by Rob Shepherd
“Well, look who it is! Up and at ’em early, huh?” Susan asked with a smile. Roy smiled in return.
Roy smiled and presented a fresh cold box of pork steaks to Susan, whose eyes lit up at the sight of the day’s special.
“That I am, ma’am, and do I have a special for you!”
A Pink House After Midnight
By Kent Alyn
The last time Zoey spoke with Blake, he made a request. His voice was lonesome, desperate. The request infuriated her at first—made her feel like a dirty pin-up bimbo. But as the days seemed to get colder and the fields outside her window seemed to grow longer, Zoey wondered if Blake’s request was actually a form of love, of intimacy. At least, in the last four months, the closest thing to it
Zoey put the cell phone on the bedroom dresser and stood before the full mirror. She removed her bra and tried to even her breast out by dropping one shoulder. The right breast was always a tad bigger and hung lower. She cupped the warm breast in her hand—as if molding it would cause it to stay. When she let go it fell into place and jiggled. She draped her hair onto her chest and experimented with different layouts to see if she could improve her image. She had, after all, studied graphic design at the Art Institute of Seattle.
The right nipple perked up under the coolness of her palm—and now she had to even them out again. Gently pinching the left nipple, her flesh tightened. Goose bumps formed. Zoey closed her eyes and imagined Blake’s hand doing the massaging. His fragrance—a husky sweat, a home-from-the-fields smell—lingered. Her pulse quickened. Blake’s other hand pressed the crotch of her tight Levi’s. He whispered, What the hell are you doing?
Zoey’s eyes popped open. She gasped.
Looking around, as if someone was there, she pulled on Blake’s old football jersey—number eleven—a shirt worn each night since he deployed to Afghanistan.
Out the second-story y window, the brown field was desolate, the sky overcast, the long driveway stretched out like a gigantic black python. A figure shuffled down the gravel mainline. It was the old woman from the farm at the end of the road, walking her mutt like she did everyday. The only other movement was a circling chicken hawk. The voice wasn’t Blake’s. He wouldn’t say that. It was her own—her own damned voice—the only voice she heard anymore.
Falling onto the unkempt bed, Zoey cried hard.
Just like the day before.
And, just like the days before that.
***
A romantic at heart, Zoey fell in love with the old pink farmhouse the first time she saw it. The homestead was like a ship floating a rolling sea of grass. Sure, the pink paint was peeling and the barn was failing down—but the imperfections added character and charm. Small, drafty rooms. Creaky stairs. A broke-down tractor beneath a lean-to beside the gray hen house. It was quirky—like Zoey. The place was their paradise, a long, long way from the urban sprawl. The dream: settle down, raise children, become self-sufficient, weather the economic storms brought on by The Joneses, and be alone. This old homestead in the middle of eastern Washington was her Italian vineyard, her Green Gables, her Garden of Eden—the place where dreams came to fruition by merely speaking words.
“The garden will go there,” she had said, pointing to a flat spot just below the kitchen window. “We’ll grow everything we need. And, raspberries out of delight.”
But the flat spot below the kitchen was still tall grass, dead dandelion heads, and brown thistles.
Barren.
Like her womb.
She sipped her coffee and wondered if she would ever have kids—if she would ever have sex again. Those thoughts only led to whether or not she should send the picture. It was obvious why he wanted it. Zoey didn’t need to spell it out. The nuns from St. Bernadette Parish, her primary school, warned girls about the despicable abominations boys did in private. Sister Maureen was most explicit when teaching the story of Onan—the man who did evil in the sight of the Lord. Spilled his seed.
The coffee was hot. She closed her eyes.
Would sending a picture be so bad—especially if he was going to spill his seed anyway? It might as well be her body he fantasized about, right? Better than Blake perusing the porn isle of the Internet or having an affair with another lonely soldier.
Sighing, Zoey stood. She peeked down the front of her shirt at her cleavage. She contemplated, Stupid bimbo or dutiful wife?
