Novel

CHAPTER SEVEN

      There was a road she loved to travel, about five miles from the edge of the city, that swirled deeply through two high heavily forested hills, and then deeply fissured the earth, as if separating parts of one world from another for the express purpose of allowing her passage. The dark shadows of the branchy trees seemed to reach out in salute as she drove through, each a silent sentry giving pause and respect to a visiting dignitary.
      She felt this way without fail, even from the backseat of the taxicab she had hailed from the gym, paying the fare with money taken once again from her estranged husband's bank account, after she had been kidnapped, assaulted and violated in ways which her mind was powerless to conceive.
      She looked up into the trees and kept her eyes wide open against the sun's intermittent interrogation. The cab was hot and the smell of old cigarettes infiltrated her nose with a sense of stale enterprise. She was a woman going about her daily life, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face as she traveled through mystic channels, all the while feeling the hard steel of the .38 pressing into her ankle inside her leather boot.
      She had never felt such exoneration.
      It was a disquieting feeling, finding herself inside sensations that she had never attached to herself. The edges were muted and flexible. Inside the hollow, she moved about with her eyes closed, her arms outstretched before her, desperately seeking anything which might be familiar enough to recognize, something significant enough to hold onto. But her hands came back more empty at having grasped at nothing than if she had kept them folded in her lap and reached for nothing in the first place.
      She was a woman who had been pushed beyond her own comfortable line, forcibly challenged to test her own limits not by treaty or plea, but by threat, by the sharp edges of reality's dull blade. She had been infected as if by tetanus so caustic was the poison.
      She watched the shadows flicker light over her hands, playfully sketching paths across the long lifeline on her palm. She held her hand close before her face and traced the line carefully with her finger. Stretching her palm out wide, she tried to see the beginning and end of this line at the same time, but found it impossible to do so unless she tilted her hand slightly. The line began at the top of her hand, near the knuckle of her pointer finger and gracefully curved over the top, where it creviced deep inside her hand, separating the space between her thumb and fingers as if by meaning. "It is much like this road," she thought and looked out the window.
      She visualized her breath becoming part of the air, saw that expiration feeding life into trees and mountains. She could close her eyes and trace the voyage from God to universe to country town. She could see the road curve into a cluster of strangulated avenues and outlets, each street winding her life into the existence of all other things, like an artery mingling her blood into concrete and orchids. Following the path from the great height of steep mountain roadsides down low into the alleyways of city streets, she sat up boldly and closed her eyes, and saw her existence in that road, merging from the highway where the taxi carried her, into the long and graceful lines of her skin, as if life traveled beginning and end into the palm of her very own hand.
      She suddenly remembered laughing with Aaron a long time ago. They had been in the cafe across the street from his school, having lunch before heading out to a doctor's appointment. She could not remember the sound of it. She could not remember the laughter. She could see the table--round, covered with a red-checkered cloth, set with heavy plates and mismatched glasses. The center of the table contained two laminated menus held upright by two rooster bookends. Someone, possibly a high-school student, had written in blue ink on the tablecloth Trina gives good head.
      She could remember the story Aaron had been telling, about a boy and a girl who had put on each other's clothes at lunchtime and entered the cafeteria to the sound of uproarious applause, but the sound of their laughter escaped into a thick fog. She tried hard to remember it, but what came to her instead was the sound of bells at St. Anastasia's Church after Sunday Mass.
      She remembered the first time she had heard Aaron laugh and smiled through her tears. It had been biblical, as if tiny cherubs had flown from his vocal chords and fluttered about the room like the individual notes of God's own orchestra.
      "Twenty-two dollars," said a voice.
      She was startled to find herself still in the backseat of the cab, idling in front of her own apartment. She fished out a twenty dollar bill and five ones and handed them over the seat soundlessly, without making eye contact, and hurridly exited the cab, as if danger lurked even there.
      She was surprised to find her apartment strange and uninviting when she opened the door and stepped in, hoping to find herself at home. Instead, she looked around unsure, thinking for one panicked second that she had gained access to a neighbor's apartment and that the tenant would soon appear around a corner and be afraid of her.
      Standing at the door and listening to the sound of her own breathing, she hastily named the things she saw, going over in her mind where each item was purchased, the names of the delivery men who brought the items up, and the feeling she had when she decided upon each piece. It had always been important to her, that emotional attachment to things that would take up living space next to her, and often she sat quietly in her livingroom and glanced at these items as if watching them being born and growing up through the pages of an old photo album.
