Chill Waters (11 page)

At a sudden high-pitched giggle, his eyes snapped open and a far less pleasant heat traveled upward to his neck and face. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw a couple headed toward him, and quickly righted himself.

The woman hung on her friend’s arm, looking more than a little soused. Through his open window, he heard the sound of her unsteady step on the wet pavement coming closer. Then they were moving beneath the streetlight, passing him by without a backward glance, laughing together.

Had they seen him? Was it him they were laughing at?

Flushing hard, he snatched his cigarettes off the dash, lit one from the car lighter. The bright glow from the lighter cast his face in hellish light, reflecting for an instant, the demon that inhabited his soul.

He dragged hard on the cigarette, let the nicotine calm him. He sank back against the headrest, blew smoke rings at the grey plush ceiling. When next he looked across to the motel, her room was in darkness. At once, the old feeling of being ‘shut out’ swept through him, a chorus of ancient taunts summoning the rage that was his constant companion.

The broken windows are only the beginning. Soon you will understand how much you need me. How much you need me to take care of you. You won’t leave me again. I won’t let you.

Marie is dead,'
the voice said
. You already killed her.

He denied the voice, banished it.

“Hey fella, you look a little lonely,” said a sultry voice at his open window. He looked up to see a bleached blonde in clinging black leather grinning in at him, her neckline so low he could almost see her nipples. Her teeth gleamed obscenely between plum, wet lips. “Want some company, Honey?”

“Take off, whore,” he said softly, almost pleasantly.

She had a sailor’s vocabulary herself, and was about to give him a free sample, but then she saw something in his eyes that made her think better of it. The hooker who, in another lifetime, was a pretty cheerleader and wannabe model hurried down the deserted sidewalk, the lonely sound of her high heels clacking on the pavement loud in her ears, icy breath at her back. Once, she darted a look behind her, nearly tripping in her panic, but there was no one following her.

She was gasping for breath and sweating hard in her black leather outfit when she finally stopped and looked back at the car still parked beneath the streetlight two blocks away.

It was nearly dawn when Peter let himself into his apartment. Shrugging out of his jacket, he hung it up in the closet. Then he looked around the room as if seeing it for the first timethe tweed sofa, his recliner chair from the house, the tables, the lamps, a couple of generic pictures on the walls. The brass clock Aunt Iris gave them as a wedding present sat on the mantle, ticking faithfully. He hadn’t put much thought into decorating when he moved here, but at least everything didn’t remind him of Mary Ellen.

For awhile he had wanted that, had drawn comfort from being surrounded by those things that reflected their life together. But later he sold the house and, but for a few things, gave most of what there was to his son and daughter-in-law out in California.

His briefcase lay on the coffee table, thirty-two papers inside waiting to be marked. Ignoring them, he went out to the closet-sized kitchen, got a beer from the fridge, took it into the livingroom. Slumping into the La-Z-Boy, he clicked on the remote. No point in going to bed now; it would soon be time to get up.

The picture came up slowly, like some exotic fish surfacing in murky water. The TV was an old Philco, on its last legs.

Jay Leno was bantering and giggling with a stunning black woman in a gold lame dress. Though he referred to her as the newest singing sensation, Peter had never heard of her. A sure sign he was getting old. He used to know them allLena Horne, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Ellaand of course, old blue eyes. On their second anniversary, he took Mary Ellen to Las Vegas to see Sinatra perform live at MGM. Who cared if he messed up a couple of lines; he was still ‘the boss’.

As he sipped his beer, he thought of Tommy. He was worried about him. Tommy had been one of his best students. After he suddenly dropped out of school Peter went out to the house, determined to talk him into coming back. He might as well have been talking to a stone wall for all the good it did. Peter knew it was because of Tommy’s father, who let Peter know in no uncertain terms that he didn’t appreciate the interference.

“I was out working when I was fourteen,” Nate Prichard had ranted. “If it was good enough for me, it’s damn well good enough for my kid.”

