Animals

by Jonn Skipp; Craig Spector

  Rest in pieces.

  Syd dropped the paper and lit a cigarette. A photo from their last summer together lay amidst the clutter of the kitchen table. Karen was standing on the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, on a vacation he couldn't afford that was his last desperate attempt to keep them together.

  Funny, Syd thought, how pictures can lie, by the simple act of freezing time. In the photo she was smiling and standing in the middle of the promenade: a shy and pretty woman holding one hand delicately up to her breast, one leg cocked like Venus descending from her shell. In real life the smile was a grimace, and she'd actually been backing away, trying to escape from Syd's intruding lens. As if she were afraid of letting him capture her like that.

  As if she were afraid it might reveal something.

  Syd closed his eyes and more images assembled unbidden in his brain, parading by like the Bataan Death March of love. The first time he ever saw her. The first time he asked her out. The night they first kissed. In one jarring gestalt he remembered the night she had captured his heart, and the night she had broken it.

  And the ten long years that stretched in between.

  "Everybody's got a reason to abandon their plan

  How can I think of tomorrow with my sorrow at hand

  Oooooh, precious pain . . ."

  THEY WERE YOUNG when they first met: she was twenty-two, he was twenty-five. She was lithe and willowy, with a personality so diametrically opposite his own that people sometimes wondered how they could stand each other. Where he was boisterous, she was reclusive; where he was reckless, she was reserved.

  Still, they shared a connection, and it was strong. It was like they were tuned to a very intimate frequency, one that no one else could hear. And as much as their natures differed, there was a complement there, a melding of strengths. They were always honest with each other, in a way that Syd had never found with anyone else, and in the privacy of their relationship she opened up to him in ways she never had to anyone else.

  He had to admit that she was a mystery to him. She had a sense of impenetrable composure, an inner serenity that intrigued him. At first it was a challenge; penetrating her veils wasn't easy. As he got to know her, he saw that Karen had learned early in life to hide her true nature: from her parents, from her family, from the world at large. She lived in a world of unfulfilled dreams, and protected them with a veneer of innocent acquiescence. Just tell everyone what you think they want to hear and you're safe. That's all they really want from you, anyway. Karen spent most of her life hiding behind a mirror that reflected other people's expectations.

  And then Syd came along.

  He was brash and confident, with a wild streak a mile wide. He couldn't see through her mirrors, but he knew they were there. And as Syd fell deeper and deeper in love, he longed to find the person hidden behind the looking glass, and let her out at last.

  Easier said than done. It took trust, and trust like that was hard to come by. They were together for years before getting married. Syd was marriage-shy, not because he was afraid of commitment but because he had seen too many people who did it and then let the spark go out, only to end up trapped in loveless frustration, dead inside. He never wanted to be like that.

  And then one day, some seven years into their relationship, it struck him: here is a woman who truly loves you and wants you and you love her and just how many times do you think that happens in a lifetime?

  When they tied the knot they literally got a standing ovation as they walked away from the altar: family and friends cheering them on, the organ music swelling, the autumn sunset ablaze as if God himself were on hand to personally wish them well.

  And Syd found, much to his amazement, that he loved being married almost as much as he loved her. It wasn't a trap at all. To the contrary, it was liberating; there was a power in the knowledge that he had a partner, someone with whom he was mated for life. Someone to watch over, even as she watched over him. Syd was amazed at how he could look at Karen and feel the same exhilaration as the first night they'd kissed. And when they made love he felt time melt away, as if the joining would last forever.

  It blew him away. He wanted to give her everything, be everything for her, fulfill her heart's every desire. And bit by bit, he began to truly believe that he could. No matter what happened, they had each other. They had the rest of their lives. They could beat the odds and build something that would really last a lifetime.

  For a while it looked like they actually might.

  And then everything started to go wrong.

