City Fishing

by Steve Rasnic Tem

  “Why’d you go back then?”

  “I never went back.”

  “But you said that you’d been in three other safe houses.”

  “He kept finding me. I’d forget and say his name, or one of the kids would, or maybe I’d make the mistake and bring something that belonged to him with us, and that’s all it took. He’d use that to find us every time. Now I’ve trained myself and the kids not to say his name, not to talk about him, and we don’t have a thing of his on us, not a thing.” She ran her hand up under her skirt, rubbing at the enormous bruise absent-mindedly. “I shouldn’t have written his name down. Not even that. That was just enough for his voice to get inside your phone.

  “But it wasn’t enough for him to actually find this place. No. We’re pretty safe as long as we don’t say his name, or something stupid like that.”

  Laura sat perfectly still, afraid to say anything that would interrupt the woman’s delirium. As Betty described her delusions Laura permitted her eyes to seek out rough places in the shadows, places where too many layers of ancient wallpaper had been hastily painted over and then cracked, large pieces of once-cheerful color flaking off, exposing the grayed and dirty surfaces beneath.

  When Laura returned her attention to the bed across the room, she at first couldn’t see Betty. Anxiety thrilled her. Then she made out the lit end of the cigarette a few feet away, and then Betty, who had removed her clothes and now stood naked against the sloping wall, gazing out the window.

  “No, we’re safe enough here, I guess,” Betty said, the cigarette burning suddenly brighter. “We have nothing of his here. Nothing to attract him.”

  Phantom moths beat their wings steadily against the pane, as if drawn by the ember of Betty’s cigarette. Laura stirred, wishing the woman would get under the covers, go to sleep, stop talking nonsense. “I assume you told the police, and they said they couldn’t do much to help in domestic matters,” Laura said.

  “The police think my husband is dead,” Betty’s voice said. The ember had dimmed. All Laura could see was a spark floating in the darkness, and a pale sliver of mouth.

  “Why should they think that?” Laura pulled one edge of the bed covers up over her waist. She was cold. She could hear the padding of bare feet. Betty’s bed creaked.

  “Because it’s true,” the voice from Betty’s bed said. “I told you I was scared for the children. His anger was like an animal’s, worse every day. I didn’t know what else to do. One night he fell asleep in the bathtub, drunk. I knew I’d never have another chance like that. I took the portable electric heater out of the closet, plugged it in, and threw it in there with him. But I was still afraid I’d get caught, and they’d take the kids away from me. So I burned down our house. I didn’t know what else to do.” Laura remained very still, clutching the cover, pulling it higher. “But he’s always found us, followed us from one safe house to another. But not this time. This time we’ll remember not to say his name, and we have nothing that belonged to him.”

  Laura could hear the man’s screams in her head, could see his darkened face in the shadows as he followed Betty and the children. She sat up while the others slept, unable to get the screams out of her head, and finally unable to distinguish them from the real screams which had suddenly filled the dark spaces of the room.

  “No! No! Frank, it can’t be!” At first Laura didn’t recognize Betty’s voice in the screams, and it was only when the children began to cry that she sprang into action. The darkness massed and separated as she ran to get the light, the shadows crashed around her as she turned on the bulb. Betty’s children ran to Laura and hung on her arms and legs, begging her to save their mother.

  Betty stood naked in the middle of the room, her arms whipping around as if to beat herself. A dark shadow hung over her, a dark marring of purples and yellows, blues and greens. Laura watched as the great bruise on Betty’s thigh grew and spread and made a man’s face and torso, skin burned black with tortured highlights, black hands of char and bruise and darkness tightly gripping his wife’s throat.

  She was wrong, Laura thought, as she moved with Betty’s children toward the door, thinking now only of saving them, knowing full well it was too late for their mother. She had something of his all along, no matter where she might try to escape. And the dark bruise descended over Betty’s head, slowly wiping out her features, erasing the whiteness of her eyes and blotting the paleness of her mouth, breaking her bones and collapsing her rib cage, folding her back into the rough shadows of the half-completed safe house.

  Wherever she went, she bore his signature.

  THE BATTERING

  They stopped at a diner in Georgia. It was all chrome, fifties style, and it sat on the edge of a pine forest. That’s what had appealed to Jack. The forest, for some reason, made him feel safer.

  There were only two or three customers, but Jack still ushered Lisa to the booth furthest from the counter. One exit was close at hand, and it would be a short run to the car. Jack stationed himself between Lisa and the rest of the diner, trying to pretend no one else was there, not even the waitress. As far as these people were concerned, he and Lisa were just travelers, tourists, passing through.

  The waitress started over with two menus. Jack held his breath. She smiled when she handed Lisa hers, mumbled something like “pretty little girl,” and Jack relaxed a little.

  “I’ll be back …” The waitress stopped, looking at her arms, down at her feet, as if an insect were bothering her. She rubbed at an upper arm. “Sorry.” She shook her head. “I’ll be back in just a bit for your order.”

  The waitress walked away, nervously playing with the long curl hanging over her ear. Jack glanced at Lisa, who was busy studying the menu, oblivious to everything else. It had always amazed him how easily she went inside like that.

  “Daddy, what’s ‘creeps’?”

  “That’s pronounced ‘crepe,’ honey. It’s like a thin pancake, with eggs in it. Try it; I think you might like it.”

  “Naw, I’ll just have a hamburger with chili sauce.”

  “That’s it? For breakfast?”

  “Yep!” She giggled. Normally he would have shown her that he appreciated her little joke, but Jack was finding it impossible to smile.

  The waitress was back in only a few minutes. She seemed agitated. She stood near Jack, staring down at her pad. “Your order?”

  “Oh, yeah. Crepes for me, I guess. And coffee.”

  “And the girl?” The waitress jerked her head toward Lisa, without looking at her.

  Lisa stared at the waitress. “Do you have tomato juice?”

  The waitress would not look up. Jack watched her, watched her fingers clench themselves white on the pad, and felt himself lean toward Lisa. He wanted to tell her not to ask questions. He wanted to shout at her, order her to shut up. “Sure, sure,” the waitress mumbled.

  “Well, I’ll have that.” Lisa was giggling. “And a hamburger!” She started laughing.

  “Fine,” the waitress said shortly, and reached to pull Lisa’s menu away from her. Jack had a feeling, and tried to reach the menu first, but he was too late.

  The waitress had Lisa by the hand, Lisa’s small fingers still pinching the menu, and the waitress was squeezing, squeezing. Lisa’s mouth gaped open.

  Jack jumped up and pulled the waitress away, then slung Lisa under his arm, started toward the door.

  As he hit the door bar the waitress was screaming. By the time he reached the car the cook and the other customers were hurrying out, coming for them, coming for Lisa.

  Jack and Elaine had always wanted a boy. When Lisa came, however, it was fine with Jack. She was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen, and it was a thrill to watch her grow, developing right before his eyes into a beautiful little girl. Elaine wasn’t so sure. She kept a distance from the child. At first Jack thought it was just that she wanted a boy so badly. In fact, he was so drawn to Lisa he couldn’t imagine anyone else feeling differently. It would have seemed
crazy to him.

  But then Elaine started voicing her complaints. “Things haven’t been the same between us since Lisa came.” Elaine had taken up smoking; Jack thought it was a disgusting habit. He didn’t enjoy the taste of his wife’s lips anymore.

  “I could probably get used to your smoking, Elaine. But I’ve been watching you—you smoke the most when you’re with Lisa. It’s like you … subconsciously want to make her sick.”

  Elaine laughed harshly. “Oh, you’re something. You can’t say anything directly. You have to use words like ‘subconscious’ and ‘unintentional.’ Why don’t you just spit it out?”

  “I think you hate her! I think you can’t stand to be around her and she’s just a baby!”

  She turned her back, knowing that would annoy him even more. She was always turning her back when they talked about Lisa.

  “I’m not the only one,” she said quietly.