Did Tommy break those windows tonight? Why that particular house to vent his rage on? Because Peter was pretty sure that
rage
had to be what Tommy was feeling right now. God knew the kid had every reason to be angry. His own mother had abandoned him. And Peter had seen the evidence of Nate Prichard’s brutality on more than one occasion. Tommy always blamed his bruises on a door, or some other inanimate object, but Peter knew better, even if he couldn’t prove it. Calling in the authorities would have been futile. He’d been teaching long enough to know that kids protected lousy parents all the time.

Peter had actually entertained the thought of going out to the house and taking his chances with Nate. He’d been a pretty fair boxer in college. But even if he did manage to get in a lucky punch or two, it would only make things worse for Tommy. Besides, there was a law against teachers knocking parents about, no matter what kind of jerks they might be.

And then there were the good parents, like Helen and Bob Myers, who cared about their kids, and in the end, it didn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference. Their babies got murdered and were buried in dark, cold graves, along with their hopes and dreams.

Tommy had to be grieving right along with Helen and Bob. Unless…Peter massaged the bridge of his nose. He was tired. It had been a long day.

He closed his eyes, and was soon asleep in the chair, the television show playing to other audiences.

Fifteen

It was nearly dawn when Tommy jerked awake at the sound of his father’s truck rumbling into the yard. The motor cut to silence, and Tommy tensed as the door opened. The cold night air poured into the room where he lay on his cot in the kitchen, unmoving, feigning sleep. He was still in his clothes, the mud having dried on them, leaving grit on his skin.

The door closed behind Nate, and in the lengthening silence Tommy could sense his father standing at the foot of his bed, could feel those small, mean eyes boring into him. The sour smell of sweat and booze wafted to him. Hearing the old man’s breathing, he concentrated hard on not letting himself blink.
Leave me alone. Please just go to bed and sleep it off.

Without warning, Tommy felt himself being yanked up off the bed, sent careening across the room where he crashed into the wall. A picture fell, shattering glass.

Tommy was down on his hands and knees, crawling close to the baseboard, more shocked by the suddenness of the attack, than physically hurt. As his eyes met his father’s, he knew that wouldn’t be the case for long. The old man was in a crouch position, looking like some mad sumo wrestler going in for the kill. Tommy looked frantically around the room for something to defend himself with, but saw nothing. Nor was there any avenue of escape. His father was a wall between him and the door.

“You stole liquor off me, didn’t you, boy?” he said, his voice dangerously soft. Before Tommy could answer, Nate’s hand shot out, backhanding him, snapping Tommy’s head to one side. Fire bloomed in his cheek, tears stung his eyes.

“I’ll teach you to steal from me, you little punk. You’re no damn good, just like your whore of a mother.”

Something inside Tommy broke then and he leapt to his feet, fired a straight right to Nate’s nose. Connected. Nate looked as surprised as Tommy felt. Moreso as he wiped a hand under his nose and it came away smeared with his blood. For a moment, he simply stared at it in bewilderment and disbelief. Then, Tommy’s own blood ran cold as those cruel eyes lifted to meet his. Only fury there now.

Before Tommy could even think about blocking the punch, (or maybe he’d just been too scared to move,) Nate hit him a hammer blow to the side of the head that made his ears ring, and sent the room spinning wildly, like a nightmare carnival ride.

Just as suddenly, the room began to fade from Tommy’s vision, growing smaller and smaller, like a pinpoint of light on the television screen just after you flick the off button on the remote.

I can’t pass out. He’ll kill me. I’ll die here in his godforsaken dump.

And then it came over him that he didn’t really care.
Do it, you bastard!
he thought, the side of his head throbbing with pain, warm blood trickling down his face.
Just get it over with.

