The Hollowed

by Jay Caselberg

  Despite having moved on from that place in their lives where the planning approval and renovations were everything, Chris and Anastasia were growing even further apart. He could feel it, not only when he analyzed their reactions to one another, but the subtle awareness of something else deep in his gut. He knew it was happening, but he didn’t know what he could do about it. How do you mend something if aren’t sure exactly how it’s put together or precisely how it is broken? He wasn’t even sure whether he wanted to stop the gradual decline from happening anymore.

  The conversation he’d had with his mother had been good in more than one way; it had allowed him to use her as a sounding board, as a means of testing what he was really feeling and what he really wanted from his life together with Stase. He wasn’t convinced that he wanted them to drift apart completely, and yet he wasn’t so sure that he didn’t.

  Some days after that, on the night of that first real confrontation when the violence burst furiously between them, the worry and concern, the simple frustration, became tinged with fear—but there was more. There was the simple veiled knowledge that he couldn’t yet allow himself to believe, that they’d gone to a place that he no longer wanted to be. That was the hardest realization to make.

  Chris had confronted her in the kitchen, finally determined to do something about the widening chasm that yawned between them. He’d wondered to himself if he even loved her any more, and that was a big question for him. He knew for certain that he wasn’t in love with her. There was just too much trial and pain. They may have moved beyond the things that caused those feelings, but it was embedded now, stuck in uncomfortable places that he couldn’t really reach. Though he kept telling himself that he had to do something to make it right, there was another part of him warring with the concept, battling silently within. And all the time, he could not allow her to see his inner conflict. To admit it to her, would be to admit it to himself.

  “Stase,” he said. “We have to talk.”

  He had to be sure.

  She turned to look at him, resentment already building on her face. “What about this time?”

  “About us, about your attitude towards me, about everything. About what we’re going to do with this place and with each other.”

  She turned away again. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “How can you say that?” he said. “There’s plenty to talk about.” He was fighting to keep his voice level.

  “Damn it, Chris, no. You’re just going to tell me that everything’s my fault again, that I’m not thinking straight. I’m not going to listen to your undermining bullshit anymore.”

  He sighed, his teeth firmly clenched; trying not to let the spark of anger ignite and flame within him, he leaned back against the counter. “Listen, I don’t know where you’re getting this crap, but for once will you put whatever’s being fed to you out of your head and listen to me?”

  She said nothing. Her shoulders were tight and hunched. She kept looking down at the table and shaking her head.

  “For fuck’s sake, Stase. Will you turn around and look at me?”

  She stayed where she was. If anything, her shoulders became tighter. He took the couple of steps that separated them and stood behind her.

  “Stase? Why are you doing this? Don’t you even care about what I have to say anymore?”

  Her silence was working in his jaw, worming away under his skin. He reached out, grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him.

  “For Christ’s sake, look at me!”

  As he swung her about, her other hand came up, clenched into a claw, her nails out. She bared her teeth and dug her nails into his cheek, raking down.

  “What the fuck!” he said.

  His hand flew to his face and he drew it away again, looking at the red-brown stripes across his palm. He pressed the hand quickly back to his face. His rage was incandescent, immediate. He lashed out with the palm of his other hand and slapped her. In that instant, he realized what he had just done, and his eyes went wide.

  “Jesus. Fuck!” he said through clenched teeth.

  There was rage there, there was horror and at the same time, there was instantaneous shame for what he had just done. For just a moment, he didn’t know which one took precedence.

  Anastasia stepped right up close to Chris, her cheek red from the contact of his palm. His other hand was still pressed up against the now stinging wounds on his face.

  “That’s it,” she said. “That’s it, big man. Go on, hit me again. Go on. Show how strong you are. Come on, beat me up.”

  Chris backed up a step. She followed, her eyes hard, glittering. “How many other ways can you prove your dominance, hey? That’s it. So, go on. What are you waiting for?”

  “Fuck it, Stase. What are you doing?” He tried to step past her, away from the threatening anger, but she followed, pressing right up against him. He couldn’t deal with the hard, sharp anger in her eyes. She put her face as close as she could to his.

  “Come on, big man.”

  He pushed her away with his free hand and took two steps back into the doorway.

  “I don’t know what you want any more.” The anger washed up in him again. “But I know what I want. I want a fucking divorce. I’ve had enough of this. I’ve had enough of you. Is that what you want? Well I’ll tell you something—it’s what I want.”

  There. He’d said it. He didn’t know whether he wanted it or not, but there was something in the words that held a ring of truth. Even if he didn’t, it might give her something to think about. It might even prompt her to reconsider what was happening.

  She stared at him, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Is that what you want Chris, is it?” She nodded her head, her expression dead calm, her voice steady. “Sure you don’t want to hit me again? Let’s add some physical abuse to the mental and emotional abuse. You can’t undermine me, so you’ll assert yourself physically, will you? So, come on.”