  Jack reached over and grabbed her arm. She squirmed away from him. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

  Elaine sighed heavily and shrugged her shoulders. He wondered when she had become such a martyr; overnight, it seemed to him. “You’re so blind, Jack,” she said. “You don’t notice a damn thing you don’t want to!” She stopped, moved toward the couch.

  “Go on,” he said. “Don’t just walk away.”

  She sat down and stared at her cigarette. With a sudden expression of disgust she smashed it out in a huge ashtray almost overflowing with broken butts. “None of the other kids in the neighborhood can stand her. Oh, they like her fine at first. She’s a cute kid, and she laughs a lot. Kids like that, I guess.” She frowned and laughed at herself. The gesture appalled him, he could see so much self-loathing in it. “But after a while, just a week or two, sometimes just a couple of days, they can’t stand to be around her. Most of the time they just walk away. Sometimes they hit her, or shove her down.”

  Jack thought about the bruises on Lisa’s arms and legs. She said she’d gotten them playing. Jack had always suspected that Elaine had had something to do with them. “She’s never said anything.”

  Elaine was rubbing her face, too hard. “I know. It’s like she doesn’t even notice, or doesn’t care.”

  “But why wouldn’t they like her? She’s a sweet little girl.” He watched Elaine rubbing her face to a bright red. “How can I believe that, Elaine? You don’t like her, so how do I know you’re not just distorting what you see?”

  Elaine’s hands were shaking. “You bastard. You’re the only one around here who doesn’t know. The neighbors won’t even let her into their homes anymore. They won’t say why, they just make up some weird excuse. I swear, you’re just as dumb as she is.”

  Suddenly Jack found himself standing over her, his hand raised, the fingers curling into a fist. “Take it back! Don’t you ever talk about her that way again.”

  Elaine smiled at him stupidly. “Go ahead, hit me, Jack. Hit me just as hard as you can. Then maybe you won’t ever have to punch your precious little girl.”

  Jack stood there shaking. Then he turned around, almost running to the door. “Bitch!” he shouted, once, struggling for breath. He knew he was quite capable of hitting her again and again until he was exhausted from it. That new self-knowledge was infuriating.

  “Daddy, I’m hungry.” Lisa curled up on the passenger side, vigorously pulling her small, naked doll up against her face.

  “I know, honey. Me, too. We’ll find a grocery store and I’ll go in and get us something.”

  “Can’t I go in, too?”

  He was amazed by her ability to ignore what was happening to them. He’d talk to her about it, but she didn’t seem to have the slightest idea what was going on. “Not this time, honey. Don’t you remember? I know you don’t understand it; I don’t understand it either. But it’s dangerous.”

  Lisa nodded drowsily. In moments the naked doll was bobbing up and down in the rhythms of her sleep.

  Jack watched her: she looked normal, almost super-normal. This thing, this energy she had, was draining her. He didn’t understand the specifics, but somehow it made perfect sense to him.

  He had no idea where he was going. North, somewhere, then maybe west. At times he thought about getting them plane tickets out of the country. Crazily, he hoped she wouldn’t have this affect on foreigners. But he was afraid of the two of them being trapped in an enclosed space like that. There was no way he could fight off a plane full of passengers, even if he was able to sneak a gun on board.

  He felt the pistol tucked into the holster beneath his left arm, and wondered if the jacket concealed it all that well. It was craziness; he knew nothing about guns. The morning before they’d left Florida he’d broken into his neighbor’s apartment. The man was an idiot, always showing the thing off, explaining how carefully he had hidden it.

  But it did feel oddly reassuring. Whether Jack thought he could ever use it or not.

  He was experimenting now. With Lisa’s life and his own. There was nothing particularly magical about his leaving Florida, but he had no idea what might work, if anything. Lisa was born there, so maybe the power would decrease the farther she was away. It made a kind of skewed sense. Just as what she’d been born with made a kind of skewed sense.

  Jack watched his daughter sleeping. She seemed so powerless. Like a doll. He still remembered what life had been like for him at that age; he always would. The adults in your life could do whatever they wanted to you. He used to think that once he got older he would have his vengeance.

