No Place Like Home

by April Hill

  But Hank’s mood was not as pleasant as mine. Before I could tell him my brilliant idea, he growled a threat at me, and I quote: "If you say one more goddamned word about this, I promise I am going to spank your goddamned butt so goddamned hard you won’t be able to sit down for a goddamned week!" As threats go, this one was hardly original, kind of blasphemous, and repetitious, but it was very early in the morning and he was still half asleep. I took it very seriously, though. By now, and especially after the last spanking, I knew when Hank’s threats were for real. He gets this look in his eye.

  "You have to listen to me," I pleaded. "This is really important." I reached across to the dresser and handed him my hairbrush as a gesture of sincerity. "There! If what I tell you isn’t worthwhile, I promise to bend over the bed, right here, and you can spank me senseless without even getting out of bed."

  He grinned. "Interesting idea," he said, "and very tempting." He delivered a trial swat to my behind, drawing a surprised yelp from me. Hank’s patience was running very low these days. "Okay, now, what’s so important that you’d risk getting walloped with a hairbrush so early in the morning?"

  I rubbed my rear and get back to the subject at hand. "There used to be a working fireplace in the house."

  "I already know that, remember? If that’s it, kiddo, you’re in big trouble." He tapped the hairbrush on the mattress to emphasize his point

  "The window got littler, too."

  "You want to run that by me again?"

  "Just get up, and I’ll show you. I’ve been thinking about it all night!”

  "Don’t tell me that," he said with a groan. "It scares me. Every time you start thinking...”

  “Get out of the fucking bed!" I shrieked. "Please!"

  Five minutes later, I had twenty-four photos of the house lined up on the living room floor, all of them showing the house over the years. Hank was sitting on the floor in his robe, inspecting my evidence.

  "Do you notice anything unusual?" I asked, like a real detective.

  Hank was obviously about to say something smart-ass and dismissive, but he suddenly leaned down to take a closer look. "When were these taken?"

  "At different times, over maybe thirty years. Look at this one. That’s me and Mom in the living room. You see where the window is? And how big it is?"

  "Yeah, so?"

  "Now, look at this one, from two years later. Now, the only window in the room is smaller, and higher up the wall."

  "Okay. Somebody changed the window. So what? You already told me that your father and several of the husbands liked to mess with the house, and that most of them weren’t very good at it. I should show you a few of my worst repair jobs."

  "But, Hank, “ I persisted. “who makes windows smaller that they were? Bigger, maybe, but smaller?"

  Hank shook his head. "Well, if I had to take a guess, I’d say whoever did it wanted more wall space. Maybe for a longer couch? So what we’ve got here is your Father, an admittedly lousy carpenter, and his pal, this Anson guy, almost as bad, doing a few half-assed do-it-yourself projects on an already screwy house. I still don’t get the significance."

  I sighed. "Neither do I, but Dad and Anson were the carpenters in the family, and both of them were dead by then. Now, look closely at this one." I threw the last photo down triumphantly, like Hercule Poirot. "This picture was taken three years later! And look, the window is all the way up at the ceiling, the way it is now. The way all the windows in that house are. They didn’t come that way, Hank. Mr. Frankie's house is the same model, and it has normal windows."

  Hank picked up the picture and stared at it very carefully, then put it down on the table.

  "Babe, I wish I could tell you that you were onto something here, but we’ve been through that house eight or ten times. Any one of your mother’s idiot husbands could have made these changes. Who knows why? Maybe whoever did it didn’t like light. Maybe he thought it was safer. Call your Mom and ask her."

  "I did," I admitted morosely. "She told me she couldn’t remember exactly when all of it happened, but at least one of the tenants made some changes. She found out when he skipped town. What made her really mad is he didn't get a construction permit."

  Hank wasn't convinced—not that I knew what I was trying to convince him of. "Look, Karen, this is a goddamned ugly house, and I wouldn’t live in it if you paid me. It’s got a nasty history, and some creep may well be keeping his eye on it, waiting for his chance at you or some other unlucky lady. I don’t know. If it were up to me, I’d toss in a gallon of gasoline and a match and walk away from the damned thing. But the house isn’t the problem, kiddo, it’s the lunatic out there who’s the problem."

