Primal

by Serra, D. A.

  * * *

  The room rocks at Pump Up The Volume. Hank sits in the front of the store and enjoys the harmony of Nickelback as he constructs a playlist on his computer for the weekend events. He was so excited when he got to work this morning because he could tell the guys that Alison was on the road to health, that he felt the shift last night, that he woke up with her in his arms again. The glass in the storefront window vibrates discernibly and Hank bops his body in rhythm with the music. This vibration that comes from the beat is what contentment feels like to him. It is what he feels in every cell of his body when the music is raging. The walls of the store are covered with framed posters from every era and genre of music: Joni Mitchell is next to Jethro Tull is next to Jay Z is next to Garth Brooks. Hank is pounding away at the computer keys, immersed in the music, and reveling in his thoughts. I haven’t felt this good since before. Maybe I’ve never felt this good. What if everything in life is felt only in proportion to its opposite? What if I’ve only been living on the surface and skimming emotions? What if since I’d never known fear and blood and anguish, I couldn’t access this kind of relief or joy? What if this is actually the best I’ve ever felt in my life because I never appreciated things the way I do now. Maybe that’s the positive that I can take away from all of this shit he tells himself. Maybe you can learn something from a trip to hell if you survive with your world intact. I didn’t feel how great my life was every day like I should have. I complained about piddlely little shit. He hits a few quick strokes on his iPod and Louis Armstrong’s voice crackles into the room singing “What a Wonderful World.” He smiles at the craggily voice, the sound of a life well lived. Hank sits back on the chair and lets his eyes survey the room. I will never take my life for granted again. I promise that to myself. I will never take a normal day for granted again. In fact, I vow to remember that every single ordinary day is a gift. He remembers the softness on Alison’s face when he left that morning, and he sees Jimmy’s wave as he slammed the car door and raced off to school. He feels so deeply grateful that he looks around quickly, embarrassed that the emotion is so obvious on his face, but the store is empty and Newt and Scottie are in the back stacking equipment.

  Scott yells to Hank from the back storage room, “Are you working on the Silverstein bar mitzvah?”

  “Haroldson wedding.”

  “Okay, so, the Silversteins have requests, forty of them.”

  “Why didn’t they just make their own playlist?’

  “Don’t know how to work an iPod.”

  “Oh,” Hank smiles and glances up to see Polly at the front door to the store. She stands ashen and wobbly looking in through the glass. Hank leaps out of his chair and rushes over opening the door and taking her by the arm. His jaw drops as he feels her trembling. He guides her in and flips off the music. The look on her face scares him.

  “Polly? What?”

  “She tried to stab me!”

  Hank grabs her hands. “What do you mean?”

  Scott and Newt come in from the back.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “She almost killed me.”

  “She couldn’t!”

  “If I hadn’t had the laundry basket in front of me I’d be bleeding on your kitchen floor.”

  Trying to convince her, not wanting to believe what she is telling him Hank insists, “She was better this morning. Good. She was good!”

  “I wanted to tell you in person. I’m not going back.”

  “This week?”

  She pulls away her hand. “At all. I’m not going back at all, Hank.”

  “Polly, please, we need you. I need you. Just a little longer. She’s so much better. When we left this morning she was so normal, really completely -”

  “Look, Hank. I’m very fond of you, well, of all of you, but she needs serious help and I’m not going back. I’m sorry.” She steps toward the door. She turns, “And Hank, I’d keep her away from Jimmy if I were you.” The seriousness in her tone is like ice on his neck. “Please keep her away from Jimmy.” She leaves and closes the door. Hank whirls around as the accumulation of frustrated fury explodes. He grabs the printer from the desk and hurls it across the room and into the wall where it shatters.

  “Holy shit!” Newt says.

  “Hank?” Scottie grabs his shoulders before he picks up something else. “Buddy, chill.”

  Hank stands shaking with rage. “I want my life back.” Scott indicates for Newt to lock the front door and he does.

  “Buddy, buddy, calm down.” Scott encourages him, “You know she’s better. You said so.”

  Newt adds, “That’s right. Today when you came in.”

  “She pulled a knife on our housekeeper.”

  Newt says, “Maybe it was like a butter knife.”

  “Really, Newt?” Scott glares at him.

  “But it matters, like maybe it wasn’t a real knife, but just a kind of knife that couldn’t really do any harm, that would matter, right? Like maybe she was actually buttering something, and she got startled and spun around, and it was a butter knife and Polly overreacted.”

  Scott tries to shut up Newt. “I do not think the kind of knife matters, Newt.”

  Hank looks up at them, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Man,” Newt says sympathetically. “I cannot imagine”

  “How do I make her better?”

  “You will,” Scott’s voice doesn’t sound as sure as Hank would like.

  “And what if Polly’s right? What about Jimmy?”

  Scottie rests his hand on Hank’s shoulder, “She just needs more time, that’s all. I mean, come on, Hank, the woman is so delicate she gets faint passing the meat case at the supermarket. Then she kills three men…cut her some slack.”

