I don’t hear much more from the conversation besides pleasantries and Lizzy’s questions about what it’s like to be a famous British pop-star. Kate’s face is bright, though; she’s beaming. Her big, round cheeks are flush and she’s sitting properly, smiling; it was a pose and looked like she were answering an interviewer on a television show except her straight, bobbed brown hair kept falling over her eyes.
The place floods with more patrons once the promotion in town ends.
Lizzy has her chicken fingers while her and Kate talk most of the night.
Chris shows up at 10:00 to take over bartending.
And David shares the microphone with Kate on a duet of the Damien Rice song Coconut Skins, which ends with the lines:
So you can sit on chimneys
Put some fire up your ass
No need to know what you're doing or looking for
But if anyone should ask
Tell them I've been cooking coconut skins
And we've been hanging out
Tell them God just dropped by to forgive our sins
And relieve us our doubt
La la la la la la la
FRANKENSTEIN
The next morning we meet in Chris’ living room to go over the itinerary.
“You gotta see this,” he tells us, hurriedly stuffing a DVD into the player and turning everything on. “I had a friend put it together.”
“You finished it?” David asks.
“Finished what?” I ask before Chris can answer David, momentarily forgetting that Chris has been filming bits and pieces for months so we could put together a commercial for the school. I’m too busy checking the cushions for any unsightly stains. Without finding any, I sit and stare back.
Chris had designed his house like a college kid might – beer signs, a pool table, tan walls with nicks and scratches and dents (from drunk fooling and sex with Sadie), carpeting already stained, three couches in a living room with a massive television, dirty magazines scattered, underwear in corners (male and female); the only fashion came from Sadie, who had decorated the place with weird but colorful antiques. She had a gargoyle giving the finger on one side of the large television and, on the other, a plastic, gloomy oak tree cut diagonally in the center – both dark. She also hung the artwork on the walls, the pictures of us, everything. It simultaneously feels juvenile and homely.
Chris hits play on the remote while we sit side-by-side, leaning back on one couch with our feet propped up on the back of a second couch in front of us, like stadium seating. The third couch is against the wall, facing the other two. His living room feels a bit dark even in broad daylight.
Then starts the 9 minute commercial for our school.
It can only be described in bits:
First of all, Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein plays the whole time.
Then there’s all the psychedelic colors – images of us fighting in the dojo but it’s impossible to distinguish who’s fighting who as all of the colors are trippy and bright.
“That’s why you had me do that, huh?” David sighs and I don’t know what he’s talking about…until I see the footage of David clearly dressed as a Frankenstein monster. I crack a smile. David the Frankenstein monster turns into trippy colors and begins to dance retro style. David sighs loudly again. “I knew I should’ve asked more questions.”
There’s more, a whole lot more (as the video runs nine-plus minutes):
One part has party robots.
Another longer portion has David the Frankenstein monster jamming out on an electric guitar.
There’s a small animated portion of two people fighting – after a moment, it dawns on me that it’s a digitized image of myself fighting with Chris in a weird slow-motion, except the colors are askew, and words and pictures pop up. Words like “Ow.” Pictures like a bone-snapping. It’s very brief.
“It was a condition that I let the editor animate some of it,” Chris shrugs it off.
The video continues on.
Sadie dancing go-go style.
Me, asleep in a chair with a sandwich on my chest.
“You fuckin’ recorded it?” I angrily bark.
“I was curious whatcher reaction’d be. Should’a prolly guest anger. It is anger, right?” Chris looks into my eyes; I don’t answer. “Yeah. Anger. Noted.”
“It also doesn’t seem to fit with the flow of the rest of it,” David adds.
“You know, that’s kinda what I likt about it.”
“Does this end?” I have to ask.
“I think there’s four more minutes…”
Of more psychedelic colors. And a brief hug between two sock puppets, one dressed as a soldier and one as a hippie. And a minute of David and I playing onstage at Pairadice, including obscene close-ups on our faces. And Lizzy dancing on the sidewalk. And more psychedelic colors.
In the end, my eyeballs feel as though they’re going to jump from my skull.
Chris gets up and stands in front of the television, his face large and happy.
“So what’d you think?” Before we can react—“It’s gonna air once a night for the next three weeks. Local channels seven and nine.” He checks me, then turns his head to David. His smile doesn’t fade. “It cost more to get ten minutes of local air time but—totally worth it.”
We still don’t speak.
“It doesn’t say the name of the school,” I say in order to swallow my fear that people would be relating those images to our school.
“Oh no—don’t worry, it does. The channel has its own closing template. It’ll say our names and the title of the school and the web address in real big—aw, in these awesome lava-lamp letters. It’s awesome, you gotta see it.”
“What’s the number for the local stations?”
“Nine,” David says, watching Chris to make sure he’s right, with both of them saying, in unison, “and seven.”
“No, I mean their phone numb—know what, nevermind. I’m sure I can find it. I’ll see you guys at work.”
MURDER IN THE CITY
The situation escalates.
I can feel my blood warming. My heart beating faster.
