by B Anders
Chapter 9
Colby expected trouble. She expected Jessie to flip out—rage, shout, scream, cry, do any number of things. In the end, she did none of it and that was the problem. She didn’t do a damned thing.
As the minutes ticked by even a nasty remark, cursing her stupid to the darkest corner of Satan’s broken toy shop would have been welcomed relief to the torturous silence. But, Jessie just sat there in the front passenger seat of the mud-covered station wagon studying her former home with a strange, quiet smile that chilled Colby right down to the bone.
The house, across from Carson Beach in Southie, was left to stand empty after the investigation ended and the last police officer exited. Colby knew the man by sight. He was a rookie named Jose Parla, a small Latino guy with an easy smile and a killer right hook. Like Colby, he boxed at the academy and he was good at it.
The Captain assigned him the grim task of shutting off the lights and locking up after Edwin Dodd finished making his inventory of the property for the tedious probate report. A week after Jose let Edwin out the door; he walked straight into the Captain’s office and tried to turn in his badge. Told the Captain, he was accepting J. Edgar Hoover as his personal savior. His new Overlord told him in a message spelled out in dried toothpaste on the sink he was going to be a fuckin’ warrior priest on the third moon of Mars or Newtonville. The assignment wasn't actually finalized yet.
He was eventually given a medical discharged from the force. After a sixty day rest at McLean, he ended up working for his father behind the counter of the family’s dry cleaning business in the South End. The talk was Jose claimed he could hear someone, mean and drunk, shouting obscenities at him the entire time he stood guard alone in the living room, waiting for Edwin to finish up in the upper rooms. Colby was ready to dismiss the talk as cock piss until she heard the disembodied voice continuously taunted Jose by calling him, ‘a green behind the ears Action Boy.’ It was Marty’s favorite drunken slur for minority hires. The one he used in private with people in his immediate circle, all of whom could be counted on the fingers of one hand clapping. There was no way a Cuban rookie named Jose Parla could have known. Colby started a forty eight hour bender the day Jose was buckled into the ambulance.
As haunted houses went, the house on Day Boulevard was disappointing. It was hopelessly average. Nothing to look at from the outside, just another weather beaten, single-family home in an aging neighborhood. The realtor hired to assess its worth for the probate described it on the valuation report as one of those charming old places with paint perpetually peeling from its whitewashed window frames, set back a distance from the street by a wide expanse of manicured green. Marty would have gotten a real kick out of reading the listing. Maybe even have cut it out and brought it home in his coat pocket to read out verbatim to Jane. It was always more her house than his.
As Colby sat looking out at it from the curb, she half expected to see Jane Walsh open the door and wave impatiently at them to come in from the cold. It was something she used to do when Colby and Jessie dawdled too long in the car after a trip to the store, the two of them having another argument about who was to carry what into the kitchen. Jessie never allowed Colby to touch the groceries. Colby was always too rough and tumble with the bags and their perishable contents. She was always leaving behind a trail of broken eggs, crushed milk cartons and ugly bruises the size of walnuts on the white skin of Jessie’s expensive Nashi pears. In Jessie’s once orderly mind, Colby was only fit for hauling spam, bottled water, and charcoal. Colby realized Jose Parla was right in a way about one thing—the air was thick with ghosts.
When Jessie finally spoke, it was a question. “Why did you bring me back here, Colby?”
“You told me to take you home. I got nowhere else to bring you,” Colby explained certain Jessie could tell it wasn’t entirely true.
She could have brought Jessie back to the apartment. Although the place resembled a toxic dump with soiled clothes and empty booze bottles strewn all over the floor. Paper takeout cartons filled with rotting, half eaten food completed the ambience. Colby knew Jessie had personal experience inside worse places. Places where the floor was overlaid with urine and vomit, and once a day, grim faced men in scrubs hosed human feces off the solid concrete walls. Places Jessie was sure to spend the rest of her life in.
If Colby wanted to, she could have easily cleaned up the bathroom, changed the sheets, and made Jessie comfortable in front of the television. A quick trip for Tex-Mex around the corner without even breaking out into a sweat would cover them for lunch and dinner. Maybe breakfast even. If she wanted to, Colby could easily make the rest of the day bearable for Jessie. Colby, however, was not ready to put her ego aside for Jessie's comfort. She would not let the woman see the inside of her personal torment.
It was book quality irony Colby still cared. She was just as sensitive to what Jessie thought of her now as way back. It was the same bone-in-the-throat feeling she got whenever she felt she was not nearly good enough. But the stakes today were very much different. It wasn’t about grocery bags and fuckin’ Nashi pears anymore. It was about her personal failing to protect the people she loved, first Jane, then Marty and finally Jessie—especially Jessie.
She could have taken Jessie and ran. Get her help, made things right. But, she just stood by and watched as they shut her up in the nuthouse. Christ knows what they did to Jessie there. Colby knew Jessie must have waited for her to come get her out. Only Colby didn’t do any such thing. She didn’t even try. She was too busy drowning herself in Jack. Colby was disgusted with herself. She was nothing but a fraud.
