jerry saw the dark circles under Amy’s eyes and the worry-lines that crept across her face and he knew that he was no longer enough.
“The school called,” he said. “They told me what happened in class today. I’m not upset with you, but I just don’t know what to do any more. They have counselors, Amy. I wonder if talking to one of them might help you feel better.”
She frowned as she thought about what he had suggested. “Okay,” she finally said.
“And if you don’t like it?”
“If they can help. I know I need help. I just don’t know why this stuff happens.”
“If you’re really sure.” He wasn’t going to force it, but had already set an appointment for that same afternoon. Just in case. He was relieved she had agreed so easily. Amy was probably as desperate as Jerry was himself.
Later, as they were driving to the school, Amy said, “Mother said I’m crazy.”
“You’re not crazy.”
“Then why are these awful things happening to me?”
Jerry Hamill felt uncomfortable. The chair was too small, child-sized, but that was not the only cause of his discomfort. He sat in the school psychologist’s waiting room for what felt like an eternity, his eyes nervously scanning the room. The mint
green paint was institutional, with a dusky, unclean glaze. The light wood doors were cheap and artificially grained, their surfaces plastic smooth. Amy had told him that the doors at school had monsters. He saw what she meant, for if he stared long enough distorted images emerged from the wood grain with gnomish faces, twisted branches, giraffes that stretched the length of the door. He would never have noticed the unnerving abstracts were it not for his daughter.
He turned his attention from the door, shifted his weight, then glanced impatiently at his Movado watch. His skin crawled with perspiration beneath its leather band. Jerry ran his fingers beneath the strap, circling around his wrist to alleviate the warm, damp itch. Amy had been in the psychologist’s office for twenty-five minutes.
It was taking too long.
It was too quiet.
He disliked the woman already. When they had arrived, the petite, middle-aged woman had shaken his hand with an intimidating knuckle-buster grip—not what he would have expected from such a physically small female. Hardly the nurturing, grandmotherly type that he had expected. Instead he had come face to face with a Mack Truck bursting the confines of a two-cylinder chassis.
Then she had excluded him from the first session with a castrating dismissal.
Strike two. He did not like that at all.
He did not like leaving Amy alone with her.
Maybe he was being overly sensitive. Amy wanted help and this seemed the logical place to start. Doctors had been little help over the years, just repeating their “underdeveloped” mantra. Well, she was smart enough to pass in school, barely, and that was good enough for Jerry. She was fragile, that was all. But the dreams were another matter—they frightened her and he was unable to help. She had told him some of the dreams but insisted that others were too embarrassing to share.
So he hadn’t pushed.
And now he didn’t know what else to do but sit here and wait.
He didn’t know what else to do. He felt ineffectual and that upset him.