Nothing.
“Shit,” Maggie whispered.
Her naked feet carefully tested the cold wooden floor. She closed her eyes. Dammit, Ricky, you’re supposed to be here. Tell me to drink some milk or take a shot of rum, or something. If you were here, you’d tell me not to worry about nightmares. But you’re not here, are you?
Maggie got up. Her legs quivered against her weight. She steadied herself and moved toward the door. Don’t do it. He’s not there. She looked over her shoulder, despite herself, and found the empty bed greeting her once again, painfully taunting her, reminding her that Ricky was dead, and had been dead for nearly a year.
She closed her eyes and breathed deep the stale air. For a moment, she imagined Ricky snoring underneath the covers. Deep, laborious breaths that seem to rock the walls. She smiled, remembering how she’d tease him about it, pretending to be playfully concerned. ‘There must be something wrong with you,’ she told him.
But the sunny memory dissolved into the cold dark uninhabited bed. Ricky was not under the covers. Maggie touched her heart and felt the hard lump deep beneath. At least you’re here, in this hollow pit you left me with…why won’t you go away…leave me alone? I cannot stand you anymore. Please…please, just leave me alone. Let me heal. Let me forget.
Maggie disappeared through the door and headed for the kitchen. Her throat felt desert parched. Maybe see what’s on. God knows there will be no sort of sleep tonight. Or at least not until I can get his face out of my head.
She filled her glass in the filtered tab on the refrigerator and then opened the icebox, spotting a half-eaten carton of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough sitting innocently beside a frozen steamer bag of broccoli. Maggie wasn’t necessarily hungry, but she took the treat anyhow and slammed closed the fridge. She brought her water and her ice cream into the living room and plopped down on the oversized couch.
A small mushroom cloud of sandy brown hair plumed in the dim light of the table lamp. That dog sheds more than a sheepdog! Maggie silently hated her dog, Moxie, the small Shih Tzu she and Ricky had bought together from a mom and pop breeder down in Texas City at one of those matchbox communities before Ricky’s deployment. They’d happened to be in town visiting family, letting Ricky say his goodbyes. A little R&R before the big day. Deployment, a nasty little word that had never sounded sweet.
Maggie remembered, painfully, that big, terrible, dreadful day he flew away on a civilian-contracted 747 and came back several months later in a pine box on a C-130. She recalled wanting the dog then. Needing the dog. In all her life, she never imagined going through something like this before. Who has? The Army was, despite Ricky’s best efforts to acclimate her, still new. Now she was a part of the military in an intimate, painful way.
Getting a dog was supposed to help during those lonesome months of deployment, or so she had thought. Maggie couldn’t explain why she needed the dog then. It was just something she knew she would need to do. They weren’t newlyweds in the traditional sense, she and Ricky. They had no plans of kids. And so, on the second day of Ricky’s two week long pre-deployment vacation, the two bought a dog. The breeders were nice enough. Small operation hosted from their kitchen nook. The pups yapping desperately for the tit of their bitch mother. The parents watched with an eerie disinterest from another cage as their children were sold one by one.
There had been a crate of Shih Tzu pups. A few boys and two girls. Maggie held one of the girls and placed it back into the pen. It didn’t feel right. She remembered the day. The second girl she picked up jumped from her hands and crawled underneath the kitchen table. That little shit!
They named that little female pup hiding beneath the table Moxie, a white little thing with golden brown patches. Ricky paid for her right away and the two took her home. Maggie loved that dog to a fault, as did Ricky. The three returned to Hood and soon after, Ricky deployed. To this day, she couldn’t be certain whom Ricky was more torn up about leaving behind, her or the dog.
Moxie seemed just as lost as she was after Ricky left, waiting by the phone as much. Lounging around for those first few days without hearing so much as a peep in a junk food induced coma. He’s going to call, Maggie remembered thinking. He’s going to call any minute now. She was terrified to leave the house or to allow her cell phone to die on her. She kept her charger wherever she went. Eventually, Ricky did call, just after he arrived in theater. Theater…? Strange name was the place for a warzone. As if they weren’t really soldiers, but actors in a dreadful play of life and death and boredom.
