Her English accent carried the
quirk of Europe, but there was an American corruption that was very
noticeable-New England with a touch of Southern twang she’d never shake, no
matter how many years she spent in Berlin, which spoke about often and fondly
and looked forward to returning to. She was kind and open, and could make
people feel comfortable and safe with her, even me. She had come to Knoxville
for an extended visit, staying with a friend from college, who was teaching
high school English there.
She was unembarrassed by her wealth
and freely spent money while slumming in The Old City, Knoxville’s old down
town, with the punks, poets, and singers of that era, specifically early 1996.
A trust fund afforded her freedom I couldn’t imagine, and she went where she
pleased. Her poetry had been published in little magazines and warmly praised.
Out of boredom she had wandered into the Tuesday Open Mic at Manhattan’s in
time to see me take the stage a little on the shaky side.
I was having a typically bad night.
I’d already been in a fight with some girlfriend and nearly fired from my job.
I had a full pint of stout and I was dropping pages out of my notebook. I
kicked the stool across the stage, because I was no sit down poet, damn it! The
MC told me to take it easy, like he did every week. I plopped my notebook on
the music stand and saw her. She had sat down at the table right in front of
the stage. She looked regal, wore a black dress, a black bow in her purple
hair. She was in her mid thirties, but from different angles she could be much
older or younger. The only real constant was her sly and knowing grin. Even her
eyes couldn’t be trusted, as they gave away nothing while consuming everything.
She would be a couple days to remember.
She was looking at me sideways and
I realized I’d been staring at her for a while. I looked out at the rest of the
room and everyone was waiting for me to start. I took a big gulp of stout and
opened my notebook to a page somewhere in the middle. I rarely planned my material
ahead of time. Whatever page I opened was what I read. I got started with a
poem about a girl, or whiskey, or whatever.
“Cheer up, man!” Brady shouted. He
was a hick that did comedy folk songs about pro wrestling and gays. He heckled
me weekly.
“Kiss my ass, redneck.”
The MC started looking pissed.
Something said loudly, ‘not tonight, guys.’
I read a vignette, pacing back and
forth. Nearly kicking my pint over several times. When I finished I knocked
back the rest of the stout. She was watching me with an amused look on her
face. I winked at her and did another poem about a girl, or whiskey, or
whatever.
The Saint was at the big table in
the back where he held court, he shouted “Testify!” I shouted back “Can you dig
it?!?”
I nearly fell off stage, which garnered
more applause than my ‘poetry’. She caught my arm as I passed.
“I like your stuff.”
“Thanks…”
“Sit down, I’ll buy you a drink.”
She ordered two shots and two pints
then told me her name.
“So who do you read?” She asked.
“Um, well…Selby, Flannery, Rollins,
Burroughs, um, I like Michael Crichton and Clive Barker…”
“Do you read Kathy Acker?”
“No.”
“Start. Celine?”
“No. Optional.”
“Where are you from, your accent is
intriguing.”
She scoffed, “everywhere, man.”
“But not here.”
“Well, no. This is just a stop.”
“Where are you staying?”
“My friend has an apartment a
couple of blocks from here. She’s in New York for a week with a group of her
drama students. My timing for a visit is unfortunate. I got here in time to see
her off and I’ll be here long enough to welcome her home.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Suffice to say, I’d like a friend
to get me through the next few days. So far, my choices have been, ok, just
sort of typical.”
“I’d love to fill that role and
I’ll try to be as atypical as possible.”
She patted my hand almost
mockingly, “that’s all I ask, love.”
She kept ordering drinks and I was
getting blotto. Leaning closer to her putting my arm around her talking into
her neck. I could be an affectionate drunk and not an angry one sometimes. I
was feeling in a ‘snuggle’ way that night. She seemed amused. She noted that we
were being rude, sitting in front of the stage getting to know each other while
all the singers and poets were trying to do their thing, so we moved to a booth
on the other side of the bar. She would lean in to me and we’d clink our
glasses together as we rattled on about Wenders, Zorn, Poe, Argento, Fellini,
Lynch, Goddard, Waters, The Swans, Flesh Eaters, Nick Cave, Gary Numan…We told
dirty jokes and teased each other. The drinks kept coming even after we no
longer needed them.
Some time after midnight she led me
out. I shouted goodbye to the Saint, who raised his eyebrows and his glass to
the lady dragging me out. Taylor gave me a standing ovation.
“I’m way too drunk to drive,” I
told her outside.
“Don’t worry the apartment isn’t
far.”
It was freezing and we huddled
together against the wind. I followed her past all the bums with their hands
out. Past all the raver kids outside of the Underground. She and I had
different definitions of ‘not far.’ The apartment wasn’t in a great
neighborhood and I told her she shouldn’t walk through here alone. She waved me
off. The apartment was in the basement of a rundown building in the Fort
Sanders neighborhood. I had other friends in the Fort, but they were not as
aloof about their surroundings as she seemed to be. Around that time there was
both a serial rapist and a serial arsonist at large there and rumors of a
possible serial killer had started to generate in the last week, with the
police denying there was a definite connection between the three decapitated
bodies. A girl I knew, named Elle, had said her brother was there when one of
the bodies had been pulled out from under a parked car. He said the neck looked
ravaged, rather than cut off. People were generally on-guard here, now it was
all heightened.
The apartment stank of pot and
incense. There were four cats and liquor bottles everywhere. The furniture was
all second hand and beat to hell. The posters on the wall were mostly of old
movies. A few band flyers from the eighties. Apparently the friend was old
school punk. There were books stacked on every available surface, two deep on
every shelf. Every Beat writer, liberal activist, decadent intellectual, plus
Joyce, De Sade, Miller, Becket…Vegetarian cook books, how-to books, cat care, a
wide selection of children’s literature, and underground comix. I was
momentarily lost in paradise, until she pulled me back, asking me if I wanted a
drink.
She came out of the kitchen with
two water glasses and a mason jar with a clear liquid in it.
“What’s that?”
“Moonshine. From Ireland.”
“Oh.” I preferred my liquor to be
amber and come in a square bottle with a black label. I didn’t trust this stuff
that you could run a car on. She poured my glass half full and handed it over.
Not being a chicken I took a sip quickly and nearly threw up. It was the
harshest damn thing I’d ever put in my mouth. She grinned, drinking hers
casually.
We started talking about where we’d
grown up, our school life, home life. Then we went back to talking about
writers we liked, which led to a fight over Faulkner, who she couldn’t stand.
Eventually the conversation started to die down. We’d laughed a little bit at
each other’s drunken behavior and tales of excess.
Around five she was laying with her
head in my lap, on the couch. She’d taken the bow out her hair, and it was
fanned out like a calm ocean. I had one hand resting on her belly, feeling it
rise and fall. I put my empty glass down and started running my fingers through
her hair. She was smiling up at me with a lonely invulnerability.
I cupped her breast as she rose up
to kiss me. She awkwardly got on top of me, hiking her dress up over her hips.
We held each other tightly as we kissed. Our tongues in each other’s mouth, our
hands going where they felt like. We moved to the floor and undressed each
other. She was soft with beautiful curves. She wasn’t shy at all and took
control quickly.
The sun was peeking through the
shades when she bent over the coffee table and I moved behind her. She reached
between her legs and guided me in.
“Gentle at first,” she said.
I worked slowly, trying to peer
through the cobwebs of my mind. All the liquor was kicking my ass, but I was
bound and determined not to blow this opportunity. Getting laid was never easy
for me.
She pushed back into me, grinding
her ass into my belly. I gripped her hips, then ran my hands up her back to her
shoulders.
Later, we were naked under a sheet
on the living room floor. She packed a bong and we got cool. I called out sick
from work and we slept through half the day.
