The Man From Milwaukee

by Rick R. Reed

  Little Body Shop of Horrors.

  Face of a Madman who Killed 17 and Ate Them.

  They gave Tyler a chill more intense than anything he felt in the damp outdoors.

  Emory noticed him looking. “I keep up with how things are going. For him.”

  Tyler eyed him. “They sent him away forever, right?”

  Emory nodded and Tyler couldn’t help but notice the sadness creeping into Emory’s scrubbed features. Before he could censor himself, Tyler pointed out the sadness and added, “You don’t feel sorry for him, do you?”

  Emory evaded. “Did you come up here to snoop through my personal stuff?”

  Tyler wanted to point out that he wasn’t snooping. The bulletin board wasn’t exactly hidden, was it? After all, it was in a prominent place, right there on the wall. But he didn’t say any of those things. Instead, he reiterated that he simply wanted to see how Emory was doing. “I miss you.”

  Emory nodded. “Is that why, last time we were together, you sneaked out without so much as a goodbye?”

  “I’m sorry about that, Em. I really am. I got a little spooked, I guess.” He wanted it to seem he was spooked about commitment and not the fact that Emory was naked in a corner, mumbling to Jeffrey Dahmer, possibly after wetting the bed.

  Again, what am I doing here?

  You’re holding out a hand to someone who might need it.

  Emory nodded. He glanced at the bulletin board one time and then, taking Tyler’s elbow, led him gently back toward the living room. “Why don’t you sit down? Want a glass of water?”

  “Water would be great.” Tyler seated himself on the couch. “But if you have anything stronger, I’ll drink to that.” Tyler chuckled.

  Emory shook his head. “I don’t.” He departed for the kitchen. Water ran. He returned in a moment with two glasses of water, a bit cloudy. Tyler took one and set it on the coffee table before him.

  “So, are you working again?”

  Emory shook his head. “No. Are you?”

  Tyler told him again about his gig at the AMA. He was pretty sure he’d mentioned it to Emory when he ran into him at Sidetrack, but maybe he forgot. Emory listened, again, but it still was as though he didn’t hear.

  Silence grew, like a third presence, in the room.

  At last, Emory veered off the small talk. “Why did you leave me?”

  Tyler’s mouth opened. He didn’t know what to say. His first impulse was to deny, but he knew that wasn’t true. He had left Emory, not only that morning months ago, after he let loose a bloodcurdling scream in bed next to him, but also in the months afterward, when he’d made no attempt to see him. He felt like a hypocrite sitting here now, in fact, confused and longing for the relief that he knew could be his if he’d only stand, cross the room, open the door, and head back out into the normal world.

  He stayed put. And he realized Emory waited for an answer. There were times when Tyler knew it was best not to try to think of what he should say, but to simply speak from his heart.

  “You scared me.” There, it was out.

  Emory didn’t ask why. He simply sat back more fully on the couch, gaze straight ahead, waiting.

  Tyler sucked in a breath and went on, telling Emory about the wet bed, the whispering in the corner of the room. “It was all just so strange. I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know how to talk to you, what to say. So I bailed. I ran. I’m sorry.” Tyler really didn’t know how sorry he was. After all, his reaction was what he’d classify as human and self-protective.

  After a while, Emory said, “I was just having a bad dream, that’s all. And, for the record, I sweat a lot when I sleep. My body’s like a furnace. I didn’t pee the bed.” He continued to stare ahead, not looking at Tyler. “You’ve probably said some weird things in your sleep too.”

  Tyler shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’m never awake when I talk in my sleep.”

  “But someone might have heard you?”

  “Always had my own room. And these days, when I might have a visitor or be visiting someone for a little slumber party, I always make an excuse to leave early.” Tyler scooted over, closer to Emory. He touched his chin lightly, forcing Emory to look at him. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I could have at least left you a note.”

  “You could have at least called me, or checked in on me, since you say you’re concerned about me.”

  Tyler swallowed hard. Emory was right.