What happened if he shared the pic with buddies? She thought. What if Flopsie, Mopsie, and Muffy somehow became superstars on the web?
She let the neck of her shirt snap back. Sister Maureen, with her shaky jowls and white chin hairs, definitely wouldn’t approve.
Fuck that old bag—and the church she rode in on.
Zoey hadn’t been to Mass in years. And, because God was perfectly content keeping her husband away, why should she go? Moral theology had no voice in the matter. She wasn’t sending porn to Pope Benedict. It came down to whether or not she could live with the decision and the consequences.
Something tasteful…
Zoey peeled off her shirt. The house was drafty.
Holding the cell at arms length, she poked out her chest. The moment she pressed the button, even the walls, clothed with ripped wallpaper, seemed to look away.
***
Later on, Zoey sat in the living room with a White Russian in her right hand and the phone in her left hand.
It was only my boobs. Boobs are boobs are boobs, right?
Zoey pressed Send.
***
Dirty.
Zoey took a shower and cried. The showerhead coughed up some coppery water. The water was supposed to be as pure as a crystal spring.
“Slut!” she said, slapping the tile. “You stupid slut!”
The water was clear again, but turning cold.
Three days and still no reply from Blake. She didn’t know if he liked the picture, if he hated it, or if he had been blown up by an IED. Zoey knew nothing. And, knowing nothing was far worse than knowing something—even if the something was terrible.
The razor beside the shampoo reflected the afternoon glimmer. The blade said to her wrist: Just a quick slash…just like you when you were fourteen and everyone called you tuna fish cunt…Remember how everyone suddenly cared when you were rushed to the hospital? Blake would be sent home…sent to see you…
Best case scenario, you die…
“No,” she whispered to the razor and hid it behind the shampoo.
So lonely.
Just need a touch.
Zoey cupped her breasts in her hands and rotated her hips, around and around. So much pressure down there—down where Blake played. Opening her mouth, water filled up until it spilled over her chin. Breathing through her nose she imagined Blake finding that image—that tasteful image—and, overcome by her love, finding a corner of the desert to strip naked and do it.
She spat the water from her mouth. “Stop!”
Her hands had ventured down onto her pelvic bone, only inches from abomination.
Zoey stepped out of the shower, feeling—
Dirtier.
***
Zzzzz…
A buzzing, rattling startled Zoey awake. She sat up, the sheet under her chin. The house creaked and moaned each night, titillated by wind swells and sideways rain. This night was no different. Sheets of rain sprayed in gusts. Between the water pulse was a constant hum.
The clock radio, green letters bright against the blackest night, read just after four. Seattle was never this dark, incapable of this pitch of black. Some nights this countryside became so dark Zoey could lie down and wonder if her eyelids were open or closed.
Zoey reached across the nightstand—touching a stack of books, an empty glass, and then her cell. A touch of a button and the screen glowed. No new messages; no new calls. The cell wasn’t set to vibrate, either. The rattling, the buzz, the hum—it came from elsewhere.
There it was again. Louder than before.
Sometimes she wondered
if she needed a gun for protection, but just briefly. Guns did violence. It was a miracle she even gave Blake a chance, knowing the violence he created. They avoided those issues—about what he did with the National Guard, about what the National Guard did with him. Besides, it was mutual. Blake didn’t need her issues either—the baggage from the gun blast her dad swallowed in a hunting cabin after chugging Wild Turkey and scribbling an illegible note on a frayed Campbell’s Soup wrapper.
Nevertheless, for once, a gun would’ve made her feel better. In the middle of nowhere she could get raped for days, tortured for weeks, and then killed and not found until the mailman got suspicious why Jiffy Lube flyers, credit card offers, and sweepstakes notifications piled up.
Zzzzz…
Throwing back the blankets, she stood and turned on the lamp expecting to see a redneck with a deformed face wielding a blood-soaked machete. Instead, just a dark hallway.