      Her reflection in the old mahogony mirror she had purchased from the block auction near Mel's restaurant mocked and sputtered as she walked by. Quickly she looked in and acknowledged with a smirk that she had changed nothing about herself. She had purchased new clothes, had bought an entire apartment full of furniture at upscale shops, had painstakingly chosen antiques and wall coverings, picked out the perfect color of area carpets and lamp shades, had lost weight and took up jogging, and she was still the same dumpy, middle-aged housewife with no passion looking out from that mirror.
      A sharp knock on the door startled her so much she knocked over a vase on the kitchen counter. It rolled in circles on the countertop until she reached for it, when it then slid off the counter and smashed into pieces on the kitchen floor.
      She delighted in the noise of breaking glass and felt if she had not been required to answer the door, she might break every piece of glass in her apartment. She flung the door open without looking through the peep hole and stood angrily before Mel, who faced her with a look of surprise and crossed her arms.
      "You didn't even ask who it was," Mel said.
      Laine walked away, leaving the door open, fixed herself a drink from a decanter at the small bar in the living room and then settled herself on the couch, tense and prepared for whatever was coming.
      Mel entered, locked the door behind her and then fixed herself a drink as well. She took a long drink, looked at her watch and then fixed another. "It's 11:00 a.m."
      Laine toasted her with her own glass. "Yes, we're getting a late start."
      Mel smiled. "Who knows where we'll be by noon."
      "Hopefully anywhere but here," Laine mumbled into her glass.
      They were quiet for a few moments as Mel looked around the apartment, taking in the expense of the furnishings and mentally calculating the cost. "Laine, you've spent a lot of money."
      "It's none of your business."
      "No," Mel said and sat down. "I guess it's not."
      "I'm sorry, Mel. I don't know what to say or how to act. I don't know how to feel."
      "You feel angry."
      "Yes, and no. I feel stupid."
      "It wasn't your fault, Laine."
      "It was my fault."
      Mel said nothing.
      "I am this protected, sheltered housewife traipsing through this world like there was no danger. What the hell was I thinking?"
      "You weren't thinking, Laine. How were you to know these things went on out there?"
      "I was a sitting duck. I was wide open."
      "Laine, she took advantage of you. She is to blame, not you."
      "I feel so mad, Mel. I feel like my anger could level this fucking building." She rose and poured another glass of whiskey, refilling Mel's half-empty glass as well. "I feel violated and demoralized."
      "It's not your fault." Mel looked at her for a moment and softly swept away a strand of hair that had blown across the bridge of Laine's nose, gently pushing her hair away from her face, and then moved in and kissed her on the mouth.
      Laine's first instinct was to grab Mel and pull her in, but she stilled herself against the urge and let the electricity of Mel's lips burn a vibration against her skin. She felt the hot air of Mel's neck stir up and swirl around her face. She was so still, Mel thought for a moment that Laine had not wanted the kiss, had only been waiting for Mel to break away and was perhaps only kissing her back because she was so submissive she could not refuse, but she felt Laine's lips soften against hers, felt the slightest movement to the side as Laine hummed her pleasure with a delightful wimper.
      Mel stood up and placed her glass on the counter. "I'm gonna go," she said and zippered her jacket. "This is the last thing I want to happen right now."
      Laine said nothing.
      "Please call me later, Laine. I need to know you're okay."
      "You'll be at the restaurant?"
      "Until about 9:00 tonight, then I'll be at the club."
      "Babylon?"
      "No," Mel answered and busied herself with locating her keys.
      "You're going to that place?"
      She smiled slightly. "Laine, that place is my home. I've been going there for more than a decade. I've known people there my entire life. I have...someone there. I know you don't understand."
      "I do understand," Laine said and stood up. She fixed the collar on Mel's jacket and looked into her eyes. "I trust you..."
      "Don't," Mel said, flinching slightly.
      "You're so sweet," Laine whispered.
      "Laine, you don't know anything about me."
      Laine smiled and moved in closer. "I think I do."
      "You don't," Mel said and moved away slightly.
      "I think I would know if you were like that. And I don't think you are. I think you're searching for something there, or running away from something..."
      Mel quickly grabbed Laine's hand and bent it behind her back. "I hate to do this, Princess, while you're so fresh from such an unpleasant experience, but someone needs to drive this lesson home."
      Laine sucked in her breath and held it, feeling a pleasure well up inside her that she had never known she was capable of. She felt her eyes roll back into her head as her left knee gave out and she nearly toppled over. For a moment she didn't know if she were standing up or falling, if she were seeing what was before her, or if she were seeing nothing, and the floor swayed back and forth beneathe her.
