by Dan Mooney
“You have to go,” Rebecca told him, as if reading his thoughts.
“Sure,” he replied. “I know that. Of course I’m going.”
She looked at him suspiciously and began unpacking their lunch from the two plastic bags she had brought. Salad mostly, with some fruit, yogurt and coffee cake. Her favorite.
“Do you still love me?” he asked. It was a random thought that just seemed to be floating about in his head, and then it was coming out of his mouth. It was his lack of control showing all over again.
“Of course I do, you moron,” she told him, not unkindly. “I never stopped, Denny. Even when I was half a world away and getting all of my information about you from emails home, I was in love with you. I loved you when I watched you through the glass door at the side of your kitchen. From the moment I saw you singing while Eddie pushed you down the street in a shopping cart at three in the morning, I loved you.” She was looking into his eyes. He was looking right back. There was something about her eyes, dark brown and lovely, that seemed to calm him. Every time she looked at him felt like a hug.
“You don’t have to keep asking either,” she continued. “It’s not going to change anytime soon.”
He smiled. Her words seemed to sink into his brain and stomach, untying the knots and loosening the panic that was beginning to take hold.
“Want me to pick out something for you to wear tonight?” she asked.
They were at the window. All four of them, standing in a straight line, Plasterer at the end, watching him.
“No. No, that’s fine,” he replied. There was no way she was going to be let into the house. “How’s work today?” he asked as a diversion.
“Fine. Busy all morning. Festival planning for Christmas. Can you believe that? Already. Got some big plans, might need a marketing genius to help me with them actually. One of the girls at work is married to a marketing guy. They kind of do everything together. They kill each other though. Think we could work together?”
Penny O’Neill’s tail lashed.
“Sure we could,” he replied. “I’ll point my giant brain at anything you ask, and you just stand around with a pen and paper and wait for the genius to come out.”
She kicked him gently with one bare foot. She always liked putting him in his place when he talked big. He leaned back on his elbows. As long as she didn’t go inside the house, this would be okay. If he could live outside with her on the lawn, it might just turn out to be a lovely life together, as long as they never went back inside. With her beside him, Denis felt he might even be able to take on the funeral home.
Sadly, for Denis, such moments of relaxation and clarity don’t last long. She did have to go back to work after all, and when she did, after a long lunch of friendly flirting, his problems began all over again. Just before she left, she kissed him softly on his lips. Denis briefly wished that Thomas in the shop and the various waiting staff who knew him around the city could see that moment. That’d show them he wasn’t a weirdo. He laughed at the ludicrousness of the thought. Inviting people to watch you kiss is not the done thing in polite society.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“You,” he told her, planting another kiss on her. From out of the corner of his eye he could see Penny O’Neill and Plasterer on one side of the window. The Professor was holding Deano by the scruff of his neck on the other side. When she had pulled out of the driveway, he turned to face them. Penny O’Neill narrowed her eyes at him, and Plasterer gestured with one finger for him to come inside. The clown would never allow him to go to the funeral. Nor would the Professor. They would resist it, just like he should. He wasn’t ready for this yet. He wondered if he ever would be. Denis shivered and gathered his things to make his way back inside.
Plasterer loomed in the doorway, blocking Denis’s way back in.
“You’re not going,” Plasterer told him.
“Who’s going to stop me?” Denis replied, as if he didn’t know the answer.
“I am. I’m going to beat the living shit out of you. I’m going to make pulp of your face.” The threat was casually made, in a tone loaded with boredom, but the big clown was obviously agitated.
“Get out of my way,” Denis demanded. Once again, he was trying to give orders, but there was no command in his voice. He knew it even as he spoke.
Plasterer stood aside anyway. In the kitchen Deano paced back and forward, shooting glances at Plasterer and Denis in turn. Penny O’Neill and the Professor sat at the table, Rebecca’s clothes in a pile in front of them.
“He’s not lying,” Penny O’Neill told him, sounding concerned. “You’ve gone too far.”
“You thought you were so clever with your little picnic stunt, didn’t you?” Plasterer practically spat the words. His mood was swinging from bored to raging. “Outsmarted me again? Think that was bright? I’m the one in charge here, not you. You don’t get to go over my head. Not anymore.”
“Over your head? Fuck you. I own this house. Me. I decide what’s what, not you.” The anger in his own voice was building; he could hear it. For the first time, he felt strong, maybe even a little frightening.
“You?” Plasterer shot back. “You’re nothing, you little worm. Nothing without me. That little buzz you’ve got going on right now, where do you think you get it from? You get it from me, you little shit.”
“I get nothing from you, and I’m giving nothing to you. I’m leaving now. I’m going to town, and I’m going to have a drink and wait for my friends and you can wait on me. Like you’re supposed to.”
The clown’s eyes were wide; he seemed to twitch. His fury was rising, and with it a fear grew in Denis. A terrible fear. He had the marks on his neck to show just how violent his housemate could be. What if he wasn’t going to back down?
The fist caught him on the chin, sending him backward and stumbling into the wall of the kitchen. He hadn’t seen it coming. His eyes stung.
