Ad Nauseam (7 page)

“No, wait.” Cursing under her breath, Liza walked around the front of the car, opened the passenger door and slid onto the leather seat. Once inside, she turned towards the driver as he pulled away from the curb and smoothly accelerated. He was handsome in a brutal way. His suit looked expensive. The dark glasses kept his expression hidden from her when he glanced over.

“So where are you taking me?”

“It’s not far.”

“Are you taking me to Dan? I usually don’t trust guys like you to just take me places.” Liza bit her lip, hating the way she babbled when she was nervous.

“Don’t worry. It’s not far. You have the video?”

“Yeah, but I’m not giving it to anyone but Dan. What’s your name anyways? I don’t like riding with some dude and not knowing who he is.”

“You can call me Mr. White.” For the first time he looked at her and smiled, causing Liza to flinch.

***

“Wake up.”

Mr. White’s voice cut through the fog in her head, and Liza opened one bleary eye. The other was swollen shut and ached with each beat of her heart. The bright lights caused her to squint and intensified the pounding in her head. A glance around and she realized she was still in the same room. Nylon ropes held her upright in a chair and burned the flesh of her wrists and ribs when she tried to move. She was naked and cold.

“Are you awake?” The sound of his voice caused her to flinch. He hadn’t spoken a word to her since they walked into the room. Not even during the beating. “Good.”

“What do you want from me?” Liza’s voice was hoarse from screaming, her throat burned when she spoke. Blood dripped from her nose, rolling over her split upper lip and into her mouth. She ran her tongue across the inside of her teeth, encountering an open spot.
Fucker knocked out one of my teeth.

“It’s not what I want from you, honey. It’s what
Dan
wants. I took a look at that video you girls made and I think it’s pretty good. A little editing and it will do just fine.” He ruffled her hair affectionately. When Liza tried to pull away from his touch, Mr. White laughed.

“I figured you’d be glad that you didn’t do all that work for nothing.” Mr. White adjusted one of the two cameras that sat on tripods. They had been pointed at Liza since he’d tied her to the chair, catching every squeal of pain and meaty thud while he beat her for the last many hours.

“Let me go.
Please.
I’ll do anything you want.”

“Anything? Interesting prospect, but I don’t think so.”

“I’ll blow ya. I’m real good at it.”

He threw back his head and laughed, his eyes twinkling. “No offense, honey, but I wouldn’t fuck you if
you
paid
me.
If this was about sex, I would’ve just raped you.”

“The money? I’ll split it with you.”

“Split it with me? Are you kidding?”

“Okay.” Liza heard herself whining but was in too much pain to care. “You can have it all. Just let me go.”

Mr. White shook his head and retrieved a briefcase from the floor. He set it on a chair and pushed the buttons, turning it so she could see what the case contained. Harsh light reflected off what seemed like a hundred exotic tools, all shiny metal and very
sharp.
He presented them proudly, first to the cameras, then to her.

“It’s nothing personal, you know. This’ll be easy. All you have to do is act and
react
naturally. Piece of cake. Dan was willing to pay one million for an angel lust video.” He picked up a wicked looking meat fork with curved tines, tilting his head as he examined her body, looking for the appropriate place to begin. His smile was gentle but his eyes remained hard as he placed the pointed prongs against Liza’s trembling abdomen. The muscles in his forearm bunched as he applied enough pressure to puncture flesh, earning an agonized wail in return. “But he will pay me five million for a
snuff film.”

RETIREMENT WOES

William had never been a cruel person before the squirrel moved onto his roof.

Two weeks into summer vacation, fourteen long days after he had bid his students farewell for the last time, William sat at the kitchen table in his boxers and white t-shirt under a tattered blue robe. A bowl of oatmeal sat untouched on the table next to the unread newspaper spread out before him.

Staring at the clock on the wall, he watched the minutes tick past and wondered what he was supposed to do with the rest of his life.