“Um…yeah, I mainly just teach uh at the dojo. And my brother David,” I motion to the stage, as David is playing two consecutive nights – Chris’ friends, The Avett Brothers, had been scheduled to play but something serious came up for the cello player and they had to call it off for the night (personally, they’re my favorite), “he teaches the music. I’ve only been teaching the younger class the past few weeks.”
Bethany Walker-Stevens shyly smiles toward the stage a moment. (The Stevens hyphen on her name hadn’t been removed yet, she had told me, but it would be before summer’s end.)
“So you’re a fighter?” she asks me.
“Uh, yeah. Sometimes. I mean,” I nervously scratch the back of my neck, “a fair amount of the time since I teach it. But I’m not scary—I mean to say, I don’t fight…like, random strangers or anything…not, wait—” I clear my throat. “Yeah,” I concede. “I’m a fighter.”
“I’m gentle,” her tone is demure, playful.
She’s a very pretty woman – somewhere in her mid-forties, athletic, with a pert nose, high cheek bones, and black, curly hair always pulled back in a pony tail. Her fourteen year old son, Joshua, is in the young-adult guitar class I’ve been teaching. He’s had a hard time concentrating in class (a part of me thinks it’s because of the departure of the Stevens hyphen) but he’s a good student and, unlike some of the others, he actually practices when he’s not in class.
“Would you like another Cabernet?”
Her drink is nearing completion.
“Sure.”
Pam Noel is standing nearby, listening – mainly just to hear how the conversation is going. Pam Noel is in her late-forties, scraggly brown hair, weathered skin, and married to a bulgy man named Ralph. We all call him Rough Ralph because of his graphite exterior, though he’s a kind man – he’s what I imagine Santa Claus wou
ld be like if he were less hairy and trying to fit in. And his laugh overwhelms the bar, something common when he speaks with Chris, whom he really seems to appreciate. It’s funny to see the married couple together, as Pam Noel is tiny and Rough Ralph is a towering giant.
She brings the drink over without either of us speaking.
I go to be causal and cheers Bethany Walker-Stevens…
“And last Christmas, my brother over there at the bar – he…” I hear David.
My head droops.
“I can see he knows what’s coming next,” David continues. “We have a hard time with giving gifts since none of us have many things we want, and we donate a fair amount…” this is David’s spiel every time “...so my brother’s gift last Christmas happened to be the only thing I asked for: for him to join me on stage any time I ask. There’s a maximum of once a week, though. So here’s my once-this-week.” He moves behind stage and brings out the back-up guitar.
“I’m sorry, I-I’ll be right back,” I tell Bethany Walker-Stevens and head for the stage.
“The new one,” David tells me, getting comfy on the stool.
I pull the second stool over and we share the single microphone. The song we perform is one of duel acoustic guitars, written by the band that had been supposed to play that night – The Avett Brothers:
If I get murdered in the city
Don’t go revengin’ in my name
One person dead from such is plenty
No need to go get locked away
When I leave your arms
The things that I think of
No need to get over-alarmed
I’m comin’ home
I wonder which brother is better
Which one our parents love the most
I sure did get in lots of trouble
They said to let the other go
A tear fell from my father’s eyes
I wondered what my dad would say
He said I love you
And I’m proud of you both, in so many different ways
If I get murdered in the city
Go read the letter in my desk
Don’t worry with all my belongings
But pay attention to the list
Make sure my sister knows I loved her
Make sure my mother knows the same
Always remember, there is nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name
Always remember, there is nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name
As the song finishes, David puts his hand over the microphone and whispers to me, “You’re welcome.”
Coy and even more nervous than before, Bethany Walker-Stevens has her mouth agape in exaggerated shock when I return.
“What—” I begin, trying to charm by pretending I didn’t just do a pretty amazing job (if I do say so myself)…but I’m cut off when my phone buzzes to life with a hole to sink the ship, a ship whose only cargo was my chance of finally getting laid.
THROUGH A WALL
Sadie’s car is in its usual spot – next to one I don’t recognize, I notice crossing the parking lot to her school. Even the students’ cars are still there, which is weird as they tend to dash off at the strike of quarter-till and it was now 10:15. I get to the front and peer in through a window as I move to the door; it’s hard to see anything as the windows are tinted and covered to protect massage clients but I think I see the outline of a student doing a yoga stretch—
“Hello, Mr. Ridley.”
Sam (Ryan) the Driver startles me. I don’t know how he does it, as it’s almost impossible to catch me off-guard, but he must have been smoking behind a stone pillar or something.
“Jesus,” I curse, annoyed; I hate being startled. He apologizes. “I guess you’re the reason I got the text.” Sadie had sent me a text just saying: COME. We take precautions since her class is made up of young women and they didn’t get out until well after dark.
Sam (Ryan) the Driver tilts his head in that questioning way he often does – his sad, squinty eyes are all the more apparent in the contrast between darkness and the streetlights.
“Nevermind. What can I do for you, kid?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Then why are you hanging out here? You’re holding up the class.”
“I do not follow, Mr. Ridley.”
