"Okay," Vicky says, sort of scared.
"Good," and I hang up.
I have a smoke and go back inside to set up the camera. Syl is still lying on the bed grabbing at his dick. He sits up suddenly and looks at me funny.
'What's the camera for?' he asks.
I tell him 'nothing' and when he keeps asking I tell him to shut the fuck up and give him another line of Extra Strength Tylenol.
It takes the transvestite twenty minutes to get here and by then Sylvester is pretty much passed out on the bed. Vicky is wearing a white skirt with a tiny pink halter top. There is way too much skin showing for its own good. I rip Sylvester's clothes off and splash some water on his face so that he wakes up.
"Your birthday present is here."
"You were always a good guy," he says drunkenly.
"Thanks man," I laugh. "You too?"
"I always felt bad for banging Sam like that on you - I didn't know -"
"Shut-up," I say quickly.
"But she never loved me man, she never loved me like she did you?"
I splash some more water on his face and he squirms and says 'what the fuck man.'
"He looks all fucked up," she, or he, says.
I look back down at Sylvester, lying there naked on the bed, and I feel nothing. His eyes are complete marbles, and it's clear that he has no idea what is happening right now, and even though I know he deserves this - I feel like a monster.
"Maybe you should just go," I say to the tranny.
"Are you kidding me," Vicky says, "you just dragged me away from another client."
"Well can't you just like, go back?"
"It doesn't work that way, sweetie."
"Fine."
I stuff a wad of twenties all green and bunched up into the tranny's filthy hands, and Vicky sighs and stuffs the money into his or her little pink purse. I move over to the video camera and hit record, the caption focused on the top of the bed where Syl is all sprawled out and naked, giggling with a massive erection.
"Hey, no taping?" Vicky tries to say.
"I've given you enough money now," I say. "So just do your goddamn job, and make sure the camera can see, you know - it. Ride him reverse cowboy - that oughta be the perfect shot."
Vicky looks down at Sylvester and says 'this is weird' which makes me laugh, and for some reason I can't stop laughing, so I decide to just leave the room. I go downstairs through the main lobby and outside to have a cigarette. A bum walks by and asks me for a smoke. He looks pretty rough, so I give the poor bastard a cigarette. I ask him about the state of our failing economy, and he looks at me solemnly and says 'do you have any change?'
Chapter 17
I can still remember the first time I realized how to be malicious. It's something that stuck with me. It happened when Meredith and Brian were still together, and my sister was still living here. She was a year younger than me and had not figured out how to be evil yet. I was bored one afternoon so I took a black crayon and scrawled her name all over the hallway wall between her room and the kitchen: ALICE. Alice. alice.
Mom comes out of mom and dad's room and sees the writing all over the hallway wall. She starts yelling for Alice to get out there, and Alice pokes her head sheepishly out from her bedroom door.
"What is this?" she asks.
"It wasn't me" Alice says.
"Alice, do you know what that says on the wall?"
She shakes her head no.
"It says 'Alice'"
"That's my name," she says, smiling.
"Well Charles, did you do this?" and she turned to me then, looking at me with her motherly eyes. Those eyes that said I trust you son, whatever you say here I will absolutely believe and hold to be true.
"It wasn't me mom," I say.
I lied to her so easily. I did it because I wanted too. I wanted to show myself that I was capable of fucking another person over.
Alice got spanked that night for writing her own name all over the wall in black crayon, and she didn't even know how to spell yet. She cried a lot while she was being spanked and I could hear her from my room, even with the door closed. I felt so bad after that I actually sat down and taught her how to spell her name; I guess I was always good at covering my tracks.
Chapter 18
I'm at Natasha's parents' house for dinner tonight and her parents, who have been together for 25 years, are sitting across from us side by side. They must be the last high school sweethearts in the world. Their house is pretty big, and I guess it's sad that's the first thing I can think to say about it, but it's true; it's fucking big. They have leather couches in their living room and a fire place, but the thing I hate about them most is the fact that they are still in love. They hate me too. Jim and Mary Winters. It's hard to explain, but they're sitting there across from me eating their casserole with mechanical arms, and I can't imagine they could ever understand how I feel. It's not their fault; no one stays together for 25 years anymore.
They were just weird that way I guess.
I slug back my third glass of red wine and Natasha pinches my thigh beneath the table.
"So how is everything going with work?" Natasha's father asks me.
"Oh, well I'm not working yet - still in school, you know?"
"Well, how have you been supporting yourself?"
"Huh, the government helps a bit, and, well, my mom?"
"Paul helps a lot with your tuition and stuff," Natasha adds.
"Yes, that he does."
"And I suppose it was Paul who gave you that car?" Jim asks, his eye-brows raised.
"Right again, Jim," I say.
Natasha's parents share a look before the both of them stare back across at me, like they're expecting me to say something more. The two of them both have white hair and wrinkles around their mouths, probably from frowning all the time. Their eyes are like mirrors. Natasha plunges into the awkward silence head first and starts talking about her job at the Children's Hospital, while I stare at my cracked blue plate.