  Maybe it was a long-buried fault line in their dynamic. Maybe just a series of random events, connecting with one another in near-lethal precision. The recession hit. The bills started to pile up. Karen got pregnant, only to have it end in a sudden and ugly miscarriage that sent her pin-wheeling off into her own private hell.

  Little by little, they started to drift apart.

  For a long time, Syd blamed himself. He had failed to provide for them. He had failed to make the dream come true. He blamed her, too; for not trying, for rolling over and giving up in the face of hard times. He got scared, and the fear got him angry, and he pushed himself that much harder, doing anything and everything in a grimly determined attempt to keep it all together.

  Eventually the sheer stress of it all just ground all the sweetness out of him. His sense of humor curdled, turned caustic; his hope became desperation; his desperation soured into bitterness.

  Meanwhile, Karen drifted. Months went by. Years. He pressured her to take control of her life, get a grip, do something to help. She responded by drifting from one low-paying dead-end job to another, ended up making a halfhearted stab at real estate. The first thing she did was find a big old house, which she brought Syd to see. He saw the spark light in Karen's eyes for the first time in what felt like forever. And that was all it took.

  They managed to buy the place, and Syd set to restoring it with a fervor; sanding floors, painting, ripping out fixtures, making it theirs. To him it was way more than material, worlds beyond simply improving the resale value of an investment. He was trying to build a repository for their dreams, make physical his hope for their continued future together. It was home. It mattered. He poured his heart into it, as if by sheer dint of will he could transform it into a fortress strong enough to deflect the forces that threatened to overwhelm them.

  All the while, the wheels kept turning. The economy worsened. The bills kept coming. Syd managed to keep them alive, but the uncertainty was wearing on him. The real estate market went quagmire-soft in the face of more layoffs, more closings. Karen's career didn't earn a dime, but it got her into the bars a lot, where she began to quietly drown in her own insecurities and depression.

  The gulf between them grew colder and colder by degrees.

  Until the inevitable happened.

  "Each road I walk down reminds me of you

  This whole town is haunted

  There'll never be anything new . . ."

  ONE NIGHT KAREN happened into the sights of a yuppie lounge-lizard party animal named Vaughn Restal. Vaughn was a fixture on the local singles scene: boyishly charming, with curly black hair and a cheesy, easy grin. His special gift was helping women in trouble—especially married ones. He listened to their problems: with their husbands, with their jobs, with their lives. He tapped into their deepest longings. He liked to make them feel special.

  And he had a special way of making them feel it.

  Vaughn befriended Karen: running into her casually, encouraging her to share her feelings. He was always there with a smile and a hug and a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. He was a nice guy. He was concerned for her. He bought her lots and lots of drinks.

  On the home front, things were growing increasingly distant. Karen had become a virtual shadow in the hallways. And Syd was no fun at all anymore. When they spoke at all, their conversations revolved around a seemingly never-ending parade of problems; and as Syd became single-minded in his determ
ination to get them out of the hole they were in, Karen felt increasingly lost and powerless in the face of it. They became estranged, each lost in their own inability to cope.

  It wasn't long before Karen's nights out making business contacts started to run later and later. And it wasn't much past that before her shmoozing became a nightly thing. It was all just part of the business, after all. And if Syd didn't like it, well, he was the one who'd been pressing her to go out and hustle in the first place, now wasn't he?

  But by then Syd had begun to pull out of his anger. He felt like a man trapped in a rubber monster suit, a life-sized replica of himself, fashioned entirely of bile and bad feelings. It had taken him a long time to recognize that fact, even longer to find the zipper and finally set himself free.

  As he did, the anger sloughed off of him. Syd began making overtures, trying to heal the damage, to rekindle the fire they'd let go out. Karen responded with indifference and suspicion. Why was he being nice all of a sudden? He was up to something, no doubt, trying to manipulate her somehow. She went out every night, stayed out till the bars closed. She shared nothing, told him exactly what she thought he wanted to hear.

