by Thomas Melo
Victor had a teaching degree and would no doubt feel underemployed as a server, but it was a band-aid on a wound that needed stitches. It would do for a quick fix and so that he could conserve a bit of pride by not having to rely on the aid of not only the government, but also his fellow taxpayers. Something would have to be done about his situation sooner than later. Just until he was able to either get his teaching job back, once the allegations were proven to be spurious or he could secure another teaching position. Simple as that, right?
His first week at the restaurant was tragic. He had gotten patron’s orders incorrect, brought food to wrong tables, dropped food, etc. The second week was a little better, making sporadic minor missteps, but nothing like his first week at the restaurant. His worst blunder was entirely forgetting a table that had sat down when he was busy until they finally just left. He was improving though; and then, in walked Lilith (and the Swansons).
He never had a chance.
Giuseppe had warned him multiple times his first couple of weeks that he took a chance on him on the recommendation of Victor’s friend, (who was also Giuseppe’s friend) and to “please not make a jerk-off out of him.”
Breaking the tray of glasses the night Lilith had come to dine with the Swansons was the breaking point for Fratelli, no pun intended.
“I’m-a so sorry Bictor. I just didn’t-a know how little experience you-a had.” Giuseppe started in his thick Sicilian accent, “I’m-a gonna have to let you go. I’m-a sorry, Bictor. Good luck.”
It was more than Victor could handle at once. That night, Victor had finalized the idea he’d had for the last several months in his dream.
He woke up that morning, climbed to the roof of his apartment building, an apartment in which he was now staying because his ex-wife was living in his house with her new “cock-of-the-month,” with his acoustic guitar and sat with his legs hanging the over the edge of his apartment building. He played the entire set that he used to play with his band in college on Friday nights at Dorfmann’s Pub, located in the next county. After he finished, he put his guitar aside, stood up, and swan-dived fifty-plus feet onto the roof of his own car. His ex-wife had taken everything from him, his job, his house, his life…he didn’t want her to inherit his car too, or if she did, it wouldn’t be in the pristine condition she had remembered it.
While it would be somewhat knee-jerk and hasty to blame a suicide on losing his job at Buon Mangia, as suicide victims tend to have so much more tormenting them than a single event, as Victor did, his untimely release from Buon Mangia, at the hands of Lilith certainly did not help his situation.
Chapter 3
“Are alarm bells ringing in your heads yet making your existence, or what’s left of it, all the more punishing yet?”
Ardelio
Chapter 1
At around the same time that Lilith and the Swansons were leaving the restaurant, with a comped meal, Giuseppe’s sincerest apologies, and a proverbial blank check in order to make things up to them, Jim Colabza was just getting out of his shower and preparing for a shave before he hit the sack for the night.
Jim was a night owl and usually fell asleep with the television on and showing Seinfeld reruns, but he had picked up Stephen King’s Pet Sematary at a neighbor’s garage sale the previous week. The desire to begin reading Stephen King titles had been a somewhat subliminal thought stemming from his childhood when a King novel was a fixture on his father’s oak night stand. Jim had been meaning to give them a try based not only his father’s say so, but also on the say so of millions upon millions of readers. The trouble was that the mere sight of the size of a Stephen King novel,aside from the ominous cover art,was intimidating to the casual reader. You could knock a man unconscious with a first edition copy of Under the Dome or IT, to name just a couple of the author’s tomes. Pet Sematary had been one of the novels where King showed his word processor some much needed and appreciated (by some) restraint. The story was unnerving and gripping; it captured Jim’s attention immediately.
Jim’s intention was to read for a solid hour before he drifted off to sleep, but his reading session was cut short once he reached the point in the novel where the main character, Lewis Creed, is investigating the forbidden land beyond a natural barrier which lay on his recently purchased property. The description of how the ancient (mythical?) creature, the Wendigo, was looking for the foolish trespasser while uttering its ghostly moans and cries off in the distance of the poisoned woods was too much for Jim to handle without daylight as his trusty companion. He would go back to his book at work during one of his free periods the following day under the haven and sanctity of a well-lit faculty room.