  “Didn’t the therapist want to put her on some kind of meds? Maybe that would help,” Newt says. “Meds always help me.”

  “She refuses to take anything because she needs to stay alert. The therapist said she was paranoid. Alison says no one who wasn’t there can understand and that’s true. All I want in the world is to put it behind us and take our lives back and she just keeps bringing it up, reliving it, looking for boogey men, keeping it all alive.”

  Newt says, “Go home, man.”

  “Really, Hank, we’ve got you covered here,” Scottie assures him. “Go on home.”

  Hank thinks about it and then admits to his friends the sad truth, “It’s not good to show up unexpectedly.” And Hank faces what he has known: Alison is dangerous, dangerous to him, to Jimmy, to herself. He has to make the right choice here. He needs to think it calmly through and do the right thing for everyone. This must be the moment Doctor Cartwell was preparing him for. Yes, this is it. He must think very clearly, very carefully.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Alison cranks the steering wheel and maneuvers in between two cars in the strip mall parking lot. It hosts all the usual little businesses: Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds, Starbucks, Super Cuts and then “Merriweather’s Guns, Hundreds of Weapons: Military Surplus, User Friendly.” She scans the area meticulously before she eases herself out of the car. She looks over her shoulder and then locks the car doors. She strides to the front. The shop has a security door. The forty-year-old storeowner, Derreck, sees Alison through the glass and buzzes her in. The door shuts and locks automatically behind her. She likes that. She liked the sound of the locks sliding into place. She used to like the sound of the swallows nesting in the eaves, now she likes the metal clank of a world-class lock.

  Dust doesn’t exist in this spit-shined shop. The merchandise is polished to an eye-blinding gleam. The glass countertops are spotless. Alison feels predatory as she stands in the middle of the shop crammed from floor to ceiling with weapons: handguns, rifles, shotguns, knives, even bows and arrows. The metallic smell is so strong she can taste it. For the second time recently, she is at ease. She walks over to the counter.

  “Can I help you?” Derreck asks.


  “I need a gun.”

  “For sport or defense?”

  “What sport?” she looks at him confused.

  “Hunting birds, game? Target practice?”

  “Oh, defense.” She scans the handguns in the case.

  “Ever handled a gun before?”

  Her mind stumbles back. She shoots Gravel point blank into the stomach, over and over, his stunned look, followed by his dead eyes. She thinks dead eyes don’t really even look like eyes, they look like marbles: hard and glassy. It is the just-before-dying eyes that stick with you: Theo as he fell to certain death; Kent still alive and harpooned to the shed wall, but no eyes - dead or alive - had the icy everlasting imprint of Ben’s.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes?” Confused, she looks around. Oh, yes, the gun shop. I’m in the gun shop. I need a gun.

  “I said, have you handled a gun before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. ‘Cause you know weapons can be tricky. If you don’t know what you’re doing it could be a risk.”

  “Not as risky as not having a weapon.”

  “True.” He smiles. “So, a little lady like you might appreciate this.” He holds up the small revolver. “It’ll fit nicely in your hand and it’s light to carry.”

  “If I want a toy I’ll go to Walmart. What about that one?” She points to the menacing Ruger 357 magnum.

  “That’s a really good weapon. I could hook you up with a box of Wolf hollow point ammo and you’d be set for anything. But it all kinda depends on what you want.”

  “I want him dead.” She says this fast without thinking. It comes directly from her subconscious. She tries to add a smile after it to lessen the weird pause that settles between them.

  Derreck’s eyes narrow, “Ah…not something you want to be saying in a gun store, lady.”

  “What I mean,” she softens, smiles, exposes her most vulnerable face, “I want something that if I ever have to shoot, I hope not, but if I do, I only have to shoot once. I may only be capable of once.” Gravel’s eyes are fierce: bang, bang, bang, bang; he is on top of her and his midsection spasms up with each shot as she empties the gun into his stomach.

  Derreck’s just not sure about this woman. There is something peculiar about her, but he is in the business of selling guns and really, nothing comes before business. “I’ll need to see some ID and then we’ll fill out the permit info and you can pick it up next week.”

  “Next week?”

  “There’s a seven day waiting period.”

  “Oh. That won’t work.”

  “It won’t?”

  “What in here doesn’t have a waiting period?”

  He looks at her long and hard. He probably should not sell this woman a weapon. Still, it’s definitely not his job to police this woman or anyone actually. He’s a salesperson, not a detective. The shop could use the income.

  “You don’t want a waiting period?”

  “I’m here now and I don’t want to have to drive all the way back again.”

  “Uh, huh. Any of those rifles or shotguns are cash and carry.”

  “So which is reliable?”

  “Personally, I like the Mossberg 8 Shot, 20 inch barrel, with the pistol grip. Load her up and then just cock and shoot.” He lays the weapon on the countertop.

