Women of the Mean Streets

by J. M. Redmann

  “Yeah, the house is a mess from the looks of it, but otherwise it’s perfect. Isolated is just what I want.”

  Sara got Tammy’s contact information and they arranged to meet at 4:30 at the property.

  When they rang off, she entered Tammy’s information into her smartphone. If Tammy turned out to be a buyer who actually bought, Sara’s year would at least end on a positive note.

  *

  After a long soak in the tub, Sara stared into the bathroom mirror as she dried off. She was slender through the arms and legs, but a paunch had attached itself to her middle and seemed to defy any reasonable attempt to get rid of it. It marked her as middle-aged, as surely as did her graying hair and disturbing hormonal fluctuations. Her lover, Ellen, used her belly as a pillow when they watched TV together. She used it as a tray when they ate in bed. And when they made love, she kissed it all over as if it were a exquisitely sensitive erogenous zone, which in fact it was turning out to be. Even if she’d rather do without it, Sara couldn’t deny that her extra padding had proved very useful.

  With a cup of tea in hand, she crawled into her bed and stared across the large king mattress. Ellen had urged her to go big when it was time to get a new bed, and Sara couldn’t decide whether she regretted the decision or not. With Ellen in the bed it made a wonderful and spacious playground. Without her, it seemed to cruelly call attention to the fact that Ellen was elsewhere. The only woman Sara wanted in her bed was Ellen. Unfortunately, Ellen had several other lovers. She was a very popular person. If Sara regretted anything at all, it was agreeing so readily to Ellen’s idea of a relationship, which seemed just fine when Sara was so hazed by pheromones she would have agreed to remove some body parts just to relieve others. Now she knew the situation simply made her feel depressed, but to protest it would mean losing Ellen. Inertia had settled into her bones.

  *

  With a good night’s sleep and gorgeous fall weather, Sara cruised through her Sunday appointments. She’d successfully gotten hold of the listing agent for the house they were to see at 4:30, and the code to the lockbox was written on her hand. She drove south of town and then headed west off the main road, climbing a steep hill toward the property. The houses here were far from one another, separated by woods that were just past their peak fall colors. Many of the homes had not changed hands for decades. Some were in good repair, others close to ramshackle. When Sara pulled into the drive of the house for sale, she saw it fell somewhere in between. The yard didn’t have the debris that some others had, but the house itself was sad looking. Its wood siding badly needed paint, the roof was missing shingles, and several of the windows were boarded up. She knew from the listing agent that it was vacant and rarely shown. She could see why.

  She was just opening the lockbox to retrieve the keys when a car pulled up behind hers. Sara watched as a tall, angular woman got out of the Ford sedan and walked toward her. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail and she wore a mauve sweat suit. She looked younger than Sara, but not by much. The most noticeable thing about her looks was the huge pair of horn-rimmed glasses she wore, dwarfing her plain face. What might look hip on someone else was disastrous for this woman.

  “You must be Tammy,” Sara said, extending her hand.

  “So good to meet you,” Tammy said. She seemed a little reluctant to shake hands, pulling away quickly. “I really appreciate you setting this up.”

  “It was no problem. The agent was thrilled we wanted to see it.”

  As Sara unlocked the door she saw Tammy take out a small bottle of hand sanitizer and quickly rub her hands with it. Her heart sank a little. Neurotic was not what she wanted to see in a buyer. She left the key in the lock and walked into the house ahead of Tammy, flipping on lights, slightly surprised that the electricity was still on. The house was chilly and smelled of mold.

  “Obviously this place needs a ton of work, which you probably know from the online photos,” Sara said.

  Tammy moved closer to Sara and stared into her face. “You look familiar to me. Is there any chance we’ve met before?”

  Sara doubted she’d forget those glasses. “I don’t think so. Especially since you don’t live here.”

  “But I used to. I don’t look familiar to you?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Sara broke the eye contact and moved toward the kitchen. “Let’s take a look at the rest of the house.”

  It took just minutes to work their way from the attic down to the basement. The bones of the house were good, but everything in it was old and falling apart. The smell in the basement spoke of repeated drenchings, but other than an elaborate workbench built along one wall, it was empty and relatively clean. The cement floor was dry, but the drywall was speckled with mold.

  Tammy stood staring at her. She had some strands of hair in her mouth, sucking on them. She removed them to speak.

  “I think I love it. What do you think?”

  “It depends what you’re willing to sign up for. If you don’t mind the work, it’s a great place. Let’s take a look at the furnace.”

  Sara led her to the rear of the basement where a separate room held the utilities. Just as she leaned over to open the electrical panel she felt a stabbing pain in her neck. And she knew nothing more.

  *

  When Sara woke she found herself back in the main room of the basement, on the floor and tied by the wrists to the wooden workbench. Duct tape bound her ankles together. Her head felt cottony on the inside, but her skull felt like someone was pressing on it with a vise. It was like the worst hangover she ever had, which was saying something. She’d had bone-crushing hangovers, so ill that almost anyone not used to them would have been convinced they were dying. Sara, being quite accustomed to feeling wretched, would heave her way through the workday, refusing to acknowledge how bad her drinking had become. But she was sober now, she reminded herself. This time she hadn’t found trouble. Trouble, or something worse, had found her.

  She raised her head and took in the room. It was harshly lit by several overhead fluorescents, the green tint they cast making her feel queasier. She must have been given an injection of some sort. If she’d been hit on the head she knew she’d feel something different than this, more pain and less confusion. There was no sign of Tammy, other than her tote bag sitting along the wall opposite Sara. Next to the bag was Sara’s phone. She didn’t see her car keys.

  The wrist bindings were tight, holding her arms up and behind her, crucifix style. The plastic ties holding her wrists were threaded through bolts in the wood of the bench. It seemed unlikely the bolts would have been conveniently there for Tammy to use, which meant she had brought them along. Sara noticed the bits of sawdust around the base of the bolts. Tammy must have used a drill to bore holes, an idea that seemed to switch on the terror she’d been too groggy to feel.

  She could move her legs from side to side and bend her knees, but that wouldn’t do her much good. The windows in the room were boarded up. She screamed with no real hope that anyone would hear her. This wasn’t a neighborhood where people took evening strolls. They didn’t walk their dogs, they just opened the door and let them out. Tammy had picked her place carefully.

  As her brain began to clear she thought about who might know she was here. The listing agent for the house would be calling her the next day to see if Sara had any feedback for her on the showing, but she wouldn’t bother before then and wouldn’t think twice if Sara didn’t return her call. There was no one in her office with whom she shared her schedule, and the appointment wouldn’t show up on her office computer. She kept everything on her smartphone. Ellen was in New York with one of her paramours, a woman a lot younger, richer, and sexier than Sara. For all she knew, Ellen might never call her again.

  It took the absurdity of the situation for Sara to realize how alone she was. She’d lost all her friends by the time she bottomed out on alcohol. Apparently, she’d forgotten to make new ones. She almost felt glad that Tammy’s bag was in th
e room. At least that meant she was coming back.

  She heard the door slam upstairs and her heart jumped. She began to pray that the end would come quickly. She feared torture more than anything. If she’d been a member of the French Resistance and Tammy of the Gestapo, Sara would already have retrieved the cyanide capsule from her molar and swallowed it. Two seconds with the thumb screws and she knew she’d rat out her whole cell. She realized her situation was worse than if she had been a freedom fighter caught by the enemy. She had nothing to give, nothing to exchange for her life. She had no idea who Tammy was or why she was holding her.

  The stairs creaked as Tammy came down. She had a wide smile on her face and she looked relaxed and somewhat triumphant, like she’d just gotten a big promotion or won a prize. Sara supposed she was the prize, though she couldn’t begin to fathom why.

  “I hope you’re comfortable,” Tammy said. She didn’t seem to be kidding. She was holding a grocery bag, which she placed on the floor next to her tote. She slithered down the wall and sat with her knees hugged to her chest. “This house really is perfect.”

  “Listen, I don’t know what this is about, but you have to let me go. If you do, I promise I won’t tell anyone about this.”

  Tammy reached into her tote bag and brought out a cloth, which she unwrapped in her lap. She picked up an automatic pistol with a long silencer attached and shot a bullet on either side of Sara’s head. It happened before Sara even realized Tammy had a gun in her hand. The pffft of each bullet was instantly followed by an explosion of wood behind her. A shard caught her forehead and blood started to run down her face. She felt her bladder let go.

  “That will be the end of your talking. Do not open your mouth unless I give you permission. Do you understand?”

  Sara was frozen, unable to take in what had happened. She felt her eyes nearly bulging out of her head, locked onto Tammy’s calm ones. Tammy didn’t look crazy or like the sort of person who would enjoy terrorizing someone. She looked like everyone and no one.

  “Now, I’m starving. Excuse me while I eat.”

  Tammy took some items out of the grocery bag and made a ham sandwich. She wore latex gloves while she did so and kept them on while she ate. In between bites she prattled on.

  “I got some stuff for sandwiches and fruit and water and some cookies. I’m an Oreo girl myself.”

  “Who the hell are you!” Sara burst out. Tammy kept her sandwich in one hand and picked up the gun with the other. She shot to the right of Sara’s head, closer this time than the last. More wood blew apart and she felt a large splinter hit behind her left ear. It stayed there, sticking out of her neck like a needle.

  “If you open your mouth again, one of these bullets goes into your leg.”

  Tammy finished her sandwich and put her trash neatly into the grocery bag. Her legs came back to her chest with her arms wrapped around them, the gun close enough to hand. She stared intently at Sara.

  “Of course I know you, Sara. I would hardly go through this kind of trouble over someone I’d never met. In fact, I’d say we know each other in a very intimate way. But apparently, you plan to keep pretending you don’t know who I am.”

  Sara felt another sinking feeling in her gut, one that was more than a little familiar. It was familiar to all blackout drinkers, those times when someone felt compelled to tell her in detail what she’d done the night before and had not the least recollection of. Painful, awful moments that simply made her pick up another drink. She was familiar with the feeling, but she still didn’t remember Tammy.

  “It was a little over a year ago when I met you at JJ’s. You walked in at about ten and I knew right away you were the one for me. Not just for that night, but The One. The one forever. You may think that is a little hard to believe, love at first sight and all that. But I didn’t have a doubt in the world. Your hair was longer then, and you wore a very slick coat with a snapped-up collar and I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

  JJ’s had been Sara’s regular bar, the only gay bar in town. Its clientele was generally younger than Sara, but that was true at most taverns, except for the ones where the die-hard alcoholics went to die. She only went to those places when she wanted complete anonymity. At JJ’s the bartenders and most of the regulars still liked her. She felt at home there. Of course, when she made the mistake, as she quite often did, of sleeping with one of the regulars, or worse, their girlfriends, there was drama aplenty. But that seemed normal. No big deal. She tried to limit sex to newcomers to the bar, and there were always plenty of those. At least she knew that Tammy wasn’t a regular there. She hadn’t been in a blackout all the time.

  Tammy drank some water and continued. “You took the bar stool next to mine and I thought right away that you liked me. You said hello and then started talking to the bartender. I remember that my heart was racing. That had never happened to me before. It was like God had put you right next to me and all I had to do was take hold.”

  Sara realized that Tammy was talking about a time just before she went into rehab. She had been a complete mess. Sallow, smelly, unable to function without a drink in her hand, and then it was a relative sort of functioning. Her odds of successfully picking up anyone at that point were close to zero. She would have slept with a man had one shown any interest in her. No doubt Tammy appeared as a goddess to her that night. She knew how her mind operated then, if you could call it that. If anyone showed interest in her it meant she wasn’t as bad as she thought she was, and she clung to that like a life preserver in a cold, dark ocean. And within seconds of that gratitude she’d adopt a cocky attitude, as if she were God’s gift herself. It was dizzying how rapidly her mind could blanket reality with her own version of the truth.