“William, will you please mow that lawn today?” His wife, Kristi, walked through the kitchen and into the dining room, a cloud of soft, floral perfume left floating in her wake. Smartly dressed in a peach blazer and skirt with her gray hair perfectly coiffed atop her head in a twist, she was ready for her day as a personal banker, the job she’d held since their kids had all started school.

“Hmmph.” William grunted, glancing at his wife, then returning his eyes to the clock.

“Oh William, really. Are you going to mope around here forever? How are you going to handle retirement if you can’t even find something to do for the summer? You’re
used
to having summers off.” Kristi pulled out a chair and perched lightly on the edge, grabbing his hand in her own and frowning. “Have you been taking those pills the doctor gave you?”

“I’m not depressed.” William also frowned, but it felt diluted in comparison to his wife’s stern countenance. Everything about her personality had always been more forceful, more vibrant. He had no delusions about who ran their household. “I’m just bored.”

“You know what you need, William?” Kristi’s favorite pastime had always been telling William what he
needed.
“You need a hobby. Rachel’s husband builds model cars and Ralph across the street does all that woodworking.”

“Those are old man hobbies.”

“We aren’t getting any younger, dear.” She patted his hand affectionately, but he pulled his own back.

“I’m not that old.” The whiny tone in his voice made him feel like a petulant child.

“Really, William? So what is this? Sitting around in your shorts all day feeling sorry for yourself? I swear, the least you can do is go out and get rid of that damned squirrel.”

“Squirrel?”

“Yeah. The squirrel that’s on the roof making Devon bark. Can’t you hear him? Or are you going deaf too?” Kristi stood and retrieved her purse, her back stiff and her chin raised in anger. With her hand on the doorknob she turned slightly, her eyes narrowed as she spoke. “You need to do something with yourself, William. I will not spend the next thirty years watching you give up and rot in that chair.”

William watched the door slam behind her. Standing to take a shower, he paused when he heard Devon begin to bay in the backyard.

He does sound upset about something,
he thought, opting to forego the shower and just get dressed so he could investigate.

On his way to the door, William tripped over something, nearly falling on his face. He heard things go flying, and to his dismay, realized he had knocked over Kristi’s massive sewing kit, spilling about a hundred spools of thread.

Even when she’s not here she is making my life hell! Why does one woman need that much thread, anyways?
Gathering together the spools, Devon’s baying continued, now louder and longer.

Devon wagged his tail in greeting and William rubbed the hound dog’s graying muzzle.

“Just you and me now, old boy. Two old hounds with nothing to do.” William went to the garage and got the dog’s food bowl, filling it from a bag on the shelf. There was a time when he just left the bowl out, feeding Devon whenever it ran empty, but the vet said he was getting fat. The weight wasn’t good for his heart.

William’s doctor had said the same thing about him.

Leaving Devon to his meal, William went back into the garage to get the lawnmower. It was still clean and shiny, a self-propelled model that his three grown children had pitched in for an early Father’s Day gift. The old mower had worked just fine, but they worried he was getting too old to push the heavy thing around the yard.

I’m not old,
he thought,
never been sick a day in my life.
I’m still useful.

William was halfway through mowing before Devon began to bark again, sitting on his haunches under the eave that jutted above the back porch. Usually the dog was timid around the lawnmower, but he refused to budge when William came near, forcing him to kill the mower. Devon’s attention remained on the roof, his bark sounding vicious and the hair standing up on his back.

“What is it, pal? What are you barking at?” William shaded his eyes with one hand and looked up. Devon barked again, and he gently placed his other hand on the dog’s head to quiet him. After a moment of mostly silence, filled only with the annoying buzz of cicadas in the trees, he heard it. The high-pitched, distant chittering of a squirrel. A fuzzy red plume of tail appeared, zigzagging across the roof.

“Hey squirrel!” William didn’t actually expect the rodent to respond and he laughed in surprise when it peeked over the edge, fixing him with beady black eyes. Devon let loose with a whiny growl as the critter balanced on the gutter, his front half hanging over the edge. The squirrel screeched his indignation as his tiny paws balled up into fists that shook with rage. William nearly doubled over with laughter at the sight.

