“She’s in here by herself if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, she just looks familiar.”
“None of my business who you know.” He polished a glass trapped between the counter and his waist. “Why don’t you go talk to her?”
Hank stole a glance at the woman, and then asked for a whiskey. He promised himself he’d stop after this one. Hell, the taxi would probably show up before he even had time to finish. “You wouldn’t happen to know what she drinks, would you?”
“Can’t say I’ve ever seen her in here before. That’d be another question for her.”
“That’s fine. Give me a screwdriver, another whiskey, and a water.”
“You’re the boss.”
Hank balanced all four drinks in his hands and approached the table. She was beautiful, her eyes so blue. Hank stumbled on his pickup line. “One thing I can’t handle is seeing a woman in need of anything, and I noticed you were without a drink.”
In a melodic voice, she said, “Thank you for noticing, but I don’t drink.”
“The good news is that I do. These three are for me.” Hank set down the alcoholic beverages. “This water is for you though.”
Her smile almost made the horrible day bearable. “That’s thoughtful of you.”
“Mind if I sit?” Hank asked.
“Didn’t think you’d want to.”
Now it was Hank’s turn to smile, though he got the feeling he was missing something. As he sank into the chair, his legs disappeared beneath the long tablecloth. The woman didn’t touch her water, but Hank started on his whiskey and asked, “So what in the world are you doing in a place like this?”
She adjusted her beret and said, “I don’t know. I was on the Four-fourteen and then something told me to come here.”
Hank wondered if he’d heard correctly. “The Four-fourteen?”
“That’s the one. Why?”
“I just can’t believe I didn’t notice you.”
“You take it, too?”
“Actually, I operate it.”
“No fooling?”
Not wanting to appear conceited, Hank said, “It’s really no big deal. The thing practically runs itself.”
When he asked, the woman said her name was June. She patted the back of his hand. “Oh, I’m sure you’re just being modest. You have so much responsibility.”
“I suppose it does take its toll.” Hank finished his drink, set it down.
“How do you mean?”
Hank pulled over the screwdriver, but didn’t take a drink. No need for her to suspect he was an alcoholic. Cranking up the emotion, like a sad insurance commercial, he said, “Sometimes bad things happen, but you just have to deal with it and go on.”
“What happened, Hank?” She gave his hand a light squeeze. “Did something happen today?”
Hank let out a long sigh, nodded, and gulped down half the screwdriver.
“What? An accident? Was it an accident?”
“Yeah. Some van plowed into a woman stopped at the crossing, and caused me to hit her too.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was probably high or just stupid, maybe texting. They’ll find out in the autopsy.”
June took his hand in both of hers. “How can you stand it?”
“The funny thing is that I don’t feel that bad. This one wasn’t my fault. I braked. Hard. Almost all of them couldn’t have been avoided.”
“You’ve hit others?”
“There are over a thousand deaths a year on the rails, and I’m afraid I’ve got eight of those.”
“And you haven’t quit?”
Hank finished the screwdriver. “That’s what I was saying. The people I’ve hit don’t bother me that much. Most of them are strung out on drugs and want to die. Instead of suicide by cop, it’s suicide by train. Decent person will just slit their wrists or pop some pills. Stay indoors. Why mess up everyone else’s day?”
“That is pretty selfish.”
“Why do you think so many trains are delayed and cancelled?”
“I never thought of it like that.”
Hank took a swig of the second whiskey. “I feel worse about the animals. When I honk they usually either freeze in fear or run directly down the tracks. Imagine that. Imagine seeing someone’s poodle sprinting for its life, knowing you can’t do a thing to stop the tons of metal bearing down on it.”
June shook her head. “That’s awful.”
Hank wiped his hand on his pants and smoothed the wrinkles. “Would you mind if we talked about something else?”
“Of course not. I’m so sorry.”
Hank smiled and told her not to be silly. “So what about you? Is there a lucky guy waiting for you somewhere?”
