Oh, and when I say I’d stumbled onto the lake I mean I’d found it thanks to some poor directions from the Spanish-speaking owner of an avocado stand a few miles south of the casino. Couldn’t blame him, really. My thick New Hampshire accent confuses most people I meet out here, let alone anyone who already struggles with English. Thank God my cell phone has a built in GPS and I was able to backtrack to the casino.
The lake’s name was Corazon del Agua--Heart of Water. Not very imaginative, but my guess was the early Mexicans named it that more for descriptive purposes than poetry. I knew how to find it well enough. I’d been meaning to do a piece on it for a while now, because the contrast of the desert beyond the lake would be a nice change from the ocean images that usually formed my horizons.
As I got on the highway to head east, my cell phone rang. It was an old friend. “Hola, Officer Teddy. Or should I say, ‘Sheriff Teddy’? My dad told me about your promotion.”
“Yeah, thanks. ’Bout time I got recognized around here. Plus the bum shoulder makes it hard to drive around and write traffic tickets anyway, so I think they just wanted to put me behind a desk.”
“Still hurts you?”
“That dog fucked up all my nerves, but you know this. How’s life in California?”
“Well, it’s February and I’m only in a hoodie. Could be worse.”
“What I wouldn’t give. And let me guess, girls in bikinis everywhere?”
“That part of the myth is a lie. No girls in bikinis rollerskating down the 5. They wouldn’t get through the traffic jams anyway.”
“Well, wait ’til summer, then send me some photos. We all envy you back here, you know. Shit, if I didn’t have a wife and kids I’d move out there, too. I’m freezing my nuts off here. They’re so cold they’re cracking like the frigging Liberty Bell.”
“Very patriotic. Should paint ’em red, white, and blue.”
“They’re already blue. I’m married, remember. Listen, real reason I’m calling is because some website named Thrill of the Kill has been calling your parents’ house.”
“Crap. Thought my dad changed the number again.”
“He did. But these sensationalist pricks always track it down somehow. I ran into your folks at the supermarket and your mom started crying when she told me. I told her I’d find them and lock ’em up for a night or two. Of course, for all I know they’re in Canada or something. Anyway, my guess is they’ll be calling you at some point so . . . well, you know. Might want to change your number, too.”I sighed, sped up around the puttering VW Bug in front of me. “Actually, let them call. I’ll tell them what I think of them.”
“Yeah, but remember what happened when that Court TV show interviewed you. The whole town ended up looking like a Charlie Manson convention. All they want to hear about is the . . . the . . .”
Sheriff Teddy (then Officer Teddy) had been the first one on the scene that summer ten years ago. He’d been driving past Skinny Man’s house and found me covered in blood in the middle of the street, kneeling over a corpse. In fact, he’d almost shot me on sight, thinking me some drugged up homicidal maniac. Thankfully he’d noticed the cuffs on my ankles and the cuts and bruises all over me, and knew things weren’t as they seemed. He was a smart cop.
And then Butch, that big Rottweiler, had come out of nowhere and chomped down on Teddy’s shoulder.
“The blood,” I finished for him. “I know. I’ve dealt with it before.”
“The world is sick, Roger. People get off on this shit. You know I’ve had a couple of high schoolers here ask to see our family album? Said they were doing a report on the reality of CSI episodes.”
“What’s the family album?”
“It’s our book of crime scene photos. It’s not pretty.”
“Pictures of Jamie in there?” I’m not sure why I asked it; it just came out.
There was silence on the other end. Then: “Yeah. Sorry. I’d burn them if the State would let me. No one deserves to see her like that. No one. She was a cute kid, growing up to be a beautiful girl.”
Suddenly I saw an image of Jamie chained to a dirt floor. She’d been beaten senseless and ripped apart by a number of sharp instruments. She struggled to breathe but much of her face had been cut off so all that came out was a bubbling sound. It was a real memory, I knew, but somehow new to me, long buried in my subconscious. Right now, thinking of it as a photograph in some police department three-ring binder, it made me angry. I saw myself looking down at her and crying. Suddenly I wanted to punch something. I wanted to find Skinny Man and beat the shit out of him because I wasn’t afraid anymore. I wasn’t afraid! I wasn’t afraid!