  "Can we at least go back and look around? Maybe search the garage? Please? " I pleaded.

  "We?" he repeated, his tone hardening. "We aren’t going anywhere near that house. I’ll go back up there if you want me to, and I’ll tell you if I find anything important in the damned garage. But Ed and I already poked around in there, and nothing turned up that looked interesting. If your Mom agrees, though, we’ll go back and go through it more carefully, but she’s already got three suits against the city and the police department for destruction of private property."

  "But don’t you see?” I crowed exultantly. “That’s exactly why you need me! I can give you permission! I’m the legal tenant, remember?"

  Hank still wasn’t buying it. "And you're the one who’s about to get her ass paddled if she doesn’t knock it off," he reminded me. "Remember that? One more word on the subject, and you’re...."

  "Please, Hank, just listen! If I go up there with you, you can take half the police department with us, if you want to. Besides, it’ll give me a chance to can get the rest of my stuff and be out of the house completely! Please! Oh, please!" I’d started whining, now, and whining was not a sound Hank liked a whole lot. I took the chance, and keep begging, though. "PUL-L-E-E-A-A-S-E!! Pretty please?" It could have gone either way, at this point. I might get my way, or suffer another world class spanking, but I’d already decided the risk was worth it.

  I get both, actually. Hank was grinning while he did it, but he turned me over on my stomach, right there on the on the floor, sat on my lower legs and pulled my pajama bottoms down,

  then administered a fairly serious impromptu spanking to my exposed rump with the hairbrush I had so foolishly volunteered. When he'd finished roasting my bare ass, though, he put the

  brush back in his robe pocket and promised to take me to the house that afternoon, on the condition that I promised to never, never say something like "pretty please" to him again, as

  long as I lived.

  Next, Hank dragged out the box of rental records from the house again, so we could make some sense out of whatever we might find in the garage. The records were confusing, but the behavior of Mom's tenants was even more confusing:

  Lessor One: A single man, last name of Parker. Mr. Parker had torn out a couple of appliances and the bathroom sink, ripped a big hole in the bedroom wall, then simply left, owing a month’s rent, of course. Nuts, maybe? Or just redecorating.

  Lessor Two: A "nice" family, according to Mom, with two children. The "nice" family moved out, claiming "something strange" threatened the children, also claiming that the house smelled "mildewey." The smell part wasn’t exactly news, but the rest didn't make much sense.

  Lessor Three: Two men, sharing the house. Maybe gay, says Mom, but I doubt it. Gay guys usually have better taste. (Okay, so that’s a dumb stereotype, just my own experience.) They tell her that the house "creaks" at night, and has rats. Some people are so damned picky! They move out after one month.

  Lessor Four: Another family. Two weeks later, claimed coyotes ate their poodle, and that their three year old fell down an uncovered hole in back yard. No such hole, says Mom when she checks yard, but they move out anyway, threatening suit.

  Lessor Five: Single male, again. Named Halliburton. Left before second month’s rent came due. No trace. Doesn’
t ask for deposit back. Just leaves.

  Lessor Six: Two nurses. Older women. "House is haunted." "Someone watching them." Paranoid, probably post-menopausal hysteria, I suggest. Hank says I’m being disloyal to my own sex.

  Lessor Seven: Unmarried couple, living together in apparently blissful pre-marital sin. Boyfriend killed while jogging on cul-de-sac- A hit and run driver. She moves to Chicago. Understandable. Nothing weird, there, right?

  Lessor Eight: Another family. House is "haunted." This must be a really good way to break a lease, I guess. Complain of ghosts. They move back to Oklahoma.

  Lessor Nine: Wendy, of the Really Bad Credit Report.