Maggie remembered how the calls had been few and far between. Once every few days turned into once a week and then once every few weeks to once a month. It was painful. And though she’d never tell him, she was beginning to harbor animosity. Can’t spare a few minutes to call? But she knew, even though it hurt like hell, her husband had little to no control when he’d be able to call home or not. All the same, the seed of resentment took root. Deeply. Where even she dare not look.
Eventually, Ricky came home for a short week of rest and relaxation. Maggie remembered being so excited when she heard the news. Ricky was going to be home for Christmas. It was a real blessing, she thought. The week came and went by in a flash, or so she recalled. Short glimpses of dinners, family get-togethers, and sex. Every day, she remembered, they would find some alone place, hardly able to keep curious hands from wandering underneath clothing. Maggie could feel her cheeks now, blushing red from the memory of his touch.
On one of the days, while driving to her parents’ house from Hood, they had pulled over into some abandoned alley between a store and a school only five miles from her folks. What was it? A Rite-Aid and Clear Lake? Thank God the school was closed! Ricky could hardly contain himself.
She had been driving. His hands brushed over her bare legs. Inching down beside her inner thigh. Cupping and massaging at the crotch on her jean shorts. Kissing her neck with hot breath. About damn near wreaked the truck, Maggie remembered, laughing. They found a spot. Pulled in. Pants tore off. His went just past his thighs.
She recalled feeling his pulsing erection in her hand before guiding him inside her. The sex had been brief, but magical nonetheless—even though she hated using the word—an almost religious experience, if she even believed in such a thing. That was how Ricky’s week long stay had gone, a blur of laugher and pleasure. There was something different, though. Something he wasn’t telling me, didn’t want to tell me. How bad things were, no doubt. I think he wanted to bury it in all the horror movies we went to, the food, the television, and the sex. But it was there, in his eyes.
On the last day, when Ricky hugged her and said goodbye and then boarded the plane, she recalled having a feeling, a sort of bad vibe, an omen, maybe, something dark and foreboding, perhaps. She had attributed it to nerves or loneliness or both at the time. But was it? Knowing what I know was it just nerves? Ricky didn’t come back…but did I know then? Could I have…warned him? No. Impossible. Don’t do that to yourself, Mags. Don’t do it.
Maggie killed off the remaining spoon full of ice cream and then placed the empty carton on the dark oak stained coffee table her parents had bought for them two years back as part of their wedding gift. She stared at the remnants of water in her glass feeling utterly alone.
Where’s Moxie? She normally sleeps out here.
“Moxie?” Maggie called out.
No answer.
“Moxie, where are you girl?” Maggie began to whistle, feeling that need again, the need for that mystical comfort only dogs can give.
The cry of whimpering echoed down the hall. Maggie abandoned the couch, walking down the hall; she stood in front of Ricky’s study. The door was closed, as it had been for several months now. The sound of Moxie crying was hardly audible. Maggie reached for the door knob, not really wanting to go in. She closed her eyes and took a long breath. The door hinges moaned.
Moxie sat staring at the photos on the wall near the back of the room. The place flooded her m
ind. This was Ricky’s place; his…what did he call it? Oh yes, his man-cave. His inner sanctum. His dungeon of doom. His fortress of solitude. He always loved this place, the remnants of our youth or something, I guess. Along the walls was an assortment of various posters. Ricky had hung The Empire Strikes Back, Pulp Fiction, Romero’s Night of the Living Dead with the girl glaring at the screen with dead eyes and a Batman Forever poster with Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey and Val Kilmer looking sleek in their character portrayals. Maggie remembered vividly the amount of heat Ricky got for having the poster. Bobby, Jake, Johnathan, and even she had teased him on several occasions for having such a second rate Batman movie poster on the wall of his room.
He was such a nerd about it too. Said we never gave that movie the chance it deserved, or whatever. He would always just kinda laugh and start singing…? What was it? “Kiss From A Rose!” Oh my God, I haven’t thought about that song in years. Maggie was smiling. Her heart was warm, fluttering with the glow of childhood memory, of first dates and first kisses, and first prom dances, and first everything’s.