  Something was going on. He could feel it in his gut. The certainty of it uncoiled every night as she walked out the door, slithered through their daily silences, tightened round his throat as he watched her sleeping face. Finally, when he could stand it no longer, he asked her. And she turned that perfectly innocent face to him, looked him straight in the eye, and told him. Nothing was happening. She was out with friends. It was all in his head.

  End of conversation.

  Honesty was implicit in their relationship; Syd literally didn't know how not to trust her. He asked her a question; she gave him an answer. He had to believe her. He knew she was lying. It drove him mad.

  Bit by bit, the mirror began to crack.

  One day Karen stopped wearing her wedding rings. Vaughn had told her it made him uncomfortable to be seen in public with a married woman. He told her to take them off.

  That night, in bed, Vaughn told her that he loved her. He told her that Syd was an uncaring bastard who could never make her happy. He fed her insecurities carefully, nurturing the hurts with hugs and smiles and his throbbing, burning love until at last they blossomed and ripened.

  Until at last, it was harvest time.

  It was a sticky-hot August night, and Syd had been up for hours: staring down the darkened street, waiting for the swell of headlights that would herald her homecoming. He felt time slow to a crawl, then stop altogether, the excruciating drag of one second into the next advancing nothing. Each tick was punctuated by the same nagging litany: where was she? Was she dead in a dumpster somewhere, was she wrecked and bleeding in a ditch? Was she okay? Why was she doing this?

  It drove him crazy. He resented the inconsideration, dreaded the implications, felt hijacked by his own concern. Worry was not optional. She was a part of him. She was out there somewhere. She was lying.

  Through the night, he paced: a caged animal, trapped within the boundaries of civility, suffering the crimes of the polite. It was an unwritten law of the domesticated: wreak whatever emotional havoc thou wilt, but never, ever make a scene. Any violation was acceptable, so long as you did it neatly. As long as you didn't make a mess.

  He felt an urge rise up from somewhere deep within. It was a living thing: bestial in its simplicity, unfettered by caution or reason. It made him want to howl and scream and rip through the lies, feel them kick and squirm as he tore them to bloody shreds. Feel them hurt, like he hurt. Feel them shudder. Feel them die.

  It was a good feeling. It was clean. Strong. Real. It gnawed clear through to the core of his being. Taunting. Torturing. Beckoning to him, over and over and over.

  Release me.

  Syd wrestled with it all night. And when Karen sauntered in sometime the next morning, he was waiting: sunken-eyed and unshaven in the darkened living room. Steeped in shadow, eyes ablaze, he looked up from his lair. His voice croaked one question. One word.

  Why?

  She looked at him, innocence incarnate. Whatever did he mean? Syd's reply came on a leash pulled tight. Was she genuinely stupid, or just incredibly cruel?

  Still feigning that perfect blankness, she faced him. Are you saying you don't want me to go out? she asked.

  No, he said quietly, looking across the miles-wide chasm between them. I want you to leave.

  Karen couldn't believe her ears. Syd said it again. He told her, in that dreadful, constricted whisper, that this was no longer her home. He told her if she ever wanted to figure out what went wrong, to let him know. But until that day came, if ever, she was not welcome here.

  And she had to leave. Now.

  There was danger in his voice. She left, that very day.

  Two days later, she returned. Her world had begun to crumble. She confessed her sins reluctantly. She was confused. There was someone else.

  Syd felt his world come unglued. He needed the truth, in all its ugly grandeur. He needed to know it for what it was. Slowly, he pulled it out of her. Yes, she was involved. Yes, it was an affair. Yes, she had feelings for him.

  The words punctured Syd. Breaking up he could deal with. A random fuck was not fatal, either. But this . . .

  This was different. He knew by the tone of it, her euphemistic phraseology delicate as a dull knife to the windpipe. Involved. Feelings.

  This was more than a sleazy little series of one-nighters. This was betrayal.

  Syd reeled, his guts twisting into tiny inextricable knots. He asked her what his name was. She wouldn't tell him. He asked her again. She fought to hide it. He asked her again and again: doggedly pursuing, cornering her. Until she broke down and told him.

  Syd heard the name.

  And he went berserk.

  He could feel his soul split, torn between the horror of it all and the animal writhing inside him, snapping at its chains. Something must pay. Not like this. Something must die. He told her Vaughn was scum. She said nothing, shielding him with her silence. Vaughn was good. Vaughn's heart was pure. The thing inside him howled. He told her that Vaughn was a legend in slime. She defended his honor. Vaughn loved her, she said. Syd told her she had to choose. She said she couldn't hurt him.

  What about me, he asked.

  She said nothing at all. Karen stood frozen: unable to turn back. Unable to go forward. Unable to move.

  Syd turned, heading for the door. She watched, eyes glazed with fear.

  Please don't kill him, she said.

  Please don't kill him.

  It was a hard request to honor. Killing him was a palpable option. To feel his flesh rend, to hold his bruised and bleeding face, drinking in his destruction as the light guttered, winked out. It would be perfection. It would be sublime.

  But he looked at her shivering, terrified. And he still loved her.

  And he said that he wouldn't.

  On the way out a voice popped into his head, clear as you please. Take your gun, it said. Syd had to stop and think about that one for a moment, as the whole scenario sprang full-blown into his mind. He would bring the gun. He would pull the gun. Vaughn would feign toughness, say something stupid like what are you gonna do, shoot me? And then he would.

  And that would be that.

  No, he decided. Not like that. The act was too easy, the repercussions too messy. He called Jules, screaming for a reality-check. Jules concurred: guns were a bad idea. He proceeded to trot out a host of sound, rational reasons why Syd didn't want to waste his life on behalf of these people. Syd heard them all, understood them implicitly. Yes, violence was not an answer. No, he didn't want to go to jail. None of it meant anything to the part of him that was in pain. The part that lusted for blood, and death, and destruction.

  Jules ended up urging Syd not to do anything stupid, held him on the line until he promised he wouldn't. Eventually, Syd relented.

  Besides, he knew: if it came to that, he wanted to do it with his bare
hands.

  Vaughn was drunk by the time Syd got to the refurbished yuppie love-nest he called home. For all of his great undying devotion, Vaughn was quick to deny everything. First he told Syd that nothing had happened. Syd called him a liar.

  Then he said it was just a joke. Syd said it wasn't funny. He said that it was nothing personal. Syd told him he took it kind of personal when someone fucked his wife. Vaughn said he didn't want to get physical. Syd told Vaughn he'd already gotten physical, the moment he'd fucked his wife. Vaughn cracked, blurted out that it was all Syd's fault: if Syd had been doing his job, this never would have happened. . . .

  And that was when Syd hit him.

  And it was wonderful, it was bliss, the dull crunch of broken bone like sweet music as the thing inside him uncoiled and rose, lusting for the clarity of chaos, begging for more. Syd felt alive, unbound: every cell awake, aware, as if he were smashing through the lies while he pounded Vaughn's face into pulp, wanting nothing more than to keep right on going, to rip his smug and preening face off, to hack through flesh to bone and beyond, to tear him down to essence, to fundament, to miserable withered soul-shrieking bits. . . .

  It was an epiphany rendered in blood; and like all epiphanies, it was fleeting. A police cruiser came and hovered on the periphery, restoring order by proximity. Syd's rational mind regained dominion, reining the other side in. Don't ruin your life. Don't go to jail for this. It's not worth it.

  The police car sat, not moving, not reacting.

  Waiting.

  Reason won, but barely. Syd backed off just enough to permit Vaughn to slither away, the better to lick his wounds. Syd allowed him to, tethering the murderous urge, aware of how tenuous his grip on it was. Knowing how easily it could get loose again. Knowing what it wanted.

  Liking what it wanted.

  Vaughn resurfaced days later, mumbling into his beer about having walked into a door. It didn't matter. Vile as he was, Vaughn was but a symptom. The disease lay elsewhere. The damage was already done.