by Sandy DeLuca
DESCENT
Sandy DeLuca
UNINVITED BOOKS
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Sandy DeLuca
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information contact:
[email protected] or visit www.UninvitedBooks.com
Cover Artwork by Chas Hendricksen
Manufactured in the United States
First Uninvited Books paperback edition: June 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9830457-3-1
For Gianna and Sophia
Also by Sandy DeLuca
Messages from the Dead
Reign of Blood
Darkness Conjured
Into the Red
From Ashes
Manhattan Grimoire
Settling in Nazareth
CHAPTER 1
December 9th, 1992
The figure is dark, an unsettling silhouette behind burgundy curtains. So still it could be inanimate, it waits, watches the darkness beyond the window, an icy sentinel on a lonely December night.
Rain falls, pelts the window, and a crack of thunder shakes the Earth.
As if in answer, the shadowy figure in the window finally shifts. Elongated fingers move as though playing a ghostly instrument. Sometimes in dreams they do.
I shut off the car engine. I have to go inside, but I can’t. Not yet.
A lot went down today.
I have to get it straight in my head.
* * *
I instructed the cab driver to take me to the corner of West Broadway and Houston. The ride from Port Authority was short.
I stepped onto the curb and checked my watch, knowing that he was just a block or two away.
The temperature was in the low thirties. The wind cut through my thin jacket, reminding me that I never dress warm enough when I go to New York City. I smoothed down my hair and watched the lights turn back and forth from red to green, figuring he’d emerge from the other end of West Broadway. I leaned against the street pole and faced in that direction. A few men smiled when they passed, but none struck me as exciting or dangerous enough. I’d always loved and been addicted to bad boys. Sometimes they loved me back, sometimes not. Either way, they never seemed able to commit so they didn’t last.
Standing on that corner, I wondered what this bad boy would bring.
He surprised me. I felt him touch my back just before he spun me around and kissed me on the lips. His beard was soft. He wore an army jacket, worn jeans and a knit hat. Smiling, he looked deep into my eyes. “Hungry?”
“Let’s get some breakfast.”
We walked through Soho and then Greenwich Village. On Bleecker we passed The Atrium hotel and crossed to the other side of the street.
“Here.” He stopped outside a shabby café, held the door open for me, and guided me into a booth.
“Mind if I face the door?”
“No.”
The wedding band on his hand seemed to mock me.
He ordered eggs, toast and coffee. I wasn’t very hungry so I opted for coffee and an English muffin, but my stomach turned when the waiter set the plate in front of me.
We talked about art, and since we both admired Max Beckmann and the German Expressionists, that remained the topic of conversation for several minutes.
He pointed outside. “I sold my paintings there in the 80s.” He smiled, which was something he did a lot, always gazing at me with shameless longing.
His overt affection was often awkward, but sweet. I felt my face flush, remembering how a week before Christmas the previous year, he had made a scene when another man kissed my cheek.
We finished breakfast. He didn’t leave a tip.
We left the café and walked side by side; like lovers, gazing at one another with sly smiles.
“Where are you going now?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I got a room. You could come back there later.”
“Is that something you want?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t check in until three.”
“Well, walk with me. I’m parked up here.”
When we reached his van we sat in the back seat and huddled against a tinted window. The front windows were clear and I could see people walking by.
“You afraid they’ll see in?”
I nodded.
He piled coats on the dashboard then wasted no time, kissing me madly, his hands moving over my breasts and between my legs. I leaned my head against his chest, listened to his heart race. He pulled down the zipper on my jeans, gently made love to me with his fingers. His lips pressed hard against mine.
A half hour or more passed.
Afterward, he kissed the top of my head, stroked my hair, and we sat a while, his arms around me.
Eventually we climbed back into the front of the van. He told me to put my seatbelt on, and began to drive around the city, showing me parts of it I’d never seen. Hookers climbed into cars, homeless people lit sidewalk fires in rat-infested districts, and at one point, some men greeted him in a darkened garage, scooped money from his palm, and leered into the daylight as though they’d burst into flames if the sun touched them.
I was intrigued, and made quick sketches of the buildings, the people, and him.
He was amused.
“It’s good being with you.” He sucked on a joint, handed it to me.
I took a deep pull, smiled. As I had many times before, I thought about living with him in a loft in Soho, bringing him coffee on cold fall mornings when he lined his canvases against vacant buildings.
He kept driving.
We talked, parked at times, sipped coffee and laughed together for what seemed a very long time.
At three he drove to the shabby hotel around the corner from Port Authority. He was quiet, clearly lost in thought.
“Want to know what I’m thinking?” he finally asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m thinking that I can’t lie to my wife. I’ve got three kids by three different women. I can’t screw this marriage up.”
“OK.”
“You have Virgo rising. Women with strong Virgo are my downfall.”
