by Alan Spencer
Billy studied the door, waiting for it to open and Jessica to return, but she was gone for now. “Maybe it’s good she gets out. Today’s been as stressful for her as it’s been for me, and here I am watching dumb horror movies.”
“Get it out of your system, big guy,” Nelson said. “We’ll apologize when she gets back. I can leave if you want.”
“No, don't leave. You guys butt heads a lot, but deep down, she likes you…somewhat.”
“I played a lot of jokes on her in high school. Man, I got her good. I taped a bleeding tampon on her locker for Halloween. She was varsity captain of the cheerleading squad, and my next-door neighbor, remember? I have the right to play jokes on her. She was preppy, and I, well, I wasn’t. I’m like a brother she never wanted. Did you know I’d climb up her house to her second-story window and write in red lipstick ‘Redrum, Redrum, Can I Have a Piece of Gum?’ Man, she’d sic the jock heads on me whenever I pulled those pranks. I still have scars from the atomic wedgies.”
Billy laughed. “She said she was kind of a bitch in high school. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t really know her back then. I remember seeing her in the hall a few times, but that’s about it. But give her credit. She got a 35 on the ACT, and she’s cruising through law school and working part-time. She’s achieving more than me. I’m a meter man.”
Nelson shrugged. “Meh, you tried being a cop. You hated it. Now you’re in a transition period. You said you were interested in becoming a museum curator at the Field Museum of Natural History. Why not go back to school? I’m stuck working at a video store until I figure it out. Lucky for me, there’s always somebody who needs a roommate in Chicago. The rent’s still outlandish. I might have to sell my bodily goods, if you catch my drift, to pay rent.”
Billy glanced back at the movie screen. “Quick. Fast forward it before Jessica comes back. I’ll close my eyes. I’ll describe what the guy looks like.”
Billy closed his eyes.
Nelson fast-forwarded the movie. “Okay, man. Describe the guy before he explodes.”
He combed his memory. “He wore torn-up jeans and boots. No T-shirt. He looked dead, but it was exaggerated. He was purple, blue and white. His lips were black. He also had this grungy long hair. The dude was tall and lanky. And it was because he wasn’t wearing a shirt that I don’t think he had any explosives on him. And before he turned into bits, he had this grin. Like a child molester.”
Nelson pressed the play button. It showed the man—and he was a dead ringer for the man at the crosswalk today—erupting into pieces. His bones turned into shrapnel and cut through everyone in the vicinity. Then the man came back together, as if his insides were magnetized. And then the man walked off like nothing had happened.
“There should’ve been more blood at the scene,” Billy insisted. “For someone to explode, I should’ve had guts on my window and guts on the crosswalk sign. The guy wasn’t strapped to a bomb. I swear it.”
Nelson was dumbfounded. He shared Jessica’s expression. “It’s uncanny…but you know it’s just a movie, right?”
The question from Nelson took him aback. He closed his eyes and rubbed them, trying to stamp out the truth that kept working through his better judgment. “Yeah…it’s ridiculous. I’ve had a shit of a day. I saw something else. It's not what I'm thinking. It can't be.”
“I’m sorry about Wayne.” Nelson patted his back, moving the conversation somewhere else. “We all go bugaboo sometimes. I would after seeing my dad in the hospital and catching a man blowing himself up. It’s not like the movies. Maybe you should talk about it to a psychiatrist. You might score some good drugs out of it.”
Billy relaxed into the cushion of the leather couch. “I think I’ve successfully pissed off Jessica.”
“She’ll come around.” Nelson popped out the DVD. “I guess I should go. Maybe you’ll have some make-up sex.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
Nelson gasped, “Dear God, you really did have a bad day.”
Jessica returned to the apartment minutes after Nelson departed. She immediately apologized for the outburst. “I got too worked up. I’m concerned for you, is all. It's because of the clients I see at Crouch and Meadows. They’re pent up, angry, or they repress their sadness and let it out in strange ways. Not eating, eating too much, using drugs, alcohol, or they take it out on their significant others.”
