by Rick R. Reed
“I know it,” Tyler said, because he felt like an answer was expected of him.
“Head-on collision. You know the story, drunk driver going too fast, weaving in and out of lanes just to get to his destination a couple minutes earlier than he would have if he hadn’t been speeding. Mother was coming home from her bridge club that night. They met at Ann Sather’s, on Belmont?”
Tyler nodded.
“It wasn’t horrible. I mean, she was hurt, cut up really bad…and bleeding. That’s why she needed the transfusion. She’d lost so much blood at the scene. She had a transfusion, and they did some stitches. We brought her home the next day, thinking everything would be fine.”
Tyler took a big gulp. He imagined what was coming.
“It took three and a half years. Three and a half years before we noticed anything was wrong. That first little purple spot, on her arm, was the signal. It seems so innocent now. Mary Helen and I just thought it was a bruise or maybe one of those blood blister things you get.” Emory smiled and Tyler noticed a weird light in his eyes. Was it pain? Anger? Fear? He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know, in fact, if it was necessary to respond at all.
Emory’s story seemed like a dam opening up, unleashing. He wondered if Emory had ever shared it before.
“We ignored it, but then they started to crop up in other places—on her calf, one on her neck. The biggest one was right near her armpit and Mother’s always been a bit vain, so she hid that one. She started waking up at night and complaining that her sheets were soaked. We didn’t know anything, really, until the pneumonia. And the fever. When it went up to 104, we took her to the ER. By then, she was struggling with diarrhea and had lost twenty pounds.” Emory smiled, but there was no joy in the expression. “Mother’s what some people politely call, ‘a big-boned gal,’ so we didn’t notice the weight loss. Not right away. Neither my sister nor I dreamed Mother had AIDS, for heaven’s sake. That was a disease for—” Emory stopped himself and met Tyler’s gaze. “Sorry.” Emory drained his drink and watched out the window as a city bus went by and then a jogger with a Walkman, its orange foam headphones against his ears. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but let me just get it out.”
“It’s okay, Emory. Tell me whatever you need to. It’s a shame about your mom.” He bit his tongue to keep from adding something like, “It just goes to show you that the virus doesn’t discriminate.”
Emory drew in a quivering breath. “They came and told us—my sister and me—that Mother might have the virus. They’d tested and they’d come back negative, but there was this thing. A window period? Where you could show up negative. They told us to get her tested again in six months, just to be on the safe side, you know? They were concerned because her symptoms were what they called classic. Mary Helen and I looked at each other, confused, because back then we didn’t even know what words like seroconversion or window period meant.” He grabbed hold of Tyler’s hand for a moment, which surprised him, but he clung to it, clutching it tight, as he finished. “That was the beginning of the nightmare. Since then, she’s just been on a downhill slope, moving slowly but surely toward the end, I know.”
“Isn’t there something that can be done?”
“You really don’t read the newspapers, do you?”
“What?”
“If you picked up a paper once in a while, or even turned your TV on, you’d know there’s nothing to do for this horrible plague. Sure, there’s AZ-fucking-T. That might help some people, but it did nothing for Mother.
“Now, she’s dying in her room. Wasted away to nothing. Hallucinating sometimes. I think that fever in there is just eating her brain up, bit by bit. It’s like a demon.” He shook his head and regarded Tyler with what Tyler perceived as unvarnished disbelief. “And you say you’re gay? Yet you’re so ignorant about this disease that’s taking so many… Every single day.”
Fevered heat rose to Tyler’s cheeks. He looked up at the TV above the bar, which was now playing the video to some Donna Summer song, continuing the disco showcase. He couldn’t even make out the lyrics because the blood rushed so hard in his ears. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
Emory didn’t say anything for a while. Then he stared at Tyler, hard, for a few moments, his lips compressed into a thin line. “Okay,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re sorry.” He shoved his glass away from him and as he did so, it tipped over, spilling ice cubes across the table and onto the floor.
It seemed Emory hardly noticed. He stood quickly. Tyler gasped as coke and melted ice cubes cascaded onto his lap.
Emory said, “I’m sorry too.” He looked around the bar, as though he were looking for a familiar face, someone to rescue him. “I have to go. Mother will wonder what’s keeping me.”
Before Tyler had a chance to respond, Emory turned and strode quickly from the bar, leaving Tyler wet, confused, and thinking, too late, of what he might have said or done.
Chapter Four
Emory wandered the downtown streets for a while before heading to the Grand Avenue subway stop. Because it was only a little after six, there were still lots of commuters hurrying to and fro along the sidewalks, all of them looking depleted and wrung out by the summertime heat and humidity. He didn’t see one smiling or remotely friendly face. Everyone looked miserable, beat. Emory wondered why anyone chose to live in this city by the lake—with its unbearably damp and hot summers and its unbearably brutal winters.
He thought of Milwaukee, just to the north and how it was also on Lake Michigan, but appeared to be smaller, friendlier, less stressful than Chicago. Maybe he should move up there, once he got free.
His thought on that topic brought a grim smile to his face. I could rent Dahmer’s apartment. Now that it’s available…
The last thought made him feel horrible—guilty.
That freedom he suddenly realized he so craved would mean his mother had finally passed on to the great beyond, where she would find her skin magically restored and liberated from the crusty lesions that plagued it. If she was aware enough to realize what she looked like—and why her own daughter cruelly referred to her sometimes as “Spot”—she would have been mortified. Mother had always been a proud woman. “I never apologize for being overdressed,” she’d once told him. This was a woman who put on foundation, mascara, and lipstick to walk to the corner store.
Even though Emory did pray for his mother to die, to be released from her suffering, he didn’t know if he could bear the hole in the world that would surely be left behind by her absence. It was a conundrum he could bring no resolution to.
Just before he got to the Grand Avenue subway and the smelly stairs that would take him down to its subterranean world, he came across one of those squat boxes from which one could purchase a newspaper. The blue box was dedicated to the Chicago Sun-Times and the picture on the front page made him stop, suck in a breath. He looked around a little before stooping down to look at the paper behind the Plexiglass window.
There he was, once again, Jeffrey Dahmer. He’d been lifted from obscurity, from the darkness of his private deeds, to national headlines. He looked so—what? Deer caught in the headlights? Nonplussed? Afraid? No, not afraid, just maybe, well, resigned.
He had to have known this fate was coming. He couldn’t have expected to go forever without being caught.
He gleaned a few more details—how Dahmer had a fifty-seven-gallon drum for bones from the bodies he cut up, how he’d sprayed skulls he kept on an altar gray to make them look like plastic replicas, even how he’d admitted to frying up and eating the bicep of one of his victim’s—before standing up and wiping his hand on his pants.
He groped in his pockets for change, but had none.
He walked away, thinking he’d read enough anyway. No one was watching him standing there, absorbed by the article. He glanced around to make sure of it.
Down the damp concrete stairs and into the subway he went. A phalanx of commuters, a mix of races, ages, and
sexes filled the platform. It must have been a long time since the last train had rolled into the station. Emory leaned against a tile wall, trying not to breathe in the musty air, but grateful for the mildewed chill being underground provided.
Or was he feeling a chill because of what he’d just read? He shook his head. Leave it to the media to play up the most horrific details, to call Dahmer the Milwaukee Monster, to revel in the salaciousness of it all.
He pushed the thoughts out of his head and forced himself to move from the security of the tiled wall to the edge of the platform, where he could peer into the blackness of the empty tunnel to look for any sign of an imminent train. He looked down as movement caught his eye—a rat scurrying along the tracks.
He hoped it wouldn’t be electrocuted by the third rail. He watched as it progressed into the tunnel, the shadows swallowing him up.
