by Stella Noir
“No, in my dream and in real life I was always more scared of this house. You have no idea how much … my mother just seemed to change at the drop of a hat. One minute she would be happy and smiling and the next minute she would be screaming at me that I had dropped a fork or not cleaned the counter properly or put on the wrong color socks, for Christ sake.
And she always seemed to have a new way of punishing me in that moment. She would burn me or whip me with a cord or just beat the hell out of me, but it seemed like after a while those little punishments weren’t enough and it would build up to the point where she would suddenly send me down there.
This all went on for years, and in that time I became really familiar with the whole tunnel system and I met quite a few people who used it for different purposes. One of them was a man who was very kind to me. We became friends and, as I got older, I realized that he wasn’t really that much older than me, but when I was a kid he seemed almost as old as my mother. His house is at the end of a really long tunnel that goes uphill from the rest of the main system and I met him while I was exploring that section.
I was never allowed to go to school with other kids. My mother thought that they would be a bad influence on me, so she basically home schooled me, although that mostly consisted of me reading books off somewhere by myself. It was really helpful to have Landen back then. I talked to him about a lot of the things that went on in my house, and with my mother, and he’s still my closest friend … well, my only friend.
“That’s amazing. You still talk to him?”
“Yeah, I’ve talked to him pretty much every day since I was a kid, except for about a year when my mother figured out I was sneaking out of the cage at night. She never figured out how I got out, but in order to make sure I stayed put she would sleep on the top bunk whenever I was down there. That was when I was about sixteen, and I had no way to get away from her until she died.”
Colin sat there for a while staring at his hands. I couldn’t believe he was telling me all this. I wanted to move across the bed and touch him, to have some sort of physical contact with him while he talked, but I was afraid he would get up and leave if I did.
“How did she die?”
“She was killed by a pile of old wooden boxes that fell on top of her down in the basement. I was locked in the cage when it happened.”
“Oh, God. How old were you?”
“I was seventeen, almost eighteen, so legally I was able to live on my own. I arranged to have her buried, I wasn’t going to have a funeral or anything because she never had a single person come over to the house that I was aware of, and she never talked about any family.
So, after I had her body and burial clothes picked up by the funeral home the director called … he called to ask me if Mr. McNab was supposed to be buried in a dress. I didn’t know what to say. I asked him what he was talking about and he said perhaps he had the wrong information, but the person that had been brought in was a man and he was double checking to make sure that he was supposed to bury that body in the dress that had been brought in with him.
I was stunned. I told him that I would call him back because I didn’t know what to say. I was fucking seventeen years old and some guy on the phone had just told me that the person I had known as my mother all my life was really my father. I went up to her room and looked through her closet, but there were only dresses and skirts and her night clothes, so I called him back and told him to just bury the body in what he had been given because there wasn’t going to be a funeral. To this day I don’t know if I made the right decision or if I should have told the man that there had been a mistake.
I was confused and humiliated and incredibly angry at first, but the more I thought about it over time the more I realized that whatever was going on with my father, whatever was going on in his head, it had nothing to do with me. I’ll never know why he did the things that he did to me, or why he had pretended to be my mother, but I had spent my entire life up until that point wishing that I was someone else and I understood how he felt. The desperation that came with that desire to be something else … something that you couldn’t change … so, no matter what he did to me, I just couldn’t be angry with him. And I’ve spent the last thirteen years of my life trying to forgive him for everything that he did … but it’s still incredibly hard for me to refer to him as anything other than my mother because that’s the only way I ever knew him.”
I couldn’t believe the story he was telling me. I couldn’t believe that someone had gone through everything he had and wasn’t spending his days babbling incoherently in a rubber room.
“Colin I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that you had to deal with this all alone for so long, for your entire life. So, you’ve been alone in this house ever since?”
“Yes, I’ve lived alone ever since then. But I’ve always felt alone, so it didn’t really matter. You know how some kids, usually only children without any brothers or sisters, they make up imaginary friends because they’re lonely? Well, I had imaginary friends. My mother actually gave them to me. The first one came after she had beaten me so hard that I didn’t wake up for a whole day.
She found me in her room one day putting makeup on. I was probably about seven years old and I had watched her sit in front of her mirror many times carefully applying color to her eyes and lips and it made me so happy to watch her make herself beautiful. I thought that I wanted to do that too, I wanted to make myself beautiful … but I didn’t know that makeup was only for women.
At first, when she came in the room and grabbed me by the hair, I thought she was angry because I had messed with the things in her room, but I quickly found out that what I had done was horribly wrong. That putting on makeup was something that boys were never supposed to do, and that there was nothing that could make me look any better anyway. That I was doomed to live my life in an ugly, filthy, boy’s body.
