There are some thuds from behind the door before Cindy's mom opens it and stands in disbelief. I recognize her from TV and she still looks like she hasn't slept in days. After a moment she snatches Cindy from my arms, looking at her child with wide eyes.
"Who are you?" she asks.
I shake my head, shrug my shoulders.
"I'm calling the police," her back turning swiftly in the morning glow.
"No mommy, he's a good guy."
She stops, turns back around and asks me how I got a hold of her precious little daughter.
Again, I can't really answer.
"Who are you?" she asks again.
"I'm Charlie."
"How do you know my daughter?"
"He's the voice mommy," Cindy says.
"The voice?"
"Yes, he saved me from the bad man, look mommy, look-see, see what they did to my arm?"
And when Cindy's mom sees all the little holes in her daughter's arm, she breaks down, falling in a heap on her porch, the wind whipping up snow, swirling around her - the perfect Canadian martyr. Cindy tells her mom that everything is okay now, rubbing her back and smiling innocently. After awhile she is able to stand again. I watch her try and light a smoke but the flame on her lighter keeps getting blown out by the wind. I move over and light the cigarette for the lady like any goddamn self-respecting gentleman should.
"Well, thank you? for whatever it is you did," she says.
"Yeah," I say, "you're welcome."
"What do we do now?"
"Call the cops, I guess. I know where they were keeping her - it's a house on Percy Street."
She nods her head, and I turn to leave.
"Wait," Cindy says.
She holds out the locket for me to take.
"No, you keep it," I say. She smiles and reaches out for me, hugging me around the shoulders. I smile back at her as tears well up in my eyes.
"Okay, well, it was so nice to meet you Cindy," I say.
"You too Charlie," she says, and runs back to her mother giggling.
I turn to go but Cindy's mom calls for me to stop and when I do we both look at each other, Cindy's mother and I, her eyes all gray and swollen - and I can tell that she wants to say something to me, something that could describe how she was feeling, all her regrets and horrors and nightmares, but in this yellow-orange light of the early dawn there doesn't seem like much to say.
"Just promise me you'll take care of her," I say.
And she nods her head valiantly, pulling Cindy in close to her as the sun peaks over the skyline so that everything is suddenly illuminated in the flaccid white-light, blinding my sinister eyes and revealing the subtle horrors of innocence.
Chapter 25
I've tried calling Natasha five times now but she won't pick-up, which is strange because I know this girl; and even if she didn't want to talk to you, she would still pick up the phone so that she could tell you she didn't want to talk with you. All of her roommates are gone for March Break. I'm on the bus and everything spins past in utter irrelevancy. There's a bum with a plastic bag full of empty beers sitting at the very back who keeps looking at me.
Just promise you will take care of her?
I get up from my seat and move over towards the door. The bum gets up too and follows me to the front. Someone's phone starts ringing and it makes me jump a bit. 'Welcome to the Suicide Hotline - our systems have now been officially automated for your suicide convenience'. The homeless beggar comes over beside me, his beard stinks in the putrid light, and the bastard grins at me and winks. I try and ignore the prick but he won't shuffle off and so I ask him what the fuck his problem is and he says 'what, are yah scared?'
When I get back to Paul's old house my clothes are soaked and hang heavy on my shoulders. Face aching from the cold, legs barely standing, no more understanding with no feet left to stand on - when can I collapse? I need a drink but all Meredith has left in the house is a 10 dollar bottle of red wine covered in dust. That'll do good sir; down the hatch with the sting of a hatchet - all sour and sweet in my diseased veins, a wee spring in my step, if I may say so - and I do. I call Natasha again on the house phone but she still doesn't answer. I let it ring until the bitch on the other line tells me to hang up and try again. There's a ticking going on somewhere in the house, incessant like the cry of a bastard child tucked ever so sweetly in his demented crib. Tic Tic Tic. I find a hockey stick in the garage and bring it back into the house with me. My Nana's old wooden clock hangs behind the couch in the living room. I take the damn thing down off the wall and shatter it against the polished hardwood floor, and then I shoot the broken shards around like pucks with my hockey stick. I start laughing and fall onto the couch with the wine.
"You really can't beat this location," Paul says through a strained jaw. "Beautiful view, great neighbors - just the kind of peaceful type of place you two are looking for."
The newlyweds nod enthusiastically as Paul gently scratches the bandage running across his forehead, just above his left eye. The afternoon sky is beginning to clear as the sun streams down, spring feeling like a distinct possibility again after another long and harsh Ottawa winter.
"You're looking at a 15 minute drive downtown - 20 minutes max - and there are some really nice restaurants around here, no joke. You got a brand new sushi place that just opened up around the corner, Fishy Sushi I believe is the name, and an Italian joint called Isabella's not 10 minutes away - great chicken parmesan."
"You seem to really know the area well," the husband says.