He felt more than heard the rumble of the oncoming train. Because of the number of people already waiting, he knew he’d be crammed inside a car, body-to-body, with a bunch of sweaty strangers. There’d be no seat for him. He’d be lucky if he even was able to squeeze into the open doors.
The prospect made him feel a little sick to his stomach.
Why had he even agreed to go for a drink with the new guy?
He needed to get home to Mother and Mary Helen.
*
He paused in the vestibule of his building to claim that day’s mail. Mary Helen, of course, couldn’t be counted upon to even do this simple task.
Junk and more junk, but at the bottom of the stack of circulars, bills, and a come-on to join Triple A, there was a hand-addressed envelope. He turned it over, heart hammering, but could find no return address.
He hurried up the stairs with the mail in one hand, his keys in the other.
It took him more than one try to get the door open. And when he did, he flung himself down on the couch and, with shaking hands, tore the letter open. He went immediately to the signature at the bottom of the page.
It was signed “Jeff.”
Emory closed his eyes. Oh my God, he wrote back. He wrote back. He didn’t trust himself to see what Dahmer had written, fearing that maybe his response would be a curt brush-off, or perhaps a heavily redacted missive, so full of blacked-out words and phrases as to be unintelligible.
Look. Just look.
And he did. The note was short, but there was nothing there to fear.
*
Dear Emory,
Thanks for reaching out.
You took the time to write to me and give me a civil word. Believe me, that’s a rare thing for someone in my shoes.
I’m so glad you understand. We monsters need love too!
I hope you’ll keep writing. I could use a friend, especially when the whole world is against me. I don’t even know how long I’ll last in jail even though I keep company with thieves, rapists, and murderers. Somehow, I find myself below even them in the prison ranking system. I’m the lowest of the low, even in the worst of company.
Everyone wants to see me dead.
Everyone except you, I hope.
Keep in touch.
Jeff
*
Emory stared down at the letter, then reread it. Reread it a second time, then a third. He couldn’t believe how easy it was to forge this connection with one of America’s most infamous people. He felt, for a moment, removed from his bland and wretched existence, singled out and special.
He would write again tonight.
Now, though, Mother needed tending to—cleaning up and deciding what to feed her, even though she’d most likely eat very little or none of it. Maybe he’d just open a can of tomato soup. She used to love that, paired with a grilled cheese and a dill pickle spear. The last two components were out, way out, these days, but perhaps Mother could choke down a spoon or two of the soup.
He was headed toward the kitchen when he paused in his tracks. He thought, beneath the lingering smell of Mary Helen’s Marlboro smoke, he could detect a different and strange odor—something sweet, vaguely nauseating.
Had Mary Helen gone and left the refrigerator door open again? She’d done it so many times in the past that he’d given up on reminding her about it. She didn’t pay for the milk and the meat that spoiled when she didn’t check to make sure it was closed before heading out for a mysterious day or night, so why should she care?
When he got to the small kitchen, the refrigerator door was firmly closed. And when he opened it, it looked as though it had been shut the entire day. The shelves were cold, as were the few things inside—the half gallon of milk, the package of Oscar Meyer bologna, the starting-to-mold carton of strawberries. Emory grabbed the berries and sniffed them. Although there were several spots of mold, they didn’t smell bad. He dumped them in the wastebasket underneath the sink.
No, this smelled more like rotting hamburger.
Emory shrugged. It was hot. The apartment didn’t have air-conditioning and neither did most of their neighbors. What he was smelling was most likely garbage outside wafting in through the open windows. Another joy of summertime in the city.
He pulled out the battered saucepan from the cupboard under the counter and then emptied the contents of the soup into it. He set a medium flame beneath it, then crossed the kitchen to grab the milk so he could gradually stir in a canful.
When everything was ready, Emory took out a tray from a different cabinet under the counter and placed a bowl of the soup along with a glass of ice water, a spoon, and some saltines on the tray.