“Sadie—the instructor. In the class.” I motion to the doors of the massage school. “She won’t let the students out if someone’s lingering out here.”
He’s still staring at me.
“Lingering?” he asks.
“A stranger hanging around outside.”
“Where should I wait then?”
“Wait for what?”
“My girlfriend,” he states, also motioning to the massage school doors.
“She’s—? You’re girlfriend is in the class?”
He nods.
I’m first surprised that I didn’t know he had a girlfriend in Sadie’s class, then turn to the door.
“If it’s not you then…why aren’t they out?”
I try the doors gently, making no sound as I find them locked. Just past the front doors, there is a small kitchen area on the right and another door to the left leading into the open classroom area. With those doors closed, it’s impossible to tell what’s happening inside.
“Stay here,” I tell him, unlocking the dojo.
I walk in, door closed and locked behind me, and turn on the lights.
The blinds are closed and no one on the street can see inside.
On the left-hand wall, there’s a pane of mirror that used to be a doorway into the massage school before we remodeled. We had decided that it would be best to close up the doorway and get rid of the extra entrance, as it didn’t suit either school or serve much purpose; however, once the mirror’s removed, there were only two thin sheets of dry wall and sound-proof padding between the massage school and the dojo.
I lean hard against the wall and listen.
I don’t hear much.
Movement.
Shuffling.
My head shakes in disbelief when my fears are confirmed.
A whimper, crash, groan, and a loud cry.
RED HANDED
Ryan the Driver unlocks the front doors to the school with my key.
“Where is everyone?” he calls out, loud as possible, before opening the second door leading into the massage school.
The room is often empty, about 1500 square feet, except two six foot desks side-by-side in front the chalk board. The open space is sometimes occupied by massage tables set up for practice or discount massages but Ryan finds the space filled with all four students, each on their knees, hands behind their heads, torn fabric as blindfolds over their eyes.
And there are three men.
“Who are you THREE?” he announces, clearly enunciating the last word.
The men have small, dirty white sacks over their faces, with eyes and mouth holes cut out – there’s a black trace around the eyes and mouth (where they must have traced before cutting the holes) that give them each a grotesque appearance. Two of them are larger, the third slumped in a corner, cradling his arm. He looks up from the ground and, even through the sack, Ryan can tell he’s injured and scared. One of the larger men has a woman in front of him, a knife against her throat and her pony-tail in the other hand, holding her head back.
“Who the FUCK are you—Bart, who the fuck is this?” the second man growls, addressing the man with the knife as he walks over to Ryan.
One of the girls on her knees whimpers more than the others, looking up through the blindfold in the direction where she imagines Ryan to be standing.
“It’s okay,” Ryan tells her.
“Just tie him the fuck up, Millhouse. Put him with Jimbo or that cunt instructor,” says Bart with the knife.
Sadie is unconscious, laying on the floor behind the desk.
Millhouse does as he’s to
ld, first shoving Ryan back a step before roughly grabbing his shirt and turning him around.
“All you have is ONE KNIFE?” he announces as Millhouse puts a plastic tie around his right hand.
Bart takes the knife from the girl’s throat. He points the tip of the blade at Ryan, pulling hard on the pony-tail. The girl whimpers loudly. He points to the girl next to her, the girl that Ryan had reassured.
“That yer girl, faggot?” He laughs, then says to Millhouse, “She’s first.”
“DON’T,” Ryan screams at full volume, surprising Millhouse enough to pull his hands free before the right can be slipped into the plastic cuff. He covers his eyes with his hands, screaming, “DON’T HURT ME!”
“Shut that pussy up—”
Bart’s disrupted as the room implodes, then chaos, absolute.
“ON YOUR LEFT!” Ryan screams into the plume of dust and plaster. His eyes are uncovered. He spins and grabs Millhouse by his throat, pushing him back as fast and far as he can. Millhouse is bigger – a few inches taller and outweighing Ryan by at least 40 pounds, but Millhouse backs foot after foot without much control until Ryan has him crashed into the curtains and window. Millhouse cries out as he cracks the thick glass and sinks lower by a foot until Ryan is standing taller, over him, dominating.
As the world crumbles, the massive onslaught of must and drywall particles cloud Bart’s sight. He brings his hands to protect his eyes but there’s someone already behind him. Bart’s in the air, twisting, then on the ground – the pain of his dislocated jaw barely registers before he’s completely unconscious.
Last thing he hears is the howl of a mournful “Noooo!”
Ryan has Millhouse by the throat and helpless against the window, his other hand digging a thumb into Millhouse’s eye socket.
THE CHIEF PATS MY BACK
I have a healthy fear of the police.
They’re the only enemy I’m not sure I can overcome if they get the upper hand.
“So you ran through the wall?” he asks a third time.
“Yes.”
“Straight through?”
“Yes.”
“How is that possible?”
“I never put in studs when we stuck the drywall over the old door.”
“Through a wall?”
I don’t answer a fifth time.
Police Chief C. H. Armstrong raises his eyebrows, impressed.
Seven Devils Page 4