  “I’m sorry, Lisa! I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  By the time Jack had reached the dining room, the screams had stopped. Elaine was on the floor by the dining room table, clutching Lisa in her arms. Blood-streaked arms; Lisa’s forehead was a bloody mess. Lisa cried softly, too softly for so much blood.

  “What happened?” He wanted to shout it, but his voice came out a whisper.

  Elaine rocked Lisa, trying to comfort her, trying to stop her tears. She cooed to her, as if this were not her damaged child but a newborn, fresh out of the womb. And bloody as all newborns.

  Lisa’s eyes were closed in pain. Blood clotted her eyelashes and eyebrows. Jack thought he was going to cry, too.

  Elaine was crying, in a sing-song, almost a scream, as she rocked Lisa.

  “How did it happen?” He tried to raise his voice above Elaine’s cries.

  “I … I just turned my head! That was all! It was like she dived for the edge of the table.” Elaine gasped trying to catch her breath.

  That gave Lisa a chance to speak. “Why did you do that, Mommy? Why did you hurt me?” Lisa had opened her blood-clotted lids. She was beautiful. She had a doll’s beautiful blue eyes.

  “But I didn’t. Jack, I swear.” Elaine looked panicked, sick. “I didn’t do it, honey. You fell, but I … really don’t understand how.” She turned back to Jack, pulling Lisa more tightly against her chest. “I had her balanced on my knees. Her little feet went up on tiptoe on top of my knees. She was fine; I just looked away for a second. I felt her body bend, then get tense. Like she was jumping. It was as if she dived for the edge of the table.”

  “Elaine.” Jack knew he was staring at his wife, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You’re saying she did this to herself on purpose.”

  “Jack, are you thinking …”

  “No, I don’t think you did it. I know I’ve been suspicious, but I never thought you’d do anything like this. I know you didn’t try to hurt her.”

  “It was like she dived, Jack …”

  “Oh, Mommy! Oh, Mommy, it hurts so bad!” Lisa buried her face in Elaine’s neck, spreading the blood over her mother’s mouth and chin. Jack watched Elaine’s teeth and tongue rubbing at the blood, worrying her lip. He rarely heard Lisa call Elaine mommy.

  “Oh, Lisa, I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry!”

  Jack looked away. He could see Lisa diving through the air, her arms outstretched into a perf
ect swan.

  Less than a week later Elaine left them both. They hadn’t heard from her since.

  In North Carolina, Jack left Lisa sleeping in the car while he went inside a grocery store for food. Fresh sandwiches were available in the deli department, and small cartons of milk. He got Lisa chocolate. He figured several bags of fruit, fig bars, and raisins would do a while for the snacks.

  When he got outside the store an old man was leaning over the passenger-side window of the car, peering inside.

  “Get away from that car!” Jack dropped the groceries and ran across the parking lot, grabbed the old man’s shoulder, spun him around. The old man’s eyes were white, his lips fat and raw. “What are you doing here?”

  “Shouldn’t leave her like that … might hurt somebody, that one.”

  Jack pushed him away. Blood was smeared around the top of the window. He examined the rubber seal—two fingernails had been jammed in, torn out. When he turned back the old man was licking his fingers, tending to their torn and bleeding tips.

  The sandwiches tasted good. Jack glanced down to see his daughter munching greedily on the fruit. He avoided looking at the glass above her; he’d smeared it badly trying to clean it.

  He’d always thought that he and Elaine would make good parents. It had been essential to him that they be good parents.

  That was another thing you did when you were small and defenseless—you decided you’d be very different when you grew up. You’d get revenge on the adults who’d mistreated you, and at the same time you’d be a different kind of parent. I’ll never do that to my kids.

  Lisa was his sweet little girl. Sometimes her petiteness amazed him. She was constructed like a doll; at times it made her seem almost unreal.

  Just as their lives had become unreal. The unfairness of it disturbed him the most. That she should be a target like this, even to people they’d never met before. It reminded Jack of all the other unfairnesses of childhood, and being told by adults, with a bizarre sort of pride, that life itself was unfair.