June shook her head so hard her hat nearly came off. “Oh, no. No one wants me.”
“Are you serious?”
June cast her eyes down. “I don’t have a lot to offer.”
“Don’t say that. You’re beautiful. That’s something.”
June looked up, tears welling in her eyes. “I know what I am.”
“You’re talking crazy.” Hank got up from the table and said, “I’m going to get you a drink.”
At the bar, while Hank was clearing his tab, a loud squeaking came from the rear of the bar. An elderly man pulled a rusty red wagon toward the bathroom. It was hard to see in the dim light, but it looked like he was carrying a pile of dirty clothes.
“Here you go.” The bartender handed Hank his change and said, “That’s just Jimmy. He’s harmless.”
Hank carried two drinks back to the table. He took his seat and placed a bright green cocktail in front of June.
“I can’t. Really.” She pushed it away from her.
Hank took hold of her hands. “Just try it. It’s a Midori Sour, almost no alcohol in it.”
“I’m such a lightweight, Hank, and this stuff will run right through me.”
“You need it. We both need it.” He eyed his whiskey and said, “Come on, beautiful, what do you say?”
June sighed and stopped pushing away the drink. “I guess one won’t kill me.”
“That’s more like it.” Hank casually slipped his leg under the table, sticking it out to see how she’d react. If she pushed back against his foot, they’d be back in his bedroom within the hour. If she played it cool and moved away, it could take a date, maybe even a dinner or two.
He was still blindly searching for her leg when the squeaking started again. “What’s with this place?” Hank sat up, the mood ruined. “They give discounts to cripples and crazies?”
June threw her head back in laughter. It was so loud it was almost terrifying. Not knowing what else to do, Hank asked, “Are we going to do this or not?” He held his glass up for a toast, mildly surprised when she joined him. He finished his whiskey and noticed a steady dripping sound. It was coming from under the table.
June set down her empty glass and asked Hank if he was okay.
“I think I must have spilled something.”
“I’m sorry. It was probably me. I can be so clumsy sometimes.” She licked her lips. “Would you mind looking for me?”
Hank lifted the tablecloth and stuck his head under the table. A puddle of bright green liquid pooled around the legs of her chair. He was about to warn her to move her feet out of the way so they wouldn’t get wet, when he realized she didn’t have any. The green liquid dribbled out of June’s exposed intestines that dangled a few inches below the ragged edge of her severed torso.
Hank bolted upright, the back of his head slamming into the table. His mind filled with darkness. June’s icy hands shocked him back to reality. She held both of his wrists, smiled as if nothing was wrong. “I told you it runs right through me. At least since this afternoon.”
“Let go of me!” Hank tried to pull his arms free and get up from the table. At least since this afternoon. Wait. He did know her. She was the woman from today.
“Where are you going, Ha
nk?” June squeezed his wrists, his tendons and bones grinding together painfully.
Hank shouted for help, looked around the room, anywhere but at June, that beautiful face he’d seen sticking through the windshield. June wouldn’t let go of him, even as he continued to back away. Her torso slid across the table, leaving a bloody trail as she knocked over their empty glasses. June’s hat fell to the side, revealed her crushed skull that looked as if someone had hammered away at it with a brick. The skull he’d seen poking through the glass. But he hadn’t done that. The van had hit her. It’d run the flashing lights, slammed into her … Or had it? No, the woman had been stalled out on the tracks. Hank had seen her before the van came barreling at her. The van had been trying to help. Hank hadn’t been able to hit the brakes in time.
June crashed to the ground, brought the table down with her. Hank ripped his hands free, backed into the counter, and spun around. He yelled to the bartender, “Call the cops! Call someone!”
The bartender smiled and scratched at his beard. “And why would I do that?”
June dragged herself toward him on her elbows. Hank screamed, “Look at her.”
“But you said I was beautiful,” she wailed.
The squeaking of the wagon made Hank freeze. The old man pulled the rusty red thing to the front door, dropped the handle.
