Companions in Ruin

by Mark Allan Gunnells

  Carol let out a high-pitched scream that drilled into my eardrums like an ice pick. She pushed Terri away and started running for the water cooler. Terri looked confused for a moment, but when she spotted the overturned water jug, she too screamed and ran for the cooler.

  “What’s going on out here?” Mr. Griswald said, stepping out of his office. He was naked from the waist down.

  “The sonofabitch knocked over the water jug,” Joel said, on his knees next to Carol and Terri by the puddle. He was actually crying.

  There was a wail from inside Mr. Griswald’s office, and soon the threesome had joined the others by the spill. They were all crying and cursing me. Vic snatched up the now empty water jug and cradled it to his chest.

  When all six of them leaned forward and started lapping up the spilled water from the floor, I took the opportunity to make a hasty exit.

  ALONG FOR THE RIDE

  Clyde spotted her as soon as she turned into the parking lot. She was driving a light gray Kia Sportage, looked to be in her early twenties, and most importantly, she was alone. She parked close to the entrance and hopped out, rushing into the store. Obviously a woman in a hurry. Clyde sidled up to the passenger’s side of the Sportage and crouched down so that he wouldn’t be visible when she exited the store. The parking lot was deserted this early on a Sunday morning, and Clyde felt confident he was undetected.

  Five minutes passed, and then Clyde heard the familiar electronic boop-boop and the muffled clunk as the woman used her remote to unlock the vehicle’s doors. He waited until he heard her open the driver’s side door and climb into the seat before opening the passenger’s door and jumping in himself.

  The woman was in the process of closing her door, and she froze, staring blankly at Clyde, as if she couldn’t quite believe he was there.

  “Drive, bitch,” Clyde said in his best imitation of all those hoods he’d seen in the movies, pulling out the serrated hunting knife and pointing it at the woman.

  Clyde had expected her to cower in the face of the knife, but instead her expression set in a hard mask of defiance and she said, “Get the fuck out of my car.”

  Clyde was momentarily thrown by the anger and confidence he heard in her voice. This was a woman who was used to having her commands obeyed. He hesitated, considering doing exactly what she said and getting the fuck out of her car. Then his resolve stiffened and he held the knife up to her throat. “Don’t think I won’t cut you. Now drive!”

  According to the script that Clyde had written in his mind, this should be the point where the woman started crying and saying things like, “Please don’t hurt me, I’ll do anything you want.” Instead she said nothing, giving him a cold glare that made him want to curl up and hide. She did start the car, however, and pull out of the parking lot.

  “Head away from town,” Clyde said, willing the knife not to shake in his grip.

  “What am I, your chauffeur?” the woman asked with a smirk.

  “Yeah, bitch, that’s exactly what you are,” Clyde said with more assurance than he felt. This wasn’t going at all the way he’d imagined it, but at least she’d left the lot and was on the road. And he had the knife, and the knife was the power.

  “Well, where shall I take you, sir?” the woman said with a sarcastic lilt that Clyde didn’t care for. Didn’t care for one bit.

  “Just get on Highway 105 and head south. I’ll tell you where to go from there.”

  “We could do that,” the woman said, staring straight ahead through the windshield, her fingers tight on the steering wheel. “Or we could turn down Crawford Street and go straight to the police station.”

  “I don’t think you understand the situation,” Clyde said, jabbing the knife toward her face for emphasis. “I don’t want to hurt you, I just need to get somewhere fast, but I will hurt you if you make me.”

  “Brave talk for a little piss-ant. Seems to me like you’re just a junkie who needs a fix and wants me to be your cab driver to get it. You’ve probably never even hurt anyone’s feelings, much less anything else.”

  “Are you crazy, bitch!” Clyde shouted, and he heard a hysterical edge in his voice that wasn’t good. “In case it’s escaped your notice, I’ve got a knife.”

  The woman glanced sideways at him, a smile curling the edges of her mouth, and said, “You don’t have a knife; you’ve got a banana.”

