A decade before, he might have tried to avoid singing altogether, ignoring the enigmatic demand in his head. But after years of trying to disregard these demands, he now knew better. Never in his life had any of them simply faded away. Each and every one had demanded and ultimately received satisfaction.
Karaoke would be no different.
Thankfully, the audience had been as lackluster and disinterested in him as they were in the previous performers. Scanning the DJ’s list, he had chosen George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone,” singing it out of key and at times terribly out of tempo, unable to keep up with the multiple B sounds in lines containing “B-B-B-Bad.” Despite his poor performance, the pressure lifted as he sang, word by word, until he had reached a state of glorious equilibrium by the end of his performance.
Milo had hoped that karaoke would be a onetime demand, a spur of the moment requirement based more on availability than anything else, but less than a week later he had awoken on a rainy Sunday morning with the need again and was soon frantically searching for a bar or nightclub that offered the service. He had been forced to wait three days before singing at a country-and-western bar in Granby and had thought his head would explode by the time he took the stage with his rendition of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” For months, whenever the need arose, he would scramble to find a bar or nightclub with the next available karaoke night, inventing excuses usually pertaining to clients in order to slip away from Christine, until one day he stumbled upon Jenny’s and her open-mike policy. From then on, whenever the need struck, he would make his way here.
As Milo took the stage, Carmine, Pete, and a rail-thin woman named Rosy at the end of the bar all turned to watch the performance. Though Milo had initially sung a variety of songs to meet the demand, the choice of song was taken away from him a couple years ago when he heard the song “99 Luftballons” on the radio during the station’s Way Back Weekend. The German version of the song had made it to number two on the Billboard charts in the summer of 1984, even before the English remix was released, and Milo remembered the song well. Like most Americans, he had not memorized the German lyrics of the song (or even the English ones for that matter), but after hearing Nena’s song that day in the car, he suddenly felt the need not only to memorize the words but to perform the song as well, the first time a specific song had been associated with the demand for karaoke.
That association had yet to cease, so for the last two years, each time he performed on Jenny’s stage, it was in German, singing the one-hit wonder that was emblematic of the cold war of the 1980s. He often wondered if the image of the German U-boat commander in his mind, or his preference for German pop music, had somehow influenced the choice of song.
He carried three extra copies of the song in the glove compartment of his car (and had taped one to the bottom of the passenger seat in Christine’s Jetta) in case the one that he had given to Jenny two years ago became scratched or he found himself out of town and suddenly in need of the music.
If it had to be just one song, Milo didn’t think “99 Luftballons” was a bad choice. Since the song was sung in German, few people understood the words (including Milo, who had memorized the pronunciation but not the meaning), and certainly no one in Jenny’s. Therefore, expectations were low. As he opened with the somewhat dramatic line—
Hast Du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für Dich
Von 99 Luftballons
—he was often greeted with curious and amused smiles but little more. Milo had visited many karaoke bars and had seen the people who took their performances to heart, closing their eyes and belting out a Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston tune as if performing in Giants Stadium. No one enjoyed watching a hack posing as a professional, failing to reach the high notes and missing many of the others as well. But when Milo sang “99 Luftballons,” people might laugh at the oddity of the choice, but more often than not they would simply ignore his performance, finding it difficult to invest themselves in a song sung in a foreign language.
After his fourth or fifth performance of the song, the regulars at Jenny’s had come to expect it. They teased him at first for choosing the same song over and over again, and a guy named Dick had threatened to “pop him one” if he sang it again, but Jenny stepped in, threatening to cut Dick off, and eventually Milo’s performance had become a staple in the bar. It saddened Milo to know that this was a world from which Christine was excluded. Though he would hardly characterize any of the Jenny’s regulars as friends, he had gotten to know these people over the years and had shared in their life stories.
Pete was the New England backgammon champion who collected soda bottles in his spare time. He had lost almost twenty-five pounds over the past year but still weighed more than three hundred and fifty pounds. He spit when he laughed and had a bum knee, and, not surprisingly, he had been a bachelor his entire life.
Carmine was a retired barber who now spent his days gardening and watching Italian television by satellite. His wife was a fine cook who would sometimes send her husband to the bar with meatballs for Jenny, though she herself had never set foot in the place.
Rosy was a down-on-her-luck divorcée with an eating disorder and an affinity for vanilla vodka. She looked much older than her forty-one years and worked part-time as a cashier at the sex shop down the street. Of all the regulars, she was the one who Milo knew the least. Speaking to Rosy always made him sad.
These people, and the half dozen others who inhabited the bar on a regular basis, had seen Milo sing hundreds of times, had shared untold numbers of drinks with him, and had become fixtures in one another’s lives. They knew that Milo was a Yankees fan, that he liked soda better than beer, and that his hands always shook during the first few bars of “99 Luftballons,” no matter the audience. They knew a little about Christine, even less about his clients, and nothing about the demands that often ruled his world, but they were in his life nonetheless. They were people occupying the space and time of his existence, and yet Christine knew nothing about them or this place.
She had never even heard him sing.
Though they had been together for years, Milo never felt as if he was finished with his attempts to impress Christine. Though they were husband and wife, part of Milo always felt as if he was still trying to earn her love and respect, and as such, he kept the more embarrassing parts of his existence away from her. In short, Milo had never felt cool enough for Christine. Between his job as a home health aide, his Wednesday-night role-playing games, his moped, and the incessant demands in his head, he had never felt like he measured up to men like Thick-Neck Phil and their prestigious jobs and mirrored sunglasses and top-down Jeeps. He wasn’t sure if this was Christine’s fault or his own, but he was certain that his wife would not find his karaoke pastime amusing, and for that reason, more than any other, he had kept it a secret from her, like so many other things.
No one danced during Milo’s performance. With only three regulars around the bar and a couple eating lunch at a table by the door, he hadn’t expected anyone to. If there were people dancing, Rosy might occasionally join in the fun, but Carmine and Pete left the dancing for others.
This didn’t bother Milo a bit. As he sang the song, the pressure gradually decreased until his mind was clear again. And for the short time that he was onstage, he was happy. He sang because he had to, but Milo also sang because he loved to.
Once finished, he downed his two sodas quickly and headed for the door, saying goodbye to Jenny as he left.
“You take care of yourself, Milo,” she said, turning to refill Carmine’s mug.
“Always do,” he assured her.
Two thoughts filled his mind as he crossed the parking lot to his car:
Follow Edith Marchand’s advice and watch the tapes.
Find out if Thick-Neck Phil was spending the evening with Christine.
He thought that he could do both without much difficulty.
chapter 15
Thick-Neck Phil’s Jeep was still sitting in the driveway when Milo returned.
It was nearly eight o’clock when he rolled his Honda Civic down Wilson and parked on the street, four doors down from his home. The Hires were hosting another Sunday-night cocktail party, so Wilson Road was lined with vehicles. By parallel parking between a minivan and a station wagon, Milo hoped that his car would blend in nicely. The sun had officially set just moments ago, dipping the tree-lined street into a dusky twilight.
From his vantage point, he had a full view of the driveway (including the Jeep) and side door to the house. Two kitchen windows, a family room window, and a single upstairs window were also visible from his spot on the road. The kitchen and family room lights were on but the second floor appeared dark.
Before driving over to Wilson, Milo had stopped by the apartment to walk Skywalker and pick up the video camera. Grabbing the last of the tapes, his notepad, and an extra battery, he planned on spending the evening in his car, watching Freckles on the camera while ascertaining the nature of Christine and Thick-Neck Phil’s relationship.
Admittedly, Milo felt a bit like a stalker, sitting in the dark, keeping watch over his wife’s movements, but he felt he had no choice. Unlike the demands of jelly jars and karaoke machines, this was a self-imposed need. If Christine was involved with another man, he had to know.
Most important, he had to know why.
Milo had begun to wonder if the care and planning that had gone into keeping his demands hidden had not been as effective as he had once hoped. Perhaps Christine had finally seen through his layers of concealment and discovered the truth about the man to whom she was married. Maybe not the specifics—the karaoke, the jelly jars, and the bowling—but the overall package of abnormality and strangeness that he couldn’t help but be.
When Milo first considered marrying Christine, after several less-than-casual hints from Christine and her friends, he had been worried, terrified really, that the closeness and intimacy of a marriage would eventually lead to the uncovering of his secrets. With friends and even his family, Milo had been able to maintain a safe distance, creating a cushion of privacy that kept his secrets safe and secure. But in moving in with Christine and ultimately marrying her, he feared that this would no longer be possible, and in short order, she would come to realize the oddities and idiosyncrasies of the man whom she had once thought of as normal. It had only been through the process of dating Christine, the development of strategies to deal with the demands, and especially the freedom associated with his job that had allowed him to risk the closeness of matrimony. But maybe now all that planning and preparation and concealment was unraveling, and as a result, Christine had been drawn to a new man, one who did not need to chew on plastic baby toys or pop open pressure seals.
Knowing if Thick-Neck Phil was in the house was necessary to Milo in the sense that any man would want to know if his wife was fucking another guy, but even more important, Milo wanted to know how and why this man had managed to infiltrate his life.
He was happy to have the video camera sitting in his lap. Had he not brought it along, he might have been tempted to creep up to the house and peer in a window. Even with the prospect of Freckles waiting, he was tempted.
Instead, he inserted tape number four and hit play. A pale glow filled the interior of the Civic as a blue screen flickered to the image of Freckles’s face. Milo knew immediately that something was wrong. The camera was in her lap again, wobbly and slightly out of focus. Her cheeks were red, her eyes wet, and she was sniffling. It appeared as if she had stopped crying just moments before.
I tried to tell them tonight. I went to Mira’s mother’s house for dinner and thought I could do it. But I just couldn’t. Mrs. Singh lost her husband two years ago, and now she’s lost Mira. How could I tell her that it was my fault?
And it was my fault. I don’t give a damn what anyone tries to say. I know that I didn’t push her off that horse, but I was supposed to be riding that day. I was supposed to be riding Scarlet the day that Mira died. There. I said it.