      Mel shoved her forcibly against the wall, still holding her arm behind her back. She used her foot to kick Laine's legs apart and slipped her leg between them. She grabbed a handful of Laine's hair gently, as if caressing her, but pulled tightly as she spoke for emphasis. "I am like that, Laine. I am not kind or sweet. And I am the last fucking person you should trust," Mel said and slid her hand down the front of Laine's jeans. "You think Kelly was bad? You move your ass one fucking inch and I'll rip into you right now."
      Mel stood motionless, holding Laine's head back by the hair and closed her eyes. Her breathing became shallow and controlled and her body tensed slightly, as if preparing to follow through with her threat, and willing Laine's body to offer the invite.
      Despite her desire, Laine froze. She felt her breath might be coming too quickly, might be causing her body to shake and rock. She felt her neck muscles tense up as she slowed the hyperventilations. "Oh God," she breathed.
      "God won't help you here. And you better fucking watch yourself out there too, bitch, or someone's gonna open you up asshole to appetite. Are you gettin' me?"
      She nodded slightly, closed her eyes and remained tense against the wall even as she heard Mel leave and close the door behind her. After a few moments, her knees gave out and she crumbled to the floor.
      Her sobs were a welcomed sound. She was grateful that she could still feel, that her emotions had not been hollowed out by the day's never-ending battle to rip her to shreds. She let them tear through her, prayed that they might slice her in half. Gradually she became more focused on the sound of her cries than the meaning behind them. The echoing spasms became mocking and sinister, and at one point, she found herself smiling between them, even while the rage and fear ravaged her normally quiet and numbed composure.
      She didn't know how long she had slept, but the sky had purpled and her apartment was dark when she woke up. She had casually acknowledged that she was hungry, but found herself changing into her jogging clothes the next moment, moving with such precise motions, it was as if she had been programmed for this time long ago. Her life had led her here. Every word she had ever spoken, every step she had ever taken, had been done with deliberate calculation to lead her to the exact moment when she arranged her sweat shirt carefully over the bulky steel of the .38. She tied her cross-trainers deliberately, as if just learning how the strings crossed and looped. Her mind became blank. There was no longer an action that had any thought or meaning attached.
      On the street, she ran faster and stronger than she ever had before. She cut paths into dark streets that she would have never walked during daylight hours. She ran hard and loud, not caring about stares or whistles as she passed the bums and derelicts that populated the city's shameful and polluted side streets. She ran until a familiar cramp in her side made her stop and bend over. She could breathe through the cramp, inhale enough oxygen to feed her body's incessant need for blood and air, but she had run far enough. She would need her energy for the run home. She would need all of it to run home fast.
      With a confidence she had never possessed before, she walked arrogantly across the street and stepped into the cool air of a small convenience store. She walked purposely to the back of the store, grabbed a bottle of water from an encasement between soda and beer, and approached the cashier with a smile. "Hi," she said.
      "Hey," the man said. "How ya doin'?"
      She smiled broadly. "I'm doing…wow, ya know, I'm doing really, really good."
      "Good," he said, nodding slightly. "That's a dollar five."
      "A dollar five," she repeated and shook her head. "For water."
      "Bottled water," he corrected. "This is spring water."
      Her laugh was flirtatious. "Of course. I drink nothing else, you know. Except Scotch."
      After a moment of silence, the clerk repeated, "It's a dollar five."
      "That's too much," she said.
      His forehead wrinkled. "It's a lot for water."
      "It's all too much," she said, smiling.
      "Uhm…"
      She casually removed the .38 from it's holder beneath her sweater and held it to his forehead. She imaged the feel of metal against flesh and a wave of desire washed over her. They stared at each other for several moments. For Laine, the moments no longer had any meaning beyond the importance of the .38's mouth sucking sweat and nerves off the store clerk's face. "What does this feel like?" she asked with a curious tone, as if asking him to sample the difference between a polyester fabric and a Chinese silk.
      He swallowed.
      "I mean, does it feel metallic? Or does it just feel like fate?"
      He swallowed again and his pupils constricted. "Uh," he said and seemed to recall a lesson from a self-defense course. "What does it feel like to you?"
      "It feels good," she said and licked her lips. "It feels like a big dick in my hand."
      His mouth dropped open.
      "It feels like fornication," she said and smiled. "It's almost like I'm fucking you, isn't it?"
      "Yes," he agreed.
      "But we both know you're not gonna get kissed, don't we?"
      "Yes."