“I’ll go.”
“I’ve thought about you a lot—about being with you once in a while—but she’ll find out. Even if she doesn’t find solid evidence, she’ll dream it. She’ll know.”
“I know that.” In fact, I had dreamed of her the night before. She was scrubbing stairs. Then she shape-shifted into a dog, his loyal companion. She growled at me as I tried to descend the steps, attempting to reach the room where her husband slept. “It’s better this way,” I said. “I’d need you and you couldn’t be there for me.”
He nodded. “I’d fall in love with you, and then I’d have to leave. I have to make it work with her.” His eyes were teary. I hadn’t seen many men cry, just my father when I came back from Miami in 1971.
“You’re a good guy.”
He shrugged.
“Do you want me to go?”
“It’s best.”
He kissed me goodbye. “It was nice.”
I slid out of the van. My bag caught on a hook at the bottom of the seat.
I laughed. “So much for a graceful exit.”
He laughed too, but there was something telling in what appeared to be a simple and unintentionally comic moment, an example of how my life was often slightly skewed, just out of focus, and how in many ways, it always had been.
“Bye,” I slammed the door, crossed the street and passed a woman sitting outside a crumbled storefront.
“Tell your fortune, Miss?”
I ignored her. I had my own deck of Tarot cards in my purse.
Now alone, I checked into the hotel. The lobby smelled musty. An Asian man working behind the counter told me to go one flight up. As I made my way, I heard children laughing from one room, and a woman moaning softly in another. Flophouse, I thought, reminded of another one in Miami years ago.
The room was sparse and the heater didn’t work. I sat for a while thinking that each footstep I heard in the hall was his, that he’d changed his mind and come back. But I remained alone, and quickly realized I had to leave.
I dug a small vial of coke from my purse, tapped a bit onto my fingers and rubbed it on my gums before I checked out.
I caught the 5:30 bus.
A total lunar eclipse had begun, and I found myself thinking about dying without love. These events were supposed to be significant—karmic—they were supposed to bring you back to unfinished business.
I watched the moon turn dark then light again.
By the time I got to Providence I realized the day had been special no matter what had been decided back in New York. The moon was round and full once more.
* * *
I step onto a rain-soaked lawn.
The sentinel in the window stirs, and I flinch as the rocking chair begins to move slowly back and forth.
I know I have no choice but to enter this place where a dark guardian waits, so I push my fears away as best I can, walk to the door, put the key in the lock and turn the doorknob. It creaks.
Candlelight greets me. A cat leaps from someplace above, hisses as I remove my coat.
A cackling voice calls to me.
My mother is awake, sitting by the picture window downstairs, a cup of tea before her. I know she’s been there all day, dosing, waking, waiting—her whole life spent in anticipation of something inexplicable; perhaps to be forgiven for what she’s done. Perhaps not.
CHAPTER 2
Dreams sometimes speak with dead tongues, whisper messages an entire lifetime cannot unravel. These dreams may rise up from Hell—most often when you’re at the crossroads of your journey—that is when I’ll offer you my hand—that is when you’ll learn the art of sacrifice—
The words come from inside my head, from lips moving slowly in a vision. Headlights flash and an old Impala cruises down the street. The muffler drags. The radio is turned up loud and Janis Joplin’s Summertime echoes in the night.
My mother opens her eyes when I enter the living room.
A radio on the mantle is turned down low. The news is on. The commentator speaks in a monotone voice. “A body was found this afternoon at the Chad Brown housing project. The 22-year-old victim, identified as Maria Dinella of Cumberland was employed as a waitress at the Moon Dog Café in Providence. The police have few clues or leads at this point and an unnamed source inside the police department tells us the investigating detectives are baffled as to why the victim’s name tag was missing and had apparently been replaced by an old and faded name tag bearing the name Marla Dean…”
“It’s starting.” My mother rocks back and forth.
My hands are shaking. Marla Dean was murdered twenty-one years ago.
My mother smiles at me. “You always fight things, Julia. Just accept them.” She lifts her teacup, takes a sip. “You didn’t spend the night. Why not? This guy you met, another crazy one?”
“No. You should get into bed. I’m going now, too.”
“It’s hard without your father there. I miss him. Can’t sleep in that bed—”
“Did you take your pills?”
“I don’t remember, but I must have. I’m not nervous or anything.”
“Good night.”
“The dreams have been crazy lately though. I was dreaming when you came in, of Paul, Lil—your father…”
I help my mother from the rocking chair. She’s frail and weak. I lead her gently to her bedroom, ease her into bed, tuck her in and then kiss her on the forehead.
“I’ll wake up later, see your father standing at the foot of the bed. Then I’ll go back and sit in the rocker.” Tears stream down her face. “I don’t remember if I fed the cats.”
“You always say that and you always remember. Sleep.”