…
We walked around the Old City, past
Manhattan’s. I looked in the window to see if the Saint was there, but his
table was empty. We ran into a distant friend of mine from high school, named
Mark, singing songs for change on the corner. His guitar was in rough shape
from where a couple of guys had rolled him the previous weekend while he was on
his way home. His face was pretty swollen still, but he just waved it off. He
was the forgiving type, and didn’t even call the police.
“It’s awright, man. Ya know, it’s
like all they know. Coz our system is so fucked up, what choice do they have?”
Siobhan was hanging back patiently.
I was embarrassed that I hadn’t introduced her yet, so I quickly remedied that.
She invited Mark to dinner with us and announced she was paying. Mark didn’t
hesitate. He shoved his guitar in its case and off we went to a diner at the
foot of Summit Hill.
She ordered a lot of food and
encouraged us to do the same. We didn’t need much convincing. We both ordered
the biggest burgers on the menu, double French fries, milk shakes and Cokes. We
ate like starved dogs.
Mark’s stoner swagger was
hypnotizing to women. He could talk for hours about nothing and lull them into
his arms and be off with them. I could tell she immediately liked him and was
maybe falling under his spell, as he told her of his misadventures in New
Mexico and Arizona. She laughed a lot and asked several questions about his
travels. I had been to New York and Boston, but had never been further west
than Nashville, or further South than Cedar Town, Georgia. I didn’t have
Gonzo-esque tales of misadventure to relay. I’d seen Mark swipe many a woman
away from many a man, and now the bastard was doing it to me. To keep from
getting pissed I kept telling myself he didn’t realize what he doing.
I knew I’d be walking back to my
car alone. I stood with Mark as she paid the bill. Mark didn’t say much, just
kept watching his feet as he shifted his weight from one to the other. I was
surprised when she came over and took my hand and told Mark it was nice to meet
him. It was satisfying to look back and see him standing there alone outside
the diner.
She wanted to dance, so we went to
the Underground. It was a place I preferred to avoid, because too many frat
boys hung out there. But as a study in society peacefully coming together under
thudding beat, it was interesting to see rednecks and jocks sharing the dance
floor with drag queens, Goths, and nerdy ravers. Ninety percent of the women
there all dressed the same: barely.
Siobhan ordered drinks and we
knocked them down quickly and then she dragged me out on to the dance floor. I
couldn’t dance, never had, unless you count slam dancing, so I just tried to do
what she did. When she started to grind on me I just grabbed her hips and tried
to hang in there.
She never seemed to get tired and
it seemed like we danced to the same song (if you can call that shit music) for
hours. Finally she pulled me into a dark corner and went into her purse. She
had a baggy full of pills she took two out and put the baggy away. She put one
in my hand, and led me to the bar. We took our pills with shots of whiskey and
she smiled a devilish smile.
“What’d I just take?”
“X.”
“Oh. I’ve never done that before.
What’s it gonna do to me?”
“Loosen you up!”
Before long we were back on the
dance floor. My body wasn’t my own anymore. I was dancing. I don’t know how
well, but my whole body was coursing with the rhythm of the music. My head was
warm and pulsing. I felt alive and full of love. We mauled each other out
there. She wrapped one leg around me and I had two handfuls of ass. We kissed
long and hard. I was turned on. We danced the rest of the night.
…
In the early morning darkness we
walked back to the apartment, stopping once behind a gas station where she gave
me a blowjob. When we got in we screwed till the sun came up.
While she made eggs and toast I
called out sick again. I told my boss I couldn’t keep anything down and was
barely strong enough to go to the bathroom. He was understanding, but couldn’t
keep from guilting me about how hard it was to cover my shifts on such short
notice. But I worked through the guilt eating delicious eggs and slipping under
the sheets with Siobhan and sleeping through the day.
…
We found the Saint holding court at
a hole-in-the-wall bar on the edge of the Old City. The usual cast of
miscreants, poets, musicians and artists were hanging around. The Saint had
everyone roaring with laughter, as usual.
