by Les Cohen
Episode 13:
Back To The Future
Two days later... “Hey, guys.” I had walked out the front door of our campus townhouse, down the stoop and into the quad out front and to my left, past the picnic bench that wasn’t even close to level, to the unit where my friends were living this semester. It was after seven. I had been writing – but then, you know that – and had almost forgotten about dinner. With luck, Debbie and Allison hadn’t eaten yet, and I could talk them into ordering something. The townhouses had kitchens which we used to make breakfast, lunch sometimes and snacks, of course, but dinners were too big a deal and nobody wanted to clean up. And none of us had a car or lots of money, so going out to eat was limited to the fast food joints within walking distance. Ordering delivery was the highlight of our culinary day. There was an on-campus diner for students without a meal pass, but the food there was.. was edible at best.
I thought about knocking, but decided to wave at them through the picture window on my way up their steps. “You know, guys, we’ve really got to start locking the door,” Allison, laying on their couch with one arm supporting her head, looked up at me and then rolled her eyes toward Hank. Henry, “Please call me ‘Hank’,” was one of her roommates, a somewhat dorky, but nice guy who had been desperate to have a nickname ever since he was a little kid. Henry was sitting in the well worn easy chair at the end of the couch, his feet just making the ottoman that was too far out in front of him to be comfortable, but that he was too lazy to sit up and bring any closer.
“My,” I smiled back at them, “what a nice thing to say.” They were serious, but it wasn’t about me.
“Hey, there’ve been two break-ins in just the past two weeks.” Debbie was coming up from kitchen on the lower level, shoveling her favorite Frosted Flakes into her mouth from the bowl she was carrying under her chin. At that range, who needed a spoon? Eating cereal and milk while you walk isn’t all that easy, and she was making a mess, most of it on her face, but didn’t seem to care. What she didn’t say was that it wasn’t the break-ins that really bothered us so much, although losing our computers or stereos, especially our computers, would have been huge. The fact is, nothing was ever taken, not really, some food, but snacks mostly, like he was hungry, not like he was homeless, which didn’t make any sense unless he, the burglar that is, had been frightened off before he had time to steal anything he could sell. (Just in case, I had started backing up everything I wrote on the campus mainframe, which was a good idea anyway in case my head went south on me.) In both cases when there had been break-ins, the girls had been in their houses when the intruder showed up, and were attacked. Not sexually. And not seriously hurt. Not yet at least. Maybe that was the whole idea. I didn’t really know the girls. We had class together, but I only knew them well enough to say “Hi” the occasional time I’d run into them walking across campus.
“I know. You’re right. I should have locked my own door, but it’s still light out, sort of, and I’ve got Rollo watching the place. ..So, you guys want to order anything for dinner?”
“I’ve got a date.” Debbie had just started seeing some new guy I hadn’t met yet. “I’ve got a feeling this,” she said, holding up her bowl, “is going to be dinner. He’s taking me to open mic night at some comedy club downtown.”
“Yeah, well I’d go for some Chinese.” Paulo, the other guy who lived with them, had heard us talking and walked downstairs to see what was up.
“I’m sold,” Allison sat up and reached for the phone on their coffee table. She was good with numbers and remembered the one for The Original Wah Kee. No menu, but then we always ordered the same things. “One egg roll and you’ll share my cashew chicken?” She didn’t bother to even look at me, she was that sure of herself.
“Yeah, but this time let’s get the combo fried rice. I’m going to be up late,” meaning that I wanted some leftovers I could eat later.
“And fried wantons, and beef with broccoli?” she looked up at Paulo who nodded back in agreement, figuring that would be his entire consumption of vegetables for the next several days. Paulo professed to believe that his body always knew instinctively what to order to maintain the precise balance of nutrients necessary for perfect health, which would have been marginally believable, if he didn’t treat Krispy Creme chocolate covered donuts like they were their own food group. He actually tried putting two of them in the blender – with some milk, I’ll grant you that – in a failed attempt to originate his own brand of health food shakes. I think he was dating a Phys. Ed. major at the time, and wanted to impress her.
“..And extra sauce for the fried wanton.” Allison was listening to the person on the other end of the phone read back our order. “Right. No, deliver it here.” And she gave them our address.
“Here’s my money,” I took a ten dollar bill out of the tiny wad of bills stuffed in my jeans pocket, mostly ones, and handed it to Paulo who had walked over to his bike, just inside the door next to where I was standing. (There’d be room in his backpack for the food, just barely. It’d be a little squished, but okay to eat – and still warm, he was that fast.) “Call me when you get back. I’m starved.” I smiled and wiggled my fingers at Hank, who smiled and waved at me on my way out the door back to my place. I wanted to make sure Rollo was okay, and tell him I’d be eating with Allison.
Paulo sighed, smiling as he watched me moving quickly down their steps and back into the courtyard. “What a babe.”
“I heard that Paulo,” I told him without turning around.
