Fear Itself

by Duffy Prendergast

  We ate ravenously at the round wooden table beneath the cheap brass chandelier with the florescent bulbs protected by the clouded glass globes by the window overlooking the parking lot. I did not realize until the scent of the melted cheese reached my nostrils that I was famished, and I supposed that Sarah was as well. I began my meal by sipping my soup from a stainless steel soup spoon but soon found myself dunking my sandwich into the soup and swallowing large tufts of melted processed cheese and bread dripping with broth. I polished off my bowl of soup by pouring the contents into my gullet straight from the white porcelain saucer. When I was finished I guiltily eyed Sarah’s remaining meal with envy but I suppressed my urge to steal her food until she had consumed all but a length of crust which she cast aside as unpalatable. I proved to her that the scrap she had discarded was in fact edible.

  After I had sopped up the last of Sarah’s soup gravy with the crust I had stolen from her and absorbed the last of the buttery crumbs of our meal with the tips of my fingers, I tucked Sarah into our bed and laid down beside her and stared at the ceiling (it had become as familiar to me as I supposed the Mona Lisa was to Leonardo Da Vinci).

  “Can we stay here Daddy? I had fun today.”

  “We’ll see.” It was easier to be ambiguous than to engage her with an explanation.

  “Can we go swimming again tomorrow?”

  “Sure, if we get up early.”

  “I wish Mommy could come here and live with us. We could go swimming every day.”

  “That would have been nice.”

  Sarah slid up next to me and put her arm over my chest. “But now I have you all to myself lover.” She said.

  This statement caught me off guard. The knot in my stomach tightened just a bit, like a tourniquet on a gushing wound. Not, as one might suspect, because of Sarah’s reference to me as lover, but rather because she had found a benefit to Catherine’s death. Her words were a bit too Oedipal in nature.

  The fact that Sarah called me “lover” might sound outrageous to the outside observer, but it was a term of endearment born of innocence. I have never and would never damage a child in such a way as her reference might suggest.

  The fact of the matter was that one of my favorite, and therefore one of Sarah’s favorite, means of recreation was watching old black and white movies. Sarah would actually look forward to movie nights. Of course we made a major event of these frequent occasions fraught with healthy snacks such as popcorn soaked in real butter, bottomless colas, potato chips, pretzels, corn twisters and candy-bars. Sarah referred to these occasions as “dates” wishing apparently to duplicate the intimacy, of which she was obviously excluded. Sarah and I would cover the blue leather sectional couch, in our oak-shelved book-packed den that housed our twenty-nine inch television, with feather- pillows and quilted blankets. We would get comfortable with her on my lap and all of our amenities, including the remote control, on the wooden side table normally reserved for the jade chess-board. We would turn the lights off, of course, and we would watch what Sarah referred to as “black” movies until I slumped down deep into the sofa and dozed off and Sarah fell asleep on my chest.

  Once, while watching an old musical, The Big Shakedown, Renee Whitney who played Mae Larue said to Richard Cortez who played Dutch Barnes “Hello lover” as Renee flared her thick eyebrows seductively. Sarah giggled and looked up at me. “Hello lover!” she said with just the right amount of flare and sass so that she tickled me to the bone. The way she flared her eyebrows when she repeated Renee’s line as well as at her ignorance to the meaning of what she had just said! Sarah looked so adorable. On subsequent movie nights, when we were alone, Sarah would say “Hello lover” just to get a tickle out of me, and I would chuckle and say it back to her, doing my best to flare my eyebrows as Richard Cortez would have done and doing my best to imitate his distinct gangster accent; a pathetic attempt I assure you but it made Sarah giggle and that is all that mattered. So, when we were alone together Sarah sometimes called me “lover” to make me laugh or to lighten my mood.

  Sarah’s suggestion that she would have me all to herself caused a shortness of breath in my lungs and a tightness in my chest.

  I knew that I would have little room to breath for a long time.