It was supposed to be my training session that morning, but I had stayed out late the night before. I knew I had to get to the barn early the next morning, but I knew that Mira would cover for me if I called. That was Mira. God, if she had only ignored my phone call. So now what? How am I going to tell Mrs. Singh that I was supposed to be on that horse? That I was supposed to be running Scarlet through those jumps. That I was supposed to be in the saddle when he refused on the last turn. It’s me who should be dead right now. I know it’s not my fault that she died, but it was my fault that she was on that horse, and that’s close enough. I didn’t do the killing, but I threw her in front of the train.
Freckles began crying again, and before the tears had time to run down her cheeks, her hand reached out and stopped the tape.
When it resumed, it appeared that little time had passed. Freckles had regained her composure, but the camera was still in her lap, and she was still wearing what appeared to be a simple yellow dress or perhaps a tank top. Eyes still red, but not as teary as before, and it appeared that she had blown her nose.
I haven’t been able to set foot in the barn since that day. Josh keeps calling, asking if he can do anything and wondering when I’ll be back, but what am I supposed to tell him? Does he think that I’m going to just climb back onto a horse after my best friend was killed?
Tears came again, but this time Freckles didn’t switch off the camera. Milo watched them cascade down her cheeks and splash somewhere off screen. She was weeping now. Just pouring out tears and staring past the camera, at some place in the distance. Milo wanted to take this moment, this break in dialogue, to jot down a few notes, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman on the screen. His mind was screaming with details, from Mira’s last name (Singh) to Freckles’s occupation (horse trainer). All of these thoughts flooded his mind, yet he held them off, consumed by the desire to make things better for Freckles, to assure her that her friend’s death was an accident. He wanted to tell her that life is full of those what if moments, and that we have no control over them. That it’s okay to take a day off. People stay out late. Friends cover shifts. Bad things happen. More than anything, Milo wanted to reach out and take Freckles by the shoulders, stare into her blue eyes, and say, “Listen to me. It’s not your fault, damn it,” throwing in the damn it because he knew it’s how Freckles would’ve said it. Then he would pull her close and let her cry until she could cry no more, even if it took until morning.
Unable to do all these things, he sat in the dim light of his car and watched her weep.
Finally, Freckles reached up, releasing the camera from her grasp and momentarily shifting it off her face in order to wipe her eyes again and take a few deep breaths. In that moment, Milo could see that she was in her bedroom. The quick blur of a bureau topped with a mirror, a chair strewn with clothing, and a partially opened closet door reminded Milo to refocus on the task at hand. The still frames of that five-second glimpse into her bedroom might provide clues to Freckles’s identity. As the camera returned to her face, Milo noted the tape number and time on his legal pad, finishing just as Freckles started speaking again.
Thank God I have someone to talk to. Honestly, I’ve had my doubts, and more than once, I’ve thought about quitting this whole damn thing. Starting a video diary on the day that your best friend dies seemed a little crazy at the time, but talking about things has helped. It sounds crazy … there’s no way I’ll be posting this online now, but still, it’s as if someone has been listening. Constant Listener. Always there when I press record.
The screen went blue and Milo pressed pause, leaving him with the remarkable feeling that Freckles had been speaking directly to him. He knew it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t have known that someone would ever find and watch her tapes, but still, it was as if she had been addressing him, as if he were her Constant Listener.
Before resuming the tape, Milo took a moment to check
the house again. Thick-Neck Phil’s Jeep was still in the same place, and the downstairs lights remained on. No shadows moved within the home and there was still no sign of his wife. Content as he could be that things remained status quo, he returned his gaze to the camera and pressed play.
When Freckles returned to the screen, she was no longer on the bed. She was in the bed. Monkey pajamas, hair pulled back, pillows set behind her, a single lamp providing a shadow-filled illumination of the bed. She had assumed a similar pose one time before, when relating the story of Sherry Ferroni. This made Milo hopeful that she was about to share something equally important.
He was not disappointed.
chapter 16
I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about Tess.
Tess Bryson.
Freckles released the camera for a moment, dipping the lens into a pillow, and when she retrieved it, she was sitting up straighter, with an indefinable purpose to her posture, as if she was readying herself for something important. Something official.
Tess Bryson. I think about her a lot, usually more than once a day, but ever since Mira died, she’s been on my mind constantly. I’ve never told anyone about Tess. Not one single person. Not her parents. Not my friends. Not the police. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken about her out loud.
God. Tess Bryson.
Me and Tess were in sixth grade together. Best friends since first grade, when Mrs. Laverne sat us next to each other. It was our last year in elementary school, the year before I stopped being cool. It was the year that Mrs. Dubois went out on maternity leave with a few months to go in the semester and Mrs. Lavallee had taken over the class. So the last few months of school were a complete waste of time. We would work on art projects all day while Kim Maynard and Charity Dumars played tapes of Blondie and Joan Jett. I can still sing all the words to “The Tide Is High” to this day. They must’ve played that fucking song a thousand times.