In spite of all the other reasons, the cop part of Colby's brain knew the house would be the best place for them. They would be safe. It was the last place the Captain would want to go look if Jessie’s Boy Scout lawyer raised an alarm over his missing client.
“It’s still got the lights and water on last I checked. Don’t know how much furniture is left inside after they did the probate, but most of the rooms should still be intact. Figured we could get a bite and a few hours’ sleep before …”
Jessie let Colby babble on for a while before interrupting with an abrupt nod. “Fine, let’s do it.”
***
Colby was careful helping Jessie out of the car. Despite the thick sports socks she made Jessie put on, Colby knew first hand just how easy it was for the steel shackles to cut up the tender skin around Jessie’s ankles on the walk into the house. Although the fetters were a necessary evil, Colby was reluctant to hurt Jessie more than she already had. It would have been the same as taking a stick to a muzzled dog.
“I don’t want to go in by the front. I want to go in through the back door. Go around back.” Jessie blurted out in sudden panic, pulling hard against Colby’s hold causing the taller woman to stumble for a moment before holding firm.
“What’s the matter? The front stairs are easier with shackles.”
“Take the stupid, fuckin’ things off me or let me crawl in on my hands and knees, but go through the kitchen. I don’t want to see the living room. Not again. Not since him.”
Colby thought she understood. Marty bled out in front of the fireplace. He was laid out to die on the floor of the living room. She didn't have an independent memory of it. It was in the report that the lab boys put together. Colby wasn't sure who got the shit duty of swabbing out the house with a mop and bucket. Six quarts goes a long way.
Colby often wondered what Marty was thinking as he was dying. The thoughts flashing through his mind as he struggled with a cold-blooded assailant. Was it surprise or shock or complete defeat? Colby didn't want to care but she did. It filled her with renewed bitterness standing at the gate where her life ended too.
“Can’t face the music, huh?” She snapped.
The remark was thoughtless and cruel. Colby regretted it the instant Jessie turned back to regard her with eyes full of grief. She was just being honest, Colby told herself. Honest like the grief, red and raw, in Jess
ie’s eyes. The look mocked the anger in Colby's heart. An anger sharpened by the loss of her mentor compounded by the throbbing in her head and the dryness in her throat.
“You will never understand. He was my father. I hated him and I loved him. Once he died, I was alone. I’ll always be alone now. Everything I loved has been carried away.”
Striking Colby dumb with her confession, Jessie hung her head as they stood out of reach of the well-tended lawn. Two people so out of sync with their surroundings and with each other it would have been almost comical if it weren’t so sad.
Colby never expected remorse from Jessie. She thought Jessie incapable of it, just as she believed herself to be incapable of forgiveness. The thought that Jessie could express regret at Marty’s loss was nearly beyond Colby’s comprehension. Yet, she heard Jessie with her own ears and saw the expression of naked grief in the other woman’s eyes. Jessie’s vulnerability cracked Colby's anger and left her defenseless.
“Come on,” Colby ventured as she heard her voice speaking words she was not entirely sure were her own. “Let’s go around back and see what we can do together.”
Convinced her opportunity to avoid entering the house through the front would be denied if she tarried; Jessie nodded and began to shuffle forward. She did not dare to look up or speak to Colby.
Colby wasn’t sure if Jessie’s distrust of her was unwarranted. She herself was unable to understand why she was even agreeing to Jessie’s demand. It was like handing the other woman a get-out-of-jail-free card as a reward for bad behavior. Colby considered the possibility that Jessie knew how to gauge the ever shifting tides of her mood far better than Colby herself could. It would not be the first time Jessie played her. She worried it wouldn't be the last either.
As they walked through the unlocked gate of the gleaming chain link fence into the perfectly ordered backyard. Colby could sense a feeling of unreality set it. It was all so untouched, as if somehow the house had stubbornly refused to submit to the rules of time. The trashcans stood empty at the corner of the yard where she last left them. The Rubbermaid shed was still locked and looked like it was recently power washed. Colby closed her eyes and made a wish. If she wanted it hard enough at any moment now, Marty would throw open the back door and yell at her and Jessie to stop fooling around in the yard and get in the house. Jane’s melodic voice would ring out from the background telling him to stop shouting at the kids and leave them alone.
Colby had wished this once before. It was a long time ago, right after they shut Jessie away. She’d driven by one day and stopped on desperate hope. She stood in the same exact spot she walked over just now and made a wish—wished everything bad away. Tears came from behind her tightly squeezed eyelids. When she finally opened them and looked around, nothing changed because what she wanted most in the world was already gone.
She sobbed all the way back to her car. Colby never came back to the house after that. She didn’t have the stomach for it then. She didn’t have the stomach for it today either. This time, however, it was Jessie’s trembling voice that brought her back to reality and grounded her.
“Colby, I’m scared …”
Taking Jessie into her arms, Colby held her tight and close as involuntary shivers raked the smaller woman’s body. Colby feared Jessie’s body could be shutting down in withdrawal from the Suzie-Qs they were forcing down her throat in that Castle of Horrors. Colby knew she had to get Jessie into the house fast. Keep her warm and safe until the shaking stopped.
