The Belt

by Agatha Rae

  The prosecutor looked at John first, then at Margaret, then finally at the judges. The woman nodded allowing him to ask the question.

  “Can you elaborate on that, Mrs. Smith? What is the defendant talking about?”

  John scoffed once again when he heard he was being referred to as the defendant. What a surreal, absolutely crazy situation. All right, here was the deal. He was going to listen to Margaret talk about the drinking, he wasn’t going to miss the pleasure of seeing her writhe in pain of the not-so-perfect-anymore testimony, and then he was going to wake up. Snap out of it. Just like that.

  “Mrs. Smith?” the prosecutor asked again.

  Margaret looked at him, blinked quickly a few times and sniffed. She cleared her throat and said, “Yes. I had some drinking issues.”

  John smiled and took a deep breath. That’s right, keep on talking, Margaret. Let everyone know you’re not so innocent after all. He crossed his arms on his chest and was waiting for her to talk.

  “Can you be more specific?” the judge on the right side of the table asked.

  “There was a time in my life I had alcohol issues, I admit; however, I’ve been sober, completely sober since John left me,” she sighed.

  “Has this problem ever effected your family life? Your marriage?” the prosecutor asked.

  “Oh, come on, how would it be possible for it not to effect it?” John said loudly, and took a step closer to the bars and put his hands on them. “That’s the reason why I kept on leaving home, Margaret, and you know it. Tell them how many times I had asked you to get help, get treatment. Go on, tell them!”

  The prosecutor looked at John’s wife who was now visibly embarrassed. She was nervously bending her fingers; the knuckles were popping one after another.

  “Well?” John asked.

  “It’s, um, it’s true. He did ask me several times to stop, to get help,” Margaret admitted, looking down on her feet.

  “And, I understand, you have?” the main judge asked.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “She has, all right, but apparently only once I’d left her! I don’t think it counts under those circumstances!” John shouted through his teeth.

  “Mr. Smith, I advise you to change the tone of your voice!” the prosecutor said sternly.

  “No, I am not going to change the tone of my voice! I’ve been hearing what a bad husband and father I am, and she’s not perfect either! Her drinking problem, her lack of will to do anything about it, it all pushed me to leave home, pushed me to stay away from my goddamn family, because, guess what it wasn’t so nice, honey, coming back home only to see you sleeping on the sofa, in front of the TV, drunk as fuck, with stinky breath, and dirty clothes on, while Mickey was in his room doing his homework or playing computer games! Not exactly a dream home to come back to! In fact - Oh, Jesus!”

  John felt a powerful and very painful poke under his rib, right above the liver. His face reddened, distorted by pain, and he puffed his cheeks and fell on all fours. He started coughing, and the crowd observing the situation started cheering, clapping, some of the spectators were booing and throwing apples and eggs onto the wooden platform.

  “God damn it,” John expectorated and felt single tears falling from his eyes. He got on his knees and looked to his right while keeping his palm on the spot that kept on burning. There was one of the troll-like creatures standing outside the cage, looking coldly at him, holding a long metal-like pole with some sort of sharp, wicked looking crystal at the end and John thought very oddly to himself through his pain, “Christ! It’s like being tasered and slugged in one shot!”

  “Silence!” The woman judge hit her gavel onto a wooden tray a few times. “Silence, or I will send everybody out!”

  The crowd got quiet in an instant once more. John was still breathing heavily, but he managed to stand up and was now observing everything being slightly bent and gripping his one hand over the bar and the other one on his liver.

  “Would you like to add something, Mr. Smith, one more time without permission to speak?” the judge sitting on the left asked. “You are the defendant here, you are allowed to speak only when asked, do you understand?”

  “Y-yes,” John replied and coughed.

  “When did your problem appear, Mrs. Smith?” the prosecutor, who was observing John, turned around now and walked towards the defendant’s wife.