      She stood unmoving, as if enjoying the moment so exquisitely, there was nothing else she needed to do. The pistol slid against the man's sweating flesh and she moved it slowly back to its original resting place, reconnecting the intersection of their lives to a specific point in time. "What's your name?"
      "Mike," he answered quickly.
      She laughed uproariously. "Oh, that's precious. You married, Mike?"
      "Yes," he said.
      "Do you fuck your wife?"
      "Yes?"
      "Do you fuck her often?"
      He stared at her blankly.
      "Is she happy, Mike?"
      He nodded.
      "Yeah," she said and stepped away. "That's what you think."
      She bolted out of the store, hit a flat run half way down the street and sprinted like a colt that had just perfected his balance on new legs. She jumped puddles and smashed through gates without stopping. She went out of her way to dash down alleyways, just to scale walls and chain-link fences. By the time she reached her apartment, she felt capable of Olympic potential.
      Too exhilarated to go inside, she half-walked and half-jogged a few more blocks, taking in the sights of the city which she had been too blind to see before. She loved the brownstones and the apartments above stores, where occasionally you could see the faces of artists and models and waitresses peering down from the tiny windows of their lives.
      "Hello," a woman said as she passed.
      "Hello," Laine said quickly, taken by surprise that someone had actually seen her. She turned to watch the woman walk to the corner and place letters into a mailbox.
      As she turned, she nearly collided with a man navigating the street for safe crossing. "Oh," she said. "Excuse me."
      "S'okay," he said quickly and smiled. "Have a good night."
      She felt her forehead wrinkle with confusion. People can see me? she thought, and then laughed. "Of course they can see me!" she said out loud, startling an elderly gentleman coming out of a dry cleaning store. She smiled quickly in his direction and then laughed again as he cautiously walked a large circle around her.
      Being thought insane felt like a compliment, so powerful was the importance it gave her. She thought suddenly of her mother rotting to death inside the dark confines of a lunatic asylum, screaming her terror out between the cold bars on the windows and giving her passion over nightly to a thick, medicinal pacification. She remembered the day her mother had been taken away, how they had to fight her and strap her down. She remembered the screams and threats that snaked out of her mother's tongue, how she had used those words to fight them as much as she used her own body. She remembered praying that her mother would stop, not fight any more, and let them take her, let them have her.
      Laine slowed her pace and felt the disintegration of her own spirit. She could feel her disappearance coming as if a black plague loomed large and ominous above her head, as if a bony and decrepit hand descended from the cloud and wrapped around her like a malignant clutch. She closed her eyes and nestled into its familiarity as if she had been born from it, as if her true mother had come home.
      She remembered her mother fighting them all the way down, swinging and cursing with such ferocious righteousness, she felt she might be witness to some reverent instruction.
      She had never seen such a fight, not before or since, and felt ashamed that the lesson had taken so long to sink in.
      Running again, she followed the direction of her instincts, not caring where she ended up, believing herself capable of running nonstop for the rest of her life, until she found herself across the street from Babylon, concealed just outside the glow of the alley's only streetlight.
      It was a good resting place. She was hidden well inside the entryway of an abandoned store, had a place to sit on the stoop, was able to watch the front door and side door simultaneously, and was filled with a sense of justified revenge five miles wide.
      It didn't matter if it took two hours or two years. It didn't matter to her how long she would have to sit and wait. She had learned her mother's lesson. She had learned what it would take to get her life back. She would have to fight. She would have to go down swinging all the way. And she would start by reclaiming the power other people had taken from her.
      She flinched suddenly and corrected herself. "No," she said aloud, her voice echoing slightly. "I will reclaim the power I gave to other people."
      In the dark, she breathed in the pestilent cloud that hung above her, inhaled the venomous potential and filled her lungs with it, and visualized her soul expanding out wide enough to shelter such a sinister capacity. "They took your passion, Mom," she whispered and wiped an errant tear away with impatience. "They took your fight and your life and your faith."
      "And then I shamed you by giving mine away without so much as a whimper. I just gave it away."
      For a moment the tears came one after the other without pause, but she stood and jumped up and down. There would be no more tears. Now was the time to fight. Now was the time to reclaim all she had lost.
      She was tired of putting bandages over the gaping wounds in her soul. She was tired of looking for meaning in books, in fabrics, in sex or hobbies or love. She spent her entire life alleviating the symptoms of a disease that rested deep within her, because she was too afraid to stare into the oozing sore that caused such massive destruction.
      There would be no more covering up the source of her pain.
      Now was the time to stitch up that bitch where it bled.