“I’m not afraid of you!”
“Whoa, Roger, you okay?”
I pulled the phone away and looked at the LED. What the hell was I doing? Losing my mind, that’s what. “Sorry. Yeah, um . . . just . . . um . . .”
“Hey, no need to explain. I understand.”
I doubted he did. Nobody had ever understood. And even though Teddy had been there and seen the carnage, he hadn’t lived it like me.
“Okay, well, anyway, I just wanted to touch base and warn you that the self-proclaimed media is still after you. Maybe just screen your calls for a bit.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No sweat. Hey, send some pics back this way of girls in bikinis, even if you have to paint them yourself.”
“You got it.”
We said goodbye and I drove in silence for a little while. It annoyed me that my history was of so much interest to people. You can find various renditions of what went down that summer on a bunch of websites and even in some true crime books. I’m quoted in some of them, and in others they simply made up what they wanted me to say. It’s all romanticized in the end, just like war. But any war veteran who’s been in the shit will tell you there’s nothing romantic about watching your buddy’s leg get blown off.
Or eaten by a Rottweiler.
And then there was Jamie, back in my mind again, dredged up thanks to Teddy’s phone call. A faded memory of us at a donut shop, the one Dad used to take us to on Sunday mornings. I always got the jelly-filled ones and she got the ones with chocolate sprinkles. The three of us would sit and eat, Dad reading the paper, Jamie and I making faces at each other. We’d always take an éclair home for Mom.
Jamie later gave up on chocolate when she was thirteen, afraid to get acne. Something she read in a teenie bopper magazine.
I felt my chest growing tight. Think of something else, Roger.
My iPod was in the center console so I took it out and played some tunes. The Beastie Boys, The Dead Kennedys, Guns N’ Roses, Nirvana, even a song from the Star Wars soundtrack. I sang along, finally letting go of my thoughts, pretending I was on stage at Madison Square Garden.
Traffic, as usual, was moving at a snail’s pace. Everyone was bumper-to-bumper and trying to cut each other off as if it would make a difference to be in another lane. I was still a few miles from the turn off toward the casino, after which I’d still have to drive for about fifteen minutes through the back roads.
I know what you might be thinking--that the lake is secluded and no one would hear me scream if I got attacked by a mountain lion or something. But that’s not true. I’m not stupid. The access road continues around the entire lake and makes a big loop. There are picnic benches and trash barrels on the far side and a lot of people camp out there. There’s also a main road that runs by it on the east side, an alternative route to the casino that is heavily trafficked. It’s a fairly popular spot.
Then again, I’d been feeling different lately. I almost wished it was secluded. And I wish Skinny Man was there, just he and I. Yeah, it’s messed up, but sometimes I wish I could relive those days in his cellar. I wish I could go back as me now, as the me that was born after I got out of the hospital, because I know Jamie and Tooth would still be here. I wouldn’t have run away, wouldn’t have hid, wouldn’t have cried and peed myself. That Roger Huntington is
long dead. Of course Skinny Man’s dead, too, so I may as well fight a telephone pole. Man, maybe I do need more therapy.
I crept along for another five minutes and my phone rang again. The number for the gallery was displayed on the LED. I wondered what Barry wanted now.
“Barry?”
“Hi, Roger, it’s Victoria.”
“Shit!” I slammed on the brake as the car in front of me suddenly stopped short. I flew forward but snapped back thanks to my seatbelt. This is a common occurrence on the Southern California freeways. Someone slows down up ahead and it creates a chain reaction of rapid deceleration until some sap who’s not paying attention rear-ends the guy in front of him. It’s one reason the traffic is always fucked up--everyone is always crashing into each other like retards.
“Roger? You okay?”
“Yeah. I almost nailed the guy in front of me.” For some reason that sounded like a bad thing to say to the girl I had the hots for. I could hear Tooth making fun of me. I bet you wouldn’t even give a reach around either, gayboy. “I mean, with my car,” I explained.
She ignored any double entendres and asked, “Where are you?”
“Driving out to BFE to please your boss.”
“Aw, look at you, always the nice guy. And here Barry is always cursing you out. I think you get a bum rap, mon amor.”
My heart nearly stopped at her flirty French love reference. I knew she was just being funny, because that’s how she was. And that’s why I loved her from afar. She was the kind of girl that was always smiling, always finding silver linings in problems, always offering a hug to anyone having a bad day. It was she who was the nice one, not me. I was just quiet, and somehow seen as timid. I guess to girls that equals nice. But I’m not dumb: I know girls don’t want nice guys, they want arrogant badboys.
Not that they wanted mental cases either, and in that sense, I was screwed twice over.
I cleared my throat. “Well, if I don’t please him he calls me and ties up my phone so . . .”
“Am I tying you up?” There was a hint of teasing in her voice. Or maybe I was just reading into it because I very badly wanted her to tie me up. Hey, I’m a man after all, right?
Answer smooth, buddy. “You could never tie me up. I mean, I want you to tie me . . . . No! I mean . . . that . . . you can call . . . um . . . ”
She giggled. I almost crashed again.
“Listen, the reason I’m calling, Mr. Handsome, is I’m in a heap of shit. I was hanging one of your paintings here for Barry, and I spilled my coffee on it. Barry is fucking flipping out.”
“So dab it with a towel and tell Barry to take a pill.”
“I did. The towel part, anyway. It’s not coming out. It seeped into the painting. Barry says he’s gonna make me pay for it. He’s such a grouch.”
“Yeah, he would, wouldn’t he. Put him on the phone.”
“Ok, thanks, sweetness. Hang on.” There was a brief pause, then she was back. “Ugh. He said he doesn’t want to talk to you. Said he’s gonna fire both of us, which I don’t doubt, and I can barely pay my rent as it is. Not that I really care if I lose this job, but still . . .”
Actually, I cared if she lost her job. She was the only good thing about going to that gallery--besides collecting my money from any sales. Suddenly I had a crazy idea. “Did you take your lunch break yet?”
“I’m just about to.”
“Okay, well, hit a drive-thru real fast and then meet me at Corazon del Agua Lake. I’ll fix it up and you can bring it back and hang it up.”
“Isn’t that out by the casino? It’s gonna take me forty-five minutes just to get there. Barry will dock my pay.”
It would probably take even longer with traffic, I realized. “If he does, I’ll pay the difference.”
“Roger, I couldn’t let you do--”
“I want to. It’s okay.” Truth was I just wanted to see her, and for as smooth as I was--which is in the realm of tree bark--she probably knew it.
“Okay, but if that happens I’ll pay you back later.”
I laughed, perhaps a little forcibly to see if I could get her to laugh back. Cheap pickup tricks I’d learned from Tooth long ago. “Then we’ll constantly be paying each other back and it’ll be a vicious circle.”
“Yeah, but you’re older, so I’ll slip you the money on your deathbed and there will be nothing you can do about it. I win. I rule.” She laughed.
I didn’t. The mention of my deathbed made me go cold. I’d lain in a hospital bed for days after the events of that summer, wishing I was dead. Jaime’s bed in the hospital actually became her deathbed. “Sure,” I said, back to my one-word answers.
“Okay, I think I know how to get there. I’ll leave right now.”
“Call me if you get lost.”
“Thanks, Roger.”
“No problem.”
She hung up just as I reached the off-ramp towards the casino. The road turned off into some barren foothills that had been fenced off for whatever reason. A few houses sat back from the road on long dirt driveways. This pretty much summed up the east county: a land still wholly untouched by industry and fortune. Not that it was desolate--a billboard for a new community development greeted people at the exit. Los Puentes something or other. The Bridges of . . . what? There were no bridges anywhere around here. The developers must have thought it was metaphorical, like the homes would be a bridge to a better life. Anyway, the rendering of the soon-to-be-constructed homes looked like shit so I rolled my eyes.
I followed this road for about five or six minutes until I saw that avocado stand on the side of the road. The sign on top was new and announced that you could now get strawberries and oranges there as well. A couple of cars were pulled over and some people were buying some of the produce. The same guy was working there from last time. It’s no secret these guys are migrant workers, and whether you agree or disagree on the illegal alien issue (which I couldn’t care less about) you really can’t beat the prices. You can get five avocados for a buck at these types of stands. Compare that to a dollar a pop at the supermarket and you understand why these little stands stay in business.
Next to the stand was the dirt road that led down to the lake. The truck in front of me turned down it and kicked up a cloud of dirt that came through my air vents and made me cough. Probably the couple inside was going to have a little picnic at the lake.
Thinking of other people’s happiness started to bum me out. Back in New Hampshire, I’d been a loser with the ladies. Never knew how to talk to them. It took me a long time to realize girls don’t care about Captain America’s death or which film version of Halloween is better (John Carpenter’s, thank you. Everything the man touches turns to gold. Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, Escape From New York, hell, even The Fog is an okay film. I guess the one clunker is Ghosts of Mars, but nobody’s perfect).
The dirt road wound down a small incline for about a mile and stopped at a big unpaved parking lot full of crab grass and weeds. On the other side of the parking lot was that other road I mentioned, the back alternative route to the casino. Cars were speeding down it like always, every driver inside bursting at the seams to throw their money away.
I parked the Camaro and turned off the iPod. Through the windshield I could see the lake before me like a giant puddle of oil. The dirt road continued on from the far corner of the parking lot and wound around the lake to the picnic tables. The truck was halfway around it now, headed toward the park benches. A couple of other cars were over there too and I could see one couple sitting on a blanket and laughing.
“Steve Roger’s death was a milestone,” I said to no one. “Not my fault girls don’t appreciate superheroes.”
I grabbed the paints and beer from the seat next to me and popped the trunk. From inside it I removed my easel, a canvas and my digital camera. Lying next to a box of used brushes was the black case that held my gun. It was a Glock 20 that fired .10mm rounds. I’d only fired it once since my dad bought it for me,
just to make sure it worked. The guys at the gun range were impressed with my accuracy and precision.
“Damn, man, you should enter contests,” this big, bearded fella had said.
“Or become a sniper,” his short, fat friend added. “You’re a regular killing machine. Go on with your bad self, Rambo. Hey, I know where some gooks hang out in my neighborhood. Can I hire you? You’d be doing the country a service!”
I’d simply nodded. What else was I supposed to do, explain to them how I’d blown apart some evil dog’s head as it tried to kill a cop? Explain to them that I had, in fact, killed before? Tell them that I knew I could shoot them between the eyes from one hundred yards away? They’d just ask me to prove it, and I don’t know if I would have cared enough to ignore the challenge.
“Careful, Ross,” Beardy’d said to his friend as I brushed past him, “it’s the silent ones you gotta watch out for.”
Short and Fat Ross stuck his hands up, laughing. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” He and his buddy thought they were awful funny. They laughed a laugh that haunted my dreams and made me start to shake a little. You know, like the Joker. Like Skinny Man. If I could trade lives with them for two seconds they wouldn’t find homicide a laughing matter.
“’Scuse me,” I’d said, finally resorting to stepping around them.
“Sure thing. Wouldn’t want to get on someone’s shooting spree list. We’re just trying to make conversation, buddy. Just telling you you’re a good shooter. You don’t gotta be an asshole.”
“What a prick. Jeez, some people don’t know how to take a compliment. Should kick his ass to teach him some manners.”
I left without incident, picturing myself swinging an ax into their heads. I was sure I could do it, too. I wasn’t afraid of them. I was merely afraid of my thoughts.
Born To Bleed (The Roger Huntington Saga, Book 2) Page 3
