Violence

by Timothy McDougall

  Roman remembered Anderson’s voice sounded like a whole other person when Anderson did finally call him back and he took it on faith that it was his boss because the caller ID showed it was him:

  “You called.” The preternatural Anderson had asked.

  “Yeah, Boss. Just a couple of things.” Roman croaked, tremulously clearing his throat, hand shaking as he held his cell phone. Roman had to find a way to talk about these somewhat pressing matters concerning how to proceed and no amount of rehearsing prepared him for the actual duty. The fatal bullet (which was collected as evidence) from the .38 had found its way into the ceiling drywall along with bits of Karen’s skin tissue, hair, scalp and skull fragments, but there was still the issue of what to do with the remaining pockmarked ceiling surface, the cleaned but cut up carpeting (fragments were removed for evidence), and the steamed but still-stained sofa. “At the house, the cleaning people are done, but in the family room they said there’s stuff in the ceiling. And all the carpeting and furniture-”

  Anderson cut Roman off before he could finish the gory inventory and said, “Just get rid of everything. In the family room take it down to the studs.”

  “You want me to tear everything out?” Roman asked wanting to make sure he heard him correctly.

  “Yes.” Anderson answered. Then silence.

  “Okay.” Roman confirmed.

  “Thank you. I’ll talk to you later.” That was it. Anderson disconnected.

  That last statement, “I’ll talk to you later,” panicked Roman because the thought suddenly crossed his mind that there might not be a “later.” He feared Anderson might kill himself because Roman had imagined himself in the same position as his boss, and it was so instantly horrifying, that suicide seemed to be the only option.

  Needless to say, Roman was happy when Anderson returned to work and angry at himself for even thinking his boss would contemplate taking his own life.

  Anderson tucked the house keys into his pocket and returned his attention to the specs.

  Roman promptly left his office but then, feeling this was as good a time as any, he grabbed a manila envelope off Joyce’s desk where it was sitting and stepped back quickly into Anderson’s office.

  Embarrassed, Roman brought out some papers from the envelope that had sticky note arrows attached to various pages which show a person where to put a signature. He held the documents out in front of Anderson.

  “Oh, and can you sign these for my nephew’s work visa?” Roman asked uncomfortably.

  Anderson took the papers, picked up a pen and signed in the appropriate places.

  Anderson hoped to get in quickly and leave. Sneak in. Sneak out. He would have left everything except it seemed wasteful and he had just bought the golf clubs.

  Anderson was sitting on a low-slung flat bench emptying his locker at the country club when he overheard two members talking in the next aisle.

  “I’d kill those fuckers. Get the mafia, whatever it took.” One wheezy member boldly croaked.

  “What the hell was he doing leaving them alone like that?” A second member bellowed as a rejoinder.

  Anderson knew they were talking about him because he heard his name seconds after a locker room attendant turned off a shoe polishing machine, which was right before he could hear the two men talking together.

  Anderson let the injury of their comments go without acknowledgment, and was very near getting away without physically running into anyone he knew when Alan Murphy rounded a corner, fresh off the golf course. Murphy was the man who directly sponsored Anderson for membership and he pulled up abruptly, surprised to find Anderson in the row of lockers.

  “Oh Noel, there you are. It’s good to see you. It’s terrible what happened.” Murphy spewed all this with a rat-a-tat jumpiness as he tore off his golf glove. He stepped up and shook Anderson’s hand which Anderson felt was flabby and clammy. “I’m speaking for everyone when I say we’re sorry. It’s unfathomable what you must be going through.”

  In Murphy’s defense, he did show up to the visitation wake and did send a card of condolences, although it looked like it was in Murphy’s wife’s handwriting. The note started with textbook off the rack syrupy sympathies but ended with what seemed like a not so subtle request for Anderson to resign.

  Anderson remembered the note finishing with wording something like, “you do what you want but the membership would completely understand it if you decided to not go through with the initiation.” It didn’t take a huge leap for Anderson to find that peculiar since Anderson had completed the interviews and the process of joining the club, all the way down to handing over a check. Murphy’s brusque demeanor right now just confirmed Anderson’s suspicions. Anderson wouldn’t have stayed in any event and had already informed the front office of his decision to quit.

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to leave. And don’t worry about the check, we never cashed it. Look, I gotta run. Kid’s little league. Sorry. You take care.” Murphy concluded, and with that he grabbed his street shoes out of his locker and bounded off.

  Anderson could hear Murphy as he kicked off his golf shoes by the attendant’s booth for them to be polished before he headed for the parking lot, fast.

  When Anderson left the country club parking lot a few minutes later, he stopped his car just past the caddie yard where a tow-headed teen of about fourteen, hair bleached white from the sun, was waiting for one of his parents to pick him up after already completing an afternoon caddying.

  Anderson put the Mercedes in park, got out, and popped the trunk open. “You want a new set of clubs? I don’t need them anymore.” Anderson called over to the boy as he grabbed the golf bag out of the trunk and laid the clubs down at the edge of the lot.

  The boy was sitting on one of those boulders that keep delivery trucks from parking off the pavement and tearing up the grass. He had the slightest stranger danger hesitation at first but quickly stood up as he realized Anderson wasn’t kidding and wasn’t weird.