“I won’t do that,” Billy insisted. “Except for the soda and chips, I won’t make excuses.”
Jessica kissed his lips. Billy absorbed the perfume called “Secret”. It smelled of a botanical garden. The scent was comforting; the warmth of her cheek against his cheek loosened the tension inside of him. “I’m sorry you had such a bad day,” she said.
“I have you to help me get through it.” He kissed her. “I’m lucky to have you. I really mean that. And that movie, it was a bad idea. I’m in a weird state of mind. I was determined to figure out something that doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.” She rubbed the back of his head, scratching it softly. “I should apologize to Nelson the next time I see him.”
“The Star Coffee joke got to you, didn’t it?”
“I guess I like expensive coffee. And bullshit apparently.”
“I’m sure Nelson’s got the backbone to recover from the argument. You two have that standoffish relationship down pat. It’ll always be like high school between you two.”
“Did you know he wrote on my window in lipstick messages? Redrum, redrum—”
“Can I have a piece of gum.”
“So he’s bragged about it.”
“Surprised?”
Jessica paused. “No.”
She brought Billy down to the bean bag chair with her. She laid her back against him, and she folded his arms across her chest. He closed his eyes and relaxed. “I can’t believe I seriously wanted to compare the movie to the guy I saw on the street.”
“It’s bizarre.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s over.” She squeezed his hands. “Let’s put it behind us.”
“You’re right. It’s behind us.”
Billy played along like it was his imagination, but deep down, he couldn’t avoid the notion that stewed in the back of his head.
What if the man really was from that movie?
Chapter Eight
Jessica was in deep sleep, but Billy couldn’t relax long enough to do the same. He got up, put on his jeans, sandals and collared shirt. He decided to sneak out to the roof again to clear his head. He also used the apartment roof as a way to pig out. He considered himself a “closet eater,” though technically he was a “roof eater.”
His father was disappointed enough already that he wasn’t a cop or that he hadn’t attempted to return to the police academy. “I’m not paying for your schooling if you’re giving up so easily,” Wayne scolded him when he returned home before the first semester of police academy was over. “You've put on thirty pounds since high school. Lose that, then the training won’t be so difficult. It’s not out of your reach. Hell, I’ll buy you a gym membership. I'll lose weight too.”
Billy weighed himself in the bathroom before heading out the door: 276. I’m a whale. I’ve got a tire around my midsection. How did I pick up such a hot lawyer ex-cheerleader girl?
He walked down the hall to Nelson’s door. He would still be awake. Tomorrow was his day off, and chances were, he’d be up until four a.m. He was between girlfriends. I pray he’s not masturbating or looking at porn right now.
He knocked on 4G and waited. The door immediately opened. Nelson was in a pair of green basketball shorts and the same Xbox T-shirt from earlier. He was watching the rest of Death Reject. The corpse-hued man was using veins that had snaked from his wrists to strangle an officer.
“You walked in at the right moment.” Nelson raised a can of grape soda as if in mid-cheers. “Have a seat, man. Did you and Jessica have a lover’s spat?”
“No, she’s asleep. It’s n
ot hard for her these days. Working thirty-two hours a week as a paralegal and studying her ass off, I’d be nodding off too.”
Billy sat down on the couch. He couldn’t help looking over Nelson’s movie collection. Each movie Nelson had salvaged from the video store bargain bin. He was manager of the location two blocks south of the apartment building. Nelson’s father was CEO of the chain, and Nelson was working his way up the corporate ladder. He had built shelves into the wall surrounding his entertainment center. Many of the titles he received for free, the ones they couldn’t sell. Instant classics, Nelson called them, like Gigli, Basic Instinct 2, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, The Associate, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, The Sixth Day, and many more. Nine hundred DVDs stared back at him in varying conditions of used and new. The Maltese Falcon was positioned by the Blade trilogy boxed set. Atonement and Sense and Sensibility sandwiched Meatballs. Action figures lined the top of the entertainment center that housed his plasma television. Sweet Chuck and Tackleberry from the Police Academy movies dueled with Quentin Tarantino in military garb from Planet Terror. The cenobites, the “Tortured Souls” figurines from the Hellraiser movies, surrounded his Xbox with David Bowie from Labyrinth and Bilbo from Lord of the Rings.
