The Drifter

by Christine Lennon

  “Alright, if that’s the way it’s gonna be,” he said, at last. “I’m going to go inside that house and play some brutally insensitive songs right now, and when I come back I expect you to be normal again. Got it?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “We’ll leave when this is over?” he said, stuttering, noticing the gaffe. “I mean, when we’re finished, if that’s what you want.”

  “Sure. When it’s over. Whatever. That’s fine,” she said, deliberately obtuse, not completely understanding why. It was easier to hate him, to drive him away, she thought, than to find out he’d been fucking with her. She hated how dramatic she was being, but couldn’t stop. They made their way back through the crowd into the house to the sound of Jacob doing his best sullen Morrissey impression out of the crackly speaker: “There are times when I could have muuuurdered heeerrrr.” Betsy found a spot on the stairs so she could look out over the crowd and hide at the same time. She wondered if they could actually play or if they would just tune the instruments until people gave up and left or fell asleep.

  She glanced at the thermostat on the wall. The air-conditioning was set at sixty-five, but the room was airless and suffocating. The crowd was a raggedy mix of hippies, skaters, punks, and general-purpose slackers. They were people who, if they lived in a real city, would have the luxury of avoiding one another, even hating each other. Here, the population that qualified as bohemian or, that new word, alternative, or marginal in any way, was so small that they had to band together as kindred, disaffected youth. Though in Weird Bobby’s case, calling him “youth” of any kind was a stretch. It was Gainesville, summer of 1990, and less than a mile down the street there were a dozen steroid-addled assholes sitting on a fire truck permanently parked in the front yard of their frat house, draining a day-old, half-empty keg of Bud Light and rating women as they walked by on the traditional scale of one to ten. So from Betsy’s angle, Weird Bobby’s party, full of wasted, misfit strangers, and the ironic and wildly inappropriate song set Jacob put together, was better than her other options. She sat on her perch and watched. Across the room, she spotted Louise and Not-Louise huddled against the wall, laughing conspiratorially. Betsy watched as Anna slinked through the crowd and let her shirt slip off of her shoulder like she didn’t notice, and Channing stumbled her way across the room in a long skirt that hung low on her jutting hips, scarf wrapped just so. Eventually, Teddy climbed the stairs and took a seat next to her.

  “You know, people can actually see you here,” he said.

  “They can?” she asked. “I thought that weed that strong must give you superpowers. I was praying that mine was invisibility.”

  “Good one,” Teddy said, as he reached out and clinked his beer bottle against hers. “I’m always torn between X-ray vision and the power of flight.”

  They sat together for a while and listened to Jacob’s Neil Young whine, howling “shot her dead, I shot her dead” over and over. Betsy felt relieved to be partially hidden on the stairs, safe with Teddy, that internal voice, the one that was out to destroy her, silenced for the time being.

  “I thought you would have graduated by now?” said Betsy.

  “Nah, I’m on the five-year plan,” he said. He had to shout to be heard over the music.

  “I’m out of here in December,” said Betsy. “No idea where to, though.”

  “I say just pick a spot on the map and go. Get out of here. I hear Seattle’s cool? Maybe Chicago? Where else?” he said.

  “Maybe New York? All of those places feel way too far away. Way too cold. But you never know. Right now, I’d be happy just to go to a place where a shirt and shoes are required for service. I’d be happy to be in a town that wasn’t turned upside down by a serial killer, too,” she said.

  Predictably, Channing made her way over to the percussion section and was shaking a tambourine in time to a messy cover of “Dig It Up” by the Hoodoo Gurus. “My girlfriend lives in the ground,” growled Jacob. She did a kind of spinning dance move that made Betsy feel nauseous just watching. Then, as if the party wasn’t a complete disaster already, the front door opened and in stumbled Mack, clearly smashed, with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. He searched the room from the doorway and when he saw Betsy on the stairs next to Teddy he pointed at her hard and shouted, “Outside!” which was barely audible over the music. Gavin didn’t see anything.

  “Shit,” said Teddy. “You can just ignore him, you know.”

  “I’ve tried it before. Doesn’t work,” she said, and steadied herself on the stair rail as she stood up. If Channing’s spinning got the pukey feeling started, Mack’s grand appearance sealed the deal. Betsy tottered down the stairs and ran out of the front door to throw up in what was left of the landscaping on the far side of the driveway near a woody patch that separated Weird Bobby’s place from the house next door. She rinsed out her mouth with the remains of her Corona and spit, as delicately as possible, fearing any stragglers outside who saw her in the bushes might not find the whole situation very refined. By the time she looked up, the front yard was empty. She was alone, except for Mack, who was looming in front of her. Even in silhouette, backlit by the porch light, it was clear that he wasn’t merely wasted. He was belligerently, blindly wasted. She steadied herself against a tree, ready for the fight.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” he shouted. “You and Gavin?”

  “As of this morning, I didn’t think so. Now I’m reconsidering.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “There’s nothing going on,” she said.

  “It looks like you’re staying in his house, Betsy. There’s something going on or you’re a bigger whore than I thought.”

  Teddy walked out onto the front porch.

  “You kids playing nice?” he asked.

  “Fuck off, Teddy,” said Mack, flinging a near-empty Solo cup at him, which hit the front door and sent a spray of booze over the back of Teddy’s shirt and shorts when he ducked to shield his head. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “Christ, settle down!” he said. “Betsy, are you OK?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, straining her voice to be heard over the music. “Just give us a minute.” Am I fine?

  “Why don’t we all calm down and come back inside,” Teddy said. The music blasted behind him.

  “This has nothing to do with you, Teddy,” Mack shouted.

  Teddy paused. Don’t leave, Betsy thought.

  “OK. If you’re not back in the house in five minutes, I’m coming back out here.” Teddy went back into the party.

  “Why do you care, anyway?” Betsy said, turning to Mack, shouting in his face. “It’s been over for so many months now. You want me to die, right? Isn’t that what you said at Bagelville over your morning coffee? You hated me even when we were together.”

  “I wanted you to die before you started fucking one of my best friends,” he said, so close now that she could smell the bourbon on his breath.

  “I’m not fucking Gavin,” she said.

  “Yet. You are not fucking Gavin yet,” he shouted, and he reached out and shoved her against the tree, pressing his body against hers, his rage turning suddenly to a condescending stage whisper. “But if I were you, I’d wait till he was finished with Channing first.”

  “What do you mean? You’re so full of shit,” she said, trying to push him away.

  “I mean that she was over at his house the night before we saw you at Bagelville.” He was spitting as he spoke. Betsy managed to push him off of her and stumbled backward, further into the woods. Mack followed. “Her car was outside. I unpacked some boxes and looked back out there two hours later. It was still there.”

  His words were slurred, but the message was clear. Betsy was stunned. She’d never even thought to ask if he was with anybody. It didn’t occur to her. What right did she have to be mad about it, really? If there was something she needed to know, he’d tell her, right? They’d been together for a couple of days, and
what did he owe her? She wondered why Channing had played along with Bobby’s lovebird bit at J.D.’s. The wheels had already started to spin, and once that started, with Weird Bobby’s drugs added to the mix, there was no stopping. It was a lie, she thought, all of it. Gavin was messing with her. It would be over before classes started again. Betsy’s mind raced, and she started to see the darkness in Gavin. He was just like the rest of them, like Mack, like Channing and Anna, like Caroline . . . even Ginny. Where is she now, when I really need her? Hiding in the sorority house behind those letters, behind a crowd of hollow girls. Betsy had been afraid of this ominous killer, of the unknown, but what if the real threat was right in front of her? Could Mack actually hurt me? Betsy wondered. She remembered what he’d said that morning.

  It would be a shame if you were next.

  “You’re a joke and a fucking slut, Betsy,” he said, lunging for her. She turned to run, but she tripped on a tree root and fell to the damp, spongy ground. She looked up through the trees toward the door. Where was Teddy? Was he in on it, too? Was she completely alone? Going back inside was not an option. Betsy wanted out, to get away from there, to go anywhere else. So she struggled to her feet, turned, and ran up the driveway, down the long empty residential street into the dark, muggy night.

  Mack’s voice trailed after her.

  “The way I see it, both of you are getting sloppy seconds.”

  WHEN SHE FINALLY made it to University Boulevard, the headlights of the cars came as a shock. It had to have been after 1:00 a.m., but there were still people on the road. And as she walked along the sidewalk toward campus, occasionally someone would roll down the window to heckle her. Two guys in a pickup truck slowed down to her pace and drove beside her for a minute or two. When Betsy declined their offer of a ride, she just shook her head. If she opened her mouth, she was afraid of what would come out.

  “Nice night for a walk, you moron,” shouted the drunk from the passenger seat. Once she made it to the stadium, she decided to take a shortcut and make her way through the all but abandoned campus, down Stadium Way, past Weil Hall through the North Lawn, past McCarty Hall to 8th Street. The news crews that had been swarming the campus had retreated to the Residence Inn or the University Hilton for nachos and hot wings at the hotel bar and an early bedtime, counting the minutes before they caught the killer, if only so they could return to civilization. Without the beaming sunlight, students milling about, gaudily decked in orange and blue, there was no story. It was just another small town in Florida with derelicts hiding in the crawl space. Serial killers were good for ratings. Mix in college-age female victims in an “idyllic campus setting” no less, and you’ve got a solid national headline. Betsy thought of her friends hunkered down on Sorority Row nearby. “You think you’re safe there?” she muttered to herself, happy to be alone at last. “What would Ted Bundy have to say about that?”

  The recent killing spree was like gory icing on the sketchy cake for Gainesville, a place that wasn’t as safe as the university claimed. She’d read an article in The Sun not long before that dubbed the town the shadiest in Florida, referring to the number of mature trees per square mile within city limits.

  “You better believe it’s the shadiest,” said Melissa, scanning the paper someone had left on a table at Bagelville. “And it doesn’t have a thing to do with leafy glens.”

  It’s like the Millhopper, Betsy thought, as she plodded along silently, eyes scanning the shadows for lurking things of any kind. Just below the surface, there’s the stuff that doesn’t belong, the bits of bones and teeth, the unusual things, completely out of place, that thrive under the cover of darkness and neglect. At first, she found that image comforting, that something could thrive below the surface, unnoticed, but now it felt threatening.

  Even under normal circumstances a late-night, solo campus stroll was a terrible idea, and she blamed her rash decision on the drugs. What was I thinking, she wondered, picturing Anna and Channing back at the party, laughing at her. How could I have let my guard down so completely? She made it to Beatty Towers, a high-rise dorm made famous by Tom Petty when rumors about his song “American Girl” claimed that he was singing about a girl who threw herself off of her eighth-floor balcony, even though it wasn’t true. She spotted the crammed bike rack in front of the building and said a tiny prayer, out loud.

  “If there’s just one unlocked bike somewhere in this rack, God, I swear to You that I will never steal another object, wheeled or otherwise, for the rest of my life.” She paused. “And I will resume believing in You.”

  Betsy worked fast, trying to wrestle each front tire out of its place, sandwiched between the metal bars. A beat-up ten-speed with a wobbly front tire sprang free, she swung her leg around the back of it, and, just like that, she was out of sight.

  At the intersection, she paused again. If she took a left, she was back to her dusty, empty apartment with a mattress on the floor. If she went straight, that road led her to the sorority house, where Ginny and Caroline were staying the night. To the right was their apartment, with its feather beds and freshly laundered sheets. The key to their front door was still in her front pocket. Betsy followed her gut and took a right, partly because it was a downhill ride, and partly because she needed to be alone, but not alone enough to face her own grim life and apartment, both of which felt empty, both of which were a mess. She coasted down 13th Street on her last stolen bike, vowing to remind herself about the God stuff tomorrow.

  At the bottom of the long hill, she hung another right at the Steak ’n Shake, where three graveyard-shift employees were forced into the meat freezer at gunpoint by one lunatic last year while his crack buddy emptied the till. That prompted Caroline to announce “I’d kill for a steak burger!” every time they drove by and howl with laughter. It didn’t seem funny anymore. In this section of town, a few miles away from the nearest bar, the streets were entirely empty, and Betsy somehow felt safest riding in the dead center on the double yellow line. The slope of the hill, the arch of the tree branches that grew over it, were all so familiar to Betsy. Ginny and Caroline had been in their apartment in Williamsburg Village for three years, starting their day, every day, to a state-of-the-art CD alarm clock set to play “Superman” by R.E.M. at 7:30 a.m. sharp, the most optimistic song Ginny could find to rouse her for another day. Even though Ginny and Caroline wouldn’t be there, she needed to smell that faint popcorn scent mixed with Caroline’s Quelques Fleurs and feel the musty, deep, chintz sofa that practically grew arms to embrace her. So when she coasted into the parking lot, she ditched the bike between a couple of parked cars under a streetlight, just in case, and jogged toward the building, up the front stairs. With the building’s 1970s-era fake-colonial facade there to greet her like an old friend, she’d nearly forgotten about Weird Bobby and Channing, Mack’s apoplectic freak-out, attacking her in the woods, and Gavin—well, almost Gavin. She just wanted to sleep it off and wake up tomorrow with clearer eyes and start all over again. She would clean up her new apartment. She would buy a dresser at Goodwill and unpack her boxes. She would add a few more lines to her letter to Gainesville. She would start over, again.

  Betsy was halfway up the steps when she felt something crunch underfoot, followed by the hissing and snarling of the neighbor’s cat, whose tail she’d apparently stepped on. She fell hard against the stair rail, heart racing with another adrenaline surge. A blur of matted gray fur disappeared into the darkness under the stairwell in a flash. She was still breathing hard from the last leg of her journey on the stolen bike and that hadn’t helped matters.

  “It’s just me,” she hissed back, “you big, fat grouch.”

  Once she was sure the cat wasn’t coming back for revenge, and that she hadn’t had a hash-fueled heart attack, she fished the key out of her front pocket and put it in the lock.

  Betsy sensed that something was off immediately. There was a faint warm glow from the upstairs hallway casting a half circle of dim light on the floor at the bottom of t
he stairs. It was the light. She was definitely still high, almost certainly still drunk, but she knew that light shouldn’t be on. Caroline would have removed the bulb from the ceiling fixture, her profound hatred for overhead lighting capping the list of her many idiosyncrasies, if she hadn’t been too lazy to borrow a stepladder. You’re high, Bets, she told herself. Don’t freak out on me. Ginny left it on to make it seem like someone was home, and awake, and definitely not into being murdered. Still, her heart thumped against her sternum and she closed the door quietly behind her. She had taken about eight quiet steps down the long hall when she first heard the music, playing faintly, and started to panic in earnest. Standing in the dark, eyes trained on the soft light coming from the top of the stairs, her mind riffled through all of the possible sources of the music: an insomniac next-door neighbor, a party in the adjacent building, a clock radio alarm set for the wrong hour belonging to someone who decided to shack up elsewhere for the night. He’s in the house, the voice in her head told her. She remembered Caroline’s comment in the car. What are the chances? One in fifteen thousand? Then, when she heard what sounded like a footstep on a creaky floorboard, the reliable, slow, crackly groan of wood from the noisy spot at the foot of Ginny’s bed, she was convinced. He’s here. Get out. Get out. Get out. He, whoever he was, the he was in the apartment, waiting for her. Betsy turned so fast to head for the door that she ran into the wooden side chair they kept in the front hall and sent a stack of junk mail scattering to the floor and then fell to the ground on top of it. She scrambled to get to her feet, slipping on mailers and phone bills and delivery menus, and out of the apartment, reaching for the doorknob to help her up. She flung the door open and slammed it behind her, shot down the stairwell, past the parked cars, struggling for breath, too terrified to stop or turn around or find the bike that she’d abandoned just minutes before. She rounded the corner onto 16th Street and nearly lunged headfirst into the hood of an oncoming car, which screeched to a stop. She froze in the headlights, shielding her eyes from the beam, until she heard her name.