Boo Peep @boo_peep • 18:35
I have the camera now. It feels solid. Reassuring. This is a real thing that we brought in with us. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 18:33
It has the right number of angles. It won’t change, even if I look away. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 18:25
Everything is clearer through the night scope. Even the writing on the walls. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 18:19
I don’t know why I was so scared of it before. It’s just telling me the story of the house. #connollyhouse #somethingiswrong
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 15:15
OH MY GOD IT’S THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 10:11
I didn’t think they would EVER end. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 09:50
The basement is very large, and has no walls or corners, but only blackness, which is silly. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 09:48
Every room has walls. Every room has corners. You need edges to make the world seem real. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 08:50
There is a circle on the floor. There is something in the circle. Something dark and wet. #connollyhouse #dontlook
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 08:42
What the hell is that? What is it? How can it be there? It shouldn’t be here. #connollyhouse #dontlook
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 08:37
That sound again. It’s almost pleasant now. It’s familiar. I’m approaching the circle. #connollyhouse #DONTLOOK
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 08:12
Whatever the thing inside the circle is, it looks solid like nothing else in the basement does. It has edges. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 07:59
It has eyes. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 07:58
o god o god I think I found @deadhot #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 07:50
how #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 07:31
what the fuck what the fuck WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING WHAT THE FU #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 07:06
Wait who’s talking? Oh god WHO IS DOWN HERE WITH ME. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 07:03
I can’t find them where are they why won’t they stop oh God. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 07:00
IT’S MY VOICE IT’S MY VOICE AND I’M SAYING THE THINGS FROM THE WALLS AND I CAN’T STOP. #connollyhou
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 06:20
WHY CAN’T I STOP WHAT AM I SAYING WHAT DOES IT MEAN
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 06:03
IT’S NOT JUST A STORY THE HOUSE LIED TO ME HOW CAN A HOUSE LIE
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 05:12
the thing in the circle the thing in the circle it’s not @deadhot anymore it’s not PETER anymore IT’S MOVING IT SEES ME
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 04:07
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 03:06
no
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 02:05
make it stop no I cant see this I cant no
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 01:04
no
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:03
it has no shadow IT HAS NO SHADOW it is the shadow IT IS THE SHADOW AND IT NEVER ENDS IT NEVER NEVER ENDS
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:02
how
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:01
no
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
. . . oh
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Sorry about the fuss. I was confused before. Old house + stale air = hallucinations. No big deal. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
I’m back upstairs now. Everyone is with me. @deadhot and @screamking and @screamqueen. We’re all fine. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
We just found some surprises the original owners left for any unexpected guests, that’s all. Like party favors. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
The house was just so happy to see us, it didn’t know how to contain itself. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Joke ha ha. Houses aren’t alive. That would be silly. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
The owners should be ashamed of how they’ve let the place go. This proud old lady deserves so much better. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
I think I’ll live here now. I think we’ll all live here now. #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
You should come live here too. I can show you what the shadows showed me. How they bent away from the truth. #no #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Come to Peaks Island. Come let me show you the truth. #no #stayaway #itsmakingmelie #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Come. #helpme #killme #dontleavemehere #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Come. #please #please #please #please #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Come. #dontleavemeinthedark #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Come. #theyweremyhashtags #itriedtowarnmyself #connollyhouse
Boo Peep @boo_peep • 00:00
Come. #ifailed #youllfailtoo #connollyhouse
THE HOUSE THAT LOVE BUILT
GRADY HENDRIX
“That sunrise is God setting his world on fire and we’re born anew out of the ashes,” Angela says. “Every day begins with the promise of the Resurrection.”
Angela is always saying stupid shit like that. Jesus loves you. He is risen. Judge not lest ye be judged. It’s why I fell in love with her. Angela trusts that the world is a rational place built according to God’s plan. She can’t imagine anyone might want to hurt her.
“I love you,” I say.
“So sweet,” she says. “What time are you leaving?”
“Few minutes.”
“I’ll miss you every second,” she says. “Daddy told me they’re opening a Boeing plant down by Charleston. It’d mean no more traveling.”
I hear the door open behind me, and a yawn.
“Brrr,” Karen says. “It’s fucking freezing.”
“I love it out here,” I say, not turning around.
Karen drops into the chair on my right, hands shoved into her armpits, boots unlaced, wearing one of my flannel shirts.
“We wouldn’t have to move,” Angela says. “It’s only a forty-five minute drive.”
“It’s a Nicole Kidman morning,” Karen says, hauling out one of her old jokes. “Pretty to look at but frosty as fuck.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I say, careful to make sure I’m always talking to them both.
“One of the churches I speak at has some guest apartments in Hanahan,” Angela says. “You could stay there if you’re ever too tired to drive back.”
“Think your material’s so fresh?” Karen snaps. “I’ve heard your jokes so many times, I’m about ready to stab you in the balls.”