When I finally woke up I was in the cage and there on the floor next to the bed she had set one of her wig heads. It had a somewhat dated curled shag wig on it, which is why she had given it to me. After that she gave me all of the wigs she no longer wore, as well as the mannequin head that she stored it on. When a new style came out she just went and bought a new head to go with it.
So, that first mannequin head was my imaginary friend. I didn’t give it a name or anything, but I put makeup on her and did her hair and sat her next to the bed so that it felt like someone was there with me at night. And as my mother gave me more of them if felt like I was running my own salon. I tried different styles and practiced with different kinds of makeup, and the best part of it was, no matter what I did with them I never got in trouble. For some reason my mother was ok with what I was doing to them and it never resulted in any kind of punishment.”
“So, working on the mannequin heads was a kind of freedom for you too?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said as he finally turned back towards me. At first he had a look of excitement in his eyes, like there was something he really wanted to share with me, but then that incredibly sad intensity washed over his face and I almost burst into tears. It was as if, in that moment, he realized that he was too fucked up for anyone to ever understand and the mission to explain himself was futile.
“I know how this all sounds, Avery. I realize how insane all of this is. Every bit of it. I know you can’t possibly see the person who is holding you prisoner as anything but a fucked up mess, but you’re not thinking anything about me that I haven’t thought about myself my whole life. I’m sorry you had to listen to this bizarre story. It makes me sick to think about it and I can only imagine what it must be like for you to hear it.”
“Colin, please … I’m not exactly sure what to say. Yes, I think your story is messed up and yes I think what you did to that girl is messed up and yes I think holding me prisoner in your home is messed up. But I don’t think that makes you a lost cause. I don’t even know how to say this or what it is that I’m trying to say exactly, but
regardless of everything that has happened, I like you.
I liked you from the minute I met you out on the street and I wanted to get to know you. I had no idea what that was going to mean and I have to admit that in the beginning I was terrified and I do still want to go back to my own home. But for some reason I’m not afraid of you anymore. It could be because you’ve told me that you won’t hurt me, but it also could be that there is something about you … and I don’t really understand what it is … but I feel like I’m connected to you in some way. That I understand you and want to protect you. And it’s not because I feel sorry for you either. There are things that I find intriguing and attractive about you, even though I don’t understand any of it.
I didn’t have a horrific childhood like you did, but I do understand a lot of the things you’re feeling. I understand what it’s like to desperately want to make something that is part of me beautiful, because I’ve felt so ugly my whole life. And I know that you say that you think I’m beautiful, but it’s really hard for me to see. And that makes me think that maybe it’s hard for you to see what I see in you. Maybe because no one ever told you the wonderful things they saw in you before so you didn’t know that they were even there. But they are. I can see them.
I’m kind of embarrassed to say this out loud, and the only reason I feel like I’m able to is because you have been so honest with me, but I did like it when I saw you watching me from your window. When we first met, I thought you were really hot and it made me feel good. And now, for reasons I cannot even begin to understand, the more I’ve gotten to know about you the more compelling you’ve become to me. You’re so different than I thought you would be, so different than anyone I’ve ever met. And every time I talk to you, you’re even more different and even more interesting in a whole new way. So, I can’t just say I like you or I don’t like you or I want to be around you or I don’t want to. It’s not that black and white.”
Colin looked at me like he really wanted to believe me but couldn’t.
“I’m no good, Avery. I’m not a good person,” he said as his eyes filled with tears and he turned away from me again.
“I think you are. I believe that you can be anything you want to be. It’s up to you.”
“But … I don’t know if I can stop,” he whispered so that I could barely hear him.
He got up and left the room and locked the door behind him and I lay there for a while trying to understand why I still wanted to run after him and make him feel better. Why I wanted to protect him more than I wanted to protect myself.
17
COLIN
I left Avery’s room as the sun was coming up. I had no idea when I went in there that I was going to tell her the worst and most embarrassing things about me and my childhood, and I felt like I had just vomited all over her. I was horrified of what she must be thinking of me. I was nothing but a freak and I would never be anything else. I wanted to believe what she told me but as I got further and further away from the conversation all of the anger and hatred I had about myself just started pouring through me until it felt like that was all there was left inside.
It took saying all of that stuff out loud for me to really realize how fucked up it all was. My childhood, my imaginary friend, and my father, who I couldn’t even stop calling my mother. Maybe if I could actually admit to myself that he was my father and how cheated I felt to have been denied that experience as a young boy, then maybe I could stop. And I really did want it all to stop. I wanted to go into my mother’s bedroom and smash all of those fucking heads and throw all of the old furniture out and erase everything in this house that reminded me of how painful my childhood was. How painful my life was before Avery got here. And how painful it’s going to be without her. She’s never going to want to be with me. The only way she’ll stay is if I keep her prisoner for the rest of her life, and I couldn’t do that to her.