I introduced Siobhan to everyone
and she was greeted warmly and accepted into the family. We sat down and
listened to the Saint finish his story;
“And so my father says to me, ‘Son,
pay no attention to this Native American crap. Yer just a god damned Indian.’!”
The table erupted in laughter.
“Here’s to my old man, dammit!”
He looked over at me with a sly
grin.
“How’d ya trick this lovely
creature into hanging around with you?”
“With my charm and devilishly good
looks, you old fart.”
The Saint laughed loudly and
reached out to shake my hand. His grip was firm, but gentle, full of warmth and
love. He winked at me then turned his attention to Siobhan, who smiled like a
coy schoolgirl, when he leaned across the table with the devil in his smile and
a sparkle in his eye.
“How’d you like to get outta here
and go have some fun.”
“You don’t think I’m having fun
with him?”
“Oh, the kid’s awright, but he
don’t know shit. Except what I’ve taught him.”
“That’s right, actually.”
“You should have seen him before I
found him. Quiet as a mouse, scared of the world.”
“I wasn’t that bad.”
“No. I’m just kiddin’. You know I
love ya, boy. He’s like a son to me. Really is. Sit down!”
We laughed and drank and talked and
drank. Siobhan leaned into me and my arm melted around her. I got drunk to the
point of not hearing words- everything was a series of buzzes. Drinks kept
appearing in front of me and I kept knocking them down. My eyes were getting
heavy and I would close them for a few seconds to relieve the pressure.
It took me a while to realize I was
sleeping with my head on the table. I slowly sat up and looked to my left.
Siobhan was gone. There was no one left, except the Saint sitting across the
table, smiling like a great, drunk Buddha.
“I’m sorry, kid. She left.”
“I don’t blame her. ‘Fucking passed
out.”
“It’ll happen. I couldn’t tell you
how many times I passed out on a date.”
“Who’d she leave with?”
He kept smiling, but there was only
empathy, no joy, behind it. He looked down at his beer. His eyes were moist and
he looked like he was remembering something sweet and tender.
“Who’d she leave with, you old
fart?”
He chuckled and looked up at me. He
kept smiling.
“She left with Mark.”
“Fuck me.”
“Listen…”
“What?”
“I have no idea. Shit. It’s real
shitty and he knows it. Let’s go stomp that little fucker and get your girl
back, god dammit!”
I chuckled. Then he laughed loud
and so did I.
“We’ll gut him like a fuckin’ fish
and hang’em by his toes!”
He slammed his fists on the table,
“We’ll take him out to the country and tie’em to the back of your car! Drag his
ass across Roane County!”
We laughed like Vikings and the
waitress brought us the last round of the night. We raised our glasses and
knocked them together, then knocked them back and slammed them on the table.
Then we staggered toward the door and stormed the streets, shouting like a
couple of psychos on a day pass.
…
The next day on my lunch break, I
was sitting in my usual sandwich shop and ignoring the girl behind the counter
for a change. In my stupor I found it easy to let Siobhan go, after all she was
leaving soon anyway and she didn’t seem like the settle down type. No good bye
felt right, but waking up alone and sober, my heart was feeling a void. The
sandwich girl, Liv, tried to make small talk, but I was distracted and didn’t
say much. She had the TV on and the local news was running through the usual
litany of bullshit. Occasionally I’d look up without really seeing the news
item, until Mark’s high school year book photo flashed on the screen.
Mark was dead. His body had been
found early that morning stuffed between a garage and a house in the Fort. The
police weren’t releasing any more details.
I asked Liv if I could use the
phone. She let me come behind the counter and use the one hanging on the wall.
I looked up the Knoxville Police Department’s number and after being
transferred a couple of times, I landed in the homicide division talking to
Detective Wilson. I told him who I was and that I knew Mark and knew that he’d
left with a girl and I was trying to find out if she was all right.
“There was no one else found at the
scene. Where does she live?”
“Not here, she’s visiting from…uh,
England, I think.”
“You don’t know where she’s from?”