"There are so many kids who don't deserve what they get," she says. "It's so sad, to watch them suffer, but every once in a while you get a smile or a laugh from the good ones, and it makes things not so bad?" she stops because I can tell she's getting choked up a bit.
I nod my head and mention my sister in Thailand.
"I'm sure you miss her very much," Natasha's mom says.
"That I do," I nod.
"Maybe that's something you could get into Charles," Jim says. "I hear they are looking for teaching jobs in Japan, for English?"
"Jim!" Mary interjects. "You can't possibly think it's a good time for Charles to be travelling to Japan?"
Jim shrugs and says he doesn't know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad for me. "I'm sure they've cleaned up most of that radiation by now," he says.
I swallow a mouthful of casserole with difficulty and picture myself rotting to death from radiation poisoning, while Jim sits there eating his goddamn casserole with that sick little smirk sliding up the side of his face.
"Dad," Natasha says. "Charles doesn't need to go teach in Japan because he's going to graduate and get a great job with his step-father?"
"And what about your real father?" Jim asks. "Where is he in all of this?"
"Oh, he's around," I say.
Jim and Mary look at each other again, clearly expecting more, but unfortunately I have nothing more to offer them.
I wake up hung-over with the taste of cigarettes in my mouth. I throw on a sweater and my shoes without showering because I'm already late. My apartment smells like stale booze and cigarettes.
When I get outside the fresh air makes me feel a little bit better. I'm walking beside a native with a cup in his hand and he grins at me with half a smoke hanging from the corner of his detached lips. I toss a Toonie in his cup and he seems happy enough to get it. I watch him shuffle off in the other direction because the liquor store is back there and the bastard probably has enough for a nice ol' bottle of Old English, or mayb
e a Colt 45.
The phone starts ringing in my pocket and because I think it might be Samantha, I answer it right away.
"Hello?"
"You have to come help me, please? I ?. oh my god, he's coming, he's coming, do you hear me? Hello?"
"Where are you?" I yell into the phone. "Why do you keep fucking calling me? Who are you? What's happening to you?"
"My name's Cindy, I'm Cindy, okay? You have to come help me, okay? Tell them I'm in a scary place?.please, no -"
I can hear her sobbing into the phone and I'm saying 'tell who' but she won't say who.
Then the line goes dead.
Ten minutes later the phone starts ringing again but I won't fucking answer it. It keeps ringing though, and after a while I finally pick it up.
"Hello?"
"Hey man, it's Syl."
"Ol' Sly Syl! How the hell are yah?"
"I can't remember a fucking thing from the other night?"
"You were popping those pills like vitamins my man," I laugh.
"All I can remember is getting thrown out of the Royal Oak, and I think I was with you at some point? but it's all so fucking blurry. Eventually I woke up in some hotel room naked with a sore dick. All my goddamn clothes were gone so I had to walk outta the place in a fucking sheet? and? I think I might have? a rash, or something."
"You don't say."
"Were you with me man," he asks shakily. "Like, what the fuck happened?"
"You don't remember anything?"
"No man, not until way later in the night."
"Well, I tried taking you to that hotel room Syl - I wanted to give you your birthday present?"
"The Hooker?" he asks.
"Bingo."
"Well what happened?"
"What do you think happened? I dragged your fucked up ass into that room and left just as your pants were being undone."
"Ah, thank god!" he laughs. "I was sorta worried there, but I mean, the pros always make you wrap it up so, it must just be like? carpet-burn, or something, right?"
"Absolutely," I say. Although the only thing that Sly Syl didn't know, the filthy fuck, was that they don't make you wrap it up when I pay them an extra two hundred dollars not too ;)
Natasha is over at my place and if I could draw a picture of the expression on her face for you, it would start with a giant black glob - perhaps a little red spec buried somewhere in the middle.
"How can you live in here?" she says.
"I make it work, baby," I say, flicking a couple crumbs off my bed where I am currently all sprawled out in just my boxers. Natasha wants me to come to the library with her but I just can't be bothered right now. There's a throbbing in my head, not the good one either, and my skull feels heavier than usual.
"You know your dick is hanging out right now."
"Prove it," I say.
"And it's freezing in here Charles, your goddamn window is still broken!"
"I like the fresh air,' I say. "Besides, there's only a little snow?"
"Jesus?" and she tinkers around the room a bit. It almost seems like she's going to start cleaning or something, but when she sees the ants crawling around in my sink she sort of screams and says I'm leaving and I say 'so soon?' and she says 'call me when you grow up'.
Where is he in all of this?
Where is he? In all of this?
Where's he? In hell.
That night I'm driving down Russell Avenue in Paul's convertible. The street lamps are all glowing and orange through the windshield, slightly blurred. I'm pretty drunk right now, to be honest, but I'm not driving like a maniac or anything, quite the contrary. Everyone I pass gives me a good stare as I creep slowly by them in my little red sports car. I wish I could have the top down. But it's the middle of February, the youngest month of the year. It starts snowing again, the flakes sprinkling down and melting instantly on the windshield.
I'm not really sure what I'm looking for tonight, but that little girl's voice keeps echoing inside my head 'I'm Cindy, okay? - you have to help me.'
Please Help.
It's starting to drive me crazy, which is why I had to drink so much vodka tonight. The taste is still sort of lingering in the back of my mouth, like black liquorice mixed with metal, and I blink a couple times, giving my goddamn head a shake because this is all just fucking insane. The phone is sitting propped up against the dashboard and for once I'm hoping it will ring. I hope it will ring so I can tell the little girl that I'm coming.
I'm driving down Bronson and I take a left on Catherine, then a quick right onto Percy Street. I'm not really sure where I'm going, but everything looks oddly familiar. A lot of the housing is subsidized around here, lots of dirty porches with overflowing garbage pales. But when I pass this particular house on the corner something clicks. I pull my car over to the side of the road, turning off the headlights with a snap. I watch the house while the snow starts falling harder, blowing across the windshield all white and blank in the frigid air.
I see a younger looking guy come out of the front door, and after looking around frantically for a couple of seconds, he steps back inside.
A shiver runs up my demented spine.
I step out of the car and stand at the side of the road. The cold air feels good on my face and deep down in my lungs. I burp and the taste of liquorice fills my mouth. The lights are on in the house and for some reason this feeling just won't go away - that there was something off about this place?
Deviated Septum.
This was his place, all worn out and battered through the winter night. I recognized it now because he had a worn out Canadian Flag hanging in his window, the same one I was looking at now.
Before I can stop myself, I've walked up to the front of the house and my fist is pounding on the door. I stand there in the cold for a minute, the wind whipping at my face, and eventually I hear scuffling from inside. Some guy I've never seen before answers the door. He has a black eye and a piercing through his bottom lip. It looks like his hair is falling out.
"I need to talk to Septum," I say.
He just stares back at me without saying anything.
"Is he here?"
"Who?"
"Septum!"
Again, he just stares.
I push my way through him and into the funny smelling house. It smells like burnt rubber. When I go into the living room there's a light-bulb all blackened on the table and a couple of used syringes sitting in the ashtray.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Septum asks from the couch. He's sitting beside a big black dude who won't stop looking at me. I swear the bastard doesn't blink. His shaved head is all shiny even in the dim light coming from the broken lamp that's sitting on the floor. The black dude sneers at me with his yellow-tinged teeth. I never understood why a guy would get tattoos on his eyelids.
"I?well, I'm not sure?"
"Do you want to see a girl?" he asks.
"No, nothing like that."
"Well, then what the fuck are you doing here?"
"Here," I say, handing the phone over in Septum's direction. "I just wanted to bring your phone back?"
"I don't want that fucking thing," he says, glaring at me.
"Listen man, I've been getting some really fucked up calls on this phone - and I just don't want to deal with it anymore?"
"And what makes you think I want to deal with it?"
"Well, it came from here," I say.
"So what?"
I don't say anything and the two of us just stare at each other for a second, me standing in the middle of the room, and him sitting there with his neck craned up and bulging eyes that are all swollen and red. Time seems to freeze and I can feel my heart trying to pump through my chest.
"How do you know Sebastian again?" he asks.
"We went to school together," I say. "Listen man, I don't really give a shit what you're doing. I just don't want to have anything to do with it?"
Septum gets up out of his seat and tries to grab the phone from
my hand. I move back a step and clench my fist around the phone. He reaches out again to take it but I take another step back.
"Give it to me then," he says.
"No."
We stand locked in the same spot.
"Well then," he says calmly, "get the fuck out of here?"
I turn to go, not before hearing someone cough down the hall. A door creeks and I hear footsteps start coming towards the living room. His shadow moves into the room first, and I see the scar on his face second, then the green-rimmed hat. He smiles at me and starts to laugh. Septum looks at him, then back at me. I close my hand around the phone, holding it tightly between my fingers, feeling my blood go cold and remembering the grey car.
"Just let him go, Frank," Septum says.
But Frank keeps moving towards me anyways, his lips twitching up into a sinister grin, the scratches on his face still prominent in the dim light. I turn and run through the house, tripping over empty beer bottles and garbage. I can hear laughter coming from behind me. I run past the burned out kid who is still standing by the front door.
"Wow, chill out man," he says, which for some reason really freaks me out.
Sylvester keeps calling me because the rash on his dick won't go away and he thinks he remembers something about me being on the balcony yelling at someone, which I of course tell him isn't true - a pure hallucination of his deranged and fucked up mind, which he naturally believes. And lately my biggest concern has been what to do with the video tape, which is by all accounts shocking, even for my disturbed little pupils - especially near the end when things get really, um, hard to watch?
Anyways, I can't decide whether I should put it on youtube or mail copies of the tape out to all his ex girlfriends and family members, and the idea of it just gets me so goddamn excited I hardly know what to do with myself.
"Did you have a camera or something?" he asks.
"I did at the Royal Oak ol' Sylly boy, there were some great shots - real beauties for sure - but I was hardly in that hotel room with you, I wanted to give you some birthday privacy."
"It's all so weird, my head feels like?"
"A sponge?"
"Yeah."
I can tell that he suspects something - but he has no clue where to start or how to figure out what happened.