“Please, somebodyeeee! Help me!” Sweat rolled into my eyes, burning them.
“Anybody! I’m in this coffin. Get me the…fuck, fuck this fucking shit!” I raked my nails along the seam of the lid. The body-thing shifted again, and I dipped my left elbow hard and crushed into its throat as I tried to use both hands to scratch at the opening. “Don’t touch me…please, just don’t touch me!” And like a fight I could not win, I pushed at its skin, digging my elbows harder, and was met by a ripping sound. The chords of a string popped, and it seemed to groan without reason.
“You’re not real…this isn’t real!” But I couldn’t bring myself to stop believing it.
Twisting over onto my back, shoulder hitting the top of the casket, I wrenched the padding down and snapped my head back, crushing the bony structure of the body-thing’s nose and it cracked miserably in my ears like wet rotten wood. I felt something thump inside the coffin and my eyes fixed wide at the sound. I forced myself to stop moving by gripping tight the padding in my hands. The weight shift caused something to fall from my pocket.
I tried to remember what it was. Reaching down to the right, I patted the flooring, nails brushing against something hard, bumping it further down around my leg. The slight touch of it brought back the memory of the pocketknife. Shifting over the fleshy breasts, pressing into my back, I stiffened in the darkness, face coming up and mashing into the top of the coffin as I stretched out my arm.
A thick odor of sour and rot flooded the coffin. I gagged, jerking over onto my side again, fingers scrambling after the knife below my thigh.
Bones broke underneath me. A cracked rib cage seeped into itself. More fumes tore out of its bowels.
Stop thinking about it.
I covered my nose. The smell thickened with an intensity my stomach couldn’t handle. Vomit spewed over the gauze, against my throat and neck. Laying in the dark, I dry heaved for an eternity, stomach seizing into knots.
It took a while for the sickness to pass. Sounds of quiet filled the coffin. My chest felt weak as I tried to stretch backward, to catch my breath. Anything to move. If the smell was bad before, it was worse now. Sick was everywhere in the coffin. My hair. Shirt sleeves. The inside of my nose.
The missing tooth throbbed in time with my head, searching for the pocketknife. I found it under her knee and drug it out. Adrenaline was pouring into my stomach. I sprung open the blade. Pressing the broken end against the tip of my finger, I rubbed the severed point. Fuck you, Paul.
My left hand tripped along the interior of the coffin.
Where’s the goddamned slit in the door?
I felt it, jabbing the edge of the knife into the opening and sliding it across the seam. Halfway down it hit the lock. Sounds of metal on metal filled my head with hope.
Without thinking, I turned the edge of the knife toward the corner above my left shoulder, took a deep breath, and shredded a part the thin lining tacked around the lid. Tatters of material clumped around my arms and chest as a heavy swatch fell out of the top. I grabbed at the loose pieces and ripped down the ceiling. In the darkness, I adjusted the knife sideways and slipped the blade in the thin opening of the seam again. Pushing it down, it brushed across the lock plate and struck the metal latch buried inside it.
What time is it? One or two hours had gone by for sure. It had been past midnight the last time I checked the clock. My separated shoulder throbbed. A nail of pain pushed up through the bones, the point like hot, liquid glass spreading into my chest and arm. Every inch of the joint was on fire.
Using the broken tip, I scored at the lock’s edge, shaving away thin sections of wood until a jagged valley formed. My fingers throbbed under the strain. But I talked myself through it. And before long the valley spread into a hole, revealing a portion of the lock plate.
I paused long enough to wonder if attacking the catch might not have been easier. “Don’t even start, dumbass.” Just dig out the side of the fucking thing and—.
I heard a noise outside the coffin. Holding my breath, I jerked sideways and listened for it again. My eyes blinked faster, heart racing.
Your ears are playing tricks on you, there’s nothing out there. Occasional sounds from the church filtered inside the coffin. And as I continued to listen a slow shuffle rose up beneath them. Are those feet? What the hell? Somebody’s out there. Desperation opened up in my chest like a hole, and I swallowed hard to catch it as it fell through into quiet.
“You sack of shit. I hear you!” I screamed, throat splitting. “You’d better run, because I’m going to kill you when I get out of here. I swear to God I’m going to rip your head off. So, fuck you!” I beat on the underside of the lid, ignoring the skinned-off fingers and nails.
Out of breath, I fought with the knife again. Pieces of wood flecked away, creating a deep groove at the left of the lock. Not thinking, I wedged the broken tip into the rut and pried back the knife for any give. Metal snapped away from metal. There was a clinking sound, and my fingers grabbed at the wood. The solid, fixed back of the lock plate sat intact. My chest caved in depression. I closed my eyes and fingered the edge of a broken blade.
“Fuuuckkkkk!” I stabbed and raked at the lock, blind with anger, until I collapsed in tears. You’re not getting out of here. Every part of my body ached with that thought.