  “You just didn’t want to.”

  “No. No, I didn’t.” Tyler inched closer, so that their bodies were touching. “But I’m here now. And Emory? Never once did I forget you. I honestly doubt that a day went by that I didn’t think of you. God knows why, but it’s true.”

  He no longer needed to force Emory to look at him. He was staring intently at Tyler now, tears in his eyes. “Really? You mean that?”

  “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

  There was a long period of silence again. And Tyler wondered if he should go. The following day was Saturday and he had plans to meet up with Cole and the rest of the gang for brunch at a little diner near Rosehill Cemetery. That life, the one a few hours away, seemed as though it now belonged to some imaginary character, a guy in a movie or book, happy-go-lucky, without a care.

  Tyler was taken by surprise as Emory leaned forward and gathered him up in his arms, squeezing Tyler so hard that Tyler could swear he felt the beat of Emory’s heart. He was breathless, and he could tell Emory was too.

  When they at last pulled away, there was no hesitation about looking deeply into the other’s eyes. “So where does this leave us? You came by, you saw me, saw I was okay. At least that’s what I think you see.”

  Tyler wasn’t sure at all that was what he saw but nodded anyway. “You’re good.” He glanced down at the floor and then back up again. “Maybe we could start over? I don’t know about the sex part or sleeping together, but just as friends? Take things slow? Have fun. For now?”

  Emory smiled.

  Tyler could see, in that smile, warmth and a real humanity. Maybe Tyler was wrong. Maybe there was nothing scarier here than a misguided soul, lonely and in need of being seen, just like Tyler’s mother, once upon a time.

  “Sure,” Emory said at last. “Let’s give it another shot.”

  And before Tyler could respond, Emory surprised him by getting up and crossing the room. He opened the door and stood there, hand on knob, waiting. “Next time you come by, make it at a decent hour, okay?”

  Tyler laughed. “Okay.”

  He passed by Emory and could feel his gaze boring into him. He stopped near the door and groped in his pocket. He pulled out a plain white business card that had only his name and phone number on it. The cards had come in handy in the bars when he met someone he liked. “Keep this,” he said. “And please, use it. I just got myself a brand-new answering machine.”

  Emory took the card and stuffed it into his own pocket. “Bye, Tyler.”

  Outside the building, a fog had fallen and it really was silent, no sound of traffic, or the L, everything was muffled.

  Dead.

  And Tyler, heading toward the train, wondered if he’d done the right thing or if he’d let his restless heart guide him in the wrong direction once more.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emory hurried to the window to watch Tyler’s silhouette get eaten up by the fog outside. Its gray tendrils rose from the sidewalk, consuming him until there was nothing left but his memory.

  Emory shuddered at the touch of a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. He didn’t dare turn, for fear there would be no one there. Instead, he froze, listening.

  “You did the right thing,” a man’s voice said softly, close to his ear. “Letting him go like that. By doing that, you’ve already learned a lesson I never did—let them go. If they come back, then you really have something.” The hand squeezed again, and Emory felt reassured, almost blissful. “I know he’ll come back. And when he does, you can be ready to make sure he
doesn’t wander off into the fog again.”

  Emory stood for a long time, hoping the weight of this hand on his shoulder wouldn’t vanish, as Tyler had into the fog. He watched as headlights, going north on Kenmore, pierced the gray mist. Continued to watch as various forms emerged—a man walking a Pit Bull, a couple of teenagers, maybe returning home from a rave, shoving each other, their laughter muffled, an old woman tugging a shopping cart behind her.

  When at last he turned, he wasn’t surprised.

  There was no one there. Logically, he knew that—expected it. Yet the words spoken and the touch were as real as anything in his memory.

  He moved to his bedroom, stripped out of his clothes, folded them neatly, and placed them in a neat stack on one of the ladderback chairs he’d appropriated from the dining room. He slid between the sheets and smiled.

  Tyler came back.

  He really came back.

  He will come back again.

  He was asleep, as was common for him these days, within minutes.