  He turned away from her. “I’m not going to play, Stase. I’m not going to listen to this shit anymore. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I’m just not listening to it anymore. I’ve had enough. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I don’t know what I’m saying. I can’t think for myself, can I? It has to be coming from somewhere else. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And I’ve had enough of you trying to diminish my worth.”

  He shook his head, frowning, and left her there. He knew they weren’t her words. They didn’t even sound like her. There was not a trace of that driving confident force that he’d fallen in love with. He almost didn’t recognize what had become.

  He slept on the couch that night, and he was gone before she was up in the morning. That was the first day, the day he saw the fat man on Sydney Street.

  Chris tried to apologize when Stase came home that evening, but though he felt the shape of his own fault and his complicity in it, his heart really wasn’t in feeling sorry. It was a shared blame that lay between them, and he didn’t see why he needed to be the one that owned the culpability. She didn’t respond, but gave a barely detectable smirk as her eyes flickered to the marks on his face; the look was gone as quickly as it had appeared. She didn’t talk to him for the next three days; when she finally did, it was in a voice that radiated nothing but chill.

  Over the next couple of weeks, as Chris’s own obsession began, as he began seeking out those hollow shells of humanity that he’d started to discover, Stase became even more social in her endeavors. She wanted to go out to parties, and drinks, and dinners with friends, and spent very little time at home with him. There was a clear and uncomfortable space between them, and Stase was filling it her own way. Chris, though, was feeling less than social. He had little interest in the shallow public interactions that Stase was currently drawn to. He sent her off with his blessing, as if she needed it.

  Chris had other things to attend to, convenient things. He was worki
ng up to broaching that place within himself where he could properly understand what was happening with them, summoning his internal energy so that he’d be prepared. Finding out about those empty hollow people in bus shelters and on the street became a kind of displacement activity in itself, keeping him occupied in a mental and emotional space where he didn’t have to address the issues between them. In that sense, their relationship simply took a backseat.

  Wryly, Chris imagined that it was little different from the obsession Stase herself had shown with the house and their inevitable social climb over the past few months. He was aware of what he was doing, his avoidance, but wasn’t yet ready to deal with it properly.

  Finding an answer to the van, the clean-cut guys, would mean finding a solution to what was going on inside him; then, if he was lucky, he might be able to use that knowledge to address what was happening with his life. His own life and what remained of his life together with Stase.

  The sudden respite from anger and hostility that came just a couple of weeks later was a balance he didn’t yet feel like upsetting. It was a welcome relief, but one that was counterbalanced by the knowledge that something had happened to him, something that had occurred without his knowledge or permission. He suspected that he shouldn’t let Stase know about all of it. With that suspicion he decided it was better to keep the van, what he was doing, and everything associated with his quest secret from her for the time being. Her reaction the last time he had tried to discuss the woman in the bus shelter would have been enough to make him wary on its own, even without the doubt that he now carried. He already had his confidante, his partner in crime, in Jason. When Jason and he discovered what was going on, then and only then would be the time for expanding the knowledge to his broader world. Then and only then, he suspected, Stase would be one of the first he told. And when he did, it would be a revelation.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Cathedral

  Chris was ready. His trepidation still lurked—what if he really was just imagining the whole thing—but he was committed to doing what he and Jason had planned. He picked the day and gave Jason a call. He suspected that doing this whole thing on a weekday was the right decision. Most of what he’d already seen had occurred during the week, and besides, there were many more people around during the working week. It would mean more difficulty with city traffic and they might end up having to drive around for hours, but city traffic was slow enough that he wouldn’t be forced to race through the city streets in his car, missing whatever there was to see. He saw Stase off, made a show of getting ready for work himself, but lingered, waiting for the right moment. Very occasionally, they left for work together, but more often than not, Stase was out of the house before him. Recently, over the past few days, she’d been dragging, as if she were reluctant to go in, as if she wasn’t looking forward to the workday. Before, she used to love being in at the office.

  At last she walked out the door, closing it firmly behind her. He heard the brass knocker bounce and thunk against the door from the force with which she slammed it closed. He waited for about ten minutes to be sure that she hadn’t forgotten anything and then headed for the phone.

  It rang about eight times before Jason picked it up. For a moment, Chris was afraid the answering machine was going to kick in and he was going to end up frustrated once again. He just didn’t need any more frustration at the moment.

  “Hello, Jason. God, I thought you weren’t going to be there.”

  “Yeah, hi. Sorry, I was doing something out the back.”

  “Well, anyway. How are you set for today?”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  “Great,” said Chris. “I’ll be over in about half an hour.”

  He put down the phone and nodded to himself. Good, that much was set. He pulled off his tie and hung it loosely over the back of a chair. He wouldn’t need it today. He looked around the kitchen as if he might have forgotten something, but there was nothing really for him to forget. Grabbing the car keys and pulling on his coat, he headed out the door.