  “Both my grandfather and my father were alcoholics. I guess I just tried as much as I could to deny the fact that I had a problem as well,” she said silently and sniffed. Her eyes became wet again; she closed them, allowed three tears to fall down her cheeks and looked at the prosecutor. “I never touched alcohol until I was a grown-up. I saw how it destroyed my parents’ marriage, so I promised myself to do whatever it took not to allow it to be part of my own life. Unfortunately, once I started drinking, I quickly realized I was losing control over it. Must be the genes or something.”

  “Was your problem in any way connected with Mr. Smith?” he asked and pointed at the bars.

  “Oh, come on!” John exclaimed, but shut his mouth, and took a step to the left side of the cage once he saw the troll with the bat coming closer again.

  “Of course it was. I was sober for many years before I met John. The dead baby thing…the fact that I was alone during this horribly difficult time, then his constant disappearing… it all pushed me to drink again.”

  “No! No, no, you cannot blame me for that! It was only your deci—”, John hissed and fell on his knees when the pole hit his belly again. It also poked his arm, and hit his head. John was lying on the floor, covering his head with his forearm. “Stop it! Stop it, please!”

  The creature hit his back and stepped back when the prosecutor raised his hand. The hooded man came closer to the cage and looked at John, still crawling on the floor and trying to get up.

  “How many times are we supposed to tell you, John? Do not speak unless you’re asked,” the prosecutor said coldly. John looked up at him and saw the man’s eyes displayed a complete lack of any compassion.

  “Can’t I defend myself?” Smith finally said through his teeth.

  “Haven’t you had your whole lifetime to change?” the prosecutor asked.

  John started crying. He couldn’t help it. He was sobbing at first, but after a few seconds, the tears were one by one coming out of his eyes, as he was weeping loudly, and breathing spasmodically. John sat on his wooden chair, bent his torso and hid his face in his palms.

  The prosecutor walked to Margaret and asked her, “When did you start drinking again?”

  “After John had gotten the new job.”

  “Was that the only reason?”

  “I think the main reason was because I was devastated and I was alone. My husband kept avoiding me during that time, and I had nobody to talk to, to be with. The alcohol allowed me to forget how painful my life had become. I don’t think I had ever neglected my son, but I know I was drowning out of loneliness and despair.”

  “Did your husband ask you to seek help?”

  “Yes. He did. Many times.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?” the prosecutor kept on asking. In the distance everyone heard John sobbing loudly, even though his face was muffled by his hands.

  “I-I don’t know. Guess I didn’t want him to take the credit,” Margaret said quietly and cleared her throat.

  “Why have you stopped drinking now?”

  “Because John’s out of my life.”

  “I have no further questions.”

  “Can I add something?” Margaret asked the Prosecutor, who looked at the judges. Seeing their agreement, he allowed her to speak. ““I-I mean, he’s out of my life, and I need to take care of me and my boy, that’s what I… That’s what I meant. And, I also think that my marriage was a mistake, a huge one, and I guess I am partly to blame for the fact it happened in the first place. I think my husband, John, hated me most of the time, because I had certain expectations of him. Expectations any woman would
have had of her husband. To commit, to be there for her and for the family, to help,” Margaret added.

  “Are we stating facts here, or what my wife thinks?” John asked through his teeth, but as the creature picked the pole again, he only raised his hand in an apologetic gesture and said nothing more. The spectators started commenting everything loudly while the prosecutor walked away from her and said, “Next witness—”

  Chapter 8

  John woke up feeling that his heart was racing so fast it was about to jump out of his chest. He was breathing raggedly, gasping the air in a desperate attempt to calm down. For a few seconds his mind had trouble recognizing where exactly he was; in the cage somewhere up on a wooden platform, or in his own bedroom. When he felt his breath was coming back to its normal pace, he got back under the quilt, closed his eyes, and turned right to embrace Cindy. Once he reached his hand and put it on the pillow instead of his girlfriend’s face, he opened his eyes and realized she wasn’t in bed. She wasn’t in the bedroom at all.

