I remembered last Christmas I'd opened my eyes and saw the small silver box on the cabinet. As I opened it, I squealed as I saw the diamond bracelet. But now, the bracelet was long gone, probably pawned for booze. At the time I was sure he must have saved up for months to buy it but now, as I stood in the darkness of the house and saw what he really was, I realized it was probably fake just like our whole relationship had been.
I turned on my heel and walked out, the knife still in my hand.
"Don't go."
He was in the doorway, looking at me with those big, pathetic bloodshot eyes.
"Please."
"I'm leaving."
"Don't call the cops."
"I won't."
"Please. Stay."
"Get out my way."
He began to cry and rubbed at his eyes as though he was trying to force out more tears.
"Get out my way!"
He pulled his hand down and the expression on his face changed in an instant. It was no longer distraught but was cunning and sly. There was a look of pure malice in his eyes. He'd been acting all along.
Something flashed silver by his side. I looked down and saw the gun.
"Craig, no."
He raised his hand, his finger firmly on the trigger.
This time I didn't waste a second. I ran at him and plunged the knife into him, aiming for his chest. But he was quick and spun round, the blade digging into his bicep. He screamed and dropped the gun and in a panic, we both dropped to the floor to scrabble for it.
I kicked him hard in the face, my heels sinking itself into the thin skin of his cheek. He rolled over, crying out as he clutched his face and the blood ran through his fingers.
"Motherfucker!"
I grabbed the gun and cocked it before pointing it right at the sweet spot between his eyes.
"Let me go."
"Okay! Fuck. Jesus. Go!"
He was still gritting his teeth in pain.
I took off, desperate to get as far away from him as possible. Now with both the gun and the knife, I knew he wasn't stupid enough to try anything. He may have been crazy and delusional but he wasn't dumb.
Racing down the stairs, my legs struggling to balance my weak body as I teetered in my heels, I only thought of escape and Lincoln.
Where was he? Why hadn't he found me yet?
Stop thinking. Just run!
Just another eight more steps and I was free. I lunged at the front door as it came into view, fumbling with the handle.
“Shit. Come on!”
It was stuck, the door remaining unmoving. Meanwhile, there was a shuffling behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw Craig making his way down the stairs, the smell of him descending on me with every step he took.
“Come on!”
I rattled the handle again but it wouldn’t budge.
“Looking for these, sweetheart?”
I turned back around to see him land on the bottom step, jangling a set of keys in his hand.
“Have you forgotten our house already?”
I had. Unlike most houses with a simple lock on the inside, our modern house was only able to be locked with a key. It seemed like the safest option when we were buying the place but now there was only one key to get me out and he was swinging it around his finger.
“Open the door, Craig!”
He laughed, his hand still holding onto his arm. A long stream of blood was running down the length of his body and pooling around his feet. Surely it wouldn’t be long until he grew exhausted with blood loss.
“Open the door!”
I held up the gun.
“I’ll shoot. I swear to fucking god, Craig. I will shoot you if you don’t hand over the key right now!”
He stood smiling, unmoving, the key still hanging from his hand.
“You’ve got three seconds,” I said, with my hand trembling. “One.”
“Don’t play games, Etta. We both know you’d never hurt me.”
“Think again. I just stabbed you, didn’t I? Two.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
“This thing? Hardly a stab wound.”
“Give me the key!”
He held my gaze for a second, his lips twitching mischievously. Dropping the key into his pocket, he patted his chest.
“It’s staying safe in here.”
My whole body shook. I had no choice. I wasn’t staying in this house a second longer and I wasn’t playing any more games.
“Three!”
I clenched my eyes and held my breath. Then I pulled the trigger and felt the force of the gun travel up my arm as the sound of gunfire deafened me. It echoed throughout the whole building and reverberated in my bones.
As the noise dissipated, it left a hollow ringing in my ears. It pierced my head until I clapped my hands to my ears in a vain attempt at stopping it.
Opening one eyes then another, I looked to the ground where his body should lay. He had to be dead. But he wasn’t.
Still standing on the bottom step, laughing and laughing with his body doubled over, he was very much alive.
“What the?”
I had been pointing it right at him! Glancing around the walls, I looked for signs that the bullet had missed him but it hadn’t.
There never was a bullet.
He took a step forward and snatched the gun out my hand. Dumbstruck, I stood looking up at him, praying that it was all over, although I knew it wasn’t. He was just getting started. What he’d done up there was just his warm up act.
“Blanks,” he said as he tapped the barrel of the gun. “You didn’t think I’d let you walk around with real bullets, did you?”
Chapter Nine
LINCOLN
It had been years since I'd been down this street, too many years to count. Yet somehow, it looked as though I'd never left it. The lawns were kept in the same fashion, tidy with no personality except for a few conifers at the borders of the gardens. A few potted plants were scattered across some porches but most were bare. Except I knew one house on this street had nothing but a single rocking chair, my mother's favorite seat.
It came up at me on the left, its windows almost looking out for me like melancholy eyes yearning for my return. As I pulled up outside, I suddenly felt cold.