Opening my eyes, I stared into the darkness above my face. I thought of Dad and how much I missed him, the sound of his voice, the one that told me he loved me. “Please, tell me what to do.” I closed my eyes again and let sleep take me.
When I finally stirred awake, it was through clouds of pain I remerged. What parts of my body didn’t scream from soreness, screamed in agony. The fingers on my right hand stuck and bound together in blood. A dense quiet sat over the coffin, and fed me thoughts of being buried alive. My eyes shot open and I slammed my hands up into the lid and was met with the hollow thump of it rising into the air and falling back into place. The glow from the sanctuary filled in the dark for a split second, then gloom again. The sudden light blistered my eyes.
When I raised the lid back, the first thing I noticed was the damage to my hands. Blood covered them in dry splotches, ran down the sleeves of my shirt, mixing into a thick yellow fluid on my chest and shoulders. I was filthy.
I swung a leg over the edge coming out and slipped on the floor below the casket. For several minutes I didn’t move, just tried to regain my strength. When I finally drug myself to my feet, it was with reservation I peered inside the coffin at the unraveled shape of my mother’s body. It scared me. I pushed back the coffin lining I stripped away with the knife and stared at her face, nose flattened and twisting to the side as if broken in a fight, hair matted and covered in the same bile that coated my shirt. Her blouse was raked a part, exposing the nipple of one breast.
“I’m sorry…” I closed the lid, sick with regret. I couldn’t touch her.
Standing beside the coffin, I caught sight of the key inside the latch. I brushed it with a fingertip, as though it might bite, spun around and scanned the empty sanctuary. The disturbing notion I was being watched, unsettled me. Up on the wall, the clock read 4:14AM. I grabbed the key and twisted it in the brass plate, listening for the latch to lock in place. Then I pulled it out and dropped it in my pants.
Along the walk back home, somewhere on the outside of a heavy thicket of scrub brush and briar, I threw the key away. I pulled at the buttons of my shirt, dragging the sleeves off my arms, and left it on the side of the road. Gravel crunched under my shoes and filled the tree line with voices. In my head, they spoke of revenge. And I did well to listen.
13
“Wait a minute.” Charlie’s eyes watered. “You’re telling me your stepfather locked you in her coffin? Why?”
I turned and looked at my daughter, visibly upset by the story. “I never figured that out. Maybe it was enough that he hated me.”
Nicole looked at me somewhat apprehensively, a restless fear hiding in her eyes. “What did you do?�
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“Never told a soul.” I studied my hands; saw one or two of the jagged scars seated around my fingertips. “They put Mom in the ground that morning. Nobody knew. Life just went on.”
Amy sat down on the couch, head shaking, a thumb nervously spinning the lighter’s wheel.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“It just feels wrong.”
Confusion sat in. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What if…what if it wasn’t him?”
“Who the hell else could it be?”
Amy held up her hands. “I’m not arguing with you, Lee. But something isn’t right about it.”
You weren’t even there. But her eyes pleaded for me to listen. “Okay. Convince me.”
“What if it was somebody else?”
“Who?” I said a little short.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you.” She pinched the cigarette between her lips and breathed his name in a cloud of smoke.
I almost didn’t hear it come out of her mouth, much less accept it. “It couldn’t be.” I stood up, paced to one end of the porch and back again. “No fucking way. He knew better.
“You’re wrong. It was Marcus, I know it.”
“I would’ve figured that out.”
“How?” She said calmly. “Did you know Marcus went out after you that night?”
I stood there shaking.
“I watched him follow you through the back door an hour later. Saw him sneaking out, because I couldn’t sleep.” She hesitated. “It was late when he came back.”
“What time?” A blackness broke like dam inside me, picking up speed until it threatened to split me in half.
“Listen to me—”
I cut her off. “What time, Amy?”
“Really late, close to four. I looked at the clock.” She tried to explain. “That’s why, when you told us what happened...I didn’t think it was Warren.”
I reasoned with the facts, turning them over carefully, treating them like broken glass in my mind. All these years…and I’d been wrong. I felt cheated, as though my hate were an atrophied muscle I could not get back.
“Are you all right?”
I rubbed my hands together, took in how old they looked, wrinkles beginning to crease the knuckles with loose skin. “I used to beat Marcus senseless when Warren got done with me. He knew it was coming. I’d hunt him down and beat him until he cried.”
Amy got up and came to my side, kissed my temple, her fingers stroking my face. “I don’t blame you.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve done that all on my own,” I muttered. “When I crawled out of that coffin I wanted to kill Warren. Hell, I tried, too.” It was something I never thought I would tell a soul. And in that second everything seemed to collide. All the lies, the hurt, the revenge, it all smashed together like the wreckage of some car on a lonely strip of road.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” The sound of Amy’s voice nearly fell apart.
I couldn’t look her in the face because of my failure. Of what happened to her at the hands of our stepfather. Time and time again, he’d raped her. But I could have changed that—maybe not for me—but for them, things could’ve been different.