  I looked over at Sarah who had fallen asleep at this point. Thank God for that; for my eyes began to pour all over her as I pulled her to my side and held her. I could not let her down. I could not let myself be weak. Not in front of her. I needed to be strong so that she bore none of the burden. She was a mere child and did not deserve to bear the massive cross that I was to carry.

  Sarah would have me all to herself. If Sigmund Freud were with me he would have suggested that Sarah had killed Catherine to have me all to herself. Absurd, I know, but the thought did occur to me. But of course what would a seven year old child know of murder or its conveyance? Nothing, of course. But she would have possessed the naiveté to see the advantage in it.

  5

  Upon returning home the next day, I pulled into my driveway, the obvious signs of the intrusive blue invasion having mysteriously disappeared like water down a storm-drain, I felt as though spying eyes were upon me; in the wood surrounding my home or peering from behind parted curtains or peeping from behind parked cars in one of my neighbor’s driveways. I could hear a buzzing in my ears churning like the stir of bees in an agitated hive emanating from somewhere in the back of my scull.

  I pulled Sarah, startling her awake from a sound sleep, across the console in preemptive defense from whatever was lurking whether real or imagined. She was still half asleep, tired no doubt from her morning swim. I made my way down the walk, stepping over, like a novice ballet dancer, an overturned skateboard and a landscape cinder, and opened the screen door with my free hand. I struggled to get my key into the front door latch while baring Sarah’s weight on my shoulder and darting my eyes from the lock to the bushes to the car and back to the lock. I really was a bit paranoid. But there was a killer on the loose, as far as I knew, and I didn’t want one of us to be the next victim.

  I turned the key and nudged the door open with my knee and was welcomed by the odors of a house left unattended; the tang of dirty dishes still covered in globules of hardened grease and rotting chicken flesh, the remnants of our last supper; the once crispy residue of the soaking skillet left to soften overnight in an inch or so of water to decrust the leavings of our side-dish of potato pancakes; the musty smell of funky sweat-socks left over from a session of driveway basketball, one-on-one with a neighbor boy a third my age; and the faint medicinal smell of whatever trace forensic chemicals, imagined or real, that were left behind by the police investigative unit that had turned my house upside-down seeking clues with which to incriminate me. The living room was dark (the shades having been redrawn) except for what little light sifted through the white Venetian blinds that guarded our windows like flattened razors and the flicker of the florescent table lamp on the round glass table that sat in the far corner next to the entertainment center. The house was silent except for the hum of a cheap electric clock, simple and round with a gold rim and black letters on a white background, which sat atop the oak fireplace mantle.

  I laid Sarah on the couch but she sat up, her sleep having worn thin. She patted the blue leather-covered cushion beside her, “Snuggle me.” She said.

  “In a minute honey.” I resisted the guilt of a missed opportunity to comfort her in her most vulnerable state. I grabbed the television remote and found a cartoon and Sarah’s attention was quickly diverted.

  I slipped into the hallway and leaned against my bedroom door-frame and stared at the spot where I had last made love to Catherine. The impression of her body appeared still on the side of the mattress where she had died, although the bed-sheet was missing; evidence I supposed. On my nightstand stood the quarter-empty bottle of scotch that I had drunk during the course of our last evening, Catherine’s and mine, of making love. The glass sat next to the bottle, half filled still,
and I could taste the acrid flavor of whiskey condensed in the dry air of our house. On Catherine’s nightstand the decanter which held her alcohol of choice, white wine, was gone, along with the wine-glass she had used.

  Poison, I thought? Why else would they take it?

  I stepped into the room and I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the nightstand and wondering about the vacancy of its contents; wondering what the police had found; wondering how they would try to pin her death on me. I was the husband; therefore I had killed her. That would have been my first thought as an impartial interloper. And my fingerprints would be on the decanter. I brought the wine from the fridge. My fingerprints would also have been on the glass. I poured her first glass of wine after lighting the plum scented candle and placing it on her nightstand. The candle was also missing. If Catherine were poisoned what kind of potion could it have been that she would not have detected it through the wine?

