Death Rhythm (20 page)

- shutting my ears, just shutting my ears, Evelyn thinks -

"I told you - you better not," Edna says.

WHAP! - her arms rise far above her head, bringing lethal blows to the skin of the drum.

"Stop it," Edna says. "Stop it right now!"

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! pounding, biting, hitting the drum, drowning out the noise, the screaming, drowning out Ed.

The baby cries, screams, as Edna screams, "Stop it, stop it, stop it, you better stop it right the fuck now!" Edna puts her hands over her ears and closes her eyes, taking in deep breaths, her face so red, a glowing coal in the dark, damp basement.

WHAP!

Shutting my ears, I'm just shutting my ears, Evelyn thinks.

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! Her eyes closed, her shoulders, her hands numb from the pounding.

WHAP! WHAP! WHA-CRACK! A stick breaks, sending a giant splinter into Evelyn's hand. Half the stick flies off toward Mae. She catches that in one hand while holding the baby with the other.

The baby still cries, still screams murder.

Evelyn's hand bleeds, but she still hits the drum with her other hand, with the remaining stick.

Edna's eyes pop open. They bulge. She puts her hands to her temples.

"
Give me that stick, Mae,
" she says, motioning violently for the broken half of the drumstick. Mae holds onto it.

"Give me the goddamn stick, Mae!"

It's Ed, it's Big Ed.

WHAP! WHAP! Evelyn's other hand, pounding the good stick into the drum. WHAP! WHAP! Blisters form and burst between her thumb and forefinger, the skin scraping off, red and raw, blood trickles and splats on the drum, on Evelyn's drum.

WHAP!

"
Give me that goddamn stick, Mae!
"

The baby. Crying, forever crying.

Mae seems catatonic. Doesn't seem to know where she is. She's ignorant of the baby she holds, of the stick that Edna, Big Ed, tries to pry loose from her hand.

"Let go!" Edna says, and with one quick yank, pulls it free from Mae's deathly grip.

The skin between Evelyn's forefinger and thumb no longer exists. It is splattered on the drum like paint, it is floating as molecules in the air, it is embedded in the wood grains of the drumstick she continues to bring crashing down - WHAP! - on the weakening skin of the field drum.

Her eyes are still closed, tightly closed. Her good stick breaks, and her hand waves blindly in the air, waiting to strike something. No more sound coming from the drum.

And then she notices - no more sound coming from the baby.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, Evelyn thinks - shoulda looked over my shoulder, shoulda watched just a little more carefully -

Evelyn's eyes sting as she opens them, looking through the blur of tears that had flown unnoticed.

The red half of the drumstick comes swinging at her face.

Evelyn loses an eye. It pops out like a champagne cork, followed by a squirt of blood.

- too big, too big, she thinks, as the wooden splinter swings at her again in a pendulum arc, this time burying itself in the ribcage just below the heart, buried all the way up to Big Ed's fist.

The baby slips from Mae's arm and drops to the ground.

Evelyn drops to the ground, clutching onto the stick embedded in her chest.

Mae's eyes cloud over as if her pupils have turned to smoke.

THIRTY-TWO

"My mother?" Andy stared at the dull blue carpet beneath his feet. He couldn't believe it, couldn't accept it.

"I tried to talk her into telling you herself, but she wasn't ready."

"How could she? How could she tell me something like that?" Andy's voice was a whisper, aimed at the floor. "How could she have even looked at me the way she did, the way a mother looks at a child, with all of that - that hate - running behind those eyes?"

"Andy." Mae touched his shoulder, running her fingers over the collar bone and stopped at his neck, squeezing gently. "Why be angry now? She spent her time in the hospital, just like I did. She's had all those years of treatment."

"But still - it's so evil."

"
Was
, Andy. Was evil. Or mad. Or sick. But she's had that under control for years, now. She's changed so much. You have to accept her for who she is now."

Accept her? Knowing what she did? Then remembering the nights she came into his room, thinking he was asleep, the countless nights, his mother - "You're my baby doll, Andy, my baby doll" - he suddenly felt sick.

"I just can't believe my mother could - "

"I know, I know. It's still hard for me to believe. Hard to believe I went along with any of it - with
all
of it. But I did, Andy. I did. Your mother pulled me along by the strings, but I went willingly. We were children - "

"Jesus - "

" - and you have to remember our parents were never home. We just had each other. Even when our parents
were
home, we just had each other."

Andy felt the lining of his stomach pulsate. "That's no excuse."

"No. Not for doing what we did. You're right about that." Mae sighed. "But that's the past. The long buried past."

"Is it? Is it buried, Mae?"

- my doll, my baby doll -

"Long buried."

He thought of Natalie. The cat. The graves. Has she been using me? Has Natalie been using me all this time, the seduction just a way to get me off balance? A way to get at Mae?

"But it's not buried," he said. "Not any more. Natalie has dug it up again. She's brought it to life again. She's trying to get you to lose it, to think you're losing your mind." He tried to piece it together in his head. "I can understand why she hates you so much - hates us, hates everything to do with us. And her father - especially why her father hates us." Andy shook his head. "This is so hard for me to believe. I
can't
believe it - can't
accept
that my mom, my
mother
, could do something like that."