“They arrested Ralph Odel’s daddy after his wife left him. But it wasn’t him, was it?” She brought her hands forward and grasped them together, almost smiling. “Of course it wasn’t. It makes perfect sense now.”
Then the words poured from my mouth, came up like some bubbling well, spilling onto the floor. “The handle broke after I hit him the second time. It just shattered.” I shook my head. “That worthless shovel was the only thing that saved me from killing him.”
“Who’s Ralph Odel?” Nicole asked.
“He was married to Becky—” Amy cut herself off. “Remember what I showed you?”
Nicole covered her mouth.
“It wasn’t just her,” I said.
Charlie wrinkled her nose. “Ehew! He was having affairs with more than one?”
“At least five they found out about.” Amy picked up the Leica, held it in her hand, and glanced at me. “This what you shot it with?”
I had forgotten all about the thing. “Dad’s old camera.”
“I knew it.” She stood up and walked inside without another word. Through the window she debated the photos along the entrance wall. Every so often she drifted across one and pulled it down. When she returned, there were three picture frames in her hands. She began laying them out across the table.
“See anything?” Her elbows straddled her knees in waiting. “Look closer.”
The first picture was of Paul and me standing on the beach in shorts. Paul’s hair was blowing in the wind and he must have been three at the time. My arm was around his neck in a brotherly gesture. Next was a picture of Mom in a long flowing dress. Her legs were curled under her as she posed with gloved hands for the shot. I forgot how beautiful she was, and then I tried not to remember how I’d left her in the coffin. At the end, resting on a stack of books was the third frame, and it held a picture of our grandparents. They were sitting on the beach holding hands, both laughing at something in the distance. I looked at each one of them carefully but couldn’t understand how they might help Amy determine anything about my own photo.
After a minute she leaned across and pointed. “Lower right-hand corner.”
I looked again, going over each of the photos once more, and then I saw it. The faintest of reoccurring scars, hairline scratches of the same length and thickness. Then Amy laid another picture out in front of me, one not framed, but folded in half with the white backside facing up at me. I glossed over it, knowing it was not something I wanted to see, but curious anyway. Using the edge of my thumb, I pushed the fold back, spacing my fingers apart and flattened it out.
“Oh, my God!” There was a gasp from Charlie who scooted across the couch to get a better angle.
Only one of the woman’s breasts could be seen, the other was cupped tightly in Warren’s fist. Hidden by the length of hair, her face remained a darkened piece of the puzzle. She was completely naked, legs spread away as she bent over, grasping with the underside of her forearms at the front of a desk. Towering behind her, pants draped around his legs and ankles, was the tall, ghostly shape of the Good Shepherd. His teeth were notched back in a hellish grin. One free hand gripped the skin on her side, fingers twisting her flesh in a sweaty knot, as he took her from behind.
The knots in my stomach loosened up to the point of sickness.
“I knew there was something about this.” Amy jarred me out of my trance.
“From that?”
“I’m a trained professional, remember?”
I squared my shoulders to my sister. There was a detached look in her eyes that threatened a part of me. Not with violence, but with understanding. I wondered how hard it was for her to open that picture when she found it. Had she cried, staring into his face the way she had as a teenager? “Not back then, you weren’t.”
Amy smiled wearily. “It didn’t come to me right away, I’ll admit, but there was something familiar about it.”
“He looks like he’s killing her.” Nicole touched the picture, unfolding it again.
“He did. She slit her wrists in a motel bathroom. From the elbows down. They found her body in the tub,” Amy explained.
“I guess that explains why Ralph Odel hates you so much,” Charlie said, baiting me in.
“Gee, you think?”
She shot me an icy look. “I’m just saying.”
“Oh, I know what you’re saying,” I muttered.
“Can I?” Charlie held a hand out for the photo and Nicole gave it to her. “What did she see in him?”
“I don’t know what they saw in him.”
“He wanted them to think he cared. It was part of the act of getting laid,” Amy blurted out, voice cracking in a way that made it known she had first hand experience. I’d heard the stories and wondered if Nicole had as well. When I looked
her way, she had tears in her eyes and I understood in some painful way that she probably had. “Lying came with the territory, and he needed you to believe him. Everything was about pushing control. When he’d get done…fucking me, he would whisper in my ear how he loved me. Saying things like I was pleasing God…as if He cared.” She took the picture back, burned her cigarette into Warren’s face and ripped it in half. “That God told him I was supposed to father a child—not God’s mind you—but his little bastard. It was my obligation for the salvation of—get this—not the county or the state, why be realistic when you’ve got the whole world at your fingertips. I mean perfect sense putting the weight of the planet on a 17-year-old girl, while you keep cumming on her back. How funny is that? God gave you the save the planet dream, but spared you the one about the birds and the bees, please…”
The Weight of Glass Page 13