I smile.
“Trying to get rid of me so soon?” I say to them.
“Oh, sweetheart, no,” Angela says, leaning on my shoulder and resting her hand on my heart. “I’m going to miss listening to this every night.”
“Hell, no,” Karen says, cupping my crotch with one hand. “Your balls are the only part of you I like.”
These are the moments that make my delicate situation worthwhile.
“Want to go upstairs?” I ask. “Say a real good-bye?”
Karen traces the edge of my ear with her tongue. Angela buries her face in my chest and gives a shy nod.
“Let me run to the little boy’s room,” I sa
y. “Meet you there.”
Then I take my coffee cup and leave the two of them on the deck, watching the sun come up over the trees, completely oblivious to each other. I wash my mug and put it on the draining board, then I take a piss, brush my teeth, head for the bedroom.
The sex puts a pepper up my ass and makes fire shoot out my dick. I can’t remember having it any other way.
* * * *
My first jump is from Charleston to St. Louis with a load of generator enclosures. Whenever JT has something over-width, over-height, or overweight, they have me haul the load because I’m a careful guy by nature. Still, they’ve been pressuring me to take a partner again. This time, Danny tries to sweeten the pot by offering me a thousand dollars to train a codriver.
My sanity is worth more than a thousand dollars. Being on the road is the only time I’m alone. When my phone rings, it tells me if it’s Karen or Angela before I put her on speaker so I can relax and talk natural. I’m not giving that up for no one.
Driving long haul suits me. I like systems. I like organization. Every eleven hours I take a mandatory ten-hour break. The computer notifies dispatch every time I turn the key. There’s a governor on the fuel line that won’t let me go above sixty-nine mph. My Qualcomm lets me look at speed, routes, mileage, every single bitty detail. There aren’t any surprises.
Back when I first met Karen, I loved surprises. I was wearing my whiskey-face and throwing punches with some sailors on shore leave in a honky-tonk outside New Orleans when I saw her crawling across the floor on wallet patrol, scooping up cell phones and cash that fell out of our pockets. When the police arrived, I headed out the back door, where I discovered Karen having an intimate encounter with a familiar wallet.
“Finders keepers,” she said.
I pointed out that while her philosophy was punchy, it flew in the face of several hundred years of jurisprudence. She invited me to suck her dick. One hour later, we were in bed, and while I tried my hardest, eventually we gave up and she sucked mine instead. By the time I hit the road again, I was forty hours behind, which isn’t a problem if you’re willing to gobble speed and fake your logbook, which I was happy to do in those days.
I’d never considered myself a one-woman man, but when that haul was over, I found myself back in New Orleans. Life with Karen involved a whole lot of whiskey and a whole lot of fucking. My work schedule was the only fly in our ointment. While I was on the road, I knew that it was highly unlikely she was sitting in front of the TV sewing buttons on my shirts, and consequently, I became overly sensitive. Soon, the time we spent fighting was eating into the time we should have spent fucking, so I went down on one knee and made an honest woman out of her.
With my first big trucking money, I’d bought a piece of land way out past Walterboro and built a house that had sat lonely for the better part of eight years. I moved Karen there, and the novelty of buying furniture and playing Holly Homemaker kept her happy for a while, but before long, the same questions came back to torment me.
“Self,” I would ask, “what does a young woman of Karen’s inclinations get up to in Walterboro while you’re on the road?”
Self did not have a satisfying answer, and soon, the only time we weren’t fighting was when we were blowing rails or I was on the road, and after I failed a piss test, I wasn’t on the road anymore. Our situation quickly deteriorated. Soon Whiskey-Face was joined by his friends Coke-Face, Pill-Face, and Vodka-Face. We’d start fighting early Monday morning, and by late Friday evening, we’d still be fighting.
It all came to a halt one day when I woke up at the crack of dawn, cold and naked in the woods behind my house. At some point in the night, I had apparently burned my pants for warmth, been pleased with the results, and then piled the rest of my clothes on the fire. This must have been a bridge too far for Karen, because she was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a note from her on the living room wall that read:
EAT SHIT
Impressively, she’d written it in actual shit.
I had to repaint the wall, but then it didn’t match the other walls, so I repainted them, too. That made the rest of the house look drab, so I repainted the entire place. Before I knew it, I’d ripped out the cigarette-scarred carpets, replaced the busted-out balusters on the stairs, hung a new bathroom door to replace the one I’d kicked down in a fit of romantic enthusiasm, and hauled all my furniture to Goodwill. Two months later, I realized I hadn’t had a drink in weeks and I didn’t much want one anymore. When I finished, my house was clean and empty and so was my mind. I got my CDL back in shape, found a job on probationary status with JT Trucking, and hit the road again.
