by Ray Garton
“Can I bring my dog up?” he said. “He’s small.”
“Sure,” Anna Dunfy said.
Reznick picked up Conan, then went around to the other side of his neighbor’s trailer to the ladder, which he climbed awkwardly. Once his head and shoulders had risen above the top edge of the trailer, he set Conan on the roof.
“Oh, look at you!”
Reznick was faced by a second woman on the roof, not the one who had spoken to him. Not a woman, really – a girl. And suddenly, he could not move. He stopped climbing, stopped breathing for a little while.
The girl had been lying face-down on a blanket, which was spread over a large foam-rubber egg-carton pad, but when she saw Conan, she quickly got up and turned toward Reznick, sat up and crossed her legs. She sat between Reznick and Anna Dunfy.
Reznick was frozen in place by her. Had she reached out and plunged her hand into his chest and clutched his heart and ripped it out of him, she could not have stunned him more than she did simply by sitting there petting Conan. His heart had completely lost control of itself. It wasn’t simply beating, it was thundering. His insides were tense. He was overwhelmed by a bone-deep hunger, a need so great that he set the glass on the roof before he shattered it with his squeezing, white-knuckled hand.
Never in his forty-two years of life – not even in his hormone-addled youth – had he ever wanted a woman so deeply, so desperately, so instantly.
“Oh, he’s so cute!” the girl said.
Her mane of golden hair hung down on both sides of her face as she bent forward to pet the wiggling little dog. Even in the dim light, he could see her face – a beautiful face that glowed the way a pregnant woman’s face glowed. She lifted her head and looked at him and he stopped breathing. Her smiling eyes were so big, he was afraid for a moment that he might fall into them if he climbed any higher on the ladder. Her lips – had there ever been lips more custom-made for kissing? They were plump and her mouth was perhaps just a fraction too long, but it made her kind, sympathetic smile all the bigger and more pleasant. Her mouth was open as she looked at him, and she ran her tongue slowly around her lips. Creamy cleavage rose up out of the red halter top from between her round, heavy breasts. The halter top revealed an expanse of flat, pale belly. Between her legs, small golden hairs curled out around the narrow, raggedy crotch of the very-short cutoffs she wore. Her toenails were painted a delicate red on her bare feet. Her legs were long and slender and shapely.
For a moment, he felt light-headed. He clutched the sides of the ladder with both hands for fear of toppling over backwards.
“You okay, Mr. Reznick?” Anna Dunfy said as she peered around her daughter.
“Yeah, yeah, just… a little, uh… a little dizzy. I’m not, uh, you know, crazy about heights.”
“Oh, well, you’re almost here, just a little bit more.”
Reznick was surprised by how much effort it took to pull his eyes from the girl. It almost hurt to look away from her. He climbed up onto the roof as the girl stretched out on her belly again on the blanket between Reznick and Anna.
“Just lie down on the blanket, Mr. Reznick,” Anna said.
“Call me Marc,” he said.
“And you call me Anna.”
“And you can call me Kendra,” the girl said as she smiled at him.
He tried to speak, to say hi to the girl, but nothing but breath came out the first couple times. “Hi, Kendra.”
“I’m her daughter,” she said. She was chewing gum. He could smell it – it smelled of grape flavoring.
Reznick smelled something else, too – just a whiff of it, a slight hint. Something… disturbing.
“Ni-nice to meet you, Kendra,” he said, barely getting it out. He looked at the gentle slope of her back, the rise of her ass in the small patch of blue denim, the dimples on the backs of her knees.
“Just stretch out beside Kendra, there,” Anna said. “There’s room.”
“Here,” Kendra said, “I’ll pour you some tea.” She picked up the pitcher of ice tea in front of her. The ice cubes in it clattered and clinked as she poured some into his glass.
“Thank you,” he said, and it came out as a whisper.
“What’s your doggy’s name?” Kendra said.
“Conan.”
“He’s so cute! Oh, Conan, you’re so cute, you know that?”
Conan wagged his butt and lapped up the attention and affection.
“You haven’t been here long, have you, Marc?” Anna said.
“About a month.”
“I guess I haven’t been very neighborly,” she said. “I should’ve come over and introduced myself, or something.”
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “I’m not very neighborly myself. I guess I’m kind of… a hermit.”
“Being neighborly is a lost art, I think,” Anna said.
Reznick nodded. “Part of another time.”
If he tipped his head forward, he could see Anna’s face beyond Kendra’s. He could see where Kendra got her good looks. Anna was lovely, and quite young. She had long auburn hair and big catlike eyes. She and Kendra shared full lips and a delicately upturned nose. She looked almost young enough to pass for Kendra’s sister.
“What kind of work do you do, Marc?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
Anna’s face broke open in a broad smile. “No kidding? A real private investigator?”
“What’s a private investigator?” Kendra said. She had not stopped looking at him since he’d stretched out beside her. She kept petting Conan, but she looked at Reznick. He felt naked under her gaze, and unable to return it. He felt if he did, if he met her eyes and looked in them for very long, he would burst into flames.
“You know,” he said, looking at his ice tea, “a private detective?”
Kendra said nothing for a moment, and he stole a look at her. She frowned – two little creases appeared between her gracefully curved eyebrows – and cocked her head. It was a childlike gesture – a childlike gesture above the swell of a woman’s cleavage coming up out of that halter top.
“Is it interesting?” Kendra said.
“Well, yes, I suppose it is. It’s not boring, anyway.”
“Do you make lots of money doing it?”
“Kendra, that’s not very polite,” Anna said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, as if she truly had no idea it wasn’t a polite thing to ask.
Reznick frowned a moment. There was something different about Kendra, something odd. He couldn’t put his finger on it yet.
“I’ll put it this way,” he said. “I’m not getting rich.”
“Ah, look at the sun,” Anna said.
There was a break in the trees just ahead, and far beyond it was a line of purple mountains in the distance. Just above it stretched some flat clouds that glowed a bright pink as the sun set.
A moment later, the shadows were deeper and the park’s shade became darker. The sun had set, leaving only a golden glow behind the mountains which was already dimming. The pink drained from the clouds, leaving behind a rich deep purple.
“It doesn’t last long, but it’s sure nice while it does,” Anna said. “It’s free and it’s something beautiful. Something to be appreciated, you know?”
Reznick gave Kendra a sidelong look. She was still looking at him. Her mouth was hanging open again, but her eyes were smiling at him. Once again, she ran her tongue around her lips. Had she even looked at the sunset, he wondered?
A breeze blew over them, and that smell returned.
It was stronger this time.
More distinct.
It hit Reznick like a kick to the stomach, then a baseball bat to the forehead. For a moment, he actually thought he was going to be sick.
He turned to Kendra. Her smile grew larger and she tilted her head again. Was she flirting with him? There was something so girlish about her – so little girlish.
But that smell.
It overpowered him. The memories
flooded into his mind as if a dam had broken. The pain they brought with them was real and physical.
“What… what’s that perfume you’re wearing?” Reznick said, staring straight ahead.
“Oh, that’s Ice,” Anna said. “You like it?”
“Yes,” he said, but once again, his voice came out in a whisper.
He clumsily got up and said, “I’ve got to go.”
“Yes, so do I,” Anna said. “I’ve got to take Kendra to my sister’s, then go to work.”
Reznick nearly fell off the trailer trying to pick up Conan. He was partway down the ladder when Kendra said, “Your glass!”
“I’ll get it later,” he said, and his voice quavered. He hoped they could not see the tears that were welling in his eyes. “I’ve gotta go. Gotta make a phone call. Forgot all about it.”
The perfume’s fragrance clogged his nostrils. It clung to him, pulled at him.
He carried Conan down the ladder, then went around the trailer and back to his own. He tripped on the steps going in and almost dropped Conan. He put the dog down and staggered over to his recliner. He fell into it and sobbed into his hands as the pain tore through him, the pain of memories he’d tried to bury with alcohol, memories he’d tried desperately to keep away during his year of sobriety. They flooded in now and he gasped like a man drowning. Even here in his living room, the fragrance of Anna’s perfume clung to him, engulfed him, clogged his throat and choked him. It burned his eyes and made his heart ache. He gasped for air but all he sucked in was the smell of that perfume, Ice
Conan stood and stared at him with his little head tilted to one side.
Four
Ice.
It had been Victoria’s perfume. Reznick had bought her a bottle of it one Christmas. It was a cool fragrance, smooth and fresh. It had been in the air whenever he was with her. It quickly had become a part of her.
Reznick had read somewhere once that smell was the strongest trigger of vivid memories. That scent had created a painful explosion of memories in his mind, vivid, clawing memories that dug at the backs of his eyes. When he lowered his eyelids, he could see her. He wished to God that he could see her as she’d been, the Victoria he’d loved and planned to marry. He wished he could see the fair-skinned, freckled face and the wide smile, which had been too rare, the sad green eyes – the sadness never left them, and it was that sadness that killed her – and the long, luxurious red hair, which he’d taken great pleasure in brushing for her. But he never saw that when he thought of Victoria.
No, it was never that Victoria, it was the last he’d seen of her. It was the day he’d come home early to surprise her. No telling how long she’d been sitting on the bed trying to muster the nerve to do it. When she heard him come in, she’d resolved herself to do it at that moment. She’d known he would stop her, talk her out of it, take the gun away from her. Sitting there on the edge of the bed, she’d fired the gun into her temple at point blank range just as he walked into the bedroom. Just in time for Reznick to flinch at the explosive gunshot, and see half of her head disappear, see her brains splash over the wall and headboard. The dark red-black matter hit the wall with a splash and then began to dribble downward in tiny lumps and gobs as blood gushed from Victoria’s nose and she was thrown to the side on the bed. The gun fell from her hand, a.44 magnum – his gun.
He’d screamed then, but his voice sounded far away to him. He rushed to her side, but of course, she was gone. Her suddenly-bulging, bloody eyes stared up at the ceiling. The blood from her nose glistened around her open mouth and on her chin like a black-red goatee.
A sheet of blood-speckled paper was on the bed beside her with some of her handwriting on it. Reznick couldn’t read it for awhile, because he couldn’t stop sobbing and screaming. He’d reached for the phone and called 911. He’d finally gotten all the information out to the operator, but when he was done, he could not get the phone back on its base because his eyes were bleary and his hands were shaking, so he let it drop to the floor.
Finally, he wiped his eyes and picked up the paper. Still sobbing, he read the note:
Dear Marc,
I’m so very sorry. I just can’t take the
pain anymore. I can’t. I know you’ll
understand because you love me. I
love you so much. And I’m sorry.
With all my heart and soul,
Her signature was shaky and unclear, but it was hers. Her last words, written in a wobbly cursive on a page stained with her blood and something else – maybe tears.
He had tried to help her. He’d taken her to his doctor, who had diagnosed her as suffering from severe clinical depression. He’d tried several different medications out on her, but she’d had bad reactions to all of them and couldn’t take them. She refused to see a therapist. There were days when the sadness lifted and she was able to smile a little bigger smile than usual, even laugh a little. But most of the time, that sadness started in her eyes and spread over her whole face.
Reznick had met her in a movie theater, where she’d worked the ticket booth. She’d kept her sadness to herself, even when it showed on her face. She managed to smile in spite of it, but it was a muted smile. It was still a beautiful smile, though. Everything about her had been beautiful – her ears, her nose, her hands, her breasts, her legs, even her feet.
And even her perfume, the perfume he’d given her.
Ice.
Three months after Victoria’s suicide, Reznick’s parents had gone into the Tower Mart off of Highway 273 in Anderson on their way to see Reznick’s sister, her husband, and their children in Anderson Heights. They’d stopped at the convenience store to get some candy for their grandchildren, and a couple cold drinks for themselves. A robbery had taken place while they were standing in line at the register. The robber had panicked and started shooting. He’d shot and killed four people, Reznick’s parents included.
Seeing Victoria kill herself had damaged Reznick. It had driven a spike deep into his brain. The loss of his parents only did more damage. That was when he’d fallen into the bottle and his whole life had fallen apart. His sister didn’t care. She was his foster sister, actually, and they had never gotten along. She’d always resented Reznick for being, unlike her, their parents’ blood. So he’d fallen into the bottle alone.
A bottle. A bottle of vodka, that was what he needed. It was a short drive to the Handi-Spot Market on North Street. They sold liquor there.
He pulled his lips inward and ran his tongue around them. He could taste it. On ice, nice and cold.
Conan hopped into his lap and curled up. Reznick absently stroked the little dog for a while, then he put Conan on the floor and stood. He went to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He took two Xanax with a drink of water from the glass he kept by the sink. He also saw a bottle of NyQuil in the cabinet. He took it out, took the small cup off the bottle’s top, filled it, and drank it down. He repeated the process, then exhaled hard between puffed cheeks. He replaced the NyQuil and closed the cabinet.
The cough syrup created a spreading warmth in his belly not unlike the warmth created by a swig of vodka. He thought it would help, but it just made him crave the vodka even more.
He looked at his face in the cabinet mirror. He wondered if he’d lost weight lately – his face seemed thinner. He had short, wavy brown hair, a rectangular forehead and a straight patrician nose. His jaw was square, his shoulders broad. There was really nothing special about him. He wasn’t homely, but neither was he especially handsome, he thought. He wondered what Victoria had seen in him. What had attracted her to him at first? He’d never asked her. There were so many things he’d never asked her, never told her. His eyes crinkled on the corners as they narrowed and the corners of his mouth pulled back and his shoulders hitched as more tears spilled down his glistening-wet cheeks. He put his hands on the counter, elbows locked, and let his head fall forward between his shoulders.
“Victoria,” he whispered hoarsely as he
sobbed. “Victoria.”
Later, the two Xanax kicked in. Reznick stretched out in his recliner, and turned on the television. With Conan curled up on his belly, he fell asleep as silent tears continued to spill from his eyes.
Five
The trailer was dark, but it was always dark, even during the day. During the daylight hours, the darkness in the trailer seemed almost malignant to Sherry Manning – harsh halos of pale sunlight glowed around the edges of the blankets and towels hanging in all the windows – except for the one living room window where the swamp cooler was – and the glow made the smoke from a cigarette someone was smoking look like something sinister as it oozed through the air, then was swept away suddenly by the current of the cooler.
She lay on the couch with a couple throw pillows under her head. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there, nor did she care. The television was on – The Price is Right had been on for a while, then she’d closed her eyes and opened them to Jerry Springer, closed them again and opened them to Oprah, and now it was a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond. Sherry liked that show and watched it a lot. She squinted at the television and wondered if it was an episode she’d seen.
Sherry sat up on the couch and yawned. She smacked her lips and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth was dry and she felt… gummy. Gummy in her mouth, and gummy all over.
Andy came in from the kitchen and said, “Hi, babe.” He sat down on the couch beside her, put an arm around her, and kissed her cheek. “I gotta go.” He held a cigarette between the first two fingers of his right hand, and it trailed ribbons of smoke that got caught up and swept away by the swamp cooler.
“Where you goin’?” she said. Her tongue felt thick and she slurred her words. She sat back a little, reached up, and stroked his smooth face, brushed a strand of his long hair out of his eyes. She loved his hair. It was long and thick and luxurious, a rich brown, like chocolate, and she loved stroking it, running her fingers through it.
“I gotta pick up David,” he said. “Him and me’re gonna score some weed. Pays the bills, y’know.”