Walking further into the room, Maggie gazed at the bookshelf, noting the dust gathering on the edges of her husband’s comic books, his graphic novels, as he liked to call them. He kept his older issues in white boxes in the closest, like a strange secret he dared not share. The ones he kept out for display were more appropriate to his tastes as they had grown. Ricky had started collecting ’68, a gruesome zombie period-piece based during the Vietnam War. There were also a few Walking Dead books, Mass Effect, a few Hellblazers, the death of Captain America collection, Dead Space, a Tales from the Crypt collection, and, at the very end of the shelf, a cardboarded and sleeved copy of the 1987 issue of Suicide Squad. Maggie reached for it, her hand trembling slightly. Oh my God…is this the copy…? Is this the copy from the clubhouse? He kept it. All these years, Ricky kept the comic. Johnathan is going to shit when he finds out Ricky had it all along. She pulled the comic from its hiding spot. She gazed, longing for the era when she’d first laid eyes on it. She licked her lips, staring at the near black cover.
“These eight people will put their lives on the line for our country. One of them won’t be coming home,” she mouthed without even realizing the tragic irony in which she shared. Her heart burned to be there once more, in that clubhouse in Bobby’s back yard; to be young, and not just with age but with experience as well. She wanted to be naïve again. Putting the comic back in its proper place, tears began to swell behind her eyes. She needed to get Moxie and leave. This place is nothing but a tomb.
“Moxie. Let’s go girl. Come on,” ordered Maggie, wiping a rogue tear from her cheek.
Moxie did not move. Her eyes locked on the wall, on one of the many photographs hung near Ricky’s old desk. He used to read comics here, Maggie remembered without much desire. She looked to the wall. Tracing the many framed pictures. She spotted one of the gang together on some farm out in Giddings. Was it Giddings…? No. This was somewhere else. A large and ominous looking white house stood behind them in the photo. Our Suicide Squad, she recalled.
In the photo stood five teenagers. Bobby stood in the middle, short and still pudgy. Jake stood on Bobby’s left, tall, thin, a little lanky, but with warm and kind eyes. Johnathan was on Bobby’s right, the most average looking boy Maggie had ever known. He had always looked at her shyly…well, until Ricky and I started going steady. Then he started looking at Karen. Ricky stood next her in the photo, though at the time the two cared for each other only as young friends could, any other thought or suggestion would have made them blush and the boys would probably ralph, or pretend to at least.
The boys. My boys. My Ricky. Maggie remembered the photo. Karen had taken it during a summer trip to their grandparents. That’s right; this picture was from that little town. Sleepy little place. Jotham…wasn’t it? Just a short bike ride north from Memaw’s and Papa’s place. We were all there…
Somehow, Maggie had been able to convince her parents to allow the boys, her best friends, to come along with the family. Karen was always around, somewhere, but she was too young, or too annoying more like, to join the club, the Suicide Squad.
“Why would I want to join your dumb club anyhow,” Maggie could still hear her sister saying just before storming off to rat her out to mom. Maggie also recalled the last time the gang was together in one place. Many, many years down the road from when this picture had been taken. And many terrible things had happened since then.
Just before Ricky deployed they had a backyard BBQ at their quaint housing in Hood. Bobby was back from deployment, for good apparently. She had heard Ricky whispering with Johnathan about it. Something had happened, but she couldn’t hear exactly what that something was. When she asked, the two changed the subject. Johnathan was in Ricky’s company, in the same platoon, and even in the same squad. I was always thankful for that. They would keep each other safe…they were supposed to keep each other safe.
Jake was there also. He seemed in high spirits. Jake was back on R&R. Ricky had called him something, teasingly of course. What was it? A POG…? Whatever that meant. Jake had always been real religious, but when he joined the Army instead of finishing seminary, his parents nearly had a heart attack. Jake wanted to serve, especially after 9/11. To ease his parent’s malcontent, Jake had signed up to be a chaplain’s assistant. This way he could still serve by serving the troops in a spiritual capacity without breaking any vows. They all had fun that night. Bobby was eerily quiet, but he drank and seem to open up a bit. There were lots of drinks—too many, perhaps. But they were together. And together is where they all felt the safest.