“To hell with you!” Hank shouted to June, to the bartender, to the patrons oozing out of their booths. He ran to the wagon and kicked the back of it, the pile of rags in the back falling out and somehow tangling around his legs.
The rags were heavy, anchoring Hank to the floor. He tried to kick them off, but both of his legs were pinned. He looked down and saw a mixture of flesh and cloth, the raw meat nearly indistinguishable from the mangled jeans the woman had been wearing earlier today.
Hank pulled on the door, but it would not open. June kept calling him honey, creeping closer. The bartender whistled, tossed a sharpened rail spike in the air as he made his way over. The forms of disfigured patrons advanced upon the entrance that would never be an exit.
Woodshop After Math
The bell rang and Tyler was out the door before Miss Conner finished saying she hadn’t excused them. Tyler hated pre-Algebra, another reminder he wasn’t living up to his father’s expectations, that he had wasted the last three years of his life. But that wasn’t why he was in a hurry to leave, at least not today. It was Friday, Sam’s birthday, and he had to see her before school let out. Then he had to get to his appointment with Dr. Heckman.
Sam’s present in one hand, his math book in the other, Tyler moved through the stream of students pouring out of their classrooms. He snaked past two football players punching each other in the arm, then a group of Goth kids passing a vape pen. Tyler focused straight ahead. He wasn’t in the mood to see their stares, to hear them mumble and call him “freak.” He’d only started school one month before but that’s not why they talked about him.
The hallway branched, right to the administration building and his appointment, left to Sam’s locker. Dr. Heckman’s warning not to be late echoed in Tyler’s head. He turned left, hoped Sam would be there so he’d make it to his appointment in time.
Sam, of course, wasn’t there. She was never on time. Tyler set her present on a small desk in the hallway and wiped his sweaty hand on his shirt. What could he say that wasn’t lame? Happy birthday. How’s your birthday going? Did you get any cool presents? Here you go. Here’s the present I made you in woodshop. I spent the last two weeks making it. Look what a dork I am. Do you know how pretty you are? Do you still like me?
A few kids ran down the hall and a crowd formed outside the bathrooms. Someone shouted. Tyler picked up Sam’s present and found himself at the back of the crowd when he heard a girl plead, “Stop it!”
It was Sam. Tyler pushed his way into the middle of the throng. Bradley, a pompous prick who would have been in tenth grade if he wasn’t so stupid, stood over Sam who was on her knees trying to retrieve a pink bakery box from the ground. Every time she went to grab the box, Bradley nudged it out of her reach with his boot. Her fair skin flushed red and Tyler felt the hair on his arms rising when she told Bradley to leave her alone.
Bradley kicked the pink box against the wall.
Tyler surprised himself when he said, “Back off, Bradley.”
Sam and Bradley both looked toward Tyler. Then Bradley grabbed her hair, turned her head, and pumped his groin at her face. Sam swatted at his arm and flailed to get away, but Bradley wouldn’t let her go.
“Bradley, I’m not kidding,” Tyler said, trying to keep his voice from cracking.
Bradley talked so loudly everyone in the hall could hear. “What are you going to do about it, Psycho?”
“Yeah,” Hector chimed in from behind Bradley, his raised middle fingers a clear indication of what he thought about Tyler. “What are you going to do, pull a Newtown?”
Kent, their little dork follower, stood next to Hector, grinning his idiot grin then twisting his face into his rendition of a psychopath. “No, man, this guy’s all Virginia Tech. He’s like the Energizer bunny. He’ll just keep going and going.”
Three-on-one with a whole bunch of kids to watch him get his ass kicked, but Tyler wasn’t walking away from the only girl who’d ever stood up for him.
A locker slammed shut at the far end of the hall and Hector jumped. Tyler dropped Sam’s present and his book. It didn’t matter if he was smaller than all of them. It didn’t matter that he was by himself. Bradley chuckled, kept Sam down with his hand on her shoulder. “Are you serious? Check this loser out.”