"Yes, well, I used to live around here," Paul replies, holding back the urge to start screaming at the top of his lungs. 'All of this over some little bastard,' Paul thinks to himself, 'some spoiled, bastard kid who didn't have the decency or respect to appreciate all that I've done for him.' All Paul wanted now was to be done with it. Sell the goddamn house and be done with it. 'It took me years to find that house. It was perfect, the perfect fucking house right on the Ottawa River, right where I've always wanted to live, and now it's all gone.' His pride choking him; 'At least I made that bitch sign the prenup,' he smiles. This wasn't the first time he'd been through a divorce. It was always messy, these types of situations, but Paul was good at pretending (as a Real Estate Agent, you had to be).
"You've got Venetian blinds in this baby, brand new - both bathrooms have been redone in the past five years, hardwood floors - I'm talking real hardwood, none of this laminate b/s. Ah, here we go, you see - this is the place right here," Paul says, pointing with his finger out the passenger side window.
The roof comes into view first, the black crusted surface penetrating the sky - and the rest of the Victorian Masterpiece comes into sight, the large windows and high ceilings - perfectly symmetrical and appealing.
"There she is," Paul says.
"It really is magnificent," the wife says.
"Yes, I must say?" but before the newly married husband can finish, a 40' Flat-Screen TV comes flying through the giant living room window, landing in a splash of broken glass on the front lawn. There's a pause before Charlie comes running out the front door in his boxers with a hockey stick.
"Oh my," the wife gasps.
And he lashes out with the stick, hammering and bashing the busted TV into a million pieces. Charlie (completely consumed in his own insanity), dashes back inside the house with a deranged look of purpose on his face. Soon speakers, the coffee table, and a laptop follow through the shattered window. Charlie comes running back out again with the hockey stick in his hands, and Paul watches in horror as Charlie continues his rampage, slipping on a patch of wet grass and falling flat on his back where he thrashes about for a while before pulling his crumpled body up from the slush and destruction, staring blankly back at all of it.
"Maybe we should come back another time," the husband offers.
But Paul has stepped out of the car now, staring in disbelief at Charli
e, who has still failed to notice the car in the driveway.
"You little shit!" Paul screams. "You piece of fucking no-good little shit - you bastard - you stupid, dumb bastard!"
And turning now, finally noticing Paul, who is shaking his fists and stomping his feet like a child, Charlie grins from ear to ear as he rushes back inside the house, slamming the front door and locking it behind him. He runs as fast as he can upstairs to Paul's old room, grabbing his golf-bag and hoisting it up over his shoulder, he runs back downstairs and pitches the golf-bag out through the window, watching them come crashing down amidst the broken television, speakers, computer and table.
"You ruin everything!" Paul continues to scream, "You bastard kids ruin everything!"
Natasha is gone. No one knows where. Her dad openly blames me and the police have been asking a lot of questions. I had to go into the station and sit down with two detectives. They still don't understand how I found Cindy.
"What were you doing at that house?"
"I don't know, I just? I ended up there somehow."
"That's not very convincing, kid."
"We're trying to figure this all out," the other detective said.
"I am too," I said.
"There was another boy in the house - Jordan Spade - do you know anything about him?"
"Just that he was missing."
"Well, he's dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes, he was suffocated to death - we found a condom lodged down his throat, it was filled with heroine. They were using the kid to smuggle drugs, as a mule, and there may have been some human trafficking involved?"
"Please," I begged. "I don't want to hear anymore of this."
"He was 12 years old."
"Stop."
"But we can't," said the one, looking at the other. "This is what's happening."
Cindy says I'm her hero so the police are pretty much forced to let me go. Jordan is dead and Cindy is in rehab because she's addicted to heroin. She keeps having seizures, and a lot of her hair has been pulled or fallen out. On my way home I see spaceships floating in the sky; hovering saucers with blinking red lights that suck up children in the cold bitter night. Back at Paul's old house everything is quiet. No booze left either, and the wind pours in through the shattered living room window. There's a black hole on the ceiling in the kitchen, and I think somehow that everything is backwards. Like I've gone through this black hole, this vortex, so now I'm living in this alternate universe where children have fangs because women give birth to little monsters.
Outside spring is beginning to poke through the snow; all the colours more vibrant and alive. This virgin of the seasons all shrouded in innocence before that intrusive summer heat melts away the moulds, removes the layers - so to speak. There's a ticking inside my head - tic tic tic - just behind my eyes - tic tic tic - I wonder where Natasha is.
Nothing Seems Real.
The front door is sitting ajar when I get to Natasha's house. There's a smashed vase in the living room and the couch cushions are all scattered around the coffee table like someone was tossed off of it. Her roommates are still away for spring break and it smells like rotten food. I call out her name but the sadistic silence offers no reply - stifling my voice as the stranglehold tightens. I close my eyes
take
a deep
breath
No man is an island and I have nowhere left to stand.
'there's a man outside in the bushes'
I have to find her. There's a pounding inside my panicked skull - where is she? What have I done?
There's a red light blinking?
I start running around the house frantically. I look under the couch, tossing aside a lamp in the living room, watching it tumble to the floor. I look behind the curtains, behind the closet doors and under the sink - Natasha! - Into the kitchen, a picture of my smirking face on the fridge door, stuck on with a Corona magnet -
"NATASHA!" I scream.
I find her cell phone on the linoleum floor beneath the kitchen table and there's a half eaten salad all browned and rotten sitting in a blue bowl. Her cat is dead, lying limp against the door of the refrigerator with its tongue lolling out at me.
?there are noises outside filtering up through the midnight air, all razor thin against the frosted window. Natasha rolls over in her sleep and reaches out as the voices grow louder and more hostile. They're drunk and it's late on a Saturday night, but the two of us just stayed in, which was nice because we didn't have to worry about anything?
I add to the havoc and destruction, screaming out her name and finding my fist against her walls the only reply. I take one last look in the living room, knowing that it has nothing to offer, but desperate nonetheless.
?and she grabs a hold of my bare arm all pale in the silver light, still half-asleep but scared. And I say 'it's okay babe' and outside the voices pass and a car drives by, lights cutting through the black like two eyes, and I touch her soft hair, so silky against my coarse fingertips, snow pounding against the window?
Upstairs her bedroom is empty, the sheets all wrinkled and used sitting crumpled atop the bed (I can still see our imprints embedded against the mattress). In her bathroom I look at myself in the mirror; bulging red eyes jumping out of their sockets, quivering mouth and shaking fists. And just before I turn to leave, I notice the pregnancy-test box sitting empty beside the toilet.
I'm out with Dennis and Patrick, again. There are empty tables and music dripping from the walls of the bar as the two of them jabber on.
"A little landing strip is okay, just a hint of pubis - you know? Don't let me see no hippie bush down there."
The clock on the wall behind the bar is broken, which fills me with relief.
"Yeah, give that little speech to your mom, I've been picking her pubes out of my teeth for days."
"Fuck you man!"
"No fuck you."
No, Fuck me.
"Charlie, you're awfully quiet tonight."
"Couple things running through my head," I say.
"Ah, let me guess," Pat says, "a girl?"
I shake my head.
"Girls?"
"No."
I watch Den and Pat look at each other and laugh.
"It's not women this time, honestly," I say. "I mean girls are the easy part - as long as you reach the coitus?"
"You gotta make em' go?"
"? to keep em' cummin!"
I finish my drink and go take a piss in the stained bathroom while Dennis and Pat meander on about White Trash Night at the Cabin in a couple weeks. The girls get dressed up all slutty in tank-tops and cut-off shorts, and the guys get to wear wife-beaters and act like pieces of white-trash-shit. There's a message carved into the wall above the urinal that says 'I'm watching you HeHe' which really creeps me out. I zip my dick back into my pants and go back to the bar. There's a girl sitting in my seat talking with Pat and Den.
"Charlie boy! Look who it is!"
"Hope you've got a sweet tooth."
Candy swings around on the stool with her long brunette hair all curled and somber in the dim bar light, flashing her pretty little smile at me.
"Candy," I say, pulling up a stool beside her.
"How are you?" she asks.
"There are people watching me," I say, looking over my shoulder.
"What?"
"Why are you here?" I ask her.
"Oh, just out with a couple girlfriends. We were over at Pub 101 earlier but that place is totally dead - very lame."
"No," I say, "you don't understand."
Den and Pat stand up to go prowl the dance floor and I can tell they're both pretty drunk because Pat stumbles into a waitress who scowls at the two of them while they laugh. Candy is looking at me expectantly, but I have nothing relevant to say.
"So," she stalls, "are you having fun tonight?"
"Listen," I tell her, "you've gotta go - get outta here. There's something? wrong? with me? Or? I don't know exactly, bu
t please Candy, just go. You have to trust me."
"What are you talking about?" she asks, and I see that disturbed look in her eyes as she moves to get away from me.
"I'm not trying to scare you," I scramble, "you look beautiful tonight, no joke, and I'm sure your girl friends look beautiful too, you're all independent or whatever - but that's the problem. Nobody around here sees that. I mean they see you all dolled up but they don't see you. We don't deserve you Candy - none of us do. But you goddamn beautiful girls keep coming back and it's driving me insane! Please, tell me I'm a creep, call me an asshole or a pervert - a Monster!" but I can tell from her quivering lips that she won't say anything. Pat comes over and whispers something into her ear and the two of them shuffle out towards the dance floor. Candy looks back at me over her shoulder, and in that fleeting second she sees me for what I really am.
That night I'm dreaming about fucking Samantha and Natasha at the same time. And the two of them keep looking at each other and scowling; then they both look at me. The expression on their faces is a bleak sort of blankness - just nothing there at all - and my dick goes soft and when I can't fuck them anymore, they both start laughing at me, pointing with their tarantula fingers.
I wake up because there are noises coming from downstairs. Meredith is still away, won't be back for at least another week. I creep out of my bed and stand beside the closed bedroom door. I lean my ear up against the wood and listen. There's a rustling sound coming from downstairs - then it stops. I look back at the king sized bed, the unfurled covers and the lonely imprint of my body in the sheets. I just want to go back into bed. I just want to go back.