Death Rhythm

by Joel Arnold

  Mae continues droning at her own pace.

  "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALLLLLLL!" Edna screams again.

  " - and justice for all," Mae finishes, not knowing what she just said, not remembering, keeping it locked away.

  "Amen!" Edna says.

  Edna starts to dance on the table. The table with the white sheet and wheels. She does it slowly at first, getting a feel for the movement of the wheels, twisting her body around, her long, lanky arms loose, dancing like cobras at her side. She's hunched over under the ceiling, a grotesque gargoyle, as the bare light bulb throws a kaleidoscope of stark shadows across the walls of the room. Edna dances around the light bulb, ducks under it, and the shadows circle the room like ghostly carousel animals, playing on the walls, on the dolls, playing on Mae.

  Thunder cracks outside.

  Edna laughs and the table she's on rolls back and forth under her feet. Edna shifts her weight back and forth, laughing at the movement, delighted at the clanging racket it makes.

  Mae stands still, a movie screen to Edna's shadows going round and round the room.

  Edna's laughing is loud, and Mae suddenly can't help it, the strings being pulled, she starts moving her mouth and laughter pours out and it gets louder and Edna dances and Mae stands still, their laughter shrieking, turning into a tornado of sound. Their voices whip through the basement, cackles like lightening, until a third voice joins them.

  Evelyn.

  At the top of the stairway, silhouetted against the upstairs light, it's Evelyn.

  Too big. Too big to be playing with dolls, Evelyn thinks.

  Evelyn screams, a shrill, piercing scream which only makes Edna stop, then start shrieking again, jumping from the table with the wheels, dropping to the floor on her back, pointing at Evelyn, ridiculous Evvy, wearing her stupid old field drum, the harness on her shoulders, the drum sticking out from her belly like a metal cancer.

  Edna points at Evelyn. Edna kicks her legs on the floor, pointing at Evelyn, tears rolling down her cheeks as she laughs, screams hysterically.

  Mae is silent again.

  Evelyn lifts a stick in the air and brings it down on her drum. The bang echoes through the basement, through the house.

  Edna becomes still.

  Edna hits the drum again.

  BAM!

  Edna slowly gets up as Evelyn continues to scream.

  "Aaaaaahhhhhh!" Evelyn screams, her voice a shrieking siren.

  Too big, too big, too big, she thinks, but all that comes from her mouth is, "Aaaaaahhhhhh!" Her hands start moving in rapid-fire succession, the pounding of the sticks on the drum reverberating, shaking the entire house. Her hands are a blur.

  Too big, too big.

  And finally, suddenly - she stops. Her hands freeze in mid-motion, the last beat of the drum still ringing in the air along with her scream, "Aaaaaahhhhhh!" she screams, and then stops that, too. Her eyes are fixed on Edna.

  Edna slowly gets up from the cold, gray basement floor. Her index finger trembles as she lifts it slowly in the air, pointing it at Evelyn. Her voice is a hoarse whisper.

  "Don't you ever," she says to Evelyn. "Don't you ever do that again."

  Mae squeezed Andy's hand as he bit down on his lip. He hadn't even noticed until Mae looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot, the lids heavy and dark blue. Only when she looked up and Andy saw the pain in her eyes, did he feel the physical pain. He flexed his hand in Mae's palm, and she glanced down, saying, "Sorry," loosening her grip. Andy let up on his lip and felt the blood flow back in a tingling sensation.

  "Can't you see? Can't you see, Andy? Can't you see why they hate us so much?"

  TWENTY-SIX

  "Talk to me, Dad. I'm listening."

  Hector's hands remained impassive, folded on his lap, his beer forgotten on the floor. He looked straight ahead, his expression glazed over, locked onto the past.

  "Bitches," he said, without fervor, without the enthusiasm of anger. Just the dull, hollow speech of someone lost in thought. "Bitches," he said again. "Every fucking one of them. Every fucking one of them should be dead. Not Emma. Not my Emma." Hector turned to Natalie. "They killed her, don't you see? Those goddamn bitches killed my Emma and they're still alive and well, and my Emma's rotting. Don't you see?"

  "Dad, nobody killed Emma. Nobody killed Mom."

  "You don't know anything about it. You just don't know."

  "Then tell me, Dad. Tell me, and I'll listen."

  Hector reached out a trembling hand and took hold of Natalie's wrist, pulling it over to his lap, setting it on his knee. "Not everyone kills with violence, you know. Not everyone needs a knife or a gun or a club to kill." Hector let go of Natalie's wrist, and she patted his thigh. "They killed her with sorrow, Nat. They killed her by killing her baby. My baby."

  "But I'm your baby, Dad. Nobody killed me. I'm here with you now."

  "I'm talking about your sister! Natasha! Your twin sister."

  "She died in childbirth."

  "No. No she didn't. They killed her. Those fucking bitches - they dropped her! They dropped her on the ground and killed her, like she was a toy."

  Natalie slowly rolled this over in her mind. Sister? Natasha? Dropped her? "But Dad," she said, finally. "Those kind of things happen. Accident. It was an accident."

  "You don't understand. It wasn't like it was just an accident. They were strange. Those girls were strange. And they took her, took my darling baby, stole her away while she slept, while we all slept, and played with her like she was a toy. A toy, Nat! They played catch with her! They tossed her through the air and dropped her, like she was a ball."

  "Jesus, Dad."

  "Your mother couldn't take the loss. She couldn't comprehend something like that happening - hell, I still can't - and she stayed awake so long, in a daze, so worried that they'd take you away, too. She stayed awake for days, watching over you, making sure they didn't come to - to play with you. I tried to tell her, 'get to sleep, get to sleep, Em, I'll take care of her', but she wouldn't. It was like I failed her with Natasha. I hadn't been vigilant enough, so she had to do it herself. She had to be the soul guardian of you, Nat, and it killed her. She wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, wouldn't listen to a word anyone said to her. When I tried feeding her, she'd get hysterical and scream at me, 'Get away, get out of my way, I can't see the baby!' and she'd hit me. Knock away the food. It lasted for three weeks, until finally I came in to see her, to try to get her to at least eat something, and I saw her slumped on the chair. And I thought, good, good, she's finally getting some sleep. But she was dead, Nat. She was dead."

  And now, here was Natalie. One stroke later. She was here with him, keeping him comforted, trying to make him happy. It was hard keeping her father happy now. The strokes had forced Hector's grudges that much further into his mind. His heart, his arteries were clogged with the thick blood of revenge. When he wasn't seeing Emma in Natalie's face, when he was suddenly thrust into the present, he could think of revenge and nothing more. Nothing more but trying to lose himself back into his past, trying to get Emma to pop back into Natalie's face, trying to leave the present world and slip into his fevered dreams.

  It was all Natalie could do to please him.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Head in his hands.

  A new day. Morning.

  Andy could feel the strands of his hair, thin and wispy, the ends split and frazzled from the wind. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees since last night. Twenty degrees colder, but he couldn't feel anything. Twenty degrees colder, except for the heat in his head, the pulse. He felt it beat against his fingers through the skin of his temples. It felt like a woodpecker cracking its beak against his skull. Like bursts of lightening without the thunder.

  Twenty degrees colder, and lightening in his head.

  Andy dropped his hands to his sides and straightened up, blinking, finally noticing the cool breeze cutting into the moistness of his eyeballs. He looked with blurred vision across the field of dead grass and
weeds to Natalie's house. How long had he been sitting here with a silent picture of Natalie walking back across the field playing in his brain? He looked at her house. He wanted the warm glow coming from its windows to cross the emptiness of the field and comfort and caress his soul, the light to envelope his body with its richness. He wanted to bathe in its heat, let the heat wash away the confusion, make things clear.

  But that cat, Mae's fucking cat, rose up from the ground, headless, its fur mottled and matted, rising up, looming, ten, twenty feet tall, blocking the path of that light, that shine. Its shadow seemed to drop the temperature another ten degrees, twenty degrees, as it kept rising, blocking out the sky, everything pouring into its body, the grass, the weeds, picked up into its fur, the clouds themselves being sucked down into its gaping neck.

  The image clouded Andy's mind. He raised a hand to his face to wipe the blur from his eyes. The clouds were still there, the grass and the weeds, and Natalie's house was still there, the light seeping out into the chill.

  "Andy!" came a voice from the field. "Andy!"

  Mae's voice, cracked and hoarse. She emerged from the woods and ran towards him. The veins in her neck stood out, her face covered with sweat.

  "Oh god, Andy," she said when she saw him. Andy quickly got up and jogged to meet her. She threw her arms over his shoulders and hung there, her muscles limp with exhaustion. Her breath was quick and hot.

  "Settle down," Andy whispered into her ear, but she didn't seem to hear, her eyes set on Andy but not seeing him. Her weight grew heavy on him.

  "What happened? What's the matter?"

  "Red," she panted. "Blood. All over the stones. The graves. Our graves, Andy. The stones. Red. Blood all over."

  "Mae, Jesus - what the hell are you talking about?"

  "The graves, Andy. All red. All covered with red. With blood."

  "Take it easy, okay?" Andy gently patted the back of her head. "Calm down."

  He felt her muscles flex as she recaptured her strength. Her breathing slowed but she clutched for air with heavy sighs. She pushed herself away and stood on her own. Grabbed Andy's hand and pulled on it.

  "Come with me. Come see for yourself. It's terrible. The gravestones. Ours. They're all covered with blood."

  She pulled him along the trail, through the woods to the cemetery. He told her to slow down twice as he stumbled over fallen branches, but Mae didn't hear. Her eyes stared straight ahead, penetrating the trees, Andy following like a sheep, blindly groping, only seeing the back of Mae's jacket, trying to keep up. He was shivering and miserable.

  "Mae!" he cried out a third time. "Slow up!"

  Again his words were lost. Lost to the invisible tow rope dragging him along. Lost to the marionette strings guiding his limbs, jerky and clumsy, along this trail, this path.

  The clearing came up too fast. Andy wasn't prepared for the sight. Mae's ranting hadn't had time to sink in.

  And now it sank in.

  Red. Blood.

  All over the graveyard.

  "See, Andy? See?" Mae said, excitedly waving her arms, pointing this way and that. "See, Andy?"

  All over the fucking graveyard.

  A deep crimson spilled all over the gravestones, staining the dead grass and soil below them. It was like he'd stepped inside a demonic cartoon. All that redness.

  "All that blood," Mae whispered.

  Then the smell hit. An overwhelming smell, and Andy was suddenly relieved. It was a noxious smell, but he took in a deep breath, letting the fumes flow far into his lungs.

  "Mae." He reached over to calm Mae's excited arms, still flying about, pointing at the desecrated stones. "Mae, calm down. It's paint. Just red paint. Smell. Can't you smell it? It's house paint."

  Mae took in a mouth and nose-full of the odor. Her hands dropped to her sides.

  "My god," she said, taking in another whiff. "What the hell is this?"

  "Vandals."

  Mae scanned the graveyard. "No, Andy. Not vandals. Look around you."

  "I am looking."

  "No - I mean look. The ones that are painted. Look at the names on them. Look at who they belong to."

  Andy noticed for the first time that not all the graves had been splashed with paint.

  "They're ours, Andy. They're all Stones. Evelyn. Walter. Charles. Allison. Laura. They're all my relatives. They're all your relatives."

  Mae grabbed his arm and put her head on his shoulder. Moisture soaked through his sleeve. He looked over at the stone building. It glared at him. Untouched by red paint. Except for one word. One word glaring bright red, smiling at him across the grass and tombstones. One word.

  DOLLS

  Dolls.

  (You're my doll, my doll, my baby doll)

  Whispers born on the wind, echoing in Andy's mind, echoing until the interior of his ears began to throb.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  "Natalie. Hi."

  Natalie waited until Andy stepped out of Mae's house, onto the front step. "I can't apologize enough for my dad," she said.

  "What is it with me?"

  Natalie looked past Andy to the roof of the house. "I don't know. He just gets that way, sometimes."

  Andy watched Natalie's eyes wander - everywhere but on him. "It seems like he knows me," he said. "Like I did something to him. Something terrible. I've never seen the guy in my entire life, never been near him, but from the way he reacted to me - what's the deal?"

  Natalie leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Andy's shoulders. He was still shaken from the cemetery, but didn't mention it. He was afraid to. Natalie squeezed him.

  He didn't squeeze back. "No, really - what's the deal?"

  "Just hold me, okay?" Natalie squeezed harder.

  "I mean, if I did something wrong, tell me. Did I offend him?"

  "Would you shut up about my father? He's senile. He doesn't know what he's saying."

  Doesn't know what he's saying. Andy wanted to believe that. The man seemed senile. Probably was. But still, those eyes that looked at him, looked through him, through his skin, his eyes, into the blood that flowed thick in his veins - those eyes hadn't been looking through a veil of senility. They looked through a solid, gleaming wall of hostility. Hatred. Andy felt it shoot out of the man like a torrent of acid, eating through his skull into his brain. This was not anger born from senility. Enhanced by it, perhaps, but not born from it.

  Andy was too tired to push the matter, too distraught. He put his arms around Natalie, put his head on her shoulder, hiding his eyes, hiding his thoughts from her.

  "You feel so good," she said.

  Something inside of her. A kind of vibration. Like she was shaking. At first, he thought she was crying, expecting the familiar spring of dampness to soak through his sleeve, so familiar from Cathy. But she wasn't crying. A vibration. Almost imagined.

  "I'm leaving tomorrow," Andy said.

  Natalie's grip slackened. She took in a deep mouthful of air.

  "Tomorrow night. They're bringing my car out here for me."

  Natalie squeezed again. Her pulse ran its course through Andy's body.

  "C'mon, Nat. You know I can't stay here. Do you think we would've done this under different circumstances?" Andy looked into Natalie's eyes. They were red, jumping around with an over-tired alertness.

  "What does it matter? We're here. Now."

  "Answer my question."

  "How can I? It doesn't matter."

  "I just need to know."

  Natalie took in a deep mouthful of air. Andy felt her chest expand against his. "Who knows? Probably not."

  Probably not.

  Definitely not, Andy thought. Only under these circumstances could this have happened. Only under the scrutiny of these trees, the watchful eyes of this house, of the gravestones in the cemetery. Only under the thunder and storm of Natalie's father.

  "I want to make love again," Natalie said.

  Andy wanted to, also. Part of him, anyway. The other part was afraid of losing itsel
f in her pulse, in her rhythm.

  "No."

  "No?" she said. "Can't I at least say good-bye?"

  "Not today." He was suddenly afraid of her. "I don't feel well," he lied. "Tomorrow, okay? Before I take off."

  "Okay." She let go. "Okay."

  Natalie backed out through the screen door, turned around and left. Andy watched her walk across the field to her house. He wondered if he only imagined the paint he smelled on her.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Andy's fingers were soon numb from scrubbing. The paint remover made his head spin. He had to stand up, had to reach out and grab hold of the headstone he was cleaning to keep from falling over.

  "Are you all right?" Mae asked, looking up from her stone. She kept on scrubbing, her fingers raw, blisters popped and reforming. She seemed to be talking from far away.

  Andy squeezed his eyelids shut, trying to stop the cemetery from spinning, but even the blackness behind his eyelids revolved.

  He thought about Cathy.

  That night in her arms, that night so long ago, so far away, she asked him as she had so many times - what can I do to make you like me more? How do you want me to change?

  Be happy with yourself. Have more confidence.

  He could be her savior - lift her out of her depression.

  He could be her savior, and with the blessing of words falling from his lips, she could be saved.

  - You just got to look at things differently...Stop taking things so seriously -

  The savior. Cathy's savior. Cathy's psychologist, counselor, shrink, talking.

  - Just think happy thoughts and you will start to be happy -

  He - Cathy's savior - had spoken.

  But as he stood there, holding her in the kitchen with the hum of the dishwasher adding to the illusion of his voice's omnipotence, his arms around her sides, hands supporting her back just below the shoulder blades - he lost touch with her. He stood there holding her with his mind completely numb, and she was no longer there. She was a hollow shell, her breath on his neck a numbing anesthesia.