Tyler said, “Let her be.”
Bradley stared down at Sam’s chest. “She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
“I’m not telling you again.”
Bradley let go of Sam and took a step toward Tyler. “Or what? What are you going to do, you little psycho?” Bradley stuck out his chest, what they called puffing in juvie. Kids did that when they were scared deep down, and they were usually the ones who got their butt kicked. That’s what Tyler tried to tell himself as he looked up at Bradley.
Pretending he was someone else, someone stronger and more confident, Tyler said, “I’m not scared of you, or your little buddies.”
Ooh’s and aah’s came from the crowd. Before Bradley could respond, Tyler took a step toward him. “Donnie was a lot bigger than you are,” Tyler said, his voice flat and dead.
No one said a word. Bradley looked like he wanted to say something, but kept his mouth shut. A teacher that Tyler hadn’t seen before came out of a classroom and yelled for them to break it up before she called the principal. Tyler couldn’t help but notice she focused on him the whole time. Even teachers he didn’t know had heard about him; they were convinced he was the monster the papers made him out to be.
Tyler turned back to Bradley, but the punk and his friends were walking away, heads held high as if they hadn’t just chickened out. If Bradley really wanted to fight, he would have done it in front of the teacher. In juvie, Tyler had witnessed one kid jump another one right in front of an officer, stabbing that kid’s neck with the sharpened end of his plastic fork, one, two, three, four times before the officer pulled him off.
The rest of the crowd dispersed while Tyler helped Sam off the ground. She thanked him, but didn’t need to. The way she looked at him was enough to make him take on a dozen guys. She was the one person who didn’t believe he was a monster, who knew he was innocent, who believed he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone for no reason. She knew the Tyler prior to his juvenile hall stint wouldn’t ever do something so vicious, but that kid had been forgotten by everyone else. They only saw the Tyler who had spent the last three years locked up. He looked different. Maybe he was different. He’d learned that sometimes people needed to be hurt.
Sam picked up the mangled pink box. It was filled with brightly decorated cupcakes, most of which were squished, their frosting splattered on the dirty tile. “You shouldn’t have
done that,” she said.
Tyler tried not to stare at her low-rise jeans as she stood. “I’m glad to see you, too.”
She swiped the hair from her eyes and said, “Sorry. I’m just surprised to see you.” She kicked her locker closed. “Don’t you have your appointment today?”
Tyler wasn’t listening. He scoured the floor for his present, spotted it by a row of lockers. Luckily, it hadn’t met the fate of the cupcake box. He picked it up, gripped the wooden cylinder, not sure if he should give it to her.
Sam repeated, “Don’t you have your appointment?”
“Yeah, but I was passing by and thought I’d see you.”
Sam motioned toward his math book. “You passed Admin on the way from Pre-Algebra.”
“What can I say, I’m still new here.” Tyler forced an awkward laugh. “Haven’t got the place figured out yet.”
“You should get going. The bell’s going to ring any minute, and you can’t be late.”
“Then we better hurry.” Tyler grabbed her hand. “I’m walking you to class.”
Sam hesitated before following. “You can walk me down the hall. I don’t want you to ever get in trouble because of me again.”
Tyler almost said that he would do anything for her, that she was worth it.
“What’s that?” she asked, indicating her present.
He almost offered it to her and wished her a happy birthday, but he saw the clock. Less than two minutes. Sam told him to just go. Tyler began to pull her in the opposite direction. “Woodshop’s over here. I said I’d walk you to class.”
Sam complained, but not too much, and hurried with Tyler to the lone building outside the double doors, where the loud noises wouldn’t disrupt the other classes. At the door, Sam looked down at her mangled box of cupcakes.
“These are ruined. I worked so hard on them,” she said.
“You made your own cupcakes for your birthday?”
Her look said she was surprised he remembered.
Tyler said, “I thought you hated Jenkins. Why take the cupcakes to woodshop?”
Twisted Reunion Page 3