Her toes were numb on the cold floor. She pulled a sweatshirt over the jersey and put on socks. She approached the doorway, taking one creaky step at a time.
The sound lessened in the hallway. Tilting an ear, it sounded electric. Going down the stairs, the sound quieted. In the foyer, beside the front door, it was practically nonexistent.
In my head, she thought. Leftovers from a dream.
Zzzzz…
Faintly, coming from a distance.
She hoped it wasn’t the furnace—something requiring muscle and know-how. But the furnace was in the basement and this sound was directly above her, upstairs. Perhaps, even higher. Maybe the attic.
Ascending the stairs, the sound resumed its prominent buzz and rattle. Zoey had never seen the attic. She didn’t even know where to access it. Upstairs she searched the ceiling. It was a web of cracked plaster and chipped paint. She grabbed a flashlight from her room. After making her way through each room, she finally located the attic access in the closet of the room that functioned as her design office—a room, thanks to the economy—she rarely used.
Looking up, a cobweb stuck to her open mouth. She spat. The flashlight’s beam revealed a makeshift ladder unevenly nailed to the wall. Above was a boxed-in door on rusty hinges.
Zzzzz…
She sniffed the air. No smoke. Probably not an electrical fire.
She climbed the latter. It creaked. She paused and then bounced up and down to make sure it would hold her. Better to fall three feet than seven. Felt solid.
At the top, she pressed upward. The hinges whined until the door flopped over and crashed. A plume of dust rose polluted the air. She gagged, coughed, spat, and then blinked until her eyes were clear. She climbed up. The buzzing was louder—
The light cut through the darkness and dust. Colder up there. The rain tap, tap, tapped. The attic was tall enough to build another story. Moving the light around, she only saw unfinished walls and exposed ceiling joists. Though she didn’t see any bats, rodents, or spiders, she knew they were there somewhere.
She couldn’t worry about that right now.
Planks were laid across the beams for venturing to different parts of the attic. Zoey stood on a board and took a few steps. One false move and she likely fall through the shredded newspaper insulation and ceiling plaster, landing below in a pile of debris and with broken neck.
Zzzzz…
There. A cardboard box in the corner. It shivered. Something inside did the buzzing.
A smiling black man was on the side of the shivering box. The bushel-sized box read Cream of Wheat in swooshing calligraphy.
Zoey knelt over the box. Paranoid of an electric shock, she hesitated to touch it. After a few moments, she tested the box—a quick touch and go. Doing it again, she felt safe enough to place her palm on the box and let the vibes reverberate into her flesh.
She pulled away and glanced around the dark attic. Her skin pricked on the nape of her neck. She felt eerily watched.
Bullshit.
Zoey took the box.
***
The box was now on her office desk with the top folded shut. The box no longer shivered to the Zzzz sound. The attic was closed. Zoey left the room and returned wearing warm sweatpants and a jacket. Now almost five in the morning, there was no way she would be fall back asleep.
Zoey paced, glancing at the box from time to time. If she was smoker she would be smoking. Instead, she bit at her fingernails.
Who turned that buzzing thing it on?
She checked her cell again. “Seriously, Blake, fucking call!”
Maybe his battalion was having a circle jerk in Saddam’s palace while ogling her lopsided tits. Too busy whackin’ off to call.
Zoey stepped away from the box.
Too naughty.
Too scary.
Too perplexing.
Groggy, she shuffled downstairs to the kitchen to open a vein and pour caffeine inside.
***
Black as the night; Black as the Cream of Wheat man’s skin.
The coffee dripped from the filter into the pot like hot tar. Ever since those long college nights the trickling sound of coffee making soothed her, but not now. Not after feeling so violated, so haunted…so watched.
“God’s eye sees all,” Sister Maureen had taught. “He sees us in our most private times. Ever-watching.”
He, She, whatever God is, must be a perverted peeping Tom.
“But he doesn’t view us like we view ourselves. He doesn’t take a sick pleasure in it. We are always naked before God, and always have been. We can’t hide. He knows where you always.”