“Ssshhhh, let me help you. It’s only a few more steps to the deck stairs. You remember the deck don’t you? You used to sit out there a lot looking at the sky and the clouds. Whatever were you thinking about? You remember?” Colby smiled as she gently coaxed an increasingly hysterical Jessie up the rear stairs.
“I … can’t …” Jessie stammered.
She flashed a panic stricken look into Colby’s face, her eyes vacant and large, like black hungry holes eating up light and space. Eyes that continuously search the other woman’s face looking for something she could not begin to ask for.
“Just one more foot … and here we are.”
Colby coaxed as she all but lifted Jessie and carried her the last few feet to the foot of the stairs. Colby’s focus went back to the rear stairs and she grimaced. Like most wooden three deckers, the back stairs were cut deep and narrow. Colby would not be able to stand next to Jessie as she mounted them. Jessie would not be able to climb unaided from one step to the next with the ankle chains in place.
“Hold on,” Colby instructed when they got to the bottom step. “Please, Jessie, for the love of God, don’t run out on me.” The exhaustion in Colby’s voice made Jessie gasp out loud as much in surprise as in intent.
“What’s wrong, Colby? You’re that beat?”
Colby merely nodded before kneeing to unfasten the chains, pausing a moment to wait for Jessie’s reply.
“Well, if you promise to get me take out later, I promise I won’t try to run until after lunch time tomorrow.” Jessie slyly ventured with a giggle.
Colby chuckled at the bargain, “You promise, huh? How do I know you’re good for it?”
“Cross my heart and hope we die,” Jessie replied in whisper. It was the silly promise they made to each other over Jane’s grave.
Colby remembered the vow that they would take care of each other come what may. It was what Jane wanted, and in that, Colby failed miserably. Jessie could at least discharge herself from the burden of guilt that weighed heavy like a crown of thorns on Colby’s brow. Her illness providing her pale shelter, sparing her from the pain and bitterness that was slowly poisoning the scraps of Colby’s soul.
Colby unlocked the leg shackles without a word and pulled the chains off Jessie’s ankles. The gangling stuck a cord.
"D#."
"What did you say?" Jessie asked.
Colby shook her head, "Nothing important."
"Everything is important. You just don’t want to see it."
“Shut up, Jessie. I wasn’t asking you for an opinion.”
Colby was suddenly tired of being out in the middle of Marty’s backyard having yet another childish argument with Jessie. There were too many ghosts taunting her. It was frying her nerves. If Jessie tried to make a run for it, Colby would simply tackle her to the ground and taser her. She was done playing games.
She gave Jessie a pat on the butt and they began to climb the stairs up to the deck. Colby kept Jessie close as she retrieved the key from her back pocket. Grateful for once Marty cut the same lock for both the back and front doors. He never could keep two sets of keys straight. Key in hand Colby reached around a squirming Jessie and unlocked the red door with a loud click.
The noxious smell of disinfectant greeted them as the door swung wide open on voiceless hinges. With the heavy winter drapes drawn; the inside of the house was dark and foreboding. A gapping void filled only with the soft mechanical hum of the refrigerator.
“Guess you’re lucky the cleaning service was here recently,” Colby muttered as she steered Jessie over the threshold with one hand while blindly feeling for the light switch with the other.
The shapeless pitch dark was a stark contrast to the gleaming landscape of polished surfaces when Colby flipped on the lights. The house was pristine.
“It’s like we just left yesterday,” Colby marveled as she looked round the spotless kitchen. She had never seen the floor so clean and shiny.
Jessie was less entranced with the scene, “I’m hungry. Do you intend to feed me, Officer Willis?’
At the cold hollow sound of Jessie’s voice, Colby relented. “I’ll call L Street for a pizza. They deliver.”
“Nope, no deal. I want better than Southie pizza. I want food. REAL FOOD!”
“You want what?”
“Let me spell it out for you, Officer Willis. I want PF Changs. C-H-A-N-G-S. The Park Plaza place deep in the heart of deadtown.”
“Hey,” Colby raised her voice and pulled Jes
sie roughly back to her side, “don’t be so bossy. You’ll be lucky I give you so much as a glass of water and a crust of moldy bread before I chain you in the tub again.”
Jessie looked up at the taller woman and replied evenly, “If you want answers, Officer Willis, you better get me food. I want pork dumplings, egg drop soup, and an order of Kung Pao chicken with fried rice. Otherwise, it’s zilch from little old me, Miss Information herself. And, if you don’t think I can hold my tongue, remember, I’ve been in lockdown for three years without a peep. I don’t have to say a damn word to you or anyone else.”
“You’ll go straight back to the loony bin,” Colby threatened, confused by the sudden change in Jessie.
“You have to do better than that, Officer Willis. Been there, done that, and survived no sweat. Did you know the good doctor was fuckin’ me up my ass in between the sleep deprivation and the beatings? She tore my anus the first three times. She liked me. I was her special patient. I made her cum buckets. I’m not clean, Colby, and I’m not good. Not that you care of course.” Jessie shrugged indifferently.