  As he walked out of the house and pulled the front door gently shut behind him, he looked up and down the street. It was a good day, bright, with a few high clouds making lighter streaks across the pale blue sky. A gentle breeze stirred a few leaves in the gutter. He walked down the four steps to the front gate. He was pulling it shut behind him when some sense made him look up. A dark-eyed form was watching him from the guttering of the house next door. A motion from further up the roof, and it was joined by another. Two large, black birds sat on the edge of the roof next door, looking down at him. He swallowed, feeling a sudden chill, stopping with his hand on the top of the gate.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he said quietly between closed teeth.

  One of the birds tilted its head to look at its companion, and then turned its head back to look down at Chris. The other one fluffed out its feathers, making it look suddenly larger. A ripple of green-black shimmered in its wings. At that moment, the breeze picked up, rustling through the leaves of the trees opposite.

  “No,” said Chris and shook his head. He palmed his car keys and headed for the car, parked a little up the street. Refusing to look back up at the roof, he got into the car and started the engine. As he pulled out from the parking space, despite himself, he glanced up through the sunroof. They were still there, clearly watching him. He gritted his teeth and accelerated up the street. He was going to do this. He wasn’t going to let a couple of bloody birds distract him.

  With the morning traffic, it took him about twenty minutes to get over to Jason’s. He found a parking spot a little way up the street and wandered down to collect him. He stood on the front step, rocking back and forth on his heels as he waited for the door to be answered. Jason finally appeared, looking a little disheveled, a big dark blue bulky sweater on, his shirt hanging out from beneath it.

  “Hi guy,” he said, looking past Chris and up and down the street. “Good day for it.”

  “Yeah, you set?” asked Chris.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Chris nodded. “Let’s go then.”

  “Hang on. Let me just lock up inside. I’ll be with you in a sec.”

  Chris walked down the front steps and leaned on the gate post while he waited for Jason to do whatever he had to do. It really was a good day. Jason appeared a few moments later and bumbled down the steps. He stood in the entrance and looked up at the sky then back at Chris.

  “Which way?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Chris. “I’m down this way.”

  “Heh, look at that,” said Jason. “It’s almost prophetic.”

  Chris turned to look in the direction that Jason was looking. Sitting in the branches of a small tree a few houses up was a large black bird, preening its feathers.

  Chris swallowed. “Jesus. That I did not want to see.”

  Jason gripped his shoulder. “Come on. We have things to do, don’t we? The game’s afoot.”

  Chris shook himself and nodded. They headed up the slight slope to where the car was parked, Jason scuffing at the ground with his casual brown loafers as he walked. He wandered around to the other side of the care and stood bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet as he waited for Chris to open the door.

  “It’s open,” said Chris.

  Jason grunted and clambered in, reaching down to adjust the seat. As soon as he had everything to his satisfaction and his seatbelt on, he leaned over and started rooting around in the compartment between the seats, pulling out a CD, then slotting it back again, then pulling out another.

  “So what are you in the mood for?” he said.

  “Hmm, nothing particularly,” said Chris, pulling out and heading down the street. “Whatever you want.”

  Jason picked out a CD, slotted it into the player and looked out and around, watching the passing scenery as they started the drive into town. “Nice car,” he said, nodding his head in time to the music. He seemed blithely unconcer
ned with what they were doing, more interested in what was passing outside the windows. Chris was still feeling the chill the unwelcome avian visitors had left with him.

  The traffic swelled as they got closer to the center of town, Chris leaned forward and shut off the CD player.

  “Hey,” said Jason.

  “Sorry, we really need to concentrate.”

  “So, exactly what are we looking for?”

  “Hmmm, anything like a white van. If you can keep an eye out for things that look like white, square ice-cream vans.”

  “With or without the cone?”

  “Yes, very funny. Without, of course. The other thing is people sitting in places, just staring into space. I know that might be a little harder to spot, but it will be easier for you to see something than it will be for me. I’m going to have to concentrate on the road.”

  They turned into one of the main routes into the city center. Jason craned at the front window and back through the side windows, turning his head to follow things he’d spotted. After a while, he turned to Chris.

  “Any idea what make this van is supposed to be?”

  “No, sorry. I just have a rough idea what it looks like. There are things about that memory that are still pretty foggy.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jason turned back to watch the outside.

  They cruised the streets for about half an hour without seeing anything. Once or twice Jason tapped Chris on the arm and pointed.

  “Van, there.”

  Chris would look and shake his head. “Nope. Not right.”

  For another hour they simply drove around and around, up side streets, down main thoroughfares, along streets with lots of people and areas with only a few, down narrow shadowed byways, across bridges and through underpasses. Nothing made itself apparent, or at least nothing that Jason pointed out. After a while longer, Jason started to become fidgety.

  “Man, I’m parched. Can we stop for a coffee or something?”

  Chris sighed. “Yeah, okay.” He headed into the center of town again, with Jason looking for a parking spot. Eventually he spotted one and Chris reverse-parked in. They got out of the car and headed towards the intersection, looking for a coffee place. There was one every couple of streets in this part of town.