A Haunting of Words

by Brian Paone et al.

  She removed her coat from the hook and walked with Connie three blocks to Kildare’s Irish Pub.

  “Jackie’s joining us, is that okay?”

  “As long as Sue isn’t.”

  “Naw,” Connie said. “She’s home trying to pull the stick from her ass.”

  They both chuckled.

  At the pub, Connie ordered a round of beers while Jackie studied the short menu.

  “So, how’s old Nick treating you, Diane?” Connie asked.

  “Like the fumbling idiot from college,” Diane answered, sliding out of her trench coat.

  Jackie ordered onion rings and said, “Well, he treats all of us like shit. Nancy hated him. If she hadn’t––”

  “Jackie,” Connie scolded.

  “It’s true. He drove her to do it.”

  Connie flashed a shut-your-mouth-now look at Jackie. Diane took notice of the warning immediately. Connie’s attempt to silence Jackie only piqued Diane’s interest.

  “Who’s Nancy? Drove her to what?” Diane asked, biting into a steamy onion ring.

  “I guess the big mouth can finish spilling the beans.” Connie took a long sip of her beer as Jackie continued.

  “She worked at the firm before you. Lived in the same apartment too.”

  Diane waited for Jackie to continue while Connie blew a breath of disgust so hard, her bangs fluttered.

  “Old Nick rode her ass so hard, she shot herself.” Jackie paused. “In the bedroom of your apartment.”

  Diane choked on her beer. The foam of the alcohol stung her nostrils. Blinking away the burning sensation lingering in her throat, she set down the mug. Her trembling fingers, wet from sweat mixed with condensation from the glass, weakened her hold on the handle. She wiped her fingers on a napkin.

  “My God.” Diane twisted the paper napkin until the pub logo disappeared.

  “To be fair,” Connie interjected, “it wasn’t just Nick on her ass. The girl never got any sleep.”

  Jackie laughed. “Don’t tell me you still believe her bullshit ghost story? That girl was whacked. Probably shot up heroin on the bus with the junkies, for all we know.” She washed down a bite of onion rings with her beer.

  Diane fought the urge to wet her pants. She tightly crossed her legs and ripped the twisted napkin in half instead. “She said the apartment was haunted?” Diane looked to Jackie and then to Connie, searching for answers.

  “Never mind. Enough bullshit for one night. Look at my new Gucci handbag. I can’t afford it, but Visa said yes.” Connie flaunted her leather purse as Jackie ran her hand over the smoothness of the grain.

  “Ooh, love it,” Jackie cooed.

  Neither woman noticed as Diane sat motionless, tearing the last bit of the napkin and focusing her eyes straight ahead on nothing in particular. Waves of queasiness consumed her as the onion rings swirled in the warm frothy beer inside her gut. The discovery of the suicide in her apartment tightened her stomach into a twisted knot of dread.

  This Nancy killed herself in my bedroom. They would think I was crazy or drunk to ask if she mentioned a clown. Doesn’t matter, the clown killed her. I know it. Diane rushed from the table to the restroom to purge the contents of her stomach.

  If only getting rid of the clown was this simple, she thought as she splashed cool water onto her face.

  Diane was ready for Pepe that night when she returned home. She placed a baseball bat on the floor by her bed. When he arrived, she would give him a good smack over the head. She smiled as musical notes played louder under her bed. He was approaching and Diane was ready for combat.

  She raised the baseball bat high in the air, ready to smash his tiny green hat. Pepe, lithe from acrobat training, snatched it from her. Leaning into his purple box, he retrieved a pair of wooden bowling pins to juggle. Pepe tossed the bat and the two pins high in the air, alternating between catching and throwing them as he grinned at Diane, scoffing at her with his thick red lips.

  Diane stepped forward to interrupt his amusement, but he stowed the objects, including her bat, into the box and disappeared as the faint echo of his laughter hung in the air.

  The following night she planned to capture him with a rope. After she had tied him down, she would force answers from him. Who was he? Where did he come from? What did he want? She had purchased a sturdy hemp rope from the hardware store. If she could manage to tie his hands to prevent him from performing tricks, he would be unable to escape or evade her questions.

  Pepe made his appearance at 3:35 a.m. Instead of dragging his gags out of the purple box, he stood motionless in the corner of the room. He tempted her to make the first move. Diane seized the opportunity by lunging forward to slip the rope around his wrists.

  Pepe stepped sideways and jerked the rope from her hands. He pulled on the loop to expand it and began to swing the riata over his head as he marched in place. With graceful motions, he commanded the rope into repetitive figure-eight formations.

  If Diane had not harbored angriness toward the clown, she would have been impressed with his skill. She reasoned he must have come from the rodeo since it was the only place she had seen clowns demonstrate expertise with lassos. Pepe raised the loop above his head and then lowered it to a spinning circle to jump in and out before returning to the figure-eight routine.

  “I need sleep. Go away. Please, just go away.” She was too tired to shout at him. Her plea squeaked from her lips in a pathetic whimper.

  Pepe lowered the rope and frowned. He brought his white gloves to his face and motioned with his index fingers, creating imaginary trails of tears running down his cheeks.

  Finally, he understands.

  He reached into the breast pocket of his baggy blue suit for a hanky. After dabbing at his pretend tears, he offered it to Diane. Accepting his truce, she reached for the cloth. As she pulled it closer, she saw it was not a single kerchief. Much like the multi-colored scarves, the hanky was one of several white squares tied together by a long thread. The squares pooled from his pocket onto the floor.

  “That’s it. Get out. Get out. Get out now!” Diane shouted until her face matched the redness of the clown’s lips. His last prank reignited the rage she had felt toward him.

  He flung open the lid of the purple box. In his hand, he held a deck of playing cards. He bent the stack into an arc, held the cards inches from Diane’s face, and pressed down, propelling the deck into her face. She squinted while raising her arms in an attempt to dodge the sharp edges of fifty-four jokers slicing her face.

  Pepe roared in laughter until the music stopped and he vanished.

  Madame Pitre’s voice on the answering machine was music to Diane’s ears, even though she spoke in a confusing, heavy French accent. Astrid was still in San Francisco and would gladly meet Diane in two days to sign documents before returning to Toulouse.

  Diane beamed as she sent an email to Mr. Nicholson. In forty-eight hours, the law firm would have the controlling interests of Sirkuss, EURL. Diane would receive a bonus and, hopefully, a full-time position offer. She spent the remainder of the morning emailing the proposed meeting agenda to Mr. Nicholson for approval.

  She stopped by Jackie’s desk to ask her to lunch.

  Since Jackie could spare only an hour, they returned to the pub. Jackie ordered a coffee, while Diane ordered a glass of French wine. Hell, why not? I’m celebrating.

  “Tell me more about Nancy, the intern before me.”

  Jackie’s smile confirmed she was anxious to spill the details. “Connie liked her, I didn’t. I thought she was nuts. Even more so when she started in about the bedroom being haunted. I mean, really?”

  “What did she say exactly?” Diane asked in a forged nonchalant manner as she studied the menu and averted eye contact with Jackie. She tried her best to disguise the tone of anxiety in her question.

  Since Connie was not present to interrupt, Jackie was free to reveal the details. “You’re gonna love this.” Jackie licked her lips. “She said a clown appeared in he
r room.” Jackie pounded her fists on the table, roaring in laughter. Customers at nearby tables exchanged annoyed glances. “What the hell’s so scary about a clown?”

  “Exactly.” Diane forged a fake chuckle, urging Jackie to continue.

  Under different circumstances, the patrons’ focus on Jackie’s outburst would have been a cause of embarrassment for Diane. However, she ignored the diners’ reactions as she sought the answers only Jackie could provide.

  “Get this. He did magic tricks.” Jackie raised her hands with her fingers waving back and forth. “Ooo, spooky.”

  The scraping of chairs upon the wooden floor signaled the patrons’ return to their meals and ended the audience’s interest in the two women. Diane was at a loss to respond. Before she had a chance to say a word, Jackie continued.

  “So, I think the pressure from Nick, combined with some high-grade drugs she scored, pushed her over the edge. End of Nancy, end of story.” She took a sip from her coffee.

  “But why a clown? That’s not your typical ghost.”

  Jackie ordered a salad and a coffee refill. Diane ordered the same, avoiding the greasy onion rings from the last visit.

  “Don’t you get it? There is no reason. The girl was psycho, a drug addict. You’ve lived there for what, two months now? Has this scary clown appeared in your bedroom?”

  “Of course … not.”

  Diane sipped her wine and looked away.

  Diane checked her email and sighed with relief. Mr. Nicholson had approved the meeting agenda. He included a notation: Get her to sign it as is, and I will sign your bonus check.

  She retrieved the copies from her briefcase to review one last time as she practiced her pitch for Madame Pitre. Diane would use her polite, slow tone usually reserved for conversations with small children since Madame likely would not have a developed ear to understand Diane’s southern-American accent. Offering condolences to Mrs. Pitre while Diane dabbed at her eyes would convince Astrid of Diane’s genuine sympathy and concern.

  The expensive floral arrangement would be presented just as Astrid was poised to sign the second agreement. That distraction tactic had been contrived by Diane on her own. Nicholson, realizing the genius of Diane’s plan, instructed Sue to eavesdrop near the door. The timing of the delivery was paramount, as Sue would fuss over Madame Pitre in presenting the gift of beautiful native French lilies. Before Madame could utter any words of gratitude, Diane would thrust the pen into her hand.

  Diane closed her briefcase, satisfied everything was in order. She commuted home on the bus, relishing that the days of derelicts, drug addicts, and panhandlers as seat companions would soon end.

  Tension over the past two months had etched achiness into every muscle of her body. Tonight she would indulge in a hot bath, easing the exhaustion from her body before slipping into her silk gown for a night of rest. Tomorrow was an important day, the day her career would start in earnest.

  The fluffy comforter and feather-filled pillows enveloped her as she crawled into bed. She fell asleep within minutes, not bothering to listen to the radio, as she sometimes did.

  She was dreaming of shopping at Gucci with Connie for a new handbag when the clerk hurriedly shoved them out with no explanation. The saleswoman locked the dead bolt as lurid carousel music swirled in the air.

  Jackie turned to Diane. “Why is there a clown laughing behind her?”

  The musical notes repeated in loud tinny echoes waking Diane. She glanced under the bed. Pepe was riding a merry-goround, twisting balloons into animal shapes. When he saw Diane, he hopped from a grotesque half-horse/half-scorpion creature, motioning her to follow him to a performance stage lit by a large white spotlight.

  He pointed to a chest on the stage. He pushed it apart, separating the box into two sections, demonstrating both com-partments were empty. Shoving the halves together, he opened both lids, gesturing for her to climb into the rectangular box. He stood waiting while holding a shiny handsaw high in the air. The sharp blade, edged with serrated teeth, glistened in the stage’s light.

  Diane screamed. As she turned to flee, he threw banana peels in her path. Dodging some but tripping on most, she skidded on the slippery yellow skins until she lost her balance. The clown straddled her, his enormous shoes planted on both sides of her body. Each time she screamed, he parroted her voice while holding his hands over his ears.

  Diane glanced at the magician’s box. Pepe had transformed it into a coffin with DK inscribed on the lid. When Pepe’s screaming ended, he pressed on his nose, igniting a red glow. He waved farewell while wielding the handsaw and vanished.

  Diane looked at the clock: 2:47 a.m. She knew the clown, in reality, had only been in her room for one minute, yet with his ability to warp time, it felt like he had been there six hours or longer. The scheduled presentation with Mr. Nicholson and Madame Pitre was at eight o’clock. Mr. Nicholson had sent two reminder emails, both stating 8:00 a.m. sharp!

  She needed rest to think clearly in the morning. Against her better judgement, she swallowed a sleeping pill and turned the volume to Loud on her alarm clock after setting it for six o’clock. Snuggling back into bed, she covered herself with her downy white comforter and slept soundly, without any interruptions, for the first time in weeks.

  Diane revisited her dream of shopping at Gucci with Connie. The clown was no longer present, and the clerk ushered them into the boutique. They shopped for dresses, hats, handbags, and shoes. Laughing at the outrageousness of their credit card limits, they each bought two of everything. The alarm signaled the end of the dream, buzzing at 6:00 a.m.

  Diane yawned and hit Snooze. She had ten minutes yet to rest and then she would rise-and-shine for her important day. She snuggled deep under the blanket and dozed. After what seemed about five restful minutes, she was refreshed and ready to start her day. She reached for the clock to disarm the obnoxious buzz before it could sound.

  “Shit!”

  The clock face stated 10:07 a.m.

  Did I shut it off instead of hitting the snooze button? The realization she had overslept shocked her like a splash of ice water on her face. She scrambled out of bed and raced for the shower, yelling a steady mantra of damnit, damnit, damnit. The clown and his late-night antics were to blame, disturbing her for hours on the worst possible night of all nights.

  She raced into the office lobby. Sue glanced at Diane’s disheveled damp hair and twisted trench coat and then to the clock. Without a word, she handed Diane a message to see Mr. Nicholson. With her hands shaking, Diane read the short note and looked at Sue.

  Diane sighed. “Not good.”

  Sue shrugged her shoulders and returned to her computer. Diane’s heels resonated clicking sounds, growing softer as she walked the endless hallway toward her boss’s office. She knew she had no defense against being fired.

  What can I say? A clown appears under my bed each night and keeps me awake? She might as well admit she had a drinking problem and danced in the bars all night. That excuse was at least believable, if not sane.

  She rapped her knuckles against the open doorframe. William Nicholson looked up from his phone call and motioned for her to have a seat. He slammed the receiver when his conversation ended.

  “Missed the presentation with Madam Pitre this morning.”

  “Yes, sir.” The dog cowered with its tail between its legs.

  “You were hired to complete a task. You had one project. One goal to achieve. You failed miserably.”

  Diane’s throat was dry, and she concentrated on the bookcase behind him to avoid crying. Crying was not professional. She was not professional. She was a bad dog.

  “You leave me no choice––”

  Diane bolted out of his office before he could finish his sentence. This is not how today was supposed to go. Her opportunity to start her career had ended before it started.

  In her mad dash to flee, she nearly tripped over the copy machine repairman. She mouthed, Sorry, as she hesitated. Connie emerged from
her office to see Diane standing bewildered. Wanting to comfort her co-worker, Connie extended her arms toward her. Diane continued to sprint down the hallway, wrestling herself from Connie’s attempted hug.

  “Diane, please. Don’t rush out …” Connie’s voice trailed behind her.

  Sue nodded knowingly as Diane ran past the receptionist’s desk and outward through glass entry doors. Tears blurred Diane’s vision, sparing her from seeing the smirk spreading across Sue’s face as Diane escaped to the parking lot.

  She banged her fist against the bus shelter’s Plexiglass. “That clown!”

  She tightened the grip on her briefcase, remembering her parents giving it to her as a graduation gift. They, like Diane, held high hopes for her career. The briefcase held nothing of value now, only her unaccomplished goals and worthless documents.

  That goddamn clown. I’ll put a stop to him permanently.

  Diane lay in bed, replaying the day’s disastrous events, until nightfall. A clown had stolen her chance of obtaining a full-time position at a prestigious law firm. How could she ever explain that when she returned to Tennessee? There was no way to rationalize the situation. Taking revenge against the clown was her only recourse to save her reputation.

  She listened for the garish music to fill the room, signaling Pepe’s appearance. Her wait was short. The carousel music floated from beneath her bed and filled the room with the tinny sound of high-pitched notes.

  She felt a jolt. Thump. Thump. Pepe was replacing his large floppy shoes with water skis. His knees jammed into the box spring as he maneuvered his big feet. Diane felt the familiar sharp jabs against her spine as she glanced at the clock. 1:11 a.m. The clown had arrived early tonight.

  Pepe abandoned his attempt to wear the water skies and returned them to the purple box. He produced a large bunch of multicolored latex balloons. He withdrew a four-inch hatpin from his tiny green hat and flashed a grin at Diane. Pop. Pop. The hatpin pierced two balloons. He retracted his lips to expose his square teeth as he stabbed the pin repeatedly into the balloons. PopPopPopPopPopPop.