He carried it to his mother’s room.
The door was closed and he rolled his eyes. Another thing he’d asked Mary Helen to do over and over was to leave Mother’s door open when she left the apartment. Mother could then at least look out into the hallway, or maybe the wind would contort itself enough to at least give her a cross breeze.
Mary Helen always rolled her eyes when he mentioned this to her. “She doesn’t know if that door’s open or closed, doofus. She doesn’t even know where the fuck she is.”
It hurt Emory’s heart to hear his sister talk about their mother so dismissively, so cruelly.
Pausing outside his mother’s door, he sniffed again. The odor seemed stronger here, and it was definitely rotting meat, sickeningly cloying. He suddenly thought of what he’d heard on the TV news about Dahmer and how neighbors had complained about the odd odors emanating from his apartment.
The notion made Emory shiver.
He carefully balanced the tray as he opened the door.
Mother sat up in bed and smiled as he stood framed in the doorway. “Oh, my sweet boy! What did you make for Mother today?”
Emory was stunned at the change. She’d slipped into a clean nightgown, a lavender nylon one decorated with a pattern of irises, her favorite. A purple barrette Emory had never seen held back her gray hair, which this evening seemed more lustrous, maybe even fuller, if that were even possible.
She had color in her cheeks and her eyes, usually a jaundiced yellow with broken veins, had suddenly morphed and were now clear and bright, sparkling.
The nightstand beside her was clear of medications and now there was only the little milk-glass lamp she loved and the gargoyle she’d made back when creative juices flowed through her veins, rather than a deadly virus.
Emory wanted to drop to his knees and thank the Lord for this miracle.
“Why, I made you tomato soup, Mother. I know how much you like it.” He crossed the room and set down the tray on the foot of her bed.
“I hope you fixed it the way I prefer it.”
“With milk instead of water? You bet.”
“I’m hungry!” she squealed. She held up her arms so he could set the tray on her lap.
But when he glanced down at the tray, he realized he’d forgotten something. “I need to run out to the sideboard and get you a napkin, dear. I won’t be a minute.” Mother couldn’t abide paper towels or even paper napkins, calling them uncivilized. There was a stack o
f worn linen ones in a sideboard in their dining room. He hurried to fetch one to spread out over her clean bodice.
When he returned, things were no longer the same. And Emory let out an involuntary hiccup of grief when it hit him that what he’d just seen was a hallucination, a product of desperate wishful thinking.
He knew at once from where the odor he’d noticed earlier was coming.
Mother lay in her bed, rheumy eyes cast upward at the cracked plaster ceiling, with its cobwebs and water stains. Her hands lay at her sides. Although she didn’t have the zest of his very realistic daydream, Emory could at least console himself with the fact that Mother at last looked kind of—peaceful.
As he neared her bed, he wondered if he was experiencing even more hallucinatory sensations because it seemed all the sound in the world had stilled, in reverence or perhaps deference to this moment. Gone were the sounds of the wind in the Catalpa trees outside the window, the cacophony of the traffic zooming south on Kenmore, the calls of people to one another, greeting or yelling at each other in the torpid heat.
It was dead quiet, Emory thought, and then laughed morosely at his pun.
When he reached Mother, he stopped, his hand poised and hovering just above her face. He closed his eyes for a moment. Please God, don’t let her be dead. I know I’ve wished for it dozens of times, but only as an end to her suffering. Let the breath come back into her. Even as my greatest burden, she’s also my greatest love. I don’t know how I’ll abide the hole in the world she’ll leave behind.
His prayer was useless, but he sent it mentally heavenward anyway.
He drew in a deep, yet quivering, breath before opening his eyes.
Mother continued to lie still before him. Her glazed-over pupils didn’t move to the side to take him in. Her chest didn’t miraculously begin to rise and fall. She didn’t reach out, as she sometimes did, calling him “my boy” in a weak croak.