  She runs her hand along it. She lifts it up. Not too heavy. She looks the weapon up and down. It looks powerful, intimidating. She rests it carefully back down on the counter. “I’ll take two.”

  “Two?’

  Forty minutes later, Alison stands in her foyer holding the two rifles and thinking strategically. Where are the best places? Obviously, one upstairs and one down. Yes, that will work best. She takes one, loads it like the gun shop owner showed her, and carries it down to the basement.

  Alison likes to collect up things and box them so she can drive them to Goodwill twice a year. She’s never been able to throw anything useful away. There are too many people who need things and her heart won’t allow it. Consequently, the basement resembles a thrift shop with hanging racks and old furniture. She walks past the washer and dryer sees the job half done with a washer tub full of water and soaking sheets. She feels a pang of regret about Polly. She climbs over an old set of folding chairs to get to the chest of drawers against the wall. This is where she keeps all of Jimmy’s baby clothes. There is no reason for anyone to go into these drawers. She pulls open the second drawer and is sidetracked by the sight of the one-piece green and black Batman pajama. She remembers the two-year-old who loved that footsie, oh, that sunny grubby pot-bellied little boy. She misses him with such an intense pang she feels it like a little bursting in all the cells of her body. She misses hearing him stumble around with his words, and she misses the way he would hold her hand extra tight whenever they were in a crowd. Why is motherhood all about saying good-bye? She pulls out the pajama and holds it up seeing that more than half of the cartoon Batman has flaked away. Jimmy insisted on wearing it to bed every night. He loved it. He felt safe in it. It will take more than Batman pajamas for him to feel safe now, she thinks. The fabric is limp and soft from so many washings. The colors have faded and there’s a hole in the knee, and when she sees that she feels his little hand on her heart. She rubs the pajama against her cheek. It still smells like baby after all these years. Why does that feel like a lifetime ago? She carefully lays the rifle down in the drawer. It fits perfectly. She replaces the pajama on top and tucks in around the sides, six pairs of baby socks with the rubber no-slip strips on the bottom. She closes the drawer. She takes a step back and stares at the chest: life and death - all in the drawer of her basement.

  She takes the second Mossberg upstairs to the bedroom. Not a lot of options. It is too long for her chest of drawers, or her little desk. She drops to her knees and shoves the weapon under her side of the bed. She admonishes, that won’t do at all, but it’s okay while I search for another spot. The novel she was reading had slipped behind the bed board and is jammed into the corner. She reaches for the book and pulls it out. She isn’t reading anymore. Why is that? She sits down cross-legged on the carpet and looks at the book. Reading was her joy, her escape. She used to say that to friends. I love to escape into a book. From what, she now wondered. What was she escaping from? Her nice job, her beautiful family, her healthy body, her life, which she thought was stressful? What an unappreciative woman I was. Unconscious. Stupid. When this is over, I will ask for different things from life. I will ask for mornings so quiet I can hear my husband shave and evenings loud with laughter and love and music.

  * * *

  At Pump Up The Volume, Hank sits staring into space. He has not moved since Polly left. Newt and Scottie tried to get him to eat some lunch, but he couldn’t. He is frozen and thoughtless. He just feels completely blank as he waits for the clock to hit two-thirty, so he can go pick up Jimmy, and then drive home to deal with whatever he finds there and confront Alison about Polly. Maybe, he thinks, it wasn’t as bad as Polly said. Crazy as Newt can be with the whole butter knife concept, maybe he has it right and it was a misunderstanding. Polly could have overreacted because she knows how Alison has been.

  Scottie yells, “Hank, phone.”

  Hank picks up the call in the front. “Hello, this is Hank.”

  “Hi, Hank, it’s Denise at school.”

  “Hey, Denise,” he hears the fake cheer in his tone and hopes she doesn’t.

  “Um…Hank,” she pauses.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know what you’re going through, and I hate to give you more bad news, but I thought you could use some warning.”

  His stomach cramps. Not something else, please, not something else. “Okay, what’s up?”

  “The School Board voted to lay off Alison.”

  “No! It is the only positive thing. Working will help her.”

  “I know, but she’s acting really strange. She’s scaring people.”

  “Oh.”

  “A lot of the parents are c
omplaining.”

  Crestfallen, “Complaining?” He jumps to defend her, “They should be giving her a medal. Don’t they know what she has done? I think the police department really is thinking about giving her a medal.” This is not true but he likes the sound of it.

  “I’m really sorry, Hank. Listen if I can do anything…” she trails off.

  “I know. I know. You’ve been great.” He stands and starts pacing in really small circles as anxiety floods him. “And thanks for everything, Denise. My other line is ringing. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, tell Alison I love her.”

  “Will do.” Hank is almost yelling as he picks up the second line. “Pump Up the Volume.”

  “Is Mr. Kraft available?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Hello, this is the fraud department from Citibank regarding some charges on your credit card.”

  “I’m too busy now. I need...”