"What am I doing here?"
I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd been drawn here, even if it was just by my own subconscious mind trying to make sense of everything.
As I sat in the car, I watched the house for a long while. Everything about it was average, from the way the green paint on the windows had flaked to the how the porch had a light dusting of earth and leaves. It looked so normal, but I knew the things that happened to me inside it were far from that. They were perverse and twisted.
My eyes moved over to the rocking chair and I imagined my mom sat there, smoking her cigarettes and humming to herself as the little, portable transistor radio played Patsy Cline at her feet. Fuck, I miss my mom so much, I thought. It was a feeling that seemed to come out of nowhere. It wasn't that I never thought about her but coming back here felt as though she was somehow still here. I imagined her sitting watching me, telling me she was proud of me, telling me she was sorry for leaving me with my father.
Part of me wanted to climb out and walk over to the old rocking chair in the hope that if I hoped hard enough I'd walk up those three steps and see her there. She might even kiss me and tell me that I looked just like her own father when he was young.
I knew none of that would happen. She was nothing but a chair now, a memory.
Something distracted me out the corner of my eye. Old Mr. Wilkins, the guy next door, who I assumed died years ago, was making his way outside with his lawnmower. Two things came to mind. Firstly, I was shocked to see him walking around looking the same as he had when I was ten years old. He was one of these people who wereperpetually old. When I was a kid I thought he was probably born aged seventy, hunched over and weighed down by the misery of life.
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The second thing I wondered was what the hell he was doing mowing his lawn in the winter. His garden was mostly frozen mud with a few weeds interspersed throughout the holly bushes.
He noticed my car right away and squinted. As soon as he saw my face, he was on his way over, scuffling down the sidewalk, still dragging his lawnmower which clattered violently.
"Lincoln?" he asked. "What in the devil's name are you doing here?"
He sounded just like he used to, aggressive and slightly curious as though he was annoyed at my presence but wanted to tell me a story at the same time. I thought he might give me a Werther's Original then clip me round the back of the head before telling me to be good.
"Hello there, Wilkins."
Stepping out to shake his hand, I was struck by how much he had shrunk. He was a tiny wrinkled up shrimp of a man now with a great big hunchback and arthritic hands that were more like claws. I took his hand and it felt like a tree trunk.
"So you came back," he said.
"I...erm... was just driving through."
"Is that right? I always did wonder when you'd be back. The house has been empty for years. Ever think of selling it?"
The truth was that I didn't want to think about it nevermind set foot inside it. After my father died, I simply locked the door and never went back. How long ago was that now? I could barely remember.
"How are you, old boy?" I asked, wanting to change the subject. "It's great to see you."
"And you, young man. I barely recognized you. It wasn't until I saw your eyes."
"My eyes?"
"Just like your mother's. You could pass for her brother. Bless his soul."
Somehow this comment gave me a peculiar lift. I felt connected to my mom in a whole new way.
"Thanks. I remember my uncle. He was a great dude. He taught me how to ride my bike."
We fell silent as we reminisced, each of us drifting away into the pasts in our minds.
"So what did you say you were doing back in the neighborhood?" he asked, looking up at me with his glassy eyes.
He may have been deteriorating with age but his eyes were still clear and alert.
"Just, erm. I was passing nearby and thought I'd drop by."
"Huh..."
He was ancient but he wasn't stupid. He tapped his tongue off the roof of his mouth as he regarded me suspiciously.
"What's a rich boy like you passing through a neighborhood like this for? Nothing here for you."
It was more of an accusation than a question and I didn't like it. I turned my attention back to the house and pointed at my old bedroom window.
"I used to be able to see you from up there," I said. "When you were in the living room alone."
Reading Playboy one handed, I should have added but I didn't need to. The look on his face told me he knew exactly what I was talking about.
"Oh. Is that so? How funny."
He forced out a laugh and began trundling back to his house, the lawnmower trailing along behind him scratching the sidewalk.
"Say, your father was an interesting man, wasn't he?" he spoke over his shoulder as he reached his front gate.
"Interesting?"
"Or should I say disturbed?"
Before I could respond, he had disappeared into his garden. A second later, the lawnmower was cranked into life and the sound of its engine echoed from behind the holly bushes.
~
Without a key, I had no choice but to venture round the back of the house and press my hands up to the kitchen window. Apart from the overgrown grass and brambles that were attacking my legs, the place looked just like how I remembered it.
Peering into the kitchen, I saw it was left in suspended animation as though any second now, my dad was going to return home from work and pull open the refrigerator for a much needed beer. He'd sit at the table and pull out the newspaper from under his arm before settling down to look at the job pages in the back.
Despite always being employed, he was always looking for something else. He kept his trusted red pen in his top pocket and if he saw an opportunity that looked hopeful, he'd draw a big red circle around the posting.
"Call them in the morning," he'd say, but he never did.
Now, the table was covered in a thin layer of dust and the sink was lined with mold. Pushing my hands up to the window, I wondered if my old trick would still work.