I climb the stairs to the rooms I occupy. I’m still living with my mother after all these years. It’s an addictive bondage she’s wrapped me in. She was dependent on my father. She didn’t even know how to write a check when he died. Now she is dependent on me. You can’t leave me alone, Julia. I’m your mother. You owe me your life.
At times I feel as though we are not blood relatives, and allow myself the fantasy that perhaps I was switched with another child at the hospital when I was born. But I look like my Aunt Lil, my mother’s sister. And as I grow older I am more like her every day.
I pour more food into the cat’s dishes, change their water then remove my clothes; toss my underpants on the floor. I’ll throw them out in the morning.
The phone rings, shrill and unwelcome. I lift the receiver.
“Hello?”
His voice sounds like poetry—dark and intoxicating. I listen, feel relief, feel dread and I can only say, “I knew you’d be calling. Let me know where I can reach you. I have to think—”
The kittens nip at my feet. They jump on the bed as I climb beneath the sheets. Mother cat stands in the doorway, tail flicking, yellow eyes smiling at me.
Joplin’s voice screams once more. I peer outside. The Impala’s driver leers at me.
I lean against my pillow, close my eyes. I won’t sleep, but the dreams will come.
And so will the dead.
* * *
My mother. God forgive her.
My father. He did his best.
Dad tried to make things right, but he made mistakes too. He told me the money he’d put away to buy my car would have to sit a while—until Mom got over being uptight about me having a car of my own—about being able to come and go as I pleased. As soon as she got better he’d go to the Ford dealer-ship and get me that shiny red Mustang, a mint 1966 convertible. Until then I’d have to depend on my friends to get me to the places I needed to go. When he gave his permission I could borrow his ’66 Impala, but only to run errands for Ma, or to visit my Aunt Lil and my grandparents in the winter when it was too cold and dark at night to walk.
Dad, like many Italian-American males, took pride in his garden. My parents owned over an acre of land in West Warwick, Rhode Island. They’d bought it with the money they saved while living in my grandparent’s house.
I have fond memories of Dad turning the soil with his shovel when spring came, getting ready to plant seeds for corn, tomatoes, lettuce and green beans. When I was just a kid I’d stand there as he worked and we’d talk. Lots of times we’d talk about Mom, school and how pretty soon boys would be chasing me. I can still picture him turning the soil with his shovel as the sun sank and the night wind grew chilly.
Like Mom, Dad never really believed I was smart either. He’d call me his little idiot, and criticize me when I’d drop a glass of water, or open the window on a winter night because I wanted to hear the trees rustling, or the traffic passing below.
It was different with my brother Paul. He could do no wrong. He was five years older than I was, good looking and smart. Paul graduated from business school and landed a good job; bank manager of Providence Side Credit Union, and Dad couldn’t stop talking about how proud he was of his son.
In 1968 my brother got drafted, served some time in Vietnam. He sent letters whenever he could, and I wrote him at least one letter a day. I’d buy funny cards at the drugstore and fill boxes with the candy and mixed nuts he loved.
His letters to my parents and other family members were upbeat and cheerful, but his letters to me were sad, revealing a chilling sense of loneliness.
He wrote these words to m
e in a letter dated November 10th, 1969:
Dear Julia:
Don’t repeat this to the rest of the family, but I’m always scared out here. I’ve seen friends die. I’ve seen them die in such horrible ways. I have bad dreams. Sometimes the dead come and talk to me. I see them sitting at the foot of my bed when I wake up. I think I’m going crazy.
I see Demons. They look human, but their faces are milk white. There are black circles around their eyes. And they hiss at me, like when the tabbies back home get pissed at the neighbor’s dogs.
Your cards, letters and packages cheer me up. When I get home we’re going to forget all this and party. It’ll be like it was before, and none of this will matter.
Love, Paul
* * *
Two kittens are snuggled against my legs, another sleeps by my head. Mother cat is lying on the threshold to my room. Her eyes are yellow slits. Her tail flicks back and forth. Her ears move with each creak, with every rustle of the sheets.
My brother loved cats, the reason why my parents kept them as pets—even after his death.
“Aunt Lil told me that cats guard the gateway between life and death. They can see the dead. Crazy as she is, it’s one superstition I want to believe,” my brother told me years ago as he stroked a tiny tabby he’d found in the woods.
They can see the dead.
Mother cat sits upright, sniffs the air. A floorboard creaks. A shot explodes, or so it seems. It’s only the muffler of a passing car.
I close my eyes. A smoky dream begins. My mother is standing in the kitchen. The floorboards are slimy and cracked, ready to collapse. There’s a foul smell and people are screaming in the distance. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, echo. They are coming for her. Their faces are rotted, eyes milky and dull, fingers tap Ma on the shoulder, spin her around and lead her into a gaping hole in the wall.