  Clyde looked down at the knife in his hand, except he no longer had a knife in his hand. In its place was a banana, the yellow peel polka dotted with brown spots. He cried out and dropped the fruit to the floorboard.

  The woman leaned over and casually plucked the banana from where it lay at Clyde’s feet. Only it wasn’t a banana anymore; it had turned back into a knife.

  “I’ve got the knife now,” the woman said, tapping the blade against the steering wheel. “Does that mean I have the power?”

  “Bitch, don’t make me fuck you up,” Clyde said, holding up his fists, noting the way his hands shook but unable to control it.

  “Fuck me up?” the woman said with a laugh. “That’ll be hard to do without any arms.”

  Clyde looked down and saw that his arms were gone. His sleeves hung limply by his sides. He screamed and flailed about in the seat. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew what he saw, and what he didn’t see.

  “Enough with the screaming,” the woman said, reaching out and delivering a backhanded slap across Clyde’s left cheek. “I’m only joking.”

  Clyde calmed down enough to realize that his arms were back, just where they’d always been. He flexed his fingers, holding them in front of his face, reassuring himself that he was in fact whole.

  “What are you?” Clyde said, his voice quavering but he no longer cared. “Some kind of witch or something?”

  “Like this,” the woman said, and she was the Wicked Witch of the West. Literally. Green skin, warts, pointy black hat. She cackled at him and said, “I see someone who has a flying monkey on his back.”

  Clyde reached for the door handle, but the car sped up. They were going at least eighty miles per hour; if he jumped out of the vehicle at this speed, he’d surely end up in the hospital, if not a casket. Tears leaking from his eyes, he turned to find the woman was now just herself again, curly brown hair, pale skin, red sweater.

  “I must be hallucinating,” Clyde said, rubbing his palms against his eyes. “Been too long without a fix, that’s all.”

  “You think you’re going through withdrawals?” the woman asked with mock sympathy. “I read one time that people going through withdrawals sometimes feel as though their skin is crawling with phantom bugs.”

  Suddenly an army of ants were swarming up over Clyde’s arms, onto his neck and face. Crying like he hadn’t since he was five, he clawed at his arms, trying to dislodge the little fuckers, spitting and snorting as he felt them crawling into his mouth and nostrils. Just as suddenly, the ants disappeared. He laid his scratched and bleeding arms in his lap and looked over at the woman. “Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you want.”

  “How could I possibly hurt you?” the woman said. “I’m just a weak little girl, after all. What could I do to you?”

  Clyde was crying so hard that his breath was coming in hiccups. “Please, lady. I’m begging you. I wasn’t never gonna do nothing to you, I just needed a ride real bad, and some cash.”

  “You’re still think I’m a witch?” the woman said, an amused twinkle in her eye. “What if you’re wrong? What if I’m an alien, and this SUV is really my spacecraft, and I’m taking you back to my home planet for study?”

  Clyde looked out the windshield and let out a shrill, high-pitched scream as he saw nothing but the blackness of space, the Sportage zooming past blurred stars at warp speed. He felt himself lifting off the seat and banging against the roof as gravity left him. He grabbed onto the dash, incoherent cries issuing from his mouth in a steady stream.

  “Here we are,” the woman said, and they were back on solid ground
, back on planet Earth. She pulled to a stop in front of the police station on Crawford Street and said, “End of the road.”

  Clyde fumbled with the handle then fell onto the sidewalk. There were two uniformed officers standing out front, frowning at him as he stumbled to his feet. He was dimly aware that the knife was now back in his hand as he ran up to them, waving his arms above his head, shouting, “She’s a fucking witch, we got to burn her at the stake! We got to burn the bitch, burn her to a cinder!”

  He felt the cops grabbing him roughly, bending his wrist back until the knife clattered to the asphalt, but he couldn’t stop screaming. One of the cops threw him to the ground, pinning him with a knee to the back. As Clyde felt his hands being cuffed behind him, he looked up and saw the woman standing by the Sportage, smiling down at him.

  TRUE 2 LIFE

  Day One:

  The apartment seems so empty. I mean, it’s as cluttered as it was the day I left three months ago, full of thrift store furniture and piles of books and exercise equipment and DVDs and hanging plants and movie posters, but it just seems empty somehow.

  And small. It never seemed this small before. It’s just me, after all, and previously I always felt I had plenty of room. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths, spacious L-shaped living room/dining room. What more could a girl ask for? But now it feels cramped, claustrophobic, like the walls are closing in on me.

  Of course, when you’ve spent the past two and a half months in an antebellum mansion filled with camera crews, it’s hard to adjust to life back in the real world.

  I guess I should make proper introductions. My name is Amy Banks. I’m twenty-two, a graduate from the University of South Carolina with a degree in Communications and no clue as to what I want to do with my life. I come from a strict Southern Baptist family, and I’m the black sheep. I enjoy rock music, action movies, and going out to clubs with my friends on the weekends. I was working as a manager at Ryan’s Steakhouse, but I’m currently unemployed. If I had to pick a motto for my life, it would probably have to be, “You’re only young once, so live it up while you can.” Or maybe, “I’d rather regret something I did than something I didn’t do.” Yeah, I like that one better.

  There, now you know me. That was pretty much what I said on the audition tape I sent in to the network. They were looking for five dynamic young people from around the country to participate in a new reality series called True 2 Life. I hear that literally thousands of people sent in tapes, but I was one of the lucky five chosen for the show.

  They set the five of us up in a large antebellum home in Savannah, Georgia, and taped every moment of our lives for six weeks. Camera crews followed us to the store, to the bar, out to eat. There were cameras in the bedrooms, bathrooms, even in the closets. Not a second was missed; everything was captured on film, the dramatic as well as the mundane.

  My roommates were as follows: a militant black guy from New York, a flaming gay guy from Los Angeles, a snotty bitch from Chicago, and a naïve virgin from some little nothing of a town in Kansas. That’s what the show does, what all those types of reality shows do, they take people and turn them into stereotypes. We were each picked so that we could play a specific role. The militant black guy, the flaming gay guy, the snotty bitch, the naïve virgin, and the slut.

  Yep, that was me, that was my role to fill. The slut. Just because I like to have fun, I get stuck with that label. Trust me, the militant black guy got plenty more ass than I did, but it’s okay if a guy sleeps around. When a female does it, though, it’s suddenly taboo. I mean, I only had sex with five guys over the two and a half months I was in Savannah. That’s not that many. Besides, one of them was a pity fuck and another was a drunken mistake, so those two should hardly count.

  It was a memorable six weeks. There was much partying, plenty of laughs, and more than a few knock-down-drag-out fights. In particular, me and the snotty bitch did not get along. We were cool for the first couple of weeks, but then I hooked up with the militant black guy after he’d hooked up with the snotty bitch. She took it personally, like she had some kind of claim on him just because she’d had his dick in her mouth. She called me a whore, I called her a cunt, and it all culminated in a hair-pulling tussle that the gay guy had to break up. I can only imagine the phone call I’ll be getting from my father when that episode airs.

  Anyway, the six weeks ended and they packed us up and shipped us all back home. Today’s my first day back in my regular life, and everything looks different to me now. I mean, I wasn’t really gone that long, but it’s as if everything has changed. My apartment, in which I had once taken such pride, feels alien and unfamiliar. I’m like a stranger in my own life.

  Day Four:

  I stopped at a Redbox today to rent some movies, and no one cared.

  I’m used to having cameras following me everywhere I go, which makes every action feel important. I had begun to imagine everything I did in bold capital letters with an exclamation point at the end. AMY STOPS BY REDBOX AND RENTS BAD GRAMPA! AGAIN! But now the cameras are all gone, and my actions are irrelevant, of no concern to anyone other than myself. Now everything is lowercase, in a smaller font.amy stops by redbox and rents bad grampa. again.

  I crave being the center of attention like I was on True 2 Life. I felt so interesting while on the show, like everything I had to say was clever and witty, like every move I made was noteworthy. It’s hard to adjust to being just one face in a crowd, nothing special. I want to be singled out, put on a pedestal, adored for just being me.

  Maybe when True 2 Life airs. Right now they’re editing all the footage, and the show is scheduled to begin its run next month. Once my face is on everyone’s television screen, maybe then I can start basking in the spotlight again.

  Day Nine:

  I didn’t leave the apartment at all today. What’s the point, if no one’s watching?

  I just sat here on the couch, shoveling ice cream and chips into my mouth and watching TV. Did you know Doritos crumbled over chocolate ice cream is delicious? Trust me.

  I discovered a reality show called Rat Race. A bunch of contestants are set loose in a giant maze, and the first person to find the exit gets a million dollars. Everyone else gets a lifetime supply of cheese. I am thinking of sending in an audition tape. I could use a million dollars. If not, a lifetime supply of cheese isn’t too shabby.

  Day Eleven:

  I got into a wicked fight tonight. I went with some friends from school to a new club in town, Prowlers. The place was packed, the music was loud, and I was drunk off my ass. I ended up dancing with some cute football player, and I was all up on him, it was like we were circus freaks joined at the crotch. Suddenly this girl shows up and informs me that he’s her boyfriend and she’d appreciate it if I backed off. She wasn’t particularly rude or vicious; she was actually absurdly polite about it.

  I hauled off and smacked the shit out of her. My nails left a nasty gash just under her left eye. The look of dumb surprise on her face set me off even more, and by the time I was pulled off her, she was curled up in the fetal position on the dance floor, bloody and sobbing. Needless to say, I won’t be going back to Prowlers.

  Thing is, I know I had no reason to react so violently. I can’t even blame it on the booze. I was aware of what I was doing, and I chose to act all out of proportion to the situation. I just felt the need to add some drama to the evening. I mean, why have a boring encounter when you can have one that’s explosive?

  My friends were all appalled by my behavior. A couple of them say they’re done with me and don’t want to hear from me again. They don’t understand what makes good television.

  Day Thirteen:

  I called the naïve virgin today. She gave us all her number on the last night we spent in the mansion. I never expected to be using it, but I wondered if I was the only one having trouble adapting to life out of the spotlight.

  She said she was happy to hear from me but was too busy to talk long. She’s in college now, studying
theater, has a new steady boyfriend, working part-time at the local library. She said she missed all her True 2 Life roommates but was thrilled to have her privacy back.

  Thrilled to have her privacy back? What’s so great about privacy? Privacy just means no one is watching.

  What a bumpkin. I will be tossing her number. After all, wouldn’t want to disturb her precious privacy.

  Day Seventeen:

  I bought a digital video recorder. Not top of the line or anything, but it suits my needs.

  I set it up and let it run, recording me doing the household chores, paying bills, calling my mother. Sometimes I talk directly to it, detailing the events of the day.

  The other night I used the camera to record a sexual encounter with a hot young guy in my building. I didn’t tell him beforehand I was recording the event. He noticed the camera after we’d gotten started, and being filmed just seemed to excite him more. He started showing off for the lens. He was an okay lay, a bit overeager, but my cries of pleasure were more for show than a result of his prowess as a lover. I felt like Meg Ryan in that old movie When Harry Met Sally.

  Day Twenty:

  Today I’m the naïve virgin. I mean, it gets old being the slut day in and day out. Gotta switch it up now and then.

  I fixed my hair in pigtails, toned down the makeup, and invited the guy from my building over. When he tried to put his hand up my shirt, I slapped him and told him to leave, I wasn’t that kind of girl. He called me a freak and got the hell out of here. He seemed angry, but at least I managed to preserve my purity.

  Day Twenty-One:

  Today I’m the snotty bitch.

  I went to Starbucks and ordered a café au cocoa. I complained that it was too hot, so they added more milk. I then raised hell that they served me a lukewarm drink. The manager offered to give me a ten-dollar gift certificate to compensate for my dissatisfaction; I tossed the drink in her face and walked out.