  Lessor Ten: Lucky little me

  "Well, this place may or may not be haunted," Hank said, after going through the list again. "But it sure as hell is jinxed. No wonder your Mom can’t keep a paying tenant."

  "I pay rent," I protest. "Sometimes."

  "You’ve written your last rent check on that dump, kiddo." My Hero!

  We got to the house about noon, and as soon as Hank opened the front door, he commented on the smell.

  "What the hell is that?"

  "It always smells musty in here," I explained, "Especially when it’s closed up for a while. Rotten drainage, I think, and maybe all those moldy boxes in the garage.. I’ll tell you one thing, though. I don’t care what Mom says, I’m going to toss all of the damned boxes. Just hire a trash dumpster and dump the lot. After we go through all of them, of course."

  "Just what is it you’re expecting to find?" Hank asked. "Ed and I went through every single box and crate out there, at least briefly. Junk, mostly."

  "But why does everybody keep leaving their stuff here?" I asked. "Why don’t they take it with them, or send for it?"

  "You’ll understand when you see all of it," Hank told me. "It’s garbage, most of it. Besides, the records show that most of the good folks who lived here took off without paying their rent. Those kinds of tenants don’t usually demand their property back. They’re used to abandoning it. Your Mother should have cleaned all the crap out, years ago."

  I sighed. "She can’t. A lot of her life is in those boxes, too, and some of it’s painful, I guess. Come on, let’s get started."

  Hank groaned, but he followed me out to the garage.

  We found several of the larger boxes completely empty, so we dragged them out of the garage by the side door and piled them up for the regular trash day. Then we began combing through each of the remaining boxes, one at a time, and found…absolutely nothing but junk. Hank had been right. Three hours after we started, we were both filthy, covered in spider webs, and sweating, despite the chill. I sniffed discreetly at Hank’s shirt.

  "I’m sorry to say this, my love, but you’re getting a bit rank," I observed.

  "I wouldn’t talk, if I were you," he replied, rudely. "Seems to me you could use a bath, yourself."

  I beamed. The day was definitely picking up. "I thought you’d never ask!" I headed for the bathroom, intent on a lovely, shared shower. I dashed down the hall, shedding my damp clothes, flung open the bedroom door, and screamed.

  On my bed, her head balding and her huge blue glass eyes staring vacantly at me, was Isabelle, the Victorian bisque doll I’d had when I was seven. She was surrounded on the bed by maybe twenty other rotting and decrepit dolls, many of them with missing arms or legs, some with no heads. And everywhere around the room were more dolls, big and small. Baby dolls and fashion dolls, China dolls and rag dolls, clown dolls and Barbie dolls. Everywhere I looked! Some of them were still in what looked like their original dusty boxes, many with half torn-open gift wrap and faded, flattened gift bows. Dolls stood in rows on the top of the bureau, posed along the dresser staring eerily in the mirror, and sat on both bedside tables. Several more were draped in vaguely obscene positions on the teddy bear chair, naked, their legs splayed gracelessly open. And with the exception of Isabelle, I’d never seen any of them before.

  Hank ran into the room with his gun drawn and found me pressed against the wall opposite the bed, my fist crammed in my mouth. I was trying not to scream again. Screaming was something I was doing way too much of, recently.

  "What the hell...!" Hank shouted.

  I shook my head, too nauseated to speak. He grabbed for me and wrapped me in his arms, and like the terrified little kid I felt like, I buried my face in his chest and began shaking uncontrollably.

  "Maybe your mother...?" Hank suggested. "Those empty boxes we found...?"

  "Never!" I cried. "She wouldn’t have done this, not in a million years! Oh, God, Hank! Let’s just get out of here!"

  We left the house quickly, Hank covering our exit with the revolver still in his hand and pushing me along in front of him with my back against the wall. When we were outside and locked inside the car, he radioed for help. We drove to the bottom of the cul-de-sac to wait for the police. Hank kept his eye on the house, but I couldn't look at it again. Not ever.