  *

  “Wake up, my little sleepy head!” Mother nudges me. My eyes flutter open to bright sunlight streaming into the room. The window’s open. A warm summer breeze blows in.

  Mother’s leaving the room, quick, quick. Over her shoulder, she calls, “Breakfast’s on the table, sweetie pie. Pancakes and sausages! I told Mary Helen to wait for you, but I doubt she did.”

  I rub my eyes and watch as Mother disappears around the corner.

  Outside, someone honks relentlessly, and a man’s voice calls, “Shut the fuck up! You’re not sane. You never were!” Laughter.

  The posters from my boyhood have been Scotch taped back up on the wall. There’s Quentin, Barnabas, and Angelique from Dark Shadows. How I loved that show! I’d run home from school every day to watch it. I wonder where Mother or Mary Helen found these old posters that I’d once so carefully put up. But then I look more closely around the room. It’s my boyhood room—the maple twin bed, the old dresser with the top handle for the drawer missing, the baby blue walls. All of it changed back…

  I get up, noticing the striped shorty pajamas and how much smaller I am.

  In the dining room, a little towheaded girl waits, hair in pigtails. A childhood Mary Helen. Her plate has a huge stack of pancakes on it, but instead of syrup, they’re covered in blood. A little of the crimson alarm has dribbled onto the white linen place mat beneath.

  She’s arranged her sausages so that they resemble dismembered body parts.

  My stomach does a somersault, and I turn to rush from the room, the bile splashing against the back of my throat.

  I’m headed for the bathroom, but it’s gone. A smooth wall is in the place of where the door once was.

  And Mother and Mary Helen, somewhere behind me, their voices verging on hysteria, laugh and laugh at me.

  *

  Emory woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed, a just-dead scream still on his lips. The sheets were indeed wet and twisted around him, constricting him like a mummy. Muted light filtered in through his blinds. The roar of a garbage truck outside sounded like a monster.

  Emory had to look around the room, with its walnut full bed and chest of drawers, its Van Gogh reproduction on the wall, the black-and-white TV on its little stand, to reassure himself he hadn’t somehow returned to his boyhood room.

  He trembled. Mary Helen and Mother had seemed so real. The whole dream was so authentic it made Emory ponder if this moment right now wasn’t actually a dream. Was he really just a boy? Had his adult life and all that had happened to him been only a dream?

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he whispered. He tore the damp sheets off himself angrily, as though they were something with tentacles, holding him down. “You need to get a job. Get out of here. You’ll be homeless soon.”

  He glanced at the little alarm clock on his nightstand. “Good Lord, it’s after ten! You used to criticize Mary Helen for sleeping this late and here you are, following in her footsteps.”

  Emory forced himself up and out of bed and dressed quickly in the clothes he’d left out the night before. He hurried to the kitchen and started the coffee pot.

  Waiting for the coffee to brew, he leaned against the Formica-topped counter and rubbed his eyes. Had Tyler really been here the night before? Or had that been a dream too?

  Emory poured himself a cup of black coffee and took it with him into the living room. He sat on the couch for a while, trying to think where he could go to find a job today. Perhaps he could take the train out to one of the ’burbs that had a Home Depot and be one of the guys who lined the parking lot looking for work.

  Except he was about as handy as his mother had been.

  Maybe he could go downtown and put in applications at a few of the temporary agencies. That was how he’d found his job at Quality Investigations all those years ago.

  He stared into his empty cup, grimacing at the black residue at the bottom. He felt uninspired and unmotivated as he had just about every day since Mother had died, since he’d decided not to return to work, since Tyler had left him lying in piss-soaked sheets (yes, he knew).

  He realized that, someday, necessity would force him to be part of the workforce once more. He also knew his options, with his limited experience and education, were limited. His most likely prospects would be in telemarketing or doing customer service from a call center. At least he wouldn’t have to deal directly with people on a face-to-face basis.