Jim waited for his goose-flesh to subside and slowly lowered his back to its place on the mattress and his head on the pillow.
“I think I better stick to Seinfeld before bed,” Jim said to his empty bedroom as he switched the television on and found Cosmo Kramer kicking change all over a pizza counter after the proprietor informed him he would only accept bills.
It took the better part of a complete episode of his favorite show to bring his nerves from a red-line to a cool and purring cruise. Once he was confident that the fear-provoking thoughts that the book had left in his mind were completely out of his system, he shut the television off. After the first episode of Seinfeld ended, he got to enjoy an encore presentation of George Costanza claiming he was a marine biologist in order to impress his date. All that was left before turning in was to ritualistically pass some gas, which Jim used as a civilian version of “Taps” playing over a public address system, signifying that the end of the day was indeed official.
Jim Colabza was swallowed by sleep minutes later
* * *
At 3:16am, the 3 o’clock hour being the rumored epoch in which the cavalcade of unwanted manifestations are rumored to be at their peak, Jim Colabza began to stir in his bed.
Regardless of the countless belief systems and religious practices, 3 of the clock holds a connotation to some. Whether it is the Catholic tradition which believes that the 3 o’clock hour is the hour in which evil mocks the Holy Trinity, or otherwise, the time has held an ill-omened significance for centuries.
Jim stirred again, switching his sleeping position onto his back, while uttering a frail whimper. The temperature in the room began to drop; almost beyond notice, at first, and then turning the previously cozy bedroom into a frigid meat locker. Puffs of vapor could be seen lazily jettisoning from Jim’s nose and slightly agape mouth in meandering tendrils. A cold tempest blew through the room, blowing his school progress reports onto the floor and scattering them like scared rodents, as what appeared to be heat waves (although no heat was present in the frosty room) that one might see over a torrid desert highway began to manifest about two feet above Jim’s slumbering body.
Jim began to stir again, the look of strain and a painful grimace appeared on his face even though he was still asleep.
MmmmUHHHHH! What started out as a garden variety moan one might hear sleeping next to their spouse in the middle of the night suddenly morphed into a moan that came to an abrupt crescendo, as if someone dropped a packed suitcase onto his mid-section unexpectedly.
Jim’s eyelids slammed open…wide open. A mere three inches or so from his face was the face of a female; not that she looked feminine per se, but he could tell by the distorted curves throughout the rest of the manifestation’s body that whatever species this was, if it was a species at all, it was the female counterpart of that species. He still was not sure of that, nor did he really care.
He was staring into the icy silver eyes of the thing and could see yellowed fangs protruding from its mouth at maniacal angles. He could smell the thing’s breath, humid and smelling faintly of an odd concoction of road-kill and lemon Pledge.
One of the thing’s hands were covering Jim Colabza’s mouth. The gesture seemed to be more symbolic than anything else because although he could feel the subtle pressure of the thing’s hand coverin
g his mouth, it wasn’t pressed tight enough to stop him from screaming.
Screaming; what a good id–
But Jim couldn’t scream. He had felt as if his mouth was sewn shut with steel thread. As panic began to wash over Jim, he tried to flail his body out from underneath the apparition that was over him (on him?), but found that not only could he not budge his body an inch…a millimeter, but he couldn’t even wiggle a finger if his life depended on it, and, as it turned out, it just might.
Jim could feel a commanding weight on his chest, a weight that was far heavier than the thing looked like it was capable of displacing, even if it was carrying a bundle of bricks. He was frozen–suspended in his bed at this phantasm’s mercy. He was certain that he was not dreaming. The most lucid dreams were never this clear. The detail of the room was much more than any dream-state could provide. His shower robe was hanging on the back of his closet door at the same ridiculous angle he had hung it up in, too lazy at the end of the night to fix it. It wasn’t going anywhere. How about the progress reports? He didn’t see them on his dresser anymore, but he strained his neck, trying to move the best he could, his tendons trying to make a break for it out of his skin as he angled his eyes down to the floor. There they were, his progress reports strewn about all over his floor, making the perfect abstract flooring that you might see in an LSD trip. Even in the dark room he could see his dark red pen marks on the reports. His senses were heightened, he thought, and he thought he knew why: There was a message to be heard in this ordeal, and he had better not miss it, so help him God.
For the first time in the struggle, the thing croaked something audible.
“Rrrrrr-lllliiiioooo.” The voice, if you could call it that, was the most horrific sounding thing he had ever heard, wet, caked with phlegm, and indiscernible. It was deep and monstrous too, like when a child does their best to mimic a stereotypical monster’s voice. He almost could have laughed at that thought had he not been so paralyzed with fright. Immediately, Jim thought of the ghastly and maniacal distant chortling of the Wendigo stalking through the woods of central Maine.
Jim winced and whimpered at whatever the thing had said…if anything. Unfortunately for Jim, the thing didn’t get the idea that Jim comprehended the message the first time. How perceptive. The thing backed its head up from Jim’s face, tilted its gray-hair covered head to the left as if it was trying desperately to understand a calculus problem. This was when Jim was frightened the most. After a few seconds of apparent contemplation, the specter darted its face back into Jim’s another time, making Jim whimper. He could feel warmth spreading into his pajama pants and almost instantly turning cold as the wind continued to draught through his room even though his windows were shut and locked. The thing tried again to get through to Jim.
“Arrrrdeeelllliiiiiooooo!”
Ardelio
Jim’s whimpers became stronger, fearing that the thing would slowly begin to tear him apart if he didn’t comprehend the message this time around. He squeezed his eyes shut, the same defense mechanism a child might employ: “If I can’t see it, it can’t see me.”
Jim creaked his eyes open slowly, completely unaware that the weight had been lifted from his torso and that he could now move his limbs. He looked around his warm and dark room, which was freezing mere seconds ago and saw nothing. Everything was in place, even his progress reports, which were still strewn about on the floor. Jim shuddered when he saw them.
He got out of bed and wrote down the one word, or name, or whatever it was, that he had made out on the legal pad that he kept next to his bed, which he reserved for either a to-do list or interesting dreams. This qualified, although, he was quite certain that this was no more a dream than the Brooklyn Bridge was a giant shitting bird.
Jim sketched the word/name “Ardelio” onto his legal pad, dropped it back onto his nightstand with a shuddering sigh, and began to strip his urine soaked pajama pants off of his body, as well as the sheets from his bed. What else was there to do? There was nary a possibility of returning to sleep for the remainder of that unforgiving night.
Chapter 2
Finally, 6am came around and Jim could officially start his day. The last three hours ticked away with tormenting lethargy. He knew that even if he did work up the guts to crawl back into his bed–after the sheets were all changed and the mattress scrubbed, of course–that sleep would never come. So, he started his day obscenely early by cleaning his house. He figured if there was time to kill, what better way than to bring his furniture to a dull sparkle in the artificial light his lamps projected. Every lamp and light in the house was shining brightly, transforming each subsequent room from a precarious cave dwelling into a late 1800’s Victorian den of serenity. The 1890 Victorian house on Oleg Street was the house Jim fell in love with right after college. He spent all of his inheritance making it his, and did not regret one penny spent on it.