He lay there pretending to be unconscious, which was only half-truth, listening to Nate moving about the room, opening and closing dresser drawers, raising the slamming the lid on the washing machine, mumbling to himself the whole time. Tommy knew he was looking for other booze he might have hidden on himself. Through his mumblings, Tommy caught the familiar words, “whore”, and “faggot.”

At last the door closed again and the truck tore out of the drive. Slowly, painfully, Tommy drew himself to his feet, his mouth and throat tasting of stale whiskey, bile and blood. He forced himself to take several deep breaths through his nose, determined not to puke his guts up right here on the floor. He’d cleaned up after his father too many times to let that happen.

Putting his stomach on uneasy hold, Tommy made it the bathroom just in time, and dropped to his knees before the toilet bowl.

When there was nothing left to bring up, he gripped the edge of the sink, and in a cold sweat and shaking, spasms of pain shooting through his ribs, he struggled to his feet. He turned the tap on full and splashed his face with handfuls of the icy water, until his head cleared enough to let him think.

Tommy caught his reflection in the small cracked mirror above the sink. The skin in front of his ear was split and bleeding, the flesh surrounding it already raising even as he looked at it, turning red.

Tearing a strip of tissue from the roll on the rusting toilet tank, he wadded it up and held it gingerly to the cut, wincing with the pain. The ringing in his ears had settled to a low whine. The imprint of his father’s huge hand blazed on his otherwise ashen face.

It was a face inherited from his mothera male version of herslight brown eyes, full mouth, straight nose, not pugged like Nate’s. He even had that same weak nerve that, when he smiled, tugged the right corner of his mouth down ever-so-slightly. He’d always been self-conscious about it, until Heather told him she thought it was sexy.

An image of her lying dead filled the screen of his mind. He blocked it out, thought instead, of his mother. Funny, he’d been thinking about her a lot lately.

You knew what he was like better than anyone, Mom. How could you leave me with him? Why, Mom?

He’d been called ‘nothing’ and ‘fag’ so often, that in some deep part of himself, he almost believed it was true. He’d begun to feel differently with Heather. But Heather was gone now.

Tommy went into his father’s bedroom. He lifted the .32 special rifle down from the crudely made gun rack above the bed, gasping from the knife-sharp pain that stabbed his right side, forcing him to remain very still until it eased. It was agony just to breathe, and he wondered if the old man had managed to crack a rib or two.

A memory of Nate holding the gun to his mother’s head came unbidden. She was crying, her hands covering her head. “Oh, no, Nate, please, don’t. Please. Don’t shoot me.” Nate laughing his ugly, mocking laugh at her terror, her helplessness.

Strange how he’d forgotten about that, tucked it into some small compartment of his brain and closed the door. The door was open now, revealing its ugly contents. Now he saw the small boy he had been, screaming in the background. “Don’t kill Mommy. Don’t kill Mommy, Daddy.” He’d buried that memory, buried it deep. But the terror of it had echoed inside him all these years.

No more, damn you! No more.

Easing himself back down on the cot, breathing his shallow, cutting breaths, Tommy positioned himself with his back against the wall, the rifle raised. He took careful aim at the door with its peeling shit-brindle paint.

And waited for it to open again.

The ringing phone jarred Peter out of a fitful sleep. He flicked off the remote and picked up the receiver. It was his Aunt Iris.

“I’m sorry to call you so early, Peter, but I couldn’t sleep. It’s been on the news…”

“I know. I couldn’t sleep either. I went for a drive.” Hardly the time to tell her about someone smashing out Rachael Warren’s windows. She’d find out soon enough. After talking to her for awhile, securing her promise that she would try to get some sleep, he hung up and went into his own bedroom for his robe. Might as well shower. Maybe he’d even get some of those papers marked.

Mary Ellen’s likeness smiled softly up at him from her picture on the nightstand. Peter studied her lovely face for a time, feeling a need to reinforce his memory of her, angry with himself that this could be so. Yet when he took his eyes from the photo, it was Rachael Warren’s face he saw.