"You don't have to believe it. Just let it rest. Just think of Edna as
you
know her. As your mom. Not as Big Ed. And you
are
her flesh and blood, Andy. Remember that. Nothing can change that part of you, so you might as well accept it."

Flesh and blood.

He couldn't forget it. Not now. Not ever. Not with Natalie as a constant reminder.

"What about Natalie?" he asked. "What should we do about her?"

"It's about time I confronted her," Mae said. "Tell her to stop playing these games. She's trying to break me, and I won't let her. If she thinks she can make me lose it all over again - "

"Let me talk to her," Andy said. "Give me a chance to set her straight."

(flesh and blood, Andy)

Flesh and blood.

Bury the past once and for all, he thought.

Bury it for good.

Mae leaned over and gave him a good solid hug. "Be careful, Andy. Just be careful."

THIRTY-THREE

The chill of autumn was growing, the smell of the coming winter crisp, its touch prickling Andy's skin. He stood shivering in the moon's crescent glow. The trees were bare. The grass reflected the silvery sheen of frost into the air. Mae's house in the distance emanated a warmth, a security, that Andy longed for, longed to be wrapped inside of. He knew Mae was inside waiting, anticipating his return. He turned towards Natalie's house. There was a lone light on in the living room.

A gust of cold wind sent more shivers down Andy's body. He cupped his hands and blew into them, hoping the warmth would trickle past his fingertips and palms and through his entire body. The warmth spread to the tops of his wrists, and then disappeared. It was so quiet, so still out.

He took a step towards Natalie's house, quickly realizing that the shivers running through his body were more from nervousness than the chill. He had to talk to her. Confront her.

He quickly stepped onto the concrete of Natalie's front step. The stillness was broken by a thunderous squawking, and he jumped back, holding his breath. It was a flock of migrating geese, their silhouettes speckling the surface of the moon. The thunder and beat of their wings quickly died as they passed south.

Andy started to reach out to knock on Natalie's front door, but stopped when he heard voices seep through the wood and brick of the house, through the small cracks and fissures between glass and windowsill. At first he thought it was the television.

"Oh god, Emma - you're so beautiful." The voice seemed familiar. "Let me hold you."

The voice was raspy, full of phlegm. It was Hector. Talking in his delirium. Andy walked around to the side of the house, trying to catch a peek through the living room window.

"Emma - your hair, your hair," Hector said, as if on the verge of tears.

Andy twisted his head around to get a good look inside the house. Thin, white curtains were drawn over the window, but there was still an opening wide enough for Andy to see inside.

"Your hair - it's so beautiful, Emma. It feels so good to touch again."

Andy expected to see Hector in his wheelchair, a line of drool spilling from his mouth. As he looked, there was Hector in his wheelchair, yes, and sitting on his lap, with watery eyes…

Natalie
.

Her hands were on his shoulders.

Hector stroked her long, red hair.

"So beautiful, Emma. So beautiful."

Natalie looked confused, ill, as if she didn't know what to do. She lifted a hand and stroked Hector's face. "I'm here, Hec," she said. Her voice trembled, the effort to hold back tears nearly choking her. She pressed her face against his shoulder, against his fading blue t-shirt.

"Let me look into your eyes," Hector said, crying the dry tears of old age. His eyelids were a deep blue-black, yellowing retinas criss-crossed with thin red lines.

Natalie slowly lifted her head.

"Oh god, Em. I've missed you so much." Hector wiped a swath of red hair that had fallen in front of Natalie's eyes. Natalie avoided his gaze. "Look at me," he said. "Look at me."

Natalie slowly rolled her eyes around, rolled her whole head around in slow motion until they met Hector's. A shiver ran through her, and then she was still.

Like that bird, that bird I saw
, Andy thought. That woodpecker, its head rolling around, eyes twitching, its whole body convulsing. Natalie was still, calm, on the outside, but Andy saw inside of her through her eyes. Inside she was a sponge of convulsions. Inside, she twitched, scared, nervous. Inside she was that bird.

Andy watched, his hand covering his mouth as if to keep from screaming. His hand was a barrier to keep him separated from the scene unfolding before him. The window, the glare of the moon on it, a white crescent, made it seem as if he was watching this on a television screen.
This isn't real. It can't be real.
He kept watching, trying not to breath, trying not to let the steam from his breath fog up the window.

He watched as Hector cupped Natalie's face with trembling hands, caressing her cheeks with his arthritic thumbs. His lips were a dull, shriveled pink. They glistened with moisture as he ran his tongue across them. "Emma, I missed you so much."

Natalie's neck muscles fought the pull of Hector's arms. The rest of her body was still, but Andy saw the veins bulge around her neck. She resisted Hector's pull, but couldn't say anything, her urge to scream out somehow stifled by the pitiful look in Hector's eyes. Finally, she gave in. As Hector's arms began to rattle, their flab jostