“But wait,” she sobbed, “there’s more!” Her voice mimicked the late-night insomniac preferred infomercials. “As if fucking a girl your age wasn’t the least he could do, he killed her,” she said as the phone dropped to her hip again.
“He what,” Stephanie roared.
“He choked her to death! He fucking strangled a little girl to death,” her words drowned in an airy sorrow. The rage returned almost as immediately as it stopped.
“After he stuck his filthy little prick inside her!” The phone returned to her cheek. “Let me ask you something, Bruce. Did you come inside her? I’m sure as fuck you did. I guess it was me then, huh? I can’t get your dick hard, so you fucked… you fucked…”
Chase clapped his hands over his ears. That and his keening proved futile.
Linda dropped the phone to the floor. It bounced once, twice, and twirled to a stop.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered through her trembling fingers. “You fucked Stephanie. You fucked our daughter.”
Mouth agape, Stephanie recoiled. “No, he didn’t, you stupid bitch! What the hell’s the matter with you,” Stephanie said and stomped away.
“Get back here, you little slut,” Linda said and shoved into Chase. She caught her daughter by her hair. Chase thought it looked like a tangle of dry straw in her grasp.
“Ow, bitch! Let go of me,” Stephanie said. She spun around. Linda held tight and raised her other hand.
“It’s all your fault,” Linda said. “You always had eyes for him.”
Linda slapped Stephanie.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Her fair cheek swelled and reddened.
“Get the fuck off me! What the fuck are you talking about?” Stephanie said and pried her mother’s fingers away. Linda stepped back, hunched over and growled.
“You tempted him. You wanted him all for yourself. You think just because you finally grew a small pair of tits, you can fuck any man you want?”
Linda slumped to her knees, put trembling hands to her face and sobbed. Stephanie put her hands on her hips and considered her mother’s defeat. Chase thought he noticed a hint of pity wash across her face. He stepped towards the phone.
“I know you’re drunk. I know you’re upset, Linda,” Stephanie said, “but I never knew you were this fucked up. Get a divorce, sue for his pension. But don’t you ever accuse me of fucking Bruce again,” she finished and stomped down the hall.
“Bruce,” Chase said into the receiver. “Are you coming home? Linda’s crying.”
Linda’s eyes flared wildly. Her hands strained into gnarled claws and she lunged at Chase.
“Hang up that phone, you fucking loser piece of shit!”
Linda snatched the receiver from his grasp and shook it at him.
“Don’t you dare get in the middle of my private conversations! Do you hear me?”
Chase cowered. He pleaded for her to stop. He begged her forgiveness. He prayed for his misery to end.
“Yes,” he cried.
His world burst in a cluster of stars and galaxies. He dropped to the dingy floor, motionless. Linda hovered above, still gripping the broken receiver in her white-knuckled fury.
“Get off him, you fucking bitch!” Stephanie charged at Linda and leaped onto her back. They tumbled together and collided into the stove.
Stephanie’s head turned to Chase as he pushed up to his hands and knees. His cheekbone had already swelled into a massive, purple golf ball. His eye had swollen shut as well. A flow of diluted blood stretched to the floor.
He sucked deep a breath before he howled as only children do when their emotions take a moment to catch up to their senses. The stomp of annoyance boomed above the ceiling again. Stephanie arose to her feet and helped Chase to his.
“Go to my room. I’ll be there in a minute,” she said.
Chase sniffed and keened and wheezed and sobbed as he plodded to the bedroom. Stephanie hovered over her mother.
“Stupid bitch. Smack him around is one thing, but that—”
Linda stumbled to her feet and used the door frame as leverage.
“If that fucking loser didn’t break my phone, I’d call the fucking cops on you for assault,” she glowered.
“I wish you could,” Stephanie said. “They’d arrest you too for what you just did to him. No more welfare-for-kids for you!”
Linda wobbled towards the kitchenette and flopped into the only seat not piled with bills and laundry. She unscrewed the cap from her Gordon’s. She considered Stephanie as she gripped the handle.
“Fuck. You,” Linda said and tipped the spout to her lips.
III
Chase laid in his sheet-less, blanket-less bed, shaking, crying, trying not to touch his cheek.
Stephanie entered the room and eased the door shut. Chase didn’t notice.
She stepped over and sat on his bed. She brushed back a tangle of hair that swept over his face. He withdrew and let out a yelp.
“Shh. It’s just me,” she whispered. Stephanie continued to comb her fingers through his hair until the mewling ceased.
She arose from his bed and stepped across the room to hers. Blankets already tossed back before the fireworks, she flopped and pulled the blankets.
She looked to Chase, whose whimpers didn’t end.
She tossed the blanket off from her and patted the mattress.
“Come on. Sleep with me tonight.”
She flicked her hand at him as he laid there and stared at her through the dark. He reached forward for any sudden obstacles he might trip over.
Like a dog hoping his owner wouldn’t notice it crawling in, he slipped onto the bed and rolled to his side. Stephanie drew him close and put her arm around him. Her fingers combed through his hair once more.
“You piss in my bed, and we will have a problem,” she finished with a slight snicker.
“Stephanie,” he said and rolled on his back. “Do you have to brush your teeth?”
“Huh?”
“I hear you with your electric toothbrush at night when you can’t fall asleep.”
Stephanie leaned on her elbow and faced him. Her eyebrows shifted.
“My toothbrush?” she said. He turned his head to her and he knew the night shadowed his malady.
“Yeah. You sound like it makes you sad sometimes.”
Stephanie rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. He waited for a response.
“My tooth— oh shit! My electric toothbrush, yeah. No. No, I already brushed my teeth before.”
She rolled to her side and draped her arm around him again.
“My teeth are fine. Worry about your face. She clocked you pretty hard. Let me see—”
“No,” Chase snapped and covered his face with the blanket.
“I’m sorry about what I said before. I didn’t mean it,” Stephanie said. She kissed the top of Chase’s head and snuggled with him. Chase remembered her awful statement when he returned from school. The pain from her words tore his heart when he fell asleep before dinner.
Pain and confusion wouldn’t allow Chase to nod off that night. Neither did the voice in his head.
KNIVES
I
The diesel engine of the ambulance rumbled with the turbulence of cartoonish banter within. Seatbelt chimes and engine coolant pings joined in with the mechanized orchestra. The whir of pumps and the hiss of oxygen meters whispered a soothing white noise under the din. The vehicle jerked forward, halted, and jerked forward again as the driver forced his way through the swarms of police, news reporters, and onlookers.
“EMS Truck six-six-four to dispatch. Over,” the ambulance driver said into the radio handset.
“Go ahead, six-six-four,” blared through the receiver.
“Ten-eighty-four. Unit leaving the scene with a single patient. ALS transport. Condition critical. Over,” the driver said.
“Copy. What’s your ETA? Over.”
The driver scanned his wa
tch, “Eighteen minutes. Over.”
Dispatch acknowledged, and the driver placed the handset back into the cradle.
“How are we doing back there?” he said as he studied their every move through the rear-view mirror. Neither paramedic answered as they secured the stretcher and oxygen tanks. One paramedic sliced open Chase’s T-shirt as the other stuck ECG electrodes about his abdomen, chest and clammy face.
The driver patted the head of his Thurman Munson bobble-head atop the dashboard and nodded.
II
The burgundy, azure and gold sky reflected upon the glassy stillness of the Mill Basin as the cool breeze of early September, a reminder of the transitioning season, greeted Chase as he stepped out of the Kings Plaza Mall. He closed his eyes and inhaled the salty aroma.
This used to be his favorite time of year. He enjoyed the warm days and cool nights, the onset of yellows and reds throughout the foliage, and the new the school year.
He loved catching up with his friends and classmates, after the hazy, hot and humid summers of Brooklyn, though he snarled at their new school clothes and fancy backpacks. He gritted his teeth every time Linda bought clothes that were too big and told him he had to grow into them. The dark blue, let down hems of his faded jeans drew snickers every time he had a growth spurt.
Around his twelfth birthday, he picked up a job as a paperboy and saved every cent of his tips. He lied to Linda about his employment and said he was staying late after school for tutelage, seeing his grades never went above a C.
And after a little more than a year of saving, he purchased his own leather biker jacket from Wilson’s Leather and Suede. The cashier chuckled when Chase said he didn’t need a bag.
“I’ll wear it now, thanks.”
“But what about the—”
He didn’t hear the cashier over the pride singing in his head. The new leather creaked and groaned with each sway of his arms. He wondered if it would always sound like that. Would it keep that fresh smell? Would he be the coolest kid in the eighth-grade?
He caught the next bus back to Bensonhurst and sauntered towards the back seats of the bus. To his dismay, no one noticed his new duds, save for the elderly African-American woman with the salon-fresh coif of white hair who thought he farted.
“Sorry. It’s the jacket,” he smiled.
III
Chase stepped off the bus at Cropsey Avenue and walked the long trek back to his home. It had become cooler outside since the sun dipped far below the horizon, and he smiled. The jacket had already proven its worth.
He had thought of stopping two doors away to show Rick, his best friend who acted like an older brother, and decided against it. His father was a tough-as-nails roofing contractor, who had no time for childish bullshit. And Chase showing up after dark would have been a heaping pile.
Rick, like his father, was an intimidating man; tall, thick, and can hurl bricks faster than the highway speed limit.
Unlike his father, Rick was as protective as a mother bear. And having seen the troubles Chase had gone through over the half dozen years since they became friends, there was nothing Rick wouldn’t do to protect him.
Another cool breeze rustled the trees and tingled the wind chimes as Chase plodded along Eighteenth Avenue. Rick’s front stoop in sight, he reconsidered a quick knock on the door.
Padding up the few concrete steps towards the front door, Chase noticed Richard, Rick’s dad, through the window, fast asleep in front of the television. The coffee can of an ashtray clanged about the steps as he tiptoed away and alerted the over-rambunctious dog in the neighbor’s yard.
Chase’s home was dark, silent, empty as he strolled along the sidewalk. From what he could recall, Linda nor Stephanie had any plans on going out.
Linda was the typical homebody. She never had to work, thanks to New York City’s Foster program and Bruce’s benefits. And she never had the desire to leave other than shopping, for food or booze, or go out on the occasional blind date. Even her dealer came to the house. The delivery service was second to none.
Stephanie always had plans. What they were, Chase guessed, was unlawful, dangerous. Most nights, she would slip on a bright outfit, two sizes too small, and disappear for one to several hours.
One evening when she returned home, Chase discovered her in the bathroom, scraped, bruised and crying.
“What happened—”
“Mind your own fucking business, loser-pissy-pants,” she yelled and slammed the door.
He stopped before the gate of the postage-stamp of a front yard and wondered where they could have gone. Stephanie had been sick for a long time and it got worse over the last three months.
Maybe she was allergic to the sun. Bad pork? The latest mosquito disease?
No. But some bug crawled up inside of her and wreaked havoc from within.
Chase’s emotions bounced back and forth over how he felt about his Foster-sister. Some days she was soft and nurturing. Most others, she rivaled her mother’s ferocity. Her verbal assaults took their toll on Chase. The one drop of venom that never left his system was, a few hours before a swinging telephone shattered his cheekbone, where he had to lie to his teacher and doctor he fell down the front stoop, Stephanie told him he should do the world a favor and kill himself. But he didn’t know how. Or why. A suicide by a six-year-old would have been covered up by Linda’s friends in the NYPD. She’d make sure of that. No one would have known about the miseries of a short life of the fire, and the constant physical and mental abuse and the hatred.
“Hey, buddy. Nice jacket,” Chase heard and spun around. His hand knocked into and rattled the chain-link gate, and a dog barked again.
The air was cold, thin, still as the moonlight pitched thick shadows across the semi-urban landscape.
Two boys, not much older than Chase, stood before him, their smiles stretched too far for sincerity. The clothes seemed too tight for their thin frames. Their stained and threadbare jeans exposed their ankles. Both wore denim jackets with the sleeves torn off. And one suffered from terrible acne. Sixteen, Chase guessed.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said and opened the latch of the gate.
“Is it new? Where’d you get it?” the shorter boy with a red bandana wrapped around his head, said.
“Picked it up at Kings. Why?”
An eerie cold enveloped Chase. The boys turned to each other.
“Ah, Kings. Yeah, cool mall,” the taller one said. Chase noticed this one had the same bandana wrapped around his wrist.
“Look at that. It still has the tag on!”
Chase glared at the oversized price tag which hung from the sleeve. His eyes rolled.
“You must’ve laid down some heavy green for—”
“Listen, guys. You heard my dog. I have to get inside and take care of him before he tears up the joint,” Chase said.
One boy grabbed Chase by the arm. It hurt. “Oh, shit. That’s your dog? Shit. Sounded like it came from a few doors down.”
The other boy stepped behind Chase.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” Chase’s pitch went up. The boys smirked again.
“He’s slow. You gonna have to learn him some.”
The boys drew knives from their pockets. One, a switchblade, the other one, a Bowie. Chase shook.
“Give us the jacket.” The taller boy’s voice deepened, and his eyes went dark.
“Come on, guys! I just bought—”
The switchblade pushed under Chase’s jawbone and silenced him.
“Pretty please,” the boy said. The other giggled.
Chase nodded as gently as he could. He felt the blade with each dip of his chin.
“Good boy. See? Told you he’d play nicey-nice.”
From behind, the shorter boy gently tugged at the leather collar and peeled the jacket off from Chase’s back. The other remained focused on Chase’s terrified and sorrowful gaze.
“Yeah, that is a
nice jacket. Thanks, loser,” the short one said and sauntered back around.
Chase stood there, unable to move, unable to speak. The tall boy lowered the switchblade as a tear fell from Chase’s lid.
“Don’t sweat it, buddy. Next time you buy some fancy shit, be sure to take the tag off.”
Chase doubled over and clenched his belly when the switchblade slipped out of his gut.
“Why,” he grunted and fell to his knees. The boys glared at him.
“My old man always said, if you take out a weapon, make sure you use it.
The boys dashed away into the shadows. The clang of aluminum trash cans and lids alerted the dog once more.
Chase slumped his shoulder to the sidewalk and wept. With each convulsion from his tears, he felt more of his wet essence seep from his body.
He drew a deep breath and held it and hoped the bleeding would slow. His head went light. The barking from a few houses away ceased.
Taking in short, shallow gasps, he raised one shaking hand to the chain-link fence and rattled it. The dog resumed its alert.
Chase held another breath and pulled up onto his rump. Retracing his steps, he wondered how he did not see nor hear his muggers sooner. Brooklyn born and raised, he should have at least smelled their ketchup and onion body odor a mile away.
“Oh, shit! Chase!”
He turned his head towards the voice. Unfocused eyes fixed on Rick, who thundered barefoot up the sidewalk, pajama pants flapped past his piston-pumping legs, and tightly balled lunchbox fists pumped at his sides. Chase dropped his head and stared at the growing dark stain on his Iron Maiden T-shirt.
“Chase! You alright? What happened?” Rick said in a continuous stream. Chase tipped his palm from his gut.
“They took my jacket,” he cried.
IV
The whir of pumps, the ping of monitors, the muffled announcement and the click of the P.A. drifted above the synthetic calm of the emergency room. The sterile air filtered the odors of astringents and fresh bandages as Chase stared blankly at the drop ceiling above him. The teal privacy curtain waved in and out as doctors, nurses and visitors stepped by. Repeatedly, he attempted to recall every moment, searching, wondering if there was anything different he could have done.
The Accursed Page 4