“Why don’t you just ask her out, bozo, and get it over with?” Debbie had known he had the hots for me ever since he’d moved in and she introduced us. Strangely, a lot of guys did. It wasn’t so much that I was good looking, I’d say average on the attractive side at best. I’m not bragging, just an honest self-appraisal. It was the smile, too, and especially the eyes and lightning fast mind.. “Hah! Don’t you get it? I’m talking about myself like a character I’d write. Do it all the time.” .. the lightening fast mind that shown through them to excite everything I talked about, and everyone I touched. “Impressive, isn’t it,” I was talking to myself out loud. I’m a figment of my own imagination.”
“Not a chance,” Henry and I were good friends. “She’s been glued to that guy from Yale, ‘Bobby something,’ since they were kids. They grew up together.”
Paulo laughed. “Are you kidding? Him I can deal with. That mangy cat, or whatever that thing is that lives with her, looks at me like he’s going to rip my face off whenever I get close to her. ..I’d swear that thing was part wolf, if I didn’t know better.”
“You should know,” Henry commented without looking up from what he was reading. “You were raised by wolves.”
“Elizabeth says it’s a ‘dat’.” Allison couldn’t help herself. “Part dog, part cat. Get it?” Allison plainly thought it was hysterical. The two of us thought up the “dat” idea one night during a laughing fit. We were both tired and couldn’t stop pointing at Rollo and asking each other, “What is ‘dat’?” Well, like so many things in life, it seemed a lot funnier at the time.
“Oh, you’re such a baby,” Debbie loved rubbing Rollo as much as he liked being rubbed. “He’s a nice cat.”
“Nice to you, maybe.”
“You’re just intimidated,” Henry refused to let up, “because his forearms are bigger than yours.”
Paulo smiled and shook his head. “Yeah, so are his teeth.”
Walking over to the campus newspaper box at the corner of the quad, I was developing my own theory about the break-ins. The campus police, according to the paper, thought it was probably someone from town, which was the easy explanation, the one that tended to make everyone’s parents feel more comfortable under the circumstances. Heaven forbid it turned out to be a student. For my money, it had to be student, someone who could move easily about the campus without being noticed, but not someone too many people would rec
ognize. Maybe a commuter that most of the students wouldn’t see except during class, because he didn’t hang out at the dorms. The quads where I lived and the girls who were attacked were sophomores – but there were only two, not enough to draw conclusions. Since neither of them recognized the guy who did it, I’m thinking he’s an upperclassman, probably a senior, or maybe a student in one of the smaller departments, someone most of us wouldn’t have met in class. Maybe Dramatic Arts, or how about Criminology? Those guys pretty much keep to themselves for some reason. Wouldn’t that be a kick? “Interesting combination,” I thought to myself. “I wonder how many male junior or senior commuters there were enrolled in both of those programs?”
The main thing that didn’t make any sense was that nothing in particular, nothing valuable was ever taken. Some money, when it was lying out or from a wallet if it was easy, but that was about it. And the beatings? You were probably thinking ‘sexual.’ No. Not even life threatening, not yet anyway. Just enough to.. Maybe just enough to make the only witness useless. “Wait a minute.” I actually said that out loud, stopping just fifty feet from my house, more or less straight ahead through the trees in the courtyard. (I have trouble sometimes thinking and walking at the same time.) I turned to page three to continue reading the story about the break-ins that began on the front page. “Rumors about missing stereo equipment and computers to the contrary, nothing other than small amounts of cash and a few food items was taken from either student’s house.” I was right. These weren’t ‘break-ins.’ Nobody broke anything. ...Either he went there to hurt the girls, because he knew them or at least knew they’d be home alone, or he’s done this before, at other times when no one was there. He didn’t kill or rape anyone, and he didn’t steal anything. Maybe he went there just to see if he could, to come and go without being caught? Nah. And then it occurred to me, “On the other hand,” I mumbled out loud, “maybe he broke in to leave something behind?” Thinking about what that might be was beginning to creep me out.
Picking up speed, I hustled back to my house, almost jogging the last few feet, taking the three outside steps all at once. Done perfectly, I can reach out, turn the doorknob and throw open the door without ever breaking my stride. I had an idea. Two more steps across the living room and up the half flight of stairs to the door to my room. Rollo and I had some research to do before dinner and then later, until Bobby showed up. (After that, I planned to be busy, reeallly busy. Rollo would have to keep working without me.)
“Hi.” It was friendly, but not a voice or face I recognized.
“Who are you?” I asked, coming to a sudden stop just inside our front door, and working hard to keep my composure. “...and what are you doing in my house?” To my surprise, Rollo was nowhere to been seen or heard. That was either a good sign, or a bad sign. I couldn’t tell. In the meantime, I was still standing with the front door open, my left hand on the outside knob. I decided to leave it that way for now.
“Take it easy.” He could see I was tense. “See the chicken?” He was pointing to the cartoon bird patch ironed onto his jacket, and then slowly, with his other hand, to the bucket and two bags, neatly folded shut, on the table half a flight down behind him in the kitchen. “I’ve got an order for ‘Ambach.’ I was told to leave it on the kitchen table if they weren’t home.”
“What about money?”
“Credit card, I guess.”
“There’s no ‘Ambach’ that lives here,” and no last name sounding anything like that.
Reaching inside his right jacket pocket, he took out a small, crumbled piece of paper and read from it. “Building 2, second unit from the right.”
“This is Building 3. ..They start counting from the parking lot, right to left. The architect was an Israeli. You want the one next door,” I pointed in that direction, through the wall in my living room. “That way.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He turned, hustled down the stairs, picked up his chicken from the kitchen table and came back up, heading toward the front door, and me.
It was still a little bit light out, and even if it hadn’t been, I thought in best to go outside, where people could see me, and wait on the pavement for him to leave, rather than have him squeeze past me in the living room by the door. As soon as he turned toward the next building, I started back up the stairs.
“You sure you’re okay?” The delivery guy stopped and turned back, obviously feeling bad about having frightened me, although honestly, I had been more startled than scared. (I need to stop mincing words. He was right, “scared” was more like it.)
“Sure, I’m fi..”
“Look, uh, I knocked and called out when I opened the door, and the guy upstairs said it was okay.”
What a relief. I hadn’t been alone in there after all, although I’m not sure what difference it would have made. That was Mike, the voice from upstairs, the guy next door on my level who never paid attention to anything that wasn’t either on his screen or naked, or both. I thought he’d gone home already for the weekend, but apparently not. Too bad. (I was hoping Bobby and I would have the entire house to ourselves.) Mike was nice enough to talk to now and then, but kept mostly to himself and seemed to prefer it that way. “It’s okay. I’m fine, really. It was an easy mistake.” I smiled politely, making my last few mental notes about his face and clothing, just in case, and then I went inside. Listening for the familiar “chunk” of the door closing behind me, I stopped and reached back to turn the knob, throwing the deadbolt into the frame of the door. For a moment, I had a flashback to when I was locked in that safe years ago. I could almost feel myself running out of air, worried that I was breathing too heavily, and that I couldn’t catch my breath. My chest tightened, but it was nothing. Only my imagination getting the best of me. “...You know,” I told myself as I continued across the living room, “I think sometimes I need to write less, and get out more.”
“Rollooo?” Where was he, I wondered, quick-stepping my way up to the door to my room at the top of the stairs. We lived in a split level townhouse with an open core running all the way to a skylight in the roof, built on campus as student housing. No real world townhouse would have been chopped up like this, or have this many bedrooms. My room was a short flight up, just half a dozen steps. There were two rooms on that level. Mine was on the left. Mike’s, next door to the right. In front of Mike’s door, another six steps led up to the bathrooms on both sides on the next level, and two more rooms where Darla and Whitney, who were hardly ever there, lived – at least that’s what their parents thought. Both were juniors and had off campus boyfriends, preferring to spend most of their time at their apartments.) Another half flight up to “the penthouse” where my friends Anna and Zack lived. All in all, the six of us lived there on five levels.
I’d left the door to my room open a bit, but was careful not to push it the rest of the way too suddenly. I’d squished Rollo in the corner once, and promised him I’d never do it again. “Rollo! I’ve got an ide.. Rollo?” I looked around quickly. He was nowhere. On my knees, looking under the bed. Nothing. “Hmm...” So I turned back onto the landing and decided I’d run up enough stairs for the day. “Rolllloooo!!,” I screamed, standing with my back to Mike’s door and one foot on the first stair up in front of me. “Where are you?!!” Maybe he’s downstairs?
Hearing the door open behind, I turned thinking maybe he was just busy visiting my next door neighbor. “Mike, have you seen...” I’d stopped talking, and for good reason. “Where’s Mike?”
He just stood there, expressionless, doing and saying nothing.
“Who are you?”
It was another one of those seconds that takes way too long. Elizabeth and the stranger stared at each other, his arms by his sides, her left hand on the newel post where the railing along the stairs stopped to run along the hallway on her level. A quick move to her left, while he was still standing just ins
ide Mike’s doorway, she might make it down the stairs and open the front door before he could grab her. In a second more, she thought through exactly how she would do it. Three steps at a time down the stairs to the living room. Full stride to the front door. Knock the floor lamp over behind her to block his way, but be sure to reach out and grab the front door with her right hand, because it would open to her right. That way, she thought, she wouldn’t have to stop and get out of its way.
“Go!” she said to herself, pulling on the post with her left arm as suddenly as she could, hoping to catch him by surprise – but she just wasn’t quick enough. Reaching out the moment she made her move, he wrapped his hand around her upper left arm, just as she made the turn. He was strong, and his grip held long enough to spin her around, letting her fall backward down the stairs. The pain from their hardwood edges cracked into her upper back, leaving her wincing and stunned. Her head snapping back to hit the landing carpet, she looked up, struggling in vain to get up, but couldn’t focus on the face of the man staring down at her. “Rollo!” she called out too softly, barely able to say his name.
* * *