I was on my fourth beer and losing my sense of time but it seemed like we pulled up in front of a house only a few minutes later. It looked like we were in East Dayton and I hoped this wasn’t where the party was.
“Watch him,” Dawn said, getting out of the car.
She walked up to the porch in front of the large two-story house. The paint had completely worn off the house and it didn’t have any windows. A large dog snarled at Dawn from the porch. It looked like the dog was covered in tumors. A rail thin man wearing only baggy, dirty denim shorts and covered in tattoos came out to the porch, barking something at the dog.
“Come on in!” he said to Dawn in a thick Appalachian twang.
“Nope,” Dawn said. “Bring it to me.”
The man glanced at the car, possibly to see if Dawn had anyone else with her. It seemed like a pretty rapey thing to do.
“Fine,” he said. “I got it.”
He came down the stairs. It looked like he handed Dawn something but Dawn was partially blocking him and I couldn’t tell what it was. She pocketed it, handed him something, presumably cash, and came back to the car.
She drove to an alleyway. Barcie ripped up one of the cans, put a clump of something in the bottom of it, and held a lighter up to it.
Dawn uncapped a syringe and filled it up.
It filled with a neon green fluid and I thought about the movie Re-Animator.
Then she turned to me. “We’re going to shoot you up.”
“Please don’t.” My voice sounded like it came from somewhere else. Flat and robotic.
“Well, we’re going to. If you don’t put up a fight, I’ll take you back home tonight.”
“Then will you leave me alone?”
“We’ll take you home.”
“Will you tell me about Schrodinger’s cat?”
“You already know about it.”
“I mean . . . how it applies to me.” It was already getting hard to think.
“No. We’re probably going to put you in a wheelbarrow and let everyone piss on you.”
I leaned my head back, felt one of them lift my arm, constricting it lightly above the crook, before feeling the prick of the needle.
Everything after that became a delicious blur.
It felt like my insides melted and became vapor, lifting me up into some sort of nebulous floating godhead located somewhere just before deep space. I let myself go. I let myself drift.
Up and up and up, floating in darkness, losing touch with my surroundings.
When I came to a little or a lot later I was aware enough to know I was in the car. It was dark outside and all the windows were up and I was hot and sweating. I opened the door before I died and spilled out of the car. I tried to stand but my legs didn’t work so I made my way off the gravel of the driveway and collapsed in the dewy grass.
This part of Ohio became fairly lush in the summer and I lay in the thick perfume of the night air and looked up at the stars in the clear night sky. I didn’t see a moon and there was an abundance of stars. I reached into my pants pocket and fished around in it for my phone. I had a moment of distant, barely felt panic when I didn’t feel it. Then I remembered I wasn’t wearing pants. I still wore Barcie’s dress. Was she wearing my pants? Had she left them back in the torture storage shed? Did she have my phone?
I thought about crawling back to the car to look for it but that seemed like too much work and what did I really need it for anyway?
I continued lying in the grass and looking up at the night sky. Beyond the ringing in my ears, I could hear distant music and the laughter and conversation of a large group of people.
I struggled to stand up. My head was spinning and my throat burned all the way to my sore stomach. I shuffled toward the sounds and the lights, now that I was facing that direction.
I had absolutely no idea where I was. I stopped at a hedgerow on the perimeter of the property, beyond the lights that illuminated the backyard of a large modern looking house. A huge in-ground pool shimmered an ethereal blue and many groups of people in swim trunks and bathing suits stood around it. No one was in the pool. Everyone wore a mask. From this distance I couldn’t tell if they were monster masks or masks of famous people. A lot of them had their masks tipped back so they could sip whatever they were drinking.
I stood watching them, thinking I should probably go back to the car.
I looked for Dawn or Barcie but I didn’t see them.
I knew I should probably take off walking but I was wearing a dress and had no idea how far away from my apartment I was. I imagined if anybody found me wandering along the side of the road, the outcome wouldn’t be good. Even if I could manage to make it back to my apartment, I didn’t have any keys.
I barely had the energy to make it back to the car. For the first time, I noticed it was one car in a line of many. I hadn’t bothered shutting the door and collapsed into the backseat, reaching over and opening the other door to let a little more air into the car.
There was a single beer on the floorboard and, next to that, amazingly, my pants.
I fished around in the pockets, feeling a slight thrill when I discovered my phone in one and my keys in the other.
I struggled to get the dress over my head and tossed it into the front seat. I slid my pants on and once again lay down on the backseat. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned the screen on. There was a text from Travis. It read: “Dude, I’m in the trunk.”
I needed to try and get into the trunk.
But I couldn’t really think about moving a lot.
The fluid gelatinous feeling previously lubricating my insides felt like it had hardened into something like concrete.
I grabbed the back of the seat to see if they were the kind that folded down and allowed access to the trunk. They weren’t. I didn’t see how else I was getting in there without a key.
I popped the beer open, took a drink, and ended up dumping the rest of it all over me.
I was pretty sure Dawn had Travis’s phone.
It was still possible Travis was in the trunk.
And, I guess, for the moment, he was both alive and dead.
I tugged on the seats again.
Nothing.
I took my keys out of my pocket and tried ripping at the seat.
Remembering the shotgun in the front of the car, I turned to see if it was there.
It wasn’t.
The laptop was gone too.
I didn’t even know if this was the same car.
I went back to gouging at the seats. I didn’t know if there had been something in the beer I’d just partially drank or if it was all the shit from earlier coming back to me or if it was just the heat and anxiety but it didn’t take long for me to feel weak and woozy and I eventually had to lie back down—it was all I could think about doing—and close my eyes and let myself drift away.
Unicorns and Cats
I woke up in my bed. The wounds on my brutalized back had coagulated and I had to peel myself from the sheet. I checked my phone and saw I’d received three voicemails from work. It was past noon. I was sure the voicemails were not positive, uplifting things. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to them yet. Yesterday evening came back to me in brief snippets and I didn’t want to think about it too much. I still wore my dirty jeans, nothing else, an erection straining them. I closed my eyes and unfastened my pants, taking my cock in my hand and thinking about Dawn as I masturbated. I didn’t feel good about it but she was at the forefront of my thoughts and sometimes that was just how things happened. Before coming, I rolled onto my side so I could shoot it onto the floor where it could blend in with all the other stains.
Only, when I finished and surveyed the presumably still destroyed state of the apartment, I saw that it was immaculately clean. Probably cleaner than it had ever been. I looked down at the floor and noticed I’d ejaculated all over a note written on lined notebook paper in girlish purple lettering. A colorful unicorn made up the background of t
he paper.
The note said:
I had the apartment cleaned for you. Thought it was the least I could do. Looking SO FORWARD to seeing you again. – Dawn
Something inside of me turned the note’s harmless banality into a sinister threat.
I didn’t want to see Dawn again. At least, I didn’t think I wanted to. I was pretty sure she was dangerous. Until seeing her film her friend mutilating a girl yesterday, I could have told myself she was relatively harmless. Just someone too young for me to relate to. But there was something about her that scared me. I’d been living in a state of dread and fear ever since fucking around with White Power Larry’s wife. I should have planned my escape from Gethsemane the morning after that happened. True, we’d met at a bar in Dayton and I was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone from Gethsemane around, but we’d ultimately ended up back in my bed, meaning we’d driven through Gethsemane to get there. It had been late and there weren’t many people on the streets but it was entirely possible someone had seen us. And, in a drunken, boastful move, I’d apparently sent the photos to Travis. Aside from being a stupid thing to do from a physical safety perspective, it was a sleazy disrespectful thing to do, period. Something I’d never done before and would have never done if I hadn’t been extremely drunk. And, of course, her actions were completely out of my hands. What if she started feeling guilty and told White Power Larry about it? She seemed pretty terrified of him so I didn’t think she would but I was obviously a terrible judge of character.
As much as I didn’t care to see Dawn again, I felt like I’d have to. That’s what I told myself anyway.
I at least had to find out if she knew what had happened to Travis or if she was just fucking with me.
The text from Travis’s phone came back to me.
He couldn’t really be in her trunk, could he?
What if everyone was fucking with me and Travis was in on it?
Should I call his parents and see if he was around? Would that worry them? Shouldn’t they be worried? At least a little? If he hadn’t been around in a couple of days, wouldn’t they already be worried? I was a little surprised they hadn’t contacted me if they hadn’t seen him.
I was starving. And filthy. A little panicky about the voicemails. If I lost this job, I’d probably lose the apartment before I was able to find another one.
I needed to take a shower and clear my head and try to eat something before listening to the voicemails.
I got out of bed and walked through my sparkly apartment, now so clean I wasn’t afraid to take a shower without my socks on. The gouge from the chain throbbed with a hot pain.
Cleaning out my wound and slathering it in Neosporin made it feel a little better.
After my shower, I went into the small kitchen area and made coffee and a two-egg omelet with eggs I deemed ‘good enough’ and cheese I trimmed the mold from. I ate slowly while checking my email and bouncing around a couple of sites on my phone and trying to avoid calling Travis’s house. I didn’t know why it should make me nervous but I knew I didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure if it was because I would rouse some suspicion in his parents and put myself in a position of explaining or if I was half afraid he would be there and fine, leaving me with no excuse to never go near Dawn again.
I decided on a far more passive course of action.
I had my truck back. I’d call Ted at work without bothering to listen to his voicemails. We were so short staffed and the other people who worked there were so erratic, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be fired. I’d overcompensate to show how sorry I was. I’d offer to work Saturday and Sunday. I’d offer to do the Dinsmores’. The Dinsmores were a creepy couple, neither of which seemed to have a job. The guy sat around zonked on meds and watching children’s programming in the living room while the wife fucked random guys. The husband would occasionally mutter, “We’re so happy now. So much happier.” One time he cried while writing out a check for his bill. After work, I’d drive back to the field and check to make sure Travis’s dead body wasn’t lying somewhere in it. If his parents happened to be aware I was there and one or both of them came out to see why, I would tell them he hadn’t texted me in a couple of days and I was worried about him. If they asked why I was in the field I would tell them Travis had said he sometimes liked to sit out there and think. This wasn’t true at all but I would just hope their son was as much a stranger to them as I had been to my parents.
I was convinced I wouldn’t find anything and planned on doing something to clear my head afterward. Maybe go to a bookstore or a record store. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to buy anything, since my next check would be small, given all the hours I’d missed. I needed to call into work, needed to do something before I became melancholy to the point of despondency.
* * *
“Renfield, where the heck are you?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’ll be in. They didn’t get the part they needed for my truck until this morning.”
“Good. Only two people showed up this morning. I’m gettin too old to do everything by myself.”
“Did Travis come in?”
“Nope. He was a no call no show too.”
“I’ll go over to his house when I get off. He’s not answering his phone either.” I didn’t mention that a psychopathic teen girl had his phone. I thought my offer would score me some brownie points. Maybe I could even get out of doing the Dinsmores’.
“This whole town’s gonna be overgrown if I can’t get some people in here. By the way, Joe Dinsmore called and said their pots are filled with trash.”
Shit. Neither one of them ever cleaned the place.
“It’s because they put the trash there. They’re hoarders or something. We’re plant and landscape technicians, not maids.”
“If it’s in the yard or the containers, we gotta take care of it.”
“You want me to just go on over there and come in afterward?”
“Just make sure you wear your company shirt. And don’t do nothin with that poor man’s wife!”
“I haven’t!” This was true, but wasn’t true for most of the guys I worked with.
“Okay. See you in about an hour or so then?”
“I’ll be there.”
I took off my black t-shirt and pulled on the green golf shirt with the company logo on the left breast. Beneath the logo was the slogan: “We Care!” It should have said something like “We’ll do it because you’re too high or lazy!” I typically changed shirts in the bathroom at the office so I’d have something to change into when I left. I didn’t want to be seen in my work shirt outside of work. This was southwestern Ohio so everyone dressed like garbage, but wearing a service industry shirt was too loud a declaration of class for me. Gethsemane had a working class suburb and a couple apartment complexes and rentals in town, but for the most part it was made up of people who were pretty comfortable financially and hired landscapers for one or more reasons: they were too drunk or on too many pills, too lazy, had better things to do, or just liked the idea of having people work for them because it soothed some burning desire hearkening back to their slaveholding ancestors.
I went down to the street and got into my truck. I put the keys in the ignition and tried to start it. It wouldn’t even turn over.
Fuck.
Part of me had been really grateful Dawn had had the truck fixed. That part died and vanished quickly, the lingering hate for Dawn swelling to an all-time high.
I didn’t know what I was going to do now. I could have walked to the Dinsmores’ and removed the trash from their containers but something about that terrified me, like maybe I wouldn’t be able to get away fast enough. I could go back up to my apartment and give Billups a call, try not to think about what was happening but, given that my truck was not really repaired, I feared I would find my apartment in its previous demolished state if I did that. Irrational, probably.
A car horn shocked me out of my angry fugue.
A black Mercedes converti
ble had pulled up next to the truck.
Barcie sat in the driver’s seat.
She was alone.
I rolled down my window.
“Need a lift?” Barcie said. She wore a black sun hat that reminded me of something a witch would wear and I wondered how she kept it on her head in the convertible.
“I think I’ve got it. Thanks, though,” I said.
“I know it doesn’t run.” Barcie’s smile seemed warm and friendly and I had to remind myself she had hit me with a chain yesterday, had brutally deformed a girl while I was in the same room trying not to watch.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m gonna check it out.”
“Come on. Dawn sent me to pick you up.”
“I, uh, don’t really want to go. I have to go to work.”
“That why you’re wearin that stupid fuckin shirt?”
A car honked as it passed Barcie.
“Get outta the middle of the fuckin road!” the driver shouted.
Barcie ignored them. “Awww, widdle Bwad still thinks him has a choice.”
Why didn’t I have a choice?
Soon I would stop asking myself that.
Eventually, I felt like I was going to be more afraid of Dawn and Barcie than whatever would happen to me at the hands of White Power Larry. If that happened the only thing they’d really have as a bargaining chip was Travis’s well being, and I didn’t know if his safety or fate or whatever was really worth it to me.
For the moment, what was I going to do? Get out of the truck and take off running?
“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be a lot of fun.”
I got out of the truck and slammed the door. I didn’t bother locking it. Didn’t even bother rolling the window back up. I thought about calling Billups and telling him I wasn’t going to make it after all but didn’t want to deal with his disappointment.
I hopped in the car. Barcie wore a loose fitting black dress so short it exposed the crotch of her white underwear. It made me kind of nervous. Her skinny legs were covered in bruises, and the sinewy muscles flexed as she took her foot off the brake and pressed the accelerator.
“So where’s Dawn?”
This Town Needs a Monster Page 7