“Have a soda,” Nelson said, walking to the fridge to refuel. “Grape, lemon-lime or orange is all I got.”
“Grape me.”
“You want a nip of gin in that?”
Billy couldn’t avert his eyes from Death Reject. The man exploded again, the pieces slicing through an elevator and piercing into a set of well-dressed people. Everyone was mashed and turned into pulp. “I…um, yeah go ahead. I could use the come down. It might help me sleep.”
Nelson returned with a glass of purple alcohol goodness. He patted Billy’s shoulder. “I haven’t really given my sympathies to your dad. I only heard through Jessica, and you were both arguing earlier.”
“Sorry about that.” Billy accepted the glass. “I was going to tell you.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Nelson said. “It’s good to hear he’ll be okay.”
Billy drank, noticing his friend had poured him a healthy dose of gin into the drink, and it was kicking in fast. “I called my mother. She lives in San Fran now. I won’t hear from her for three weeks or longer. It’s like I’m on a waiting list. Once she re-married, she figured I was eighteen, old enough to fend for myself. She'd see me once every three of four years or so—and that’s if I’m the one who comes down to visit.”
Nelson wasn’t sure what to say. “That’s too bad.”
“I heard she’s not really re-married. She just told that to Dad so he’d let her go. She’s all over the place, finding that inner swinger. I heard this from a friend of my mom’s who still lives in Chicago. Something snapped in her, I think. Dad’s an overbearing son-of-a-gun, I’ll tell you. God, he rode my ass in sports. T-ball, he was screaming and foaming at the mouth at the umpire. And when I came home, he’d drill my ass. ‘Why didn’t you catch the ball?’ ‘Why did you miss a fucking ball sitting on a rubber perch with a baseball bat? It’s impossible.’ And before police academy, he had me jogging in the morning with him at least four times a week. Early training, he called it.
“I love him, don’t get me wrong. He genuinely cares about me. Never laid a hand on me or mom or yelled at us or abused alcohol or any of that average bad childhood stuff. He was overzealous, obsessed with having the best for me, and somewhere along the way, he got it trapped in his head that I wanted to be a cop. I thought I wanted to be a cop once upon a time, but I changed my mind. I once wanted to be a garbage man. Seriously. I thought it was so cool hanging on to the back of the dumpster rigs. Or I read somewhere there’s a Pez store. I could sell Pez collectables and hold Pez tasting parties and celebrate the coming of new Pez dispensers. I hear there’s Pez based on the entire cast of Seinfield.
“My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and once she went back to school and got her degree in massage therapy—dog and people—she escaped my dad. She’s a surfer girl now riding those California waves. Back when she got pregnant, she didn’t have much of a choice to stick with the family. Her parents were Catholic and so were my dad’s. Once you had a child, it was shotgun wedding all the way. And I know she was cheating on him when I was small. Neighbors. Personal trainers. Friends. You name it. But it was a happy secret. My dad didn’t care.”
Billy gulped his alcohol-enhanced beverage. “Whoa, that just came out of me, didn't it?”
Nelson agreed. “It sounds like you’re very pent up. Scary situations bring out those things in people. When Wayne gets better, you should talk to him.”
“He’s not a bad guy,” Billy reiterated. “He was a beat cop once. Something so simple took him out of the rat race and into a security job. He stepped out of his car, there was a deep pothole, and his left leg stepped wrong, and it fucked up his back. He wasn’t the same after that. That was what, ten years ago?”
“What does Jessica think of him?”
Billy raised his shoulders. “Honestly, we’ve only gone out to dinner a few times. She knows about his ambitions for me.”
Death Reject caught his attention again. The man was standing at a street corner wearing that same evil grin and exploded. People in nearby cafés and crossing the street were struck by rib bones and white shards. “Christ, that’s exactly what happened this morning.”