“Moxie, come on. Let’s go watch Doctor Who or something,” Maggie called again.
Moxie whimpered, but did not move, nor did her eyes fall from the photo she had been staring at. The dog shifted her weight. Eager. Alert. As if waiting for something to happen. But what?
“What is it?” Maggie asked. Her eyes drifting to the photo Moxie was longing at. It was a headshot of Ricky back when he first enlisted, the ones they take during basic training. God he looks so young in that picture. Scared and alone. Maggie took the photograph in, every detail. His blue eyes. His recently shaved head. The scared look he so desperately tried to mask. Trying to look tough. His uniform looked two sizes too big. The voluminous red framed bottle cap glasses inched down his nose. What did Ricky call ’em? Birth control! That’s right! She smiled at the joke Ricky had shared with her after basic. She smiled at the memory of her husband.
Moxie began to growl.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Maggie.
Moxie continued to growl.
“What?”
Maggie returned to the picture. The room grew cold, frigid. She could see her breath in front of her. The door slammed closed behind her, extinguishing the light from the hallway. Shadows danced on the walls. The wood in the floor moaned. An unsettling feeling fell over her, as if there was someone—something—here struggling to make itself known or seen. Maggie felt as if she’d shrunk in an oversized room. The furniture seemed impossibly large. Something’s…here. She gazed at the photo.
The frame cracked.
She jumped.
Moxie began to bark.
CHAPTER 4
JOHNATHAN STEELE
Johnathan
Johnathan slept, as terrible and frightening as that sounds. He dreamed, and on most nights, he’d awake with no recollection of what dreams he had. Thank God. He’d drag himself from bed, hobble toward the bathroom with the use of his cane, urinate, shower, shave, pull on his sock and fasten his prosthetic leg, get dressed, eat breakfast, drink coffee, read his emails, and check on his Twitter feed, just like any other red-blooded American.
However, tonight was not one of those nights. Tonight, Johnathan awoke in a cold shiver. His skin crawled with goosebumps, all but for his stump, which burned hot white. He winced.
Tossing the covers, he rubbed at the twitching gnarled nerves throbbing and pulsi
ng beneath the remains that had once been his leg. The memories came at him, too fast. He could taste sand in the back of his throat. In his mind’s eye he saw Humvees, trash, and dust covered shanties, and Ricky, smoldering black as coal and reeking of singed hair.
“Jesus!” he cried, tottered and then fell out of bed. He hit the floor with a loud thud. “Shit,” he moaned, holding to his residual limb. The skin was just starting to smooth over, the swollen yellow-red softening to a malleable fleshy color, reminding him of some awful watercolor painting.
“John? Honey? Are you okay?” called Karen from the other side of the bed. She sounded half asleep.
Am I?
“Johnathan?”
“Yes. Fine,” he said indifferently, rubbing the still throbbing nerves along the leg that once was. The taste of sand and ash clung stubbornly to the back of his throat. You’re home, you idgit. You’re home. It was just a dream. You’re alive. He’s dead. Ricky’s still dead—ain’t that some wonderful fucking news.
“Do you need help, baby?” asked Karen leaning over the edge, her hair looked like a birds nest.
“No,” answered Johnathan shortly. He shifted his weight, held his breath, took a fist full of mattress, and then heaved himself back up on the bed. Winded, he slumped down on his still wet pillow, soaked with bad dreams, taking in deep languorous breaths of air. There’s scotch in the cabinet…maybe a drink will help you sleep?
“Did you have a dream?” asked Karen. The tone of concern was hardly masked. She looked over at him with sad understanding eyes.
“Just a dream. Nothing more,” Johnathan huffed. Sweat beaded down his face. His shirt was matted to his skin. His hair stuck out like an aged punk band. He fought to regain control and closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at his wife.
Dwelling Page 3