  Just being in the room made me yawn with the exhaustive weight of Catherine’s absence. I pulled my pillow from my side of the bed (Catherine’s pillow, I noted, was also missing) and I laid back settling my head on the cool pillow case. I pulled my cell phone from my pants pocket and I dialed Amber’s phone number for the umpteenth time. I was startled to hear it ringing and I closed my phone, shutting it off, not knowing what I would say to her, my mysterious murderous phone lover?

  I dialed Amber’s number again. I had to know.

  “Hello lover!” Were her disturbing words. I never mentioned to Amber the private joke I shared with Sarah.

  But still the sound of Amber’s voice, as a reflexive reaction like a spark to gunpowder, un-willfully aroused me. Her voice was the equivalent of sex; of dirty words and sentences whispered in quiet, safe, alone places; words, which when spoken in person, invoked a blush of discomfort, as if unnatural, a part of a blue movie. But the sound of her voice invoked a noxious mixture of both delectation and disturbed morbidity. Her voice to me now that I had reason to question her character represented both euphoric exhilaration and murderous malfeasance; life and death.

  “Where have you been?” My voice was parched and choked, the sound of her voice having scorched the saliva from my mouth. I withheld my desire to ask her if she had killed my wife. I wasn’t utterly sure that Amber had not had a hand in Catherine’s death. I wasn’t yet sure if I was angry with her; if I had reason to be angry with her; if I had reason for wanting her to die an agonizing death of retribution.

  “Why? Did you miss me?” Her voice was deliberately low and gravely. She was trying to sound sexy but her tone was tinny and cautious.

  “Of course I missed you,” My voice was purposely monotone. I didn’t want to betray my mistrust, and I didn’t quite know how to ask what I had to ask. She had a way of disarming me; of turning me into a little boy; a submissive. But being sex talked in the bed that I once shared with my wife was just wrong. Letting myself be sex-talked at all was wrong and now brought on pangs of guilt and made me angry with Amber for enticing me and angry at myself for being weak enough to be enticed.

  “Does little Mathew want to come out and play? I’m alone and I’ve misplaced my panties. What to do…what to do?” She drew a deep breath and exhaled as if exhausting a gust of cigarette smoke. “Just the sound of your voice makes me hot, lover. Do you feel up to the task, Mathew? Are you excited?”

  “No.” I lied.

  “We’ll have to do something about that. Goddd, the sound of your voice… I’m so wet Mathew. We haven’t done this in days! Tell me what you’ll do to me Mathew. Be a good boy and make love to me with that sexy voice of yours.”

  “Catherine is dead.” I didn’t know how else to package my words, but her attempt to arouse me made me feel pathetic. Besides Amber wasn’t letting me get a word in edgewise. The phone went silent. “Are you still there?” I asked.

  “Mathew, ‘Catherine’s dead’ is not going to get me off.” Her tone was sarcastic and no longer sexy.

  “She is dead. The police think that I killed her.”

  “That’s terrible.” Her voice rose in pitch to an un-sultry crescendo. “You’re serious, aren’t you Mathew?”

  “Yes.” I was deliberately succinct. I wanted to hear her ramble; to get a sense of her demeanor; to judge her by her words and the tone of her voice; innocence or guilt.

  “Oh Mathew, I’m so sorry.” Her voice was normal; concerned; higher pitched. Amber the friend had taken over the conversation. “If I had any idea I would never have…said what I said. But how can they think that you killed her? You’re a sweetheart. You wouldn’t hurt a soul. How could they think such a thing?” “I don’t know.”

  “Oh Mathew, is there anything I can do for you. I am truly sorry. I know that we’ve never met in person, but I feel as though I’ve known you all of my life. I mean we’re friends, right?” She drew an empathetic sigh,

  “Mathew, I can’t imagine how you must feel; and your daughter. The poor thing…”

  “I know. It’s okay.” I drew a deep breath. As unscientific as my method was, I could tell that Amber hadn’t a clue. I could tell that she had nothing to do with Catherine’s death. “But the police have brought you into this. They think that I killed Catherine to be with you.”