  “We got to talking and you told hysterical stories about your real estate experiences. You asked about me and seemed to really listen. You bought me drinks. We stayed until closing time and that’s when you reached for my hand and asked me where I lived. I’d been about to make a move, but the fact that you beat me to it just confirmed what I already knew. You were the one. It wasn’t just me thinking it. We walked over to my apartment.”

  Tammy drank more water. Sara was thirsty, but that was nothing compared to the discomfort she felt in her arms. She kept moving her butt around, trying to relieve some of the pressure on her shoulders. Tammy picked up the gun and aimed it at her.

  “Stay still. I want you to concentrate.”

  Sara opened her mouth to say something and Tammy shot to the left side of her head. More of the workbench exploded. Then she kept talking as if nothing had happened.

  “When we got to my place you immediately took me into your arms and gave me the most soulful kiss I’ve ever had. We didn’t talk. You just led me into the bedroom and made love to me in a way I’d never known. I knew I was in love. And you seemed so happy, so sweet.”

  This is what used to get Sara in so much trouble. She had a tremendous capacity for alcohol. She could drink for ten hours and not appear drunk to anyone but herself. She could act almost like a normal human being, but it was really some alter ego that had taken over her body. Her real self was already passed out, waiting for morning when she could start all over again. It was that alter ego that thought everything was fine and carried on acting like an ass. The discomfort Sara felt was not just in her shoulders. She ached for all she had done, all the life she’d wasted.

  “I woke the next morning and you were gone. It was only seven o’clock, so I don’t think you needed to rush out to an appointment. You just left me without saying good-bye. I didn’t like that. Didn’t think it was right, but I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you’d tried to say good-bye and I just didn’t wake up. I’d had quite a bit to drink, after all. But that’s when I began to discover that you were really like all the others.

  “You probably want to know what others I’m talking about. I’ll just ask the question for you. All the others like you who feel it’s okay to p
lay with my feelings. Who flirt with me, fuck me, and then treat me like a piece of shit.”

  Sara could see the shift in Tammy’s mood, from a sort of sweet nostalgia into rage. There was nothing she could do to help herself. She was terrified that if she opened her mouth to talk, Tammy would shoot her. She tried to compose her expression into one of empathy or regret, but that was hard enough for her to do under normal circumstances. Now it was simply impossible. She looked down, avoiding Tammy’s glare. She saw the blood on her blouse and the stain on the cement where she’d wet herself. She’d lost feeling in her hands, and the rest of her was freezing. She knew she wasn’t going to live through this.

  “Look at me,” Tammy said. Her high voice had become raspy and desperate. When Sara looked up she saw a steady hand pointing the gun at her head, but Tammy’s face was twisted and painful looking, as if a thousand words and feelings were trying to fight their way out. She reached for her bottle of water and drank slowly, breathing deeply as she put it back by her side. She kept the gun trained on Sara. Minutes passed and Sara could see Tammy become calmer. Thank God.

  “Somewhere along the line people have forgotten how to act decently to one another. I expected more from women, but I see now that was naïve. For instance, I didn’t expect that you’d avoid me the way you did after the night we made love. I went to JJ’s every night for a week and you never showed up. The bartender said she didn’t know where you were, but I could tell she was just covering for you. I left a note for you with my phone number, but you never bothered to call me.”

  That must have been when I went into rehab, Sara thought. There was never a time she didn’t go into JJ’s for a whole week. Impossible. If she stayed at home one evening a week she thought she was a paragon of virtue. And by some miracle, she’d not been back to JJ’s since. A whole year now. Though if someone had put a drink to her lips as she sat tied up and sitting in a puddle of her own urine, she doubted she’d struggle much.