  But, he reasoned, one more day without job hunting wasn’t going to cause his world to collapse, financial or otherwise. This month’s rent was already paid. There was food in the fridge.

  But Tyler? Now there was a subject that did induce something in him. It was so long since he’d felt anything akin to it, that it took a few minutes for Emory to recognize the sensation as pleasure, maybe even joy. Anticipation?

  He visualized Tyler sitting close on the couch, only a few hours ago. How sweet that he’d come by to check on him, even if it had been a very long time since he’d visited. Emory made excuses for Tyler—he was young, he was confused, he wanted to play the field before he realized what he had with Emory—but in the end, he believed Tyler when he claimed that he’d thought of Emory nearly every day, even though he wasn’t seeing him on a regular basis.

  Tyler’s sweet face, his piercing eyes and gaze, and the warmth of his body next to Emory’s motivated him. He sprang from the couch with renewed energy and went into the kitchen, where he washed out his cup and set it in the dish drainer to dry.

  He was showered and dressed within fifteen minutes and out the door in twenty.

  Outside, the fog had burned off to reveal a brilliant day, filled with sunshine and a nearly cloudless blue sky. Only a few strands of cloud hovered in strips above Lake Michigan.

  And, for the first time in the longest time, Emory felt he had purpose.

  There was an Ace Hardware store on Broadway within walking distance.

  He headed briskly south on Broadway, enjoying the sun on his face, the undercurrent of warmth in the breeze. He didn’t even mind his fellow pedestrians nor the traffic going by on this busy thoroughfare. For once, Emory felt he was part of humanity.

  He passed a Dominick’s grocery store and paused. A light bulb clicked on over his head. “I’ll make him a nice dinner. That’s what I’ll do.” Wasn’t Mother always saying that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach? He veered off his course, navigated through the parking lot and the front doors of the grocery store.

  Inside, as usual, it was much too cold. Even with his eyes adjusted to the sunlight outside, the fluorescents in the store seemed too bright, making Emory blink. Even the Muzak playing over the store’s PA system seemed off, surreal. It was an instrumental version of Michael Jackson’s song, “Beat It.”

  Emory immediately recalled the Weird Al Yankovic parody of the song, “Eat It” and remembered how he and Mary Helen laughed and laughed when they played it on the radio. Thinking of Mary Helen�
��s laughter made him recall his dream from that morning—and the bloody pancakes.

  He almost turned around and headed back outside.

  But he told himself he was being ridiculous. “It was just a dream, after all. It didn’t mean anything.” He didn’t realize he was speaking aloud until he noticed a woman near the display of citrus fruits, eyeing him over pince-nez glasses.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked her.

  She didn’t respond with a verbal answer. She lowered her head as she sorted through lemons and limes.

  What should I make for him? Emory made sure to keep his thoughts internal.

  The Muzak answered for him. As though reading his mind, it shifted from “Beat It” to “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Emory headed for the meat section.

  Laden with a couple plastic bags of ground chuck, American cheese slices, buns, a ready-made coleslaw, and a six-pack of Old Style, Emory continued south to Ace Hardware.

  There, he’d get the other things on his mental shopping list—a length of strong rope, duct tape, and chloroform if they had it.

  Whistling, he continued on his way.

  Once home, he put away his purchases and then sat in the living room to call Tyler.

  “This is Tyler Kay. Leave a message at the sound of the beep.”

  Emory paused and took a deep breath. “Hello Tyler. It’s Emory Hughes. I was wondering if you’d like to come over for dinner. Maybe tonight even? Or sometime soon? Please return this call and let me know when you’re available.” He almost said, “Or if you’re even interested,” but then thought he’d sound pathetic.

  He hung up.

  At last—hope.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had been a twelve-hour marathon at work that day, despite Tyler having come in at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. He’d edited several articles and would have been through them in the usual eight hours, except each was so dull he had to keep starting over to find the mistakes, to discover ways to punch up the dry, academic writing. Heck, to just remember what he was reading in the first place.

  And then, there were the footnotes to contend with…