What I wanted more than anything was to go back into Avery’s room and crawl in bed with her and wrap my arms around her and never leave. But every time I thought about touching her or kissing her there was this voice inside my head telling me that I was worthless, that there was no way she could ever love someone like me. That she would just laugh at me. And no matter what she told me, I knew that voice was right. Besides, she lied to me. She told me that she had gone into the tunnels alone, but I knew that was her that I saw that night. And she wasn’t alone. If she would lie about something as insignificant as that I’m sure she would lie about other things too. She would lie to get away from me.
I didn’t want to think about anything anymore, or remember or feel or even exist. All I wanted to do was get dressed and go to work and hope that one of those goddamned ten dollar-girls walked through the door of the salon.
I TOOK a shower and got dressed and let Avery out so that we could eat breakfast, but I didn’t want to look at her or talk to her. I was starting to feel trapped with her and I didn’t really understand why. Maybe it was because, now that I had told her about my childhood and my mother, she knew more about me than anyone I had ever known and I didn’t see how that could be a good thing. Or maybe it was because talking about it made me feel everything again and I didn’t want to. Maybe the trapped feeling was coming from inside me.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Sure,” I said as I cooked some eggs with my back turned to her
“What is it that you do with the mannequin heads? I saw them when I came in here, the day I was looking for Joey. They look … different.”
She sounded scared when she asked me that question, almost like she didn’t really want to know the answer. And I didn’t particularly want to tell her.
“Are you sure that’s something you want to know?”
After a short pause she said yes, but she still didn’t sound very sure.
“Well, my friend Landen, the one that I met in the tunnels, he taught me how to preserve skin. He taught me how to cut it off so that there was enough around the edges so that I could pin it down and stretch it and fill in underneath and recreate the shape so that it would dry the exact way I wanted it to. He also taught me how to treat the skin so that it didn’t turn yellow or brown and I taught myself the rest. My first attempts weren’t very attractive I have to admit, but since then a lot of those have been taken apart and redone.”
“So what happens to the girls that you bring here?”
“I told you what happens.”
“But is that everything that you … do to them?”
I turned and put the two plates of food on the table then grabbed the coffee and filled up both cups, but I didn’t sit down. I just stood there holding the coffee pot in my shaking hand.
“Are you asking me if I raped the girls I brought here or fucked their dead bodies? No, I told you I didn’t. I never brought anyone into this house to fuck them, ever. I only brought them here to die, because this house is fucking death. And before you say another word just remember that I did not bring you into this house. You did that all on your own.”
I stood there and stared at her for what felt like an hour. It was almost like I was defying her to judge me and finally admit how repulsive I was, but she didn’t say a word. She just looked down at her food and started picking at it with her fork.
“I knew you could never really understand. You sat in there and told me that you did but there’s no way you could possibly fathom how fucked up I am. I know what you’re thinking. I know that you’re looking at me like I’m a complete freak and you don’t even know the half of it. And the thing is, I don’t blame you one bit, but stop pretending that you care cause that’s not gonna get you out of here. You aren’t doing anyone any goddamned favors with that act.”
After standing there and watching Avery eat a few bites I finally sat down at the table and drank some coffee. We both ate breakfast in silence, but before Avery was finished she mumbled something that I didn’t quite hear.
“What was that?” I asked, half expecting he
r to tell me to go straight to hell, but what she said almost made me laugh.
“Beauty is only skin deep, you know,” she said as she looked up at me with sad eyes, but with a funny little smile on her face.
“Yes, I know, and it’s in the eye of the beholder,” I smirked back at her.
“It is. It definitely is,” she said as she looked into my eyes. I didn’t know what she meant by that. Was she referring to how I told her that she was beautiful or to the testaments of beauty I had hidden away in my mother’s room?
“I never intended for anyone to see those heads but me, you know,” I said, looking down at my hands. “Landen has seen them, but other than him I wouldn’t expect anyone to appreciate them.”
“I know, and I’m sorry I invaded your privacy. I never have apologized for coming into your house and looking around at your personal private things without your permission and I want you to know that I’m sorry. And I’m not saying that so you will let me go. I’m saying it because you deserve respect. And I want you to know that I do.
What I meant was … you say you don’t feel perfect and you make women beautiful because only women can be beautiful, or you take what’s beautiful off of women so that you can keep it, but you are completely missing the point of beauty. It’s not what covers a person that is beautiful, and you can’t capture it by cutting it off. The true beauty in people is what’s inside them.”
“Ha! Well, then I’m pretty sure I’m just about the ugliest person alive,” I said as I stood up and picked the plates up off the table, then took them to the sink. I really didn’t think I could face looking into Avery’s eyes again.
“You aren’t just the sum of events that happened to you throughout your life, Colin. You’re way more than that. Everything that has happened up until this minute is in the past, but you’re here now, and the future is in front of you. You may not believe that but I do. You can go on thinking that you’re the worst person in the world if that’s what you really want to do, but you can’t tell me what I do and don’t believe about you.”