Is that supposed to comfort? To know God has seen every damned tear cried and yet has seemingly done nothing to ease the suffering and loneliness?
“Leave me the hell alone!” she said to the walls.
From the window above the kitchen sink she looked out onto the place where her garden was supposed to be. Though still dark, the storm broke and the beginning of a red skyline was seeping through the morning clouds. A crow landed on the sagging clothesline and wobbled in the wind.
Zoey sipped coffee at the dining room table—checking her cell phone every so often for any sign of Blake—until it was daylight. If she was going to be harassed by something unseen, it wasn’t going to happen in the dark.
***
The sun was warm. Zoey dressed and then returned to the office.
She flipped open the top and looked inside. The items were just as she left them. She pushed aside her laptop, a crusty coffee mug, and a pile of artsy magazines to make room for the contents. “The unmentionable” object was on top. She avoided it by reached below and grabbing a manila envelope and an old flight cap. Then, she closed the box—as if the object would attack her if she didn’t.
Setting the old flight cap aside, she dumped out the contents of the envelope.
Sliding out was a black and white photograph of a curvy woman in a one-piece swimming suit and sunglasses. Looking closer, Zoey thought, She looks like Betty Paige, and then said, “Hell, she looks like me.”
The next photo was similar—though the woman was now in a prone position.
She went to the next photo.
“Oh my…”
Naked. Full frontal.
The next series of photos were nothing but nudes—all in various poses.
Zoey set the pictures aside and sorted through some papers. It didn’t take long before she discovered these were love letters, handwritten by a woman named Linda and addressed to a man named Ollie. Lots of the menial stuff—the odds and ends of the days apart; and, lots of hot and heavy verbal petting.
She flipped the envelope over and read: Sgt. Ollie Neilsen, Germany.
It appeared the collected letters and photos never reached Sgt. Neilsen. She could only speculate why. Perhaps a break-up; perhaps death. Perhaps, Linda never sent them because Ollie came home to the farm and they lived happily ever after.
But then there was the flight cap. A keepsake?
Now, what about this unmentionable?
Zoey looked ins
ide the box again. The unmentionable had many names—all of which seemed to make her blush or gag. She had never used one, but had only heard of the capabilities from some of her college girlfriends. Even in her naivety, she knew it was an older model. The batteries even looked dated. Tilting her head, she got a better look. She confessed that apart from the On/Off switch and the vibrating option, the flesh-colored object did resemble the real deal. The unmentionable was neither too big, nor too small. In fact, it could’ve been a cast of Blake’s.
Her heart was racing.
She closed the box.
***
Zoey rode her bike down the driveway while the dew was evaporating under the warmth of the sun. She knew the old woman from the farm at the end of the street would be walking her dog soon. And, like clockwork, she was shuffling toward Zoey with her companion.
“Hello,” Zoey said.
“Mornin’,” the old woman offered back. “And how are?”
“Good.”
Good. It felt so good to have a conversation.
“I’m Zoey. I live right here,” she said, pointing to the farm.
“Yes, I know that. I asked the mail carrier. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t sex offenders,” she said. “Doris is my name, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Doris.”
“This is Mister Pogo,” she said, introducing her lethargic, gray-faced dog.
Zoey didn’t pet the smelly mutt.
“Doris, how long have you lived out here?”
“All my life.”
“So, you know about this house?”
“Well, I walk by it every day. Just an old pink house. Can’t say I know what the walls know, but I know some. Why you asking?”
“Just curious,” Zoey said. “Did you know Linda and Ollie Neilsen?”
Doris scrunched her face, looking as if it hurt to recall the past. “Not Linda Neilsen. I did know a Linda Donaldson…well, I guess it would’ve been Linda Carter because she married George Carter.”
Doris shivered. “Didn’t like that man.”
“Why?”
“Let me put it this way…George opened the legs of about every woman from here to Coulee City. Even tried to get my snatch, but I punched his nose,” she said, balling her fist and taking a jab.