When I'd stayed out too late and didn't want to be caught trying to get in the front door, the noisiest goddamn door in the world, I used to crack open the lock with an old screw driver before climbing onto the cabinets.
Spotting the old shed at the back of the garden that now looked like an old cabin poking its flat roof up above a miniature forest, I strode over, tearing my shirt on a thorn bush as I struggled toward it. Kicking in the door, I was confronted with a frightening sight. The place looked as though it had been used as a scrapyard.
Casting my eyes over the rust and twisted metal, I spotted a toolbox and delved into it. A few seconds later, I was striding back toward the window brandishing a screwdriver.
Jamming it into the lock, I didn't care if I caused any damage this time. The brittle wood fell away as the crumbling lock popped out. Now, as a fit adult, it was much easier pulling my body through the space although I had to admit, I'd put on a few pounds since I was fifteen and I found that my wide shoulders were grazing the sides as I entered.
Dropping down onto the pale linoleum floor, I felt my shoes stick to the mold and moss. The house smelled wet as though it had been festering in a swamp.
Jesus, I probably shouldn't have left it this long.
For a few minutes, I loitered in the kitchen just staring at the cabinets with their glass doors that showed any visitor the vast amount of fancy china crockery my mother collected. She raised me in the seventies but her mind was firmly planted in an era where women like her mother were faithful servants of the home. The kitchen was her haven, the stove her altar.
I wished I could see her here now, bent over a mixing bowl sprinkling chocolate chips into some cookie mix while a cigarette burned away beside her in her favorite glass ashtray.
She wasn't here. Why would she be? As I walked away I didn't even feel a slight trace of her spirit in the house. I wasn't sure that kind of thing even existed but if she were to live somewhere in another realm, I thought that she might stick around her old home, reliving all those happy days when it was just her and me. But of course she wasn't doing that. She was doing something so much better. She deserved something so much better than this craphole of a house with the cheap Formica counter tops and the threadbare carpets.
I swallowed down a lump of sadness that was sticking in my throat and walked into the hall. The wallpaper was peeling, sheets of it drooping down toward the floor as though they were in the midst of falling over drunk.
As I arrived in the living room, I saw the old television with the huge plastic body and the video player beneath, I saw the couch with the cigarette burns and the indent of my father's ass from where he'd sat for hour after hour watching football even though he hadn't played since high school.
I could almost see him sitting there, looking at me, beckoning me over to fall to my knees as he reached for his zipper.
Feeling as though I could tear the sofa to shreds, I walked away. I wasn't here for him. I didn't know why I was there at all but something was drawing me deeper into the building as though any second now, my purpose would reveal itself.
Making my way upstairs, I saw the door to my old bedroom with the football stickers still stuck to the pine wood. Next to itlay the bathroom,which appeared to be the dampest room in the house. It smelled the worst too and as I looked at the sink, I saw the sink was clogged up although fuck knows why.
I backed out of there with my hand over my mouth and turned right. There it was, my parents’ room. The door was slightly ajar, calling me inside with the promise of a cuddle from my mother on a Sunday morning as we watched cartoons in bed. My dad
would no doubt be out the house already, grumbling something about how the pair of us were too noisy. The truth was that we were too happy and we didn't need him.
As I stepped inside, there was the scent of something floral; atlas mountain roses with a hint of vanilla. It was as fresh as the last day I saw her.
"Mom?" I called out although I could see she wasn't there.
I couldn’t explain it but I knew she was with me.
Maybe you’ve finally cracked. Maybe the stress has finally got to you buddy. You've lost your mind.
Her dresser sat in front of me, her things long tidied away by my father but as I approached it, I imagined her sitting beside me. She used to brush her long hair with precisely a hundred strokes a night. It was a pointless tradition handed down from her own mother but I used to love watching her do it. Sitting at the end of the bed with the TV blaring, I'd have one eye on a movie and the other on her, her hair glistening like silk curtains.
Although the dresser was bare, I couldn't shake the feeling I was meant to find something. Without knowing why, I bent down and pulled at the knob of the top drawer. The wood was swollen from the damp and it creaked and groaned as I yanked it open.
At first, I thought it was empty, but just as I was about to close it, something nestled into the back caught the light.
It was a ring box.
I pulled it out and took note of the retro emblem on the top. It must have been in there for years but it still looked as though it was only bought yesterday, a special present for an extra-special woman.
For a second, I wondered if I should even open it. It felt rude like I was rifling through her things but at the same time, it felt right.
The word fate popped into my mind again as I pulled down the tiny, golden clasp at the front and popped it open.
I knew what it was straight away. The gems were as dazzling as they were when I'd seen them embracing her finger. It was her engagement ring.
And I knew exactly what I was supposed to do with it.
Tucking it into the pocket next to my heart, I vowed to keep it safe until I saw Etta. It was more valuable than anything money could buy. It was part of history, part of me and I wanted Etta to be a permanent part of my life no matter what.
Jewels and Panties (Book, Nine): The One Page 4