A few years later at a Christmas oyster roast, Danny the dispatcher told me that I was a social misfit who needed a woman to make me less awkward to be around. He suggested his sister and that’s how I met Angela. A year later, Karen came back home without a word, and I’ve been juggling the both of them ever since.
* * * *
Unloading takes forever because all the docks are overbooked, so when I pull up to my house, it’s past three in the morning. I call it Schrödinger’s House because when I’m present, my wife seems to exist in two states simultaneously: as Karen and as Angela. I cut my headlights and roll into the driveway real quiet-like so I don’t wake either one of them up.
Key in the lock, take off my boots, tiptoe into the living room where Karen’s curled up on the sofa, an empty six-pack of Michelob Ultra on the coffee table, TV advertising some kind of rejuvenating cream.
“Hey, baby,” she says, all sleepy. “Missed you.”
Her body is warm and all her hard angles are soft and it isn’t until we’re about to begin round two that I hear Angela on the stairs.
“Robert?” Angela calls down softly. “Is that you?”
She starts walking downstairs as I pull my pants on. “Love ’em and leave ’em,” Karen says.
“I have to take a piss,” I say.
“I hate that phrase,” Angela says as I walk into the hall. “Can I get a kiss first?”
I give her a good one.
“Someone’s excited,” she says.
Then we go upstairs. I know there’ll be hell to pay in the morning for ditching Karen, but after two weeks on the road, I’m not really thinking much about consequences.
* * * *
“I think our house is haunted,” Karen says.
“Do you still love me?” Angela asks.
Karen is cutting her toenails on the couch, which is one more thing I’m going to have to take the rap for if Angela finds any stuck to the carpet. Biological byproducts tend to get noticed once they’re separated from the body, and I’ve had some close calls because Karen is not a big fan of flushing toilets. Angela is folding the laundry, which I’m going to have to pretend I did if Karen wonders how all my laundry wound up back in my drawers.
I ignore them both and keep reading. Ever since Karen came back, I’ve discovered that reading is the perfect pastime. No one demands an answer from a guy who’s got his nose stuck in a book.
“I said,” Karen repeats, snapping off another toenail. “Our house. It is haunted.”
This nail lands on my thigh and I pluck it off with distaste and put it in my pants pocket. It’s thick and yellowed. My father had toenails like this, minus the flaking red nail polish.
“Why do you think that?” I ask them both.
Angela bows her head and studies the interior of the laundry basket. Tears are sliding down her nose and plopping onto my clothes.
“You’re drinking again,” Angela says. “I found the cans this morning. And last night in the living room, I heard you pleasuring yourself. I know I must be doing something wrong as a wife for you to be so unhappy with me.”
“First thing,” Karen says. “I was wearing your red flannel the day you left. I dumped it on the floor by the bed after we fucked, and then half an hour later, I found it hung up on the hanger. Second thing, that spooky Jesus picture on the dresser in the bed
room. The second you leave, I turn it around to face the wall. Later, it’s facing the bed again. That freaks me out, so I put on the alarm and go stay with Clem and Louis. Almost every night you’re gone, the motion detector goes off and ADT has to call me. They woke me up five times.”
That’s bad. Normally, the two of them sort of glide past each other like ships in the night. Karen buys a bottle of Popov, and Angela reaches around it for the cereal. Angela hangs an inspirational Christian painting and Karen assumes I must have put it up before I went on the road. One of them thinks I’m a secret drinker, the other assumes I’m a Jesus freak. But Angela shouldn’t be setting off the alarm. Something’s changing.
“Why do you think that is?” I ask.
“I think it’s a fucking ghost,” Karen says. “I think there’s a ghost in this house, flushing toilets, cleaning up after me like my fucking mother, turning pictures around, setting off the alarm.”
“There’s a dark presence between us,” Angela says. “You’re always distracted. You’re always thinking of someone else. I only get half of you.”
“You know that’s not true,” I say.
“The fuck I do,” Karen says. “I’m getting rid of this ghost, and you can either lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
“Half the time, you don’t even look at me when you talk to me,” Angela says, crying harder. I hate seeing her cry. She’s always been an ugly crier.
“Don’t be like that,” I say, and they both think I’m talking to them.
* * * *
Karen announces she’s going to consult Clem and Louis, her gay friends, on how to get rid of our ghost, since their gayness makes them experts on everything. This gives me a chance to comfort Angela, who is becoming hysterical. I’m in the front hall saying good-bye to Karen while Angela runs upstairs and slams the bedroom door.
“Did you hear that?” Karen asks, pointing at the ceiling.
I shrug. It’s too risky to say anything in the front hall. Sound travels in this house.
“You’re such a punk,” Karen says, then storms out of the house and slams the door behind her.
I turn to head up the stairs and see Angela looking down at me, hands on the banister.
“I didn’t hear you go outside,” she says, wiping her cheeks with the flat of her hand.
What the #@&% Is That? Page 20