“We just met a few days ago.”
“What’s Siobhan’s last name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is she staying?”
I gave him the address.
“Can you hold the line? That’s very
close to where we found your friend.”
“Yea, of course.”
There was a long silent pause,
several minutes past, then Detective Wilson came back on the line.
“We have officers at that apartment
right now. The door was unlocked and they’re searching the premises. Where did
you meet Siobhan?”
“At Manhattans. We got drunk and I
went home with her.”
“Did you see her afterwards?”
“Yea, practically all of the next
two days. I got drunk last night and passed out Skip’s. When I woke up she had
left with Mark.”
“How’d you feel about that?”
“Shit, it sucked. But she was leaving soon anyway. Not like we were going to get married.”
“Shit, it sucked. But she was leaving soon anyway. Not like we were going to get married.”
“Uh huh.”
“How’d you get home?”
“Took a cab.”
“Where’s home?”
I gave him my address.
“Ok…hang on…”
The line went silent again, but he
came back much faster.
“Where are you right now?”
“Johnny Quick’s Subs, off Cedar
Bluff.”
“Don’t leave.”
Shit. Wilson had hung up. I put the
phone on the cradle, then picked it back up and called work. My boss was far
less understanding.
“A murder investigation? Who the
fuck did you kill?”
“Listen one, maybe two, of my
friends are dead. The cops are coming to pick me up for questioning. I’m not a
suspect, barely a witness.”
“Have them write you a note!”
He slammed the phone down and I
went back and finished my sandwich and waited for the cops to arrive. Liv had a
lot of questions, more than she asked, I think. When two uniforms came in to
pick me up, she gasped. The cops were nice guys when they asked me to come with
them, but when we got outside they grabbed my arms and put me over the hood of
the car. They were didn’t get rough, so much as they were firm. One patted me
down while the other apologized, saying that hopefully this wasn’t what it
looks like, but they have to take precautions. I tried to downplay my fear,
saying that I understood and I’m ok. They cuffed me and put me in the back,
then hit the sirens and we tore across town to the Fort, right to Siobhan’s
apartment. The officer that didn’t drive helped me out of the back and walked
me into the building. There were plain clothes and uniform cops going in and
out.
Inside the living room, an older
black detective fixed me from across the room and said my name.
“Yes sir.”
He nodded to the hallway and
started down it, I followed with one of the officers keeping a hand on my arm.
The detective stood by the utility
closet in the back, someone from forensics stood back out of the way. The
detective reached over and took me from the officer and stood me in front of
the closet.
On the ground, partially wrapped in
plastic was a blonde woman, probably in her forties, wearing broken glasses,
with several contusions on her face.
“Is this Siobhan, sir?”
“No, officer…I’ve never seen this
woman before?”
“Really? You were in and out of
here the last three days and you never saw the woman that lives here?”
“Siobhan said she was out of
town…in New York City, um with the drama group for a school trip…”
“Well…her sister called the school
last week and said she was very ill and wouldn’t be back to work for several
days. They’ve called a few times to check on her and her sister has answered
the phone each time. This woman has no sister.”
“Holy shit…”
“Indeed.”
“She’s been in here the whole
time?”
“We’re guessing about eight days.”
“Holy shit…”
“Officer Davis, I think it’s safe
to take his cuffs off now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My name is Detective Barnes and I
want you to tell me everything you know about Miss Siobhan.”
We sat in the kitchenette and I
went through the whole story from the beginning with a tape recorder on the
table between us, while he jotted notes on a little pad. Occasionally we
interrupted by forensics or another detective and the whole thing took about
two hours with Barnes rewording some of the same questions, I guess to see if
I’d slip. I was surprised he did the interview there instead of taking me down
town, but was relieved when he had the first two cops take me right back to
work, after promising to call him directly if I thought of anything else or
heard from Siobhan.
…
After work, I stopped at the video
store and rented Legend Of The Overfiend and
Down By Law and got Taco Bell for
dinner. I didn’t have cable, food in the cabinets, or furniture, aside from my
writing desk, so I sat in the floor with my large soda and sack of tacos,
watching fucked up anime, trying to keep my mind distracted from some obvious
horrors.
Then someone rang the doorbell and
my blood went cold. I paused the movie and got up. The door was at the far end
of the apartment and the hallway felt twice as long as I slowly made my way to
the door. In the mean time, whoever it was rang the bell three more times,
which made me jump each time.
I pushed the curtain on the little
window aside and saw a tall blonde man in a black leather jacket standing on
the landing. He looked like a real
bruiser, middle aged, flat nose, thick neck, mean, small mouth.
“Yes?” I said through the door.
“I’m looking for my sister.”
“There’s no one else here.”
“I’m looking for Siobhan.”
“She’s-“
“Please open the door. This is very
rude.”
“I don’t…” I sighed and opened the
door. Why the fuck not?
“She’s not here, man. I haven’t
seen her since last night. The cops are looking for her.”
“Yea, I’ve noticed. Where is she?”
“I have no idea.”
He leaned forward and sniffed the
air.
“She’s been here.”
“No, that’s not possible. She
doesn’t even know where I live.”
“I’m not stupid, mate.”
“I didn’t say you were, but I
haven’t seen her in almost twenty four hours.”
He walked past me casually, but
carrying a real threat.
“Yea, come look around, please.”
He grunted, looking in the bedroom,
then the bathroom.
“Hey, listen, I’m going to write
down some numbers and an address for you. One number is for the head detective
on the case…”
I went to my desk and ripped a
sheet of paper from a composition book and started jotting down numbers while
he wandered around my apartment. He hovered over me while I wrote, looking over
my desk. He tapped my Brother word processor.
“You write?”
“Yea.”
“She loves writers. Slept with some
of the greats. I prefer the cinema. My eyes, they’re sensitive. Makes it hard
to read.”
“I understand.”
“Watching a cartoon?”
“For adults, from Japan.”
“Japan is nice. You been?”
“No, never been out of the
country.”
“You should travel. Good for the
soul. My sister and I have been traveling the world for so long.”
“I hope I can some day.”
“Me too.”
There was a sense of a threat in
that last statement that gave me a chill. I turned and held out the list, but
he just stared down at me.
“I hope you find Siobhan. I really
like her.”
He took the list from me and
nodded. He went down the hall and let himself out, heavily walking down the
three flights of metal stairs.
I locked the deadbolt and put the
chain on, then went into my closet and got my machete and baseball bat. I
brought my food to desk and absently pushed tacos in my mouth, wondering how
worried I should be.
I could imagine Siobhan being
capable of a great many things, but decapitating people just seemed a little
too far fetched. Her brother on the other hand, I could certainly imagine him
tearing someone’s head off with his bare hands. Was he following her around,
killing me that fucked with her, or that she liked? Where had he been the last
three days? The last week or so?
After an hour or so of quiet I was
relaxing again and tired as hell. I shut all the lights off and took the bat
and machete to my room and crawled into my sleeping bag. I didn’t realize how
worn out I was, but he last few days had been pretty eventful and I dozed off
quickly.
I was shocked awake by someone in
the dark whispering, ‘it’s the hour of the wolf.’ I sat up fast, heart pounding
in the darkness. The digital alarm clock read 3:00 AM. It was the only light in
the room. I felt around for the machete, touched the blade, found the handle,
and held it up, trying to peer into the darkness.
I was not alone.
Someone was in the room.
I tried to quietly free my legs
from the sleeping bag. My right arm was asleep and I needed to piss badly.
Whoever was with me had the obvious advantage. I felt a fear I hadn’t felt
since I was a very small child, when we spent six months in a rental house
Newport, Tennessee that was haunted by a very unfriendly spirit. I would wake
up at night and feel unearthly eyes looking down on me in the dark and I’d lie
awake terrified, staring into the dark until dawn. At that moment, half tangled
in my sleeping bag and on the verge of pissing myself, I felt that terror
again.
“W-who the fuck is there..?”
Silence.
“I’ve got a machete and I’ll bisect
your fucking head, mother fucker!”
Silence.
“I know you’re there, damn it!”
A sigh.
A woman’s sigh.
Then the presence was gone. And
with it a bit of the darkness, as if the presence cast an extra shadow,
blocking out the street lamp’s glow outside my window.
I quickly got to my feet and
started turning on lights, checking the doors and windows. I was alone. Not
just alone, but isolated. Like my apartment had been dumped in some frozen
wasteland, thousands of miles from help. After I pissed, I started turning
lights off again and then went into the living room and looked out the window.
It had been snowing since I fell
asleep and there was a white coat on the world. There wasn’t a soul out there,
no footprints, no lights on in any other apartment. Just the orange glow of the
street lamps. I started to pull the curtain closed when a person suddenly
appeared in the courtyard below. As dark as it was, I couldn’t make out any
distinguishing features, but one thing that jumped out at me, besides the fact
that he or she had not been there just seconds ago, was the lack of footprints.
My eyes were suddenly blurred, I
couldn’t even see the window inches from my face and I felt dizzy, but it
passed as quickly as it came on. The mystery person in the courtyard was gone.
When dawn came, I breathed a sigh
of relief. I showered and went to work early and threw myself into my job,
staying as busy and distracted as possible. I spent as much time as I could on
the cherry picker organizing the top stock in my department. I worked four hours over and would have
gone until we closed, but my boss kicked me out.
It was snowing again while I sat in
my car waiting for it to warm up. Everything felt wrong about the night. While
on lunch earlier, I caught a news report of another homicide that had occurred
over night. It was much, much closer to my apartment.
I drove around the city, popping
into my usual haunts, looking for anyone I might know, but found no one. I
drove over to the strip and found a parking spot and walked up to a little
coffee shop that I sometimes did readings at. I got a large coffee and got a
table in the back, as far from the jazz duo of a saxophonist and drummer as I
could, not because I disliked them, but because my nerves were raw and I didn’t
need the skwawk and crash rattling my brain anymore than it already was.
After three refills, I’d convinced
myself that I was being childish. No one was in my apartment the previous
night. No one was in the courtyard. I was paranoid and scared after being so
close to death and/or an actual killer(s). There was no reason to think that
either Siobhan or her brother were still in town, or that I was in danger. If
they were in fact killers they would have moved on now that the heat was on.
I put my cup on the dish cart by
the tray and walked out into the snow that had started blowing sideways with
the heavy winds. I pulled my hood tight around my head and shuffled as fast as
I could down the slick sidewalk. The strip was still busy, full of college kids
recently back from Christmas break. My car was parked in the lot behind the
bank a block away. The path between the bank and the neighboring building was
well lit and well traveled, but the lot was pretty devoid of people, other than
a small group at the far end rushing and slipping and laughing on their way to
one of the bars.
I got my keys out and heard the
crunch of snow behind me. I spun around and got my fists up, but instead of
Siobhan or her brother it was a grimy junky with a dirty, snow-flecked beard. I
started to breath a sigh of relief when I saw he was steak knife. Not a big
one, just a normal table knife. Yes, it would still hurt and draw blood, but
this scrawny fuck wasn’t exactly instilling great fear in me.
“Gimme yer wallet.”
“No. Give me yours.”
“THINK I’M FUCKIN’ JOKIN’???”
“Fuck off, before I stick that knife
in your dick.”
His was getting increasingly
redder. He glanced around and took a step closer.
“Don’t make me hurt you, dude.”
“I guess you learned to be a junky
mugger from watching TV?”
He was crest-fallen, like he was on
the verge of tears.
“Please…man…”
“Just walk away. There are programs
to help guys like you. They can turn your life around. Besides, the amount of
money in my pocket isn’t-“
He lunged at me, but at the same
time there was a powerful gust of wind that slammed me into my car. Siobhan was
suddenly between us with her back to me. From the look on the junky’s face I
could tell things were about to go south.
Siobhan looked over her shoulder.
“Go to your apartment, I’ll meet
you there soon.”
“Siobhan, the cops are-“
“I know. Get out of here, you don’t
want to see this.”
“See what? What are you going to do
to him?”
She pivoted, pulling him around.
The knife was sticking in her belly and she had her hands clamped over his
wrist and arm, holding him.
“I’m going to punish him for
ruining my jacket. I got it in Brussels.”
She straightened his arm out (he
was half-heartedly trying to break her grip, but was clearly weak with fear)
then gave his elbow an upper-cut, breaking the bones at the joint, making his
arm bend the wrong way, tearing the skin, and exposing bones.
“For starters,” she said. “Go home
and wait. And do not call the police.”
The junky pleaded with me for help,
but I got into my car knowing he was beyond my help. Siobhan watched me back
out and drive away. In my rearview mirror I could see her jerk his head to the
side before plunging her face into his neck. I got the fuck out of there.
Logic told me I was likely not in
any immediate danger. After all, if she was going to kill me, why not do it
back there? Or why save me from getting stabbed?
I got into my apartment and put on
a pot of coffee, God knows what was about to happen, but it was bound to be a
long night.
Several minutes passed before there
was a knock on the door. I was sitting on the counter sipping a cup. I hopped
down and rushed to the door, yanking it open without checking who it was first.
The next thing I knew I was trying
to get up off my bedroom floor with her brother rushing in after throwing me.
“Wait!”
“Shut up! You’ve seen her!”
“Yes! She’s coming here!”
He yanked me off the ground and
tossed me into the painted cinder block wall. It knocked the wind out of me and
my ass hurt from hitting the floor, just inches from my pillow. He came over
and put his dirty boot on my chest and started pushing down with all his
weight. I beat on his knee with both fists, but it didn’t seem to affect him a
bit.
Suddenly he hit the ground hard,
exhaling a with grunt. Siobhan was standing over him.
“Baby brother, you know better than
to piss me off!”
“Siobhan, sister…I’m sorry, but
this filth touched you and still breathes!”
She stomped on his balls as he
rolled over.
“I let him touch me. I wanted him
to touch me. It’s none of your business!”
“Not mine,” he moaned, “the
family’s…they sent me to bring you home…”
“I will go home when I’m ready, you
snotty shit.”
She reached out and helped me up.
“I smell coffee.”
Catching my breath, I nodded. “Want
some?”
“I’d love a cup,” she said with
inconceivable smile.
In the kitchen, we leaned against
the counter watching each other over our cups.
“So, ask.”
“What are you? A vampire?”
She laughed loudly. Even her
brother was chuckling as he came into the kitchen.
“God no. Not vampires, love. We’re
old earth folk.”
“I don’t know what that means.
Sounds pagan. Witches?”
“Close enough.”
She left the kitchen sipping her
coffee, followed by her brother. In the living room she was looking through my
manuscripts.
“I’m leaving town, love, but you
knew I was doing that anyway…I’m not going with this dumb ass, though. You,
baby brother, are going home. I’ll belong when I damn well feel like it.”
“Mother will be upset.”
“Mother is always upset.”
She put her cup down and walked to
me. She paused for a moment then embraced me, biting my ear playfully.
“I had fun, love.”
“Me too, darling.”
“Maybe I’ll pass through again.”
“I bet you say that to all the
boys.”
She gave me a big, dirty grin.
“Oh no, love. I usually just bite
their heads off.”
I shuddered.
She picked up one of my chapbooks
and hugged it to her breast.
“To remember you by…Pay him,
brother.”
And she walked out without looking
back. Her brother stood over me breathing hard, then shoved me into the wall.
“You had your filthy cock inside
her. Payment enough.”
And he left, slamming the door
behind him.
MOTELS ON FIRE will be out early 2017