After he completed his bout with cleaning, the clock read approximately 5:30, and Jim had decided that 5:30ish was late enough for him to jump into the shower and begin his work day. The shower was soothing, not only for the simple fact that subconsciously (or perhaps more obvious than that) he was washing away the filthy dried urine, although his bed and pajama bottoms took the brunt of it, it had no doubt leaked through to his skin and remained there. Jim would have hopped into the shower straight away after the accident, except for two reasons: First, the thought of going into the bathroom and just like in the worst “B” quality and predictable, but still scary movie, catching a glimpse of this “ardelio” woman in the mirror as he passed by it, was just too much for him to handle at this point. Second, he lived alone, and it was just piss after all. Sure, urea breaks down and irritates skin eventually. If he had a wife, or in his case, a life-partner, the embarrassment, not only of soiling his bed, but of being covered in his own waste, would have sent him running for the shower post haste. Being alone, he felt no sense of urgency to do so, because his “friend” may be waiting for him in the bathroom, not to mention the fact that when he cleaned his house, he would often sweat. He had no idea why. Jim Colabza was a fit man and didn’t exert an abnormal amount of energy when he cleaned his beloved home, but he sweat just the same. It more or less became a mental, but apparent physiological quirk with him. So, he figured, why shower and then get all sweaty again?
When Jim left his house, it was 6am. He only lived about fifteen minutes from the school and first period began at 7:05, so leaving this early left him plenty of free time before he was to begin this days performance for his students. As Jim drove toward the school, he frequently checked his backseat in his rearview mirror, knowing that one of these times his “ardelio” friend would be coldly staring back at him with those steely gray eyes and hair.
Jim punched it. The engine whined in his Volkswagen; before this day, he had never brought his car up to 80 miles per hour. He was a go-with-the-flow-type of guy. What’s the hurry, man? The fact was that he couldn’t wait to get out of his car and escape the feeling that at any moment, impending doom would reach out from behind him and choke him until he mercifully lost consciousness.
Jim pulled into his typical spot in the parking lot just in time to see Russ Morovich walking through the doors of the school.
What the hell is Russ doing here so early?
Russ Morovich was a Biology/Chemistry teacher whom Jim had befriended almost immediately since the beginning of his long tenure at Alan B. Shepard High School.
Russ had been a teacher for eight years longer than Jim; in fact, Russ was currently enjoying his last year at Alan B. Shepard High, as he was currently preparing for his retirement. Thirty years on the button; no more, no less, thank you very kindly.
Jim had respected and was eternally grateful to Russ immediately when his teaching career was inaugurated. Jim’s introduction to the profession was nothing short of a baptism by fire. He was prepared to spend the school year after he had graduated St. Joseph’s College as a per-diem substitute teacher, gai
ning experience and learning what tricks of the trade he could from the seasoned and battle-tested veterans of the profession…maybe even gain a friend or two in the right places in some school district. Instead, he received a call back from one of the several interviews he had taken, after losing out to one administrator’s offspring after another.
“Mr. Colabza?” the voice on the other end of the phone inquired.
“Yes, this is he.”
“Hello, this is Dr. Steven Parisi from Alan B. Shepard School District. We enjoyed meeting with you last month.” Jim’s pulse quickened as he prepared himself mentally for the inevitable demo lesson he was certain that he’d be asked to prepare…and at such short notice! The school year would begin five days later. What would it be about? The Civil War? The Punic Wars? Ancient Rome?
“We know it’s short notice to say the least, Jim, but we would like to offer you a probationary position teaching seventh grade American History.” Jim was elated. His first teaching job. Sure, he had taught summer school right after he graduated, but this was a full-year tenure-track position; he would be set.
“I accept. Thank you so much!”
There were a million things to do. He had his classroom to set up, a copy of the New York State curriculum to get a hold of, a syllabus to draft, etc., which he was more than happy to do. He headed over to the school that day to check out his classroom, and it was on that day that he met Russ Morovich.
Jim was in the process of transporting the supplies he had graciously accepted from his cooperating teacher during his student teaching stint when he heard an earth- shattering (and glass shattering) crash from down the hall, followed by a hearty bellow.
“Well, fuck me running! Shit!” Benign on that day, but five days later, perhaps malignant enough to kill an 8 year career once the halls were filled with fourteen and fifteen year-old blabber-mouths. Jim burst from his classroom and into the hallway to find Russ standing over a broken cardboard box and about thirty broken beakers, test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks.