Elias's Fence

by Steinberg, Anne

  The children - why did she always call them that, they were almost grown - the children had been helpful; they carried napkins and glasses and helped her set the table without a grumble. Maybe they, too, needed the lightness and gaiety of company. She knew, or suspected, that Luke and Matthew would sneak glasses of champagne. They thought they had her fooled, but she knew that occasionally they had been drinking beer; she had smelt it on their breath. But boys would be boys, and it could be so much worse. What the other young people did - the drugs - was appalling. She shivered. How lucky they were. She and Anderson had raised three marvelous children despite these very difficult times.

  Anderson had finished the steaks and they were in the warmer; the children had carried out the bowls of potato salad and the beans - all covered; cool, frosty pitchers of gimlets were placed on the tables. All was ready - awaiting their guests.

  It was almost dusk. A promising wind came up, sweeping through the alley. The candles flickered and dimmed for a moment, but then resumed their brightness. It was then that she noticed it...something white blowing like a sail on the fence.

  "Luke - Matthew, turn off the fence. Someone has tied some kind of clothing to it," she yelled up to an open window. Instead, Anderson came out and walked over to the control box. She went back to straightening the napkins and then she heard the door slam - a harsh, final sound in the gathering dusk.

  Like a booming echo, she heard a metal object strike the fence. Testing - someone in the alley was testing. The object struck, rang, and clattered to the pavement with no other sound, no telltale hiss to indicate that the fence was still on.

  A split second later, she saw a pair of brown, hispanic hands grab the bars. The fingers on one hand were strong, but the other hand clutched with only a thumb; the stub of palm where the fingers had been at first gripping and then climbing - climbing!

  "Oh my God!" she thought. They would have to turn the fence back on - lawsuits or not - for she saw that pair of deviant hands joined by another and another. Four pairs of hands now were climbing the fence.

  "Matthew! Luke! Turn on the fence! Turn it on!" she screamed hysterically. She looked back and saw that no one was upstairs at the window. She ran to the control box; she'd have to turn it on herself. Four people would be dead, but she'd have to do it...she had no choice. But the box was closed tight and locked - she could not activate the fence. She ran to the back door. It, too, was locked. The only sound was the dogs, growling and shrieking inside. Oh, God, the dogs! The volume of their chemical anger grew - and grew! Who had turned them on?

  She ran frantically, first to the side door and then to the front door. They were both locked. The dogs, running around inside like radar tracking her, greeted her banging on the doors with even more intense anger.

  "Anderson! Anderson!" she screamed, her voice high and shrill with fear, but the only sounds she could hear from the house over the frenzied barking of the dogs was a tape recorder playing "Acapulco Gold" and acid rock blaring from somewhere deeper in the house.

  The guests - they should be here now. She ran to the front gates. The street was totally dark and silent; no cars were seen anywhere. She'd have to run out - out there - into the street and the dark night. She reached for the gate, but the key there was gone. Someone had locked the gate earlier and taken the key - and the unknown gate keeper was gone.

  My God, what was happening? She was in grave danger! By the time Luke and Matthew came back out it might be too late to help her. What was happening!

  She ran back to the front door banging, banging frantically, calling out, "Anderson, Anderson, please!" Her arms and fists ached and vibrated with the force of her blows on the door. Why didn't they hear her?

  She sunk to the porch, sobbing. And then she heard it - the ominous sound of laughter coming from the yard. Could it have been some awful mistake? Maybe Anderson and the boys had come out and now had everything under control. She didn't understand how, but it's all right, she told herself, it's all right. I hear someone there, laughing. It’s Anderson, of course.

  With a tremendous sense of relief, she ran around the house and right into his arms - strong, hairy arms full of tattoos.

  "Well, well, well - what have we here?" he mused, dragging her by her arm into the light - into a scene of total chaos.

  The men sat around the tables - the tables that were so deliberately and carefully set. They guzzled the champagne straight from the bottles. Like swine from the Buccaneers festival, they dipped their filthy hands into the bowls and pushed the food into their mouths; they tore at the steaks with strong white teeth and roared with enthusiastic approval.

  "Hey, Pancho, you're all right, you know. You're a soul brother - even if you're not black."

  The faces peered at her where she stood frozen in shock.

  "Later, man, I'm too hungry. Let her go - till later. There's still five bottles of wine and pitchers full of booze. I got it - let her go and we'll play hide and seek with her. First one to catch her gets to fuck her first."

  The laughter roared - loud and cruel.

  With rough hands, the man holding her grabbed her dress in both hands and ripped it apart, and then released her. She ran wildly to the front yard and frantically, awkwardly, began trying to climb the fence. Out there was darkness and more violence, but she had to get over it. It had to be safer out there.

  Her arms strained as she held onto the fence - climbing higher and higher. Where would she go? The inky blackness was the unknown. But behind her was the known - in the form of six male animals.

  She felt the victory of reaching the top of the fence, but then his hand - huge, cruel, and strong as a vice - grabbed her ankle and yanked her down. Dragging her by one leg, not knowing or caring when her head struck the rocks, he drug her, like an inanimate parcel he was too lazy to carry, back into the yard, into the circle of drinking, guzzling, ominous men.

  Slowly he lowered his body onto hers, but he found her struggles annoying, tedious. Still laying on her, he picked up a rock from the edge of the garden and swiftly crashed it down on her head. Her eyes, open but unseeing, stared at the full luminous moon.

  "Bitch is dead - you done killed her," commented one of the men.

  "No she ain't," corrected the heaving hulk, cresting, riding, animal like, on the unconscious woman.

  His companion knelt next, entering her in the same manner.

  She stirred, her eyes fluttered and opened. She looked at the patch of black - she thought she must be staring into the kiln. Then the stench of garbage assailed her nostrils. He was above her, the silhouette of his head, his hair ragged and full. She moved, trying to push herself into the earth.

  "You awake, baby?" he asked as he pushed and bucked. "Good, baby, it's better if you help."

  Her arms were pinned down into the earth. His nails - long and ragged - bit into her skin.

  "I'm not like Reggie. A little fight don't make me mad. I like it."

  Permission given, her hips heaved, trying to push him off. She screamed a long, thin, piercing scream - like a wounded animal in agony. She tried to see the travelogue in her mind – of the cool, green hills of Australia - but the picture refused to stay. She saw only the moon bobbing back and forth as his body lunged above her.

  "Dead ass, move," he screamed as he pinched her viciously on her breast. The pain stung and vibrated through her. "Move, bitch!" he commanded. Still retreating, moving away, trying...trying... "Move, bitch!" and his fist crashed down on her face.

  She felt her teeth crack and turned her head to spit out the blood and fragments of enamel.

  Anderson! her mind called out. Help, Anderson, help me. Telepathy, ESP, whatever it was, she sent the message violently, quickly. Anderson!

  The man bit and tore at her bosom, angry and frustrated. "You old, lady, but you not that old."

  He threatened, he tore, he pounded her flesh, but she did not respond. She was not like anybody he had ever raped. It was like the body was hers but she wasn't in it.
He finished and retreated, thoroughly disgusted.

  The third man wiped her off and entered. She lay there, inanimate and rocklike. She didn't fight - she had retreated somewhere - to a secret place that made her immune. He moved, he cajoled, he threatened, but it was like the time he had scaled the hospital wall and raped the lady. That time, he found the lady was paralyzed. There was a cunt, there were two tits, but there was nothing, nothing but a blank.

  And this was the same thing. But her eyes stared up with a weird glint and for a moment he felt afraid of her. As he leaned closer, he saw the large, circular, gold earrings. He pulled them off, tearing her earlobes. "Hey, I’m sure they're gold!" and his anger was dampened somewhat by his new prize.

  His discovery created a new excitement. He examined her neck and found two chains there. One necklace looked like gold. He did know where to sell gold. But the other necklace he tore off and the pearls rolled away into the grass. Then he saw on her hands the rings, huge, golden, sparkling. "Diamonds, I bet." He pulled at her fingers roughly and the rings reluctantly came off. He retreated.

  One of his companions mounted her again in a monotonous, ritualistic manner, performing the act he had learned a long time ago and practiced many times with no tenderness or mercy - an act that only satisfied a physical need filled with anger.

  Satiated for the moment, the men sprawled out on the grass.

  "What's the matter, Pancho, you don't like being fourth?" they jeered at the Cuban as he heaved with sickness from the rich food, the unaccustomed wine, and his companions - like jackals - tearing at the woman.

  The biggest man grabbed him. "It's your turn, mother fucker. Ain't our ass good enough for you?"

  The man thrust his savage face close, grinning, showing his white teeth. The one gold one gleamed in the moonlight. "Maybe you don't like being in there with our cum..." The thought filled them with anger.

  They bore him forward and held him over the woman. The Cuban heaved with every effort and finally couldn't hold it back. The vomit spewed forth, covering her breasts and stomach and trickling down her body.

  "Shi-it! This asshole done messed it up." The three sat dejectedly. Their prize had been ruined.

  "Didn't you say money? We gonna get money?" and he pulled out a switchblade knife and held it at the Cuban's throat. The Cuban prayed silently that he would use it.

  Like an answer to the question, a plastic parachute - a small child's toy - fluttered down through the darkness. Their eyes darted upward to the darkened open window and then to the crumpled plastic toy laying on the lawn. One man grabbed it - angry - furious. Games - he didn't like games. He didn't understand them - they made him feel stupid.

  As he looked at the toy, he finally realized it contained a note. He uncurled it and his friends came forward. Like children learning to read, they spoke the words slowly.

  "Hang it on the fence, then it's payday."

  They searched each other’s faces, repeating the words and snatching the note one from the other, reading the words over and over, trying to understand.

  Her moan, eerie and full of pain, attracted their attention and made the meaning of the note clear.

  Hang it on the fence.

  Now they understood, but for the first time they felt fear. Whatever, whoever, watched them in the dark understood evil far better than they. They did things on instinct - instant gratification without thought or reason. But this - for a moment they felt they were the hunted.

  "You do it," one man commanded the other.

  "Why should I? She's full of puke. You do it."

  If the idea to hang it on the fence had been their own, it would have been fine, but now someone else was ordering them. The man - he told them to do it. The man - it was always the man. It suddenly became repugnant and they argued among themselves. Who would do it?

  She stirred slightly and moaned again, louder this time.

  "Him," and they pointed toward the Cuban. "Let's make him do it." The silver glinted as the knife came out. "Hang her on the fence or we won't get paid," they warned.

  He shook his head no. He had gone far enough. How many miles from sanity had he come? He shook his head no again.

  The largest man, not sure that his threat had been violent enough, pressed the knife closer to his neck. And then the unthinkable happened - the Cuban lowered his head, his body, violently into the knife.

  "Crazy, he's a crazy man. Look what he done did!"

  They all felt the panic rising. Like games they didn't understand, it riled them up. They were scared of people who were crazy.

  "He's crazy. He's nuts. Look what he done did," the man repeated. "He done killed himself."

  Fear circled in the night like a moth. They wailed, "Oh Man," and the largest of them stomped and stared up at the dark night clouds.

  "We won't get paid," one of them wailed. "Now we won't get paid. We did like we was told except for..."

  Greed fought the fear and finally won out. They began dragging her to the fence. Carefully, trying to avoid the vomit, they lifted her until her head was above the spike and then, with a throwing motion, heaved and let go.

  The spike caught her in the hollow of her neck and the pain revived her. Her eyes looked into the black night, black like the bowels of the kiln, and it echoed back the answer:

  "You. The sacrifice is you."

  Her body hung like a rag doll. The wind lifted the tattered whiteness of her dress and the fence remembered other years, other times; kites caught and torn, flapping wildly in the wind.

  The bills scattered down like rain. Like catchers, they scrambled and crawled and grasped the money. One ran, leaving money scattered on the lawn like wayward dandelions. But the other two fought the urge to run and gathered up as much of the money as they could carry and still climb over the fence.

  When the moon came from behind the clouds and burst forth in brightness, the second man gave in to the panic and the strangeness of the night and ran.

  The last man, seeing that his companions had deserted him, looked greedily at the still uncollected bills, but he didn't like being alone.

  The Cuban was slumped over and still, his eyes gleaming white in the moonlight, his last thought registered the letters of her broken necklace – Christ.

  The woman was hanging on the fence, her buttocks gleaming. For an instant the last man felt desire, but then he saw it - the fingers on her hand, her right hand, quivered and curled up, pointing to the sky. They seemed to beckon. His heart pounded with fear. He ran, scaled the fence, and was gone into the ribbon of alley.

  Inside the house the dogs smelled death. They quieted and fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Her body sunk deeper onto the spike. It twisted and settled, her head now tilted upward at an angle. She still lived.

  Clouds drifted in the night sky and a night bird called and flew up to eternity.

  Then she saw them in the closed window, their arms linked, Anderson in the middle. They were united and in her pain she seemed to think they were smiling. But it did not seem like her children and her husband. He was shaped differently, his silhouette tall and gaunt, his hair standing in tufts like horns.

  She called the veils down and as they descended, she understood. He had been chosen, truly chosen - the Judas Goat that would lead them into the fires, the symbolic fires of Sodom and Gomorrah. The prophesies had told of the end, of destruction by fire, but like all prophesies they could be misunderstood. No orange flames to lick and crackle, just the fires of their greed, their lust, to consume them all.

  And Anderson had been chosen, he with the gilded tongue and hypnotic tunes, to lead them into the fire of their own destruction. He would succeed, but who had sent him?

  The veils fell in layers. She heard the music from the underworld and her soul fled, but not before she heard the childish voice screaming Mama – Mama! Rachael, in a moment of sanity, was fighting through the fog of forgetfulness and her brain full of chemicals trying to find the light, saw below her li
ke the story in one of her mother’s old bibles. It was a vision of that man suffering on the cross. Her mother hanging on the fence – the crucifixion, an image of horror and disbelief, as she sobbed her heart out – Mama – Mama – her anguished cries filling the night.

  Anderson came out into the yard, inserted the key in the lock box, and turned on the fence.

  Chapter 22

  Rosa came on Sunday about noon. She hadn't slept well; dark shadows had gathered in corners in her dreams and she felt an unknown fear. Usually she controlled those kinds of feelings - she had to, for the boys’ sakes.

  The old woman who watched Juan and Jose had seemed particularly unwell today. She hoped the work would go quickly so she could get back to her boys as soon as possible.

  She rang the bell and was startled when Anderson answered. Of course, Rosa thought, he'd be home on Sunday. But she didn't like dealing with him - he made her uneasy.

  The door opened and she was relieved to see it was Luke coming to open the gate, but once inside the entry hall the uneasy feeling returned. Mr. Thorpe, Matthew, and Rachael all sat in formal chairs in the hallway and appeared as if waiting for her.

  Anderson cleared his throat several times and began speaking very softly. "Rosa, there's been an accident."

  Rosa looked around wildly, her heart fluttering with fear. Mrs. Thorpe was the only one missing.

  "Mrs. Thorpe is dead," Anderson said softly.

  "Dead - how can she be dead?” Rosa screamed. “I saw her on Wednesday. She was fine on Wednesday." She looked from face to face, but the children looked down at the floor as if studying its intricate pattern. Forgetting her place, she asked loudly, "When? How? Oh, my God," and she crossed herself repeatedly.