  Anderson retrieved a dozen new golf balls and two pairs of golf shoes from the trunk and set them down next to the clubs.

  The boy’s face would have lit up like it was Christmas if he still wasn’t so stunned. He mumbled thanks, and said something about the clubs and shoes being a great gift for his dad because Father’s Day was coming up.

  Anderson was glad for that. Even if his own Father’s Days were over. He got back into his Mercedes and drove off.

  CHAPTER 10

  The “Heart-O’Mine” motel. It’s one of those shithole two-story fleabags in a dicey urban district where they’re always finding a dead hooker in one of the rooms. This part of Chicago had its heyday a long, long time ago. Like the inner rings on a tree the decrepit structures of the neighborhood seemed only to record a period in time.

  Anderson was lying back on the bed in his second floor space. An empty bottle of bourbon was beside him. He was working on a second bottle. There was a gun in his hand. A .45 Smith & Wesson semi-automatic. He couldn’t pick it up from the gun shop until a couple of days ago. He had to wait the required 72-hour period before one can take delivery of a handgun. He wished he could get a carry permit but Illinois has the strictest restrictions on firearms of any state.

  The TV was on. He flipped through some channels but it was the middle of the night so it was a progression through infomercials for steam mops, exercise equipment and male enhancement products. He stopped searching, leaving the TV on an ad for a psychic hotline: “Manage Your Anxiety.”

  He’d only started watching the TV again recently. The news accounts about what happened to Karen and Tristan were on quite often right after the killings. The story hung around for a couple of days primarily because it was a double homicide in an area that didn’t have many random murders. Anderson couldn’t take another “builder’s family murdered” news item whether it was “our top story tonight…” or “in other news” or “just to update you on….” He was happy to see the local network affiliates had move
d on even if he hadn’t.

  Right now he couldn’t really see what was on TV anyway. He was too mercifully numbed by the alcohol. He stared at the ceiling, as if looking for a heavenly sign, but remembered that God was dead. At least in his life.

  A noise outside the door made him bring his gun up lightning fast. Incredibly quick for someone so inebriated. He muted the TV. Listened. Whoever was outside continued on and Anderson could hear them entering another room several units down the exterior walkway.

  Without any sound now, just the flicker of the images changing on the TV, he focused on his breathing, which was heavy and labored from the substantial amount of alcohol he had consumed.

  If he had a thought it was “why didn’t the alcohol help him pass out?” His breathing became heavier. A cold sweat enveloped him. He used the back of his gun hand to wipe his brow. And had a realization.

  A solution to all his problems.

  No more guilt.

  Or longings.

  The answer was right in the palm of his hand.

  He turned the gun barrel towards himself and stared into the nozzle. He took a long slug of the bourbon and set the bottle on the side table. It fell over but he didn’t even notice. That last drink was giving him the anesthesia necessary to complete the operation he was going to perform. On himself. Specifically separating his shameful existence from the earthly plane.

  Hell. That would be his destination. He was sure he would go there. But maybe, just maybe, if there is a God, (and he had to believe there was One for the good souls, for Karen and Tristan), maybe their merciful God would let him have an instant before them once more, before the Devil’s hordes whisked him forever to the underworld never to break surface again, and in that moment when he performed the last self-serving act in his sorry existence by telling Karen and Tristan how sorry he was for ever entering into their lives, maybe, and he prayed hard for this, maybe they would curse him, and they would be absolved, and he could depart with their hate, because he deserved that, he wanted that.

  He reversed his grip on the gun handle, jamming a thumb against the trigger. He hooked an index finger over the hammer and cocked it into position. He drew the muzzle end of the .45 up close to his forehead, wanting to make sure that when he blew his brains out it would be like a forceful breath on a single candle that would bring a sharp, definitive end to any more birthdays.

  It would only take an ounce of strength.

  Then it would all be over.

  It would bring eternal toil and torment but no more of this.

  And it was at this moment he saw a vision. The apparitions of Karen and Tristan were suddenly seated on the bed in front of him:

  “Oh Dad, you’re so crazy…” Tristan said reproachfully but sweetly.

  Anderson brought the gun down and leaned forward on the bed, reached out and touched her face.

  Tristan continued excitedly, “I saw the most beautiful dress today. Mom says you won’t let me wear it.”

  “Honey, remember we have that wedding on Saturday.” Karen interjected deliberately, before adding gently, “I know you don’t like those things, but we really should go.”

  Their images were so real to Anderson. He wondered if this was like the phantom limb phenomena where someone will feel the sensation of an appendage even after amputation. He didn’t care. It was exactly what he needed, however painful. He started to say he was sorry but Karen put her finger up to his lips to stop him.

  Anderson laid his head in Karen’s lap. She ran her fingers lovingly through his hair.

  “And don’t forget we have to change those bushes.” Karen said softly.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Anderson was asleep at the foot of his motel room door, .45 at his side. The thumping woke him up. It was someone knocking on the cheap particleboard entrance to his room. The only way he could tell it was morning is he could hear more traffic outside. He had stopped watching the clock.