  “How smart of them.” Amber drawled out the vowels in a flippant tone.

  “They never called you then?”

  “How could they have? My cell phone’s been out of commission for almost a week; something about not paying the bill. Anyway, it’s Charlie’s fault whatever it was. And I don’t have a landline…Oh Goddd!” she gasped, “Charlie! Do you think they might have spoken to Charlie? He’s been acting so strange. He’s been giving me dirty looks. He hasn’t spoken to me for a few days now! God, I hope they haven’t talked to Charlie! He’d kill me if he knew about us.”

  “Calm down Amber. It’s okay. How could they know anything? All they know is that we’ve talked; the phone record. We’ve conducted business. That’s all.”

  “Oh, yeah…I suppose your right. I don’t know what’s gotten into Charlie lately.” “The police told me that you came to Cleveland.”

  “How theatrical. And you believed them I suppose?”

  My silence betrayed me.

  “Thank you very much Mathew!” I could tell that she was hurt.

  “I feel awful for believing them, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Of course it does.” I could sense her smiling. “That seems a little over the top though. Did they think they were making a television show? I mean how dramatic!”

  “I don’t know. They had me wondering.”

  “You didn’t really think that I…” She laughed softly with a girlish sort of giggle,

  “Mathew, really. Did you think that little ole Dorothy flew down from Kansas in her house, riding a cyclone, and landed on the wicked witch of the north? Come on now Mathew, you’re not being serious?”

  “I only wondered for a moment. The cop was pretty convincing.”

  “It sounds so ridiculous Mathew.” She drafted a deep sigh. “You must be devastated though. I know you loved Catherine very much. I hope you don’t feel guilty about what we did. They were only words Mathew. We didn’t actually fuck you know.”

  “In my mind we did.”

  “Mine too, but that doesn’t count, now does it?”

  “Well…”

  “Come on now, does it?” “No, I guess not.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve wanted to screw your brains out since I first spoke to you. Something about that low sexy voice of yours. But it’s not like you live around the corner lover. I’d cheat on Charlie with you in a heartbeat. But words are words. You shouldn’t feel guilty. You said yourself that our little tryst had made you fall in love with Catherine all over again.”

  “It did. Not that we were having any real problems, but we were getting bored with each other.”

  I heard a door clang shut over the telephone. “That’ll be Charlie. I have to go. But call me if you nee
d to talk lover; any time.” Her voice was reduced to a hurried whisper.

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  Catherine’s wake was a one night stand. I didn’t expect a great many people to come because Catherine had drifted apart from most of her childhood friends and we had only a few mutual friends. We mostly kept to ourselves. I expected her parents to come, as well as her older brother Tom who lived in Denver Colorado and a few of our respective workplace friends, my boss, her boss, and a few others; beyond that, a curious neighbor, perhaps, but not much else.

  Sarah and I sat on two tarnished brass metal frame chairs with mustard colored cushions near the threshold of the parlor where Catherine’s body lay in a shiny marble-grey colored polymer casket with brass colored handles (the best of the economical line and a steal at nine-hundred dollars, said the clerk, as though he were selling convertibles instead of caskets). The room was decorated in nineteen sixties yellows and oranges. A small electric organ sat in the corner of the partition that separated us from the other half of the parlor where a Mr. Francis Thomas lay silently in wait for his wake. The high ceilings were adorned with white plaster crown moldings laced with angels holding hands and otherwise spiritually occupied with harps and trumpets and swords. The carpet was a commercial grade the color of blood speckled with yellow and orange which matched the painted yellow walls. There were no windows and as such the odors of embalmed bodies from multiple generations of the dead must have been trapped inside the walls, floors and ceilings of the rooms, much like the endless parade of corpses themselves were trapped inside their respective coffins. The room was lighted with small, inexpensive garish brass chandeliers evenly spaced about ten feet apart in rows of two. Some recorded organ music hummed softly and mysteriously from speakers hidden from our view. The musical arrangements were the sort of dreary organ pieces you’d expect to hear in a Belalagosi horror movie.