“What...”
A second blow landed, in his gut this time, winding him.
“Please...” he gasped. “Please don’t.”
Another fist, this one taking him on the lip, splitting it. He tasted blood, felt it wriggle its way down his chin to spatter his well-pressed shirt.
A sob tore loose from his chest.
“Please don’t, Plasterer.”
“You’re not going to the damn funeral,” Plasterer told him again. He touched his hand to his face, leaving blood on the white makeup around his mouth. “Why? Why do you keep resisting? Why do you keep thinking it’s okay for you to carry on with her? Why do you keep thinking I’ll allow you to change?”
Denis shied away from the clown. There was another blow coming. He could feel it.
“You mustn’t persist in this, Denis,” the Professor chimed in. He looked worried. He watched Plasterer warily. They were all frightened now. All of them except Plasterer, whose chest heaved as he struggled to contain the growing fury.
“The consequences of opposition here are dire. Tell him you won’t go,” the Professor insisted. Bits of his rotting flesh looked like they were going to fall away at any minute. “I implore you, Denis, I implode you, I imply you, please.”
“I have to...” Denis whimpered.
Another fist, this one taking him in the eye, followed up by a sharp shove to his forehead, causing his skull to bounce off the wall.
“YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT I FUCKING TELL YOU,” Plasterer screamed at him.
Another sob jumped from his throat. He was crying again too. How had it come to this? The lack of control, the chaos that was the inside of his head. He was spiraling now.
He’s going to kill you. Oh Christ, you’re going to die.
“She loves me,” he told Plasterer, seeking to bargain. Clowns are not famous for bargaining. Plasterer even less so.
“We all love you,” Plasterer spat. �
��I’m doing this for your own good.” He was shaking from head to toe. “This is for all the things you can’t do. You want all the eyes on you? They’ll all know. Every one of them. Eddie’s killer walking among those who mourn his passing. You think you’ll be welcome there, murderer? And when Ned tries to hug you, the crazy old bastard, what then? When he wants to touch you? Will you shy away and show them all that you won’t even hug the father of the man you killed?”
Denis’s shoulders shook as his sobbing intensified.
“I have to go—” he started to say.
Another fist, on his cheek, below the eye. The pain stung, and spots danced in his vision.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Plasterer shouted. “And that bitch leaves this house today, or so help me God...”
“But I love her,” Denis implored.
“If you love her, then prove it. Get her out of here. For her own safety. If she’s in this house tonight, I’m going to do to her what I did to you, and then some. For her there will be no holding back. You’ve made me do this. You’ve pushed me too far, Denis.”
“No,” Denis whispered. He couldn’t let this happen. Not to her. The blood dripping onto his tie was proof that Plasterer made no idle threats. “You can’t hurt her.”
Plasterer barked a short, bitter laugh at him.
“I can do whatever I want. I’ll beat that woman bloody, from head to toe... Unless you do what you’re told.”
Do something, you fucking coward. Do it now, or you’re as good as dead.
In this moment, Denis’s future hung in the balance, suspended by the power of a clown. A decision had to be made. She’d come into his life, and against his will had forced a place for herself. He did love her. He knew that now. He loved her hands and her eyes. He loved her laugh and her often quicksilver temper. He loved her sometimes deliberate dishonesty. He loved the endless well that was her caring and the iron will that was her resolve. He knew that she loved him too. She loved the bit of him that was buried deep down under the guilt and the self-loathing. She loved the bit of him that was about to drive her out of his home. For that last bit of him that was good and decent and nice, he would have to drive her out.
“What do you want me to do?” he finally asked the clown.
You poor bastard.
“Go to her room. Gather the photos she keeps. Of you. And her. And Eddie. And Jules. Bring them all back down here to me.”
“What are you going to do with them?” Denis asked.
“Nothing. You’re going to do it.”
“What? What am I going to do?”
“Go and get them, Denis.” Plasterer was cold now, his mood swinging back again. Denis wiped at the blood on his face and walked up the stairs. Deano sat on the top step, his head buried in his hands. He was crying. Denis ignored him and went into Rebecca’s room. It was a mess. Her bed unmade as it must have been for days. There were photographs everywhere in a wide array of frames of every color and type. Paintings she had done herself hung alongside them. And a life-size cast-iron cat. Her clothes were thrown about the room. Carefully, with the tenderest of hands, he removed each photo from the numerous frames. There was one of the two of them by the beach, standing near a cliff edge, the sea stretching out in front of them. There was another of Jules and Rebecca at a restaurant of some kind. In a frame on the wall there was a scrap of paper. They had been at a lecture. Sitting near each other. They weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend then, but they had been on a few dates. They had slept together. Denis had scribbled the note on a piece of paper torn from his notepad. You’re so cool, it read. Like Christian Slater. She had kept it, framed it.
When he had collected the photos, he made his way back downstairs. Plasterer was waiting by the table. Penny O’Neill looked on, sympathy etched in her feline features. That puzzled Denis. She had not been on his side recently. The Professor sat at the end of the table. His face unreadable. The knives were out, literally. Every manner of knife Denis owned sat before him. Bread knives, butter knives, carving knives, the lot.
“Sit,” Plasterer said.
Denis sat.
“I want you to kill them all,” the clown commanded.
“Kill who?” Denis asked, frightened now.
“The photos. I want you to kill every photo she has. We want no part of these memories. Kill them.”
Denis looked at him in horror. This would break her heart. It would do everything Plasterer wanted and more. She’d never speak to him again. She’d never curl up next to him in bed, nudging at him in an effort to prompt him to wrap his arms around her.
“I can’t,” he whispered.
“You can, and you will. Or else...”
The threat hung in the air. There was no way to avoid it. It was this or watch him hurt her when she came home. He reached into that last part of himself that was decent, the part that cared enough about other people to do something that would make them hate you forever, to cut them loose for all time, for their own good.
He picked up the carving knife and slowly pushed it through the photo of them by the cliffs.
“Good,” Plasterer murmured.
The Professor hung his head.
A tear, mixed with the blood on his chin, dropped onto the photo as he pierced it. He was crying again. Once freed, the tears came easily, and Denis cried as he cut up the memories of them she had held on to for seven years. He cried as he sliced each photo. He had to do it, to protect her. Plasterer nodded his grim approval as Denis tried to kill what was left of his connection to the old universe.
IF I SAW
When she arrived home he was sitting in the living room.
“Denny,” she called out, her voice cheerful.
He heard the sound of her dropping shopping bags on the floor of the kitchen. In a faraway part of his head, a little bit of Denis wondered what she had bought.
Her footsteps clacked on the kitchen floor tiles as she walked to the table. Her breathing could be heard; it was becoming erratic. She had started to cry. Denis could see her in his head, standing there as she picked up each ruined photograph, some with knives still in them. Each memory they shared skewered. Her clothes, untouched, were still piled on the table. A message to her that told her to get out.
“It’s for her own good,” Plasterer’s voice seemed to whisper in his ear. “It’s for everyone’s good.” The clown had long since left him, rounding up the others and heading upstairs, to leave Denis in his own silent hell. The red paint was still spattered across the walls, the DIY supplies still strewn about the place. He could see that for what it was now too: a desperate last-ditch effort to keep it all together.
She was sobbing now, crying loudly and sniffling. Denis suppressed the urge to get up and go to her. To tell her that he was sorry and he’d fix it. To beg her to stay. Instead, he sat there.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked him, her voice bitter as she walked into the room. She held the stack of ruined photographs, tenderly. She’d removed the knives.
He looked at her. In his head the answers screamed and rebounded through his skull: I’m sick. I’m broken. I hate myself. I hate anyone who doesn’t hate me. I hate people who think I’m weird. I think I’m weird. I need help. He didn’t voice any of these suggestions; instead, he continued to just sit there. He once again stared at her and through her, from his universe into hers. She was standing in the room and had no idea that he was millions of miles away from her. His facial expression was, he knew, entirely flat. He wasn’t even in his own head. He could just see everything happen. His body was on autopilot, and failing to receive any orders from him, it responded only minimally.
She stared at him for the longest time, her eyes darting over the broken skin on his lips, the deep bruising on his face, the blood that had dripped onto his shirt. She looked horrified.
“Answer me, Denis. God damn you, don
’t do this to me again!” There was anger now, cutting through the shock and the grief. Her eyes were brimming with tears. A big fat one slid down her cheek.
He looked at her. His head cocked to one side.
“You don’t get to do this again. Not again. You answer me, and you tell me what’s going on. You tell me why your face is swollen, Denis. Tell me.”
She wore summer dresses all the time, or so it seemed to Denis. No one else could wear one quite like her.
“Why have you splashed the walls with paint? Why did you do this to me?” She brandished the photos at him, thrusting them toward him accusingly.
She was even beautiful when she cried.
The fight seemed to drain out of her. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked at him with the most profound pity.
“I’ve tried everything. Everything. I can’t try anymore. You need help, Denis. You need to see a professional. You can’t go on like this.”
The tiny voice in his head whispered, Help me. His mouth didn’t move.
“I want to help you, Denis,” she said, scrubbing tears from her face as she sniffled, anger tinging her expression through the shuddering breaths. “I’ll help you if you go see a doctor, but I can’t make you do that. If you won’t, then you can have what you wanted at the start. You can sit here and rot, alone. When you’re ready to help yourself, we’ll be waiting, until then, you just sit there.”
Alone. Plasterer’s voice was in his head again, telling him that he was not alone.
“When you do things like this, when you behave like this, you’re not even a person, Denis, you’re a monster. You’re Jekyll and Hyde, and about ten other things I can’t even understand. Somewhere inside you there’s a good person, but you have to want to find that person. Do you hear me?” She was still sobbing.
He could hear her. It was really a ridiculous question. He was only sitting a few feet away, and had clearly demonstrated time and again that he was not deaf. Of course he heard her. He blinked to let her know he could hear her.
She shook her head and turned from the room, defeated.