  He stood up, paranoid, bringing his gun with him. Nobody knew where he was except Roman. If this was some scammer, somebody with ill-intent, a burglar, whatever, they were picking the last guy you’d want to fuck with right now.

  “Yeah, who is it?” Anderson asked sharply.

  “Registered mail for Noel Anderson.” A man’s voice answered through the door.

  Anderson did give Roman instructions to attend to Anderson’s personal affairs, such as paying real estate taxes, electric bills, whatever, and also to conduct day-to-day operations at the office because Anderson was only showing up sporadically. Maybe this was something Roman couldn’t handle.

  It took a minute. And the postal carrier waited patiently with his clipboard, pen and pouch.

  Soon the door opened and the worse-for-wear Anderson peered through the opening, his gun hidden from sight.

  The postal carrier took a letter out of his pouch and scanned the bar code using a handheld reader. “Could I see some ID?” The postal carrier asked.

  Anderson had slept in his clothes, which was the norm lately, so it was easy for him to pull out his wallet and hold up his driver’s license for the postal carrier to transcribe the eleven character ID.

  The postal carrier finished logging the required information and handed over the envelope. He moved off down the exterior staircase, jumped into his mail truck, turned the flashers off and rolled away.

  Anderson tore open the envelope and removed the perforated letter-sized sheets of paper inside. He stared intently at the contents of the envelope for quite a long time.

  Anderson climbed the steps leading to the main office of Our Lady of Sorrows Church with the envelope in hand. It was an old neighborhood church where Karen used to light candles when she was first pregnant with Tristan. Anderson remembered it because it had beautiful stained glass from a hundred-years-ago and Karen loved the way the afternoon light in the summer would refract and hit directly on the alcove where the Virgin Mary’s statue was located.

  Karen would always ask him for money to put in the donation box which was expected as payment in exchange for lighting the votive candles. Anderson actually came with Karen to a couple of the services. He liked the feel of the masses. They left the area before Tristan could be baptized there. He and Karen lived in a rental apartment at the time and wanted to move to a more suburban-like detached home setting. They didn’t like the idea of Tristan eventually growing up playing in stairwells if they had stayed living deep in the city.

  Anderson presently entered the main office where there were posters on the walls for various charities, adoption services, and nutrition reminders for pregnant women and babies.

  An attractive, well-dressed woman was standing, waiting at a high wooden counter while her female friend separated some clothes and shoes they were donating, eventually placing them into labeled bins.

  There was a young girl crouched at a copier behind the counter wrestling with a jammed sheet of paper. Say “young” carefully because, while she was probably in her late-twenties, she seemed almost like an adolescent on her way to old-age, skipping adulthood altogether. Say “probably in her late-twenties” because she was mostly hidden in plain sight. Dark stringy hair hung in her face. You could see a nose ring that matched in style the multiple earrings and cheap pewter bands that adorned her fingers. Tattoos were also visible sneaking out of the edges of the black Gothic Lolita-styled short-sleeved shirt she was wearing.

  The attractive woman was haltingly waving a hand, trying to find a moment to get the girl’s attention but the girl’s body language never gave you the impression she wanted you to bother her, even though as far as customer service was concerned around here, it looked like she was it. Anyway, that copier was that “young” girl’s world right now.

  “Do you have a form or something for the tax deduction?” The attractive woman asked airily but just as she said it located what she was looking for down the counter. “Never mind, I found it.”

  Anderson stepped up to the counter, emotionless. He didn’t have that I’ll wait u
ntil you’re done attitude no matter how involved the girl with the piercings was with the copier. He was about to interrupt her but the attractive woman was giving him an intense sidelong glance.

  “I know you.” The attractive woman said bluntly to Anderson. “I’ve seen you on TV. Do you do the weather or something?”

  The girl with the piercings perked up at this query, momentarily stopping her work at the copier.

  The attractive woman’s friend finished her sorting.

  “Don’t we know him?” The attractive woman inquired of her friend who instantly recognized Anderson, but just as quickly tried to hide that fact.

  Anderson had done some TV spots and a couple of prints ads during the building boom times, lending his face to his own commercials at Karen’s urging. Anderson was handsome, photogenic and not only looked trustworthy, he was trustworthy. So when everything happened, that is when Karen and Tristan were murdered, it gave the story legs, making it last a couple of nights on most broadcasts and remain on the bottom news scroll for several days. Normally, the story might have led local newscasts for one evening and, with the suspects caught, would have been gone. This woman’s friend apparently watched a lot of TV and had a good memory.

  “We’ll be late, remember?” The friend muttered as she smiled tightly and hustled the attractive woman out the door, whispering in her ear all the way down the stairs outside.

  Anderson noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that the attractive woman’s hand went involuntarily to her mouth, horror-struck, when she finally learned his identity. The attractive woman flicked a look back in the church office’s direction before she and her friend hightailed it to their car.

  The girl with the piercings returned to her work, finally freeing the mangled piece of jammed copier paper. She dropped the paper in a waste can but then promptly proceeded to pick the paper out of the waste can and drop it back inside again… and then repeated this process again… and again… and…