  * * *

  When they had gone, Mole crawled from the Home Place and looked around. He had crouched silently there, listening as Beloved and the New Man talked. It was difficult to hear much of what they said because the sounds were muffled, but Mole knew from their tone of their voices that he would have to do the Bad Thing again, very soon. Mole had done the Bad Thing so many times it no longer upset his stomach the way it had at first, but this time, he knew it would be more difficult. The New Man was different than the others to whom he'd done the Bad Thing. The New Man’s ice-blue eyes looked constantly and noticed everything, and he wore a gun on his hip. Mole knew very little about guns, but he knew to fear them. Guns hurt and made a terrible noise, and they stank. Mole had even touched the New Man’s gun once, picking it up cautiously from Beloved's bedside table. The gun had reeked of oil and an acrid odor that Mole knew was gunpowder. He wanted to do the Bad Thing to the New Man right then, but Beloved was sleeping in the New Man’s arms, and Mole didn't want Her to see and hear when he did the Bad Thing. Frustrated, Mole had scuttled back to the Home Place and curled there, whimpering softly. There would be another time, a better time, and Mole knew a great deal about patience. He'd waited patiently for the miracle—for Beloved to return, and while he waited, he'd kept Their House as it should be, and discouraged the Intruders.

  In the beginning, with the Whore of Babylon's Husbands, Mole hadn't especially liked doing the Bad Thing, but when the Intruders began to come—the trespassers who gave the Whore of Babylon money to live in Their House— he had begun again, and before long, he had come to enjoy it. And he had finally made them all go away. Sometimes he was able to frighten them, but when that didn't work, he did the Bad Thing to them, and placed them in the Home Place with the others—the ones he had kept. After that, there had been peace, and silence.

  He had made mistakes, though. The Cat was a mistake. The Cat was meant to scare the pretty girl named Wendy, but after all those years of waiting, Mole hadn’t recognized Beloved, so he'd made the mistake with the Cat—the terrible mistake that had brought the New Man into their lives. For a few weeks, though, he and Beloved had been happy together, alone in Their House, but when the Handyman and the Man Named Larry looked at Beloved with lust, he had been forced to punish them both. Mole smiled to himself as he remembered how severely.

  And after he did the Bad Thing to The Man Named Larry, he had given Beloved a terrible whipping. It had saddened him to whip Her, but she had been foolish and very, very bad, and to spare the rod is to spoil the child. Why couldn't She understand that the whipping was for Her own good? To teach her? In the end, though, the whipping had also been a mistake, because the New Man had come and taken Beloved away. The night She went away, Mole huddled on his pallet in the Home Place and wept with grief and anger. He had been stupid, and frightened Her away.

  Even after all these years, Beloved was still a child, an unappreciative child. Mole had cleaned up Her messes all these months and tidied up after her so the Whore of Babylon wouldn’t become angry a
nd make Her move away again. He had left money in the house for Her so that She could get food, and buy the things She needed. Yet She remained ungrateful, blind to how much he loved and needed Her. Ungrateful and spoiled. He had done so much for Her, for so long, things a good girl would have been grateful for. But he had soon begun to realize that Beloved wasn’t a good girl. Mole knew that, now. All those years he had sent Her lovely gifts, and his pretty gifts had been rejected or returned. Address unknown! But Mole knew better. She had rejected the gifts and the dolls to hurt him! And then, in the most hideous betrayal of all, She had told the New Man that She loved him! She had even let the New Man fuck Her, in Their House! Mole had lain in the darkness, sick with revulsion as he listened to Her cries and moans. They had fucked like filthy, wild animals, and it had disgusted him.

  For all these hurtful things, His Beloved would need to be punished. Terribly, dreadfully punished, this time. A whipping wouldn’t be enough. It had failed. She must be punished in ways that would make her face and body no longer pretty, so that no other man would ever again lust after her. But first, He would have to deal with the New Man. The other men He had done the Bad Thing too had meant nothing to her, but he had punished them, nonetheless. Mole knew that he would punish this New Man very harshly—even more harshly than the others. And this time, He would enjoy it, very, very much!