  John turned back, looked at his watch lying on the night table and spotted it was already 9 a.m. Traditionally, he felt very thirsty, so he got up, went to the bathroom and poured himself a glass of tap water. As he was taking one greedy gulp after another, he looked ahead and saw his reflection in the mirror. What he spotted made him put the glass away.

  John looked horribly tired, as if the fatigue was eating him alive. He had dark shadows under his half-opened eyes, the area also looked quite baggy. His hair was a total mess. John combed it a bit with his left hand and could feel it slickened back with sweat. His face was pale, and his cheeks were overrun with a five o’clock shadow that were also a bit sunken in. John looked at his own reflection for a few minutes, touching his hair and face as if not believing it was actually him. He looked miserable. He had anxiety written all over his countenance.

  John took a deep breath and washed his face with cold water. A not-exactly pleasant chill went down his body, but he splashed the water again, and again. Finally, he turned the water off, took his boxers off and walked into the shower. He turned the cold water on, and just stood there for God knew how long. He needed to be completely awake, to make sure that there was no trace of the horrible dream he had at night anywhere on him; not on his face, not in his hair, not on a single cell of his body. John wanted it gone.

  When he was later drying his body with a towel, he felt a stinging strike of pain when he touched the right side of his belly. He flinched as the feeling immediately recalled the weapon hitting him, which made him flinch, and looked at his reflection in the mirror. Since John took a cold shower, there was no steam on it, and yet he had to look carefully, closely, and blink a few times before he was able to believe what he saw. Under his rib, there were three big, bloody-purple spots, one next to another. Every time John touched them, he felt the familiar pain. He started breathing heavily once more, trying to come up with any logical explanation of what he was seeing. Finally, John took a deep breath and calmed down. Many people usually moved restlessly while having nightmares, trying to wake up. His dreams were so bad, so awful, that it was possible he hit his night stand or the bed’s frame while sleeping.

  That was it.

  Too bad Cindy didn’t bother to wake him up, he thought irritated. It would have saved him lots of trauma and, as it turned out, physical pain.

  When he finished and walked back to the bedroom again, he was shaking from cold, but felt better than ever. He walked to the wardrobe, picked up his clothes, got dressed, and walked down to the kitchen, where he had already heard Cindy preparing breakfast.

  “Good morning,” he said as he hugged her from behind. She was standing by the stove making pancakes. She smiled and turned her cheek to him so he could kiss her.

  “Mornin’, honey, how did you sleep?”

  “Great,” he lied. He looked at her, fresh, cheerful, in a really good mood, and felt he had to go out, just for a minute, just to focus on something else; her positivity was very irritating.

  “I’m gonna have some fresh air, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  John shrugged his shoulders, walked to the terrace door, opened it and stepped outside. It was so peaceful that the silence was practically squeaking in his ears. It was almost ten o’clock in the morning on a Sunday, and there was basically nobody around. Some single people were out walking their dogs, and their voices were bouncing off the apartment blocks, Rudy, don’t eat that, Mia, come here little girl, that’s it, that’s right, good dog, Mylo, are you coming, or not? A tranquil morning. John closed his eyes and stood there on the terrace for a minute or two until he heard Cindy calling him inside to eat.

  “So, you obviously didn’t sleep great,” she said as she was pouring maple syrup on her pancakes. John looked up from his plate and put a piece of his portion into his mouth.

  “What are you talking about, I slept like a baby,” he replied while chewing.

  “Honey, I’m only worried about you, okay? You haven’t been sleeping well for some time now, you often disappear from home…”

  “Are you investigating me or something?” he asked; a bit annoyed and had a sip of strong, black coffee.

  “No. Like I said, I’m worried about you,” Cindy replied, surprised. She put the fork away and reached out for a napkin from a box placed in the middle of the table.

  “That’s sweet, but everything’s all right. I sleep fine, and I disappear as you call it, because I have things to do. I mean, you can’t expect me to sit at home all day while you’re at work.”

  “Okay, if you say so,” she said a bit sarcastically, and continued eating.

  At first, John decided to ignore the whole conversation, but the tone of her voice when she said the if you say so thing kept on bouncing left to right inside his head. What the hell did she mean by that? Why did she say it so ironically? He put away his utensils and looked at her attentively.

  “What?” she asked a bit surprised.

  “If I say so? I understand you have a different theory about the whole thing, about me sleeping fine?” he asked and wiped his lips with a paper napkin. He tsk-tsked as he was cleaning his teeth with his tongue, and was looking at her.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I do. I mean, if you weren’t talking in your sleep, then maybe I’d believe,” she started, but didn’t finish her sentence once she saw his face. “What is it? You look as if you saw a ghost.”

  “I’m talking? In my sleep?” he asked surprised. At least he hoped he sounded surprised, because he was, in fact, horrified. “What am I saying?”

  “Usually, you scream, sometimes cry, but mostly…”

  “Mostly?”

  “Mostly… you… you just beg. For mercy,” Cindy said and bit her lip. She felt very uncomfortable telling him all this, she knew he was going to get angry.

  “I-I do what, exactly?!” he exclaimed.

  “You heard me, John. I mean, it happens practically regularly, and it’s really difficult to wake you up then. I…I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to help you,” she said looking at him.

  John aggressively threw his utensils on the table; the fork hit the plate with an unpleasant banging sound, and the knife hollowly hit the wooden surface. He was looking at Cindy, taken aback by his own reaction and being fully aware it wasn’t proportionate, but, at the same time, he felt he was getting angrier with every second. He couldn’t help it.

  “John,” Cindy said peacefully, “I think I know why you can’t sleep, I mean it all makes sense, and if I’m right, I believe it might be very easy to help you get rid of the problem.”

  “Is that so?” he asked sarcastically. She had no clue about what was going on, that his dreams were haunting him not because they were unpleasant, but because he had a feeling that once in a while he was watching a show, a TV series with his trial being the main plot. It just kept on going, right from the moment it ended last time, just like one episode would begin from the moment the previous one finished. That was
what was freaking him out. John simply couldn’t help, but he felt that it all had some kind of a purpose and the single thought about it, made him queasy. But Cindy had a theory. She knew. She had an idea how to help him. Well, that should be interesting.

  “Yes, listen,” she said, put her plate aside and leaned on the table a bit to speak more directly toward him. “You haven’t had a job for months.”

  “Cindy, Jesus,” he hissed, got up and walked two steps away from the table.

  “John, John, listen to me; come on, turn around,” she asked firmly.

  He sighed deeply and turned around.

  “Sit down,” she asked.

  “I am fine standing,” he replied and shrugged his shoulders.

  “All right. There’s no need to get angry; it’s okay. You’re frustrated and you are worried about your, about our, financial situation.”

  “That’s what you think it is?” John asked mechanically and decided to let her talk.

  “Yes! I think you’re worried because you haven’t had any job in months, and this place is really expensive. I mean, I can’t afford it myself.”

  “You don’t have to pay for anything yourself, I have savings, and I can pay for things, regardless of me having a job, or not,” he scoffed.

  “For how long?” Cindy asked, and got up from the table and walked toward him.

  “Excuse me?” John asked irritated.

  “It’s been months now since you had any work to do, any trip to organize. I mean, have you called your boss? Have you asked what was going on?”

  “I don’t have to do that,” he said and did his best to sound careless. The truth was, however, it had been bugging him for some time now, because he had never had such long breaks between jobs. “He calls me when he needs me, that’s the deal. I won’t be begging for anything,” John said. He felt irritated, and didn’t like the questions. He hadn’t slept well, obviously, and now Cindy kept on jabbering, asking those idiotic things, making him look like he was irresponsible, or inadequate, treating him like a child who couldn’t take care of itself.