“Okay little guy. I understand how you feel, but how about you move on so my wife doesn’t make me get rid of you?” William felt an unexpected affection for the irate trespasser, an admiration for his bravery and stubbornness when facing a larger opponent. Still, he wasn’t about to listen to Kristi bitch about the squirrel all summer. Devon
woofed
in agreement.

Grabbing the industrial pooper scooper he had bought at the farm-and-fleet store last fall, William set about the unpleasant task of cleaning up Devon’s mounds of poo. The dog usually sat by the fence and watched with a suitably apologetic look on his old face, but today he didn’t bother. Remaining seated, the hound continued to growl low in his throat, his eyes never leaving the roof where the squirrel balanced on the gutter, still shaking his tiny fists and squawking.

Sighing, William shook his head on his way to the garage.

“Okay, little guy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

William pulled the ladder from where it hung, neatly, on wall pegs. He knew there was rodent poison somewhere. After a few minutes of looking and cursing, he found the half-full box of pellets and shook some into his hand. Dropping the poison into his pocket, he picked the ladder up and carried it over to the porch. The squirrel had given up on chastising Devon and was now leaping from the roof to a nearby tree branch and back, high above the dog’s head. Taking exception to the obvious taunting, Devon growled at the critter.

“That’s enough, squirrel. Quit picking on my dog.”

He set the ladder against the house, checking it for stability before climbing slowly up the rungs.

At the top, William reached into his pocket and grabbed the poison, arranging a loose pile of pellets in the gutter. The squirrel hopped over to the tree branch and screeched once, watching as William picked leaves off the roof and shoved the poison into a heap.

Poor little guy.
William felt bad about killing the squirrel. He had always found the rodents kind of cute and fun to watch as they hopped across the lawn, their tails twitching and flowing like a gymnast’s ribbon. But Kristi wanted him dead, and he made a point to ensure his wife always got what she wanted.

“It’s you or me, bud. Come and get it.”

The rusty-colored visitor watched from his tree branch as William took down the ladder and put it away.

When William emerged, he saw the empty branch still swaying, the loud- mouthed rodent back on the roof and approaching the pile of pellets suspiciously. Still feeling a bit guilty, he patted the dog on the head and opened the back door.

“Come on, Devon. We can still get a nap in on the couch before Kristi gets home.”

***

“William? Please tell me you didn’t have that filthy dog in this house.” Kristi stood in the doorway, her finger pointing at the living room sofa.

“Hmmm?” William reclined in his EZ Chair, the television remote resting on his outstretched thigh.

“There’s dog hair all over the couch. Did you have Devon on the couch? You know how I feel about animals in the house.”

“No, dear. Of course not.”

“Then how did all that nasty hair get on there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it fell off my clothes.”

Kristi crossed her arms and glared at William.

“Did you get rid of that squirrel?”

“Yep. Poisoned him. He should probably be dead by tomorrow.” William hated it when Kristi prattled at him during one of his shows. He also hated that she never let Devon come in the house.

That dog’s better company than you most days, anyways,
he thought, tuning her out. Their marriage had been passionate in the early years, and William figured this was just the way it went with relationships. A comfortable contempt just settles into the vacancy left when love fades.

“Are you even listening to me?” Kristi had her hands on her hips, a posture that never failed to irritate William.

“What?” He flicked the power button reluctantly, stopping Peter Griffin mid-sentence.

“I
said,
make sure you find the corpse so it’s not stinking up the yard. The last thing we need is for Devon to eat that diseased little creature and puke it up on the couch when he’s
not
in the house.”

“Okay. I’ll look for it tomorrow morning.”

“And take one of your pills,” she added, perching on the arm of the recliner to give him a light hug and kiss before going to bed.

“I’m not depressed.”

***

“Come on, boy! Get the frisbee.” William heaved the plastic disk over Devon’s head but the dog merely watched it fly. Yawning, he stretched out in the grass and stared at William expectantly, as if to say,
Cool trick, now go get it.