“Seriously,” Nelson said. “Same people and everything.”
“No, I’m serious. Maybe somebody was inspired by this movie.”
“This movie is super rare and hard to find. The movie itself was seized before it got to play in theatres back in the late seventies. A group of upright Christians seized the prints. Later on, I heard someone else stole the original reels, made a print of it, and then put it back into the safe they stole it from to avoid prosecution. They distributed it on-line to start a cult following. Nothing really happened, though. Me and some other people were interested, and that’s about it. I don’t think anybody would watch this and be inspired to blow themselves up over it.”
“People are crazy enough—crazy enough to pirate bazillions of movies like you.”
Nelson clinked his glass against Billy’s. “Free movies are the way to be. Viva revolution.”
The credits to the film rolled; Billy missed the final scene. “What else do you have on tonight’s viewing list?”
“Maybe Flesh Eaters from Mars.”
Billy rolled his eyes. He fake yawned. “Yeah, I’m suddenly tired. Thanks for the nightcap, sport.”
“Hey, I’ve got other movies. How about Lesbian Cab Rides Part 8.”
“Now you’re entering porno territory.”
“Would Jessica kick your ass?”
“She’d tell me all the horror stories of the porn industry.”
“She’s the type to guilt limp you, huh? That’s a shame. I guess the real thing is always better.”
Billy headed to the door. “Maybe this visit has cured my insomnia.”
“What, me helping you to realize you’re not a loser?”
“You’re not a loser either,” Billy insisted. “I got lucky with Jessica. She literally moved right into my life. I wouldn’t know her otherwise if I hadn’t replied to that ad on line.”
“Maybe I should be replying to ads of all kinds.”
“The personal ads are a nightmare.” Billy opened the door. “Maybe you should start a movie club or something. You’ve got the movies.”
“That I do. All right, good night. Try and get a few hours sleep.”
Billy returned to the apartment. Jessica was still asleep.
After sneaking back into bed and falling asleep himself, images from Death Reject filled his dreams.
Chapter Nine
Chuck Muelman received a knock on his apartment door at nine-thirty p.m. The delivery was two hours late. Peggy Sue’s Bakery Creations delivered a pie every Thursday. His wife was a member of the Pie of the Week Club. Brandy loved blueberry pies, and this week's pie
was blueberry. Blueberry is a super food, Brandy claimed. I’ve never been sick once since I’ve eaten them. Chuck knew the claim wasn’t true. Brandy had the flu last year and a bad sinus infection. Health food was a mental market. Nothing was good for you anymore, Chuck believed, and everything caused cancer. But he enjoyed the taste of blueberry pies and didn’t complain when it was his turn for a slice.
The stranger who delivered it was unfamiliar. Nine times out of ten, it was a teenager—usually Jayne, the well-endowed number who also worked at Hooters. Jayne sported enough cleavage to merit a five-dollar tip. But today the deliverer was a man. Chuck was startled by the deliverer’s expression. Ogling eyes. Jackal’s stare. His mouth was shiftless, the contradiction of expressions bordering on insanity. The man could reach out and bite his nose off at any moment, Chuck thought. On each side of the man’s head, a tuft of curly red hair bulged from the scalp.
“You’re a new guy,” Chuck said. “You’re late.”
“I’m the pie guy, yes. I’m late for a reason. My pie will blow your mind. It took extra long because it’s extra special.”
Chuck grasped for a reply. “Okay then, yes, thank you.”
He handed the man twenty dollars. The deliverer didn’t bother to break change and Chuck was too put off by the man to demand anything back.
“I take great pride in my pies, sir.” The deliveryman clearly wasn’t impressed with the tip and didn’t appear to notice Chuck’s generosity. “Please come by the shop for other treats. Anytime, seriously. I’ll show you how the pies are made in back and everything. I always welcome my customers into my pies—I mean into my business.”
Chuck pasted on a smile and accepted the pink box. “Thank you much. I’m sure I’ll take you up on that sometime. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, valued customer.”
Chuck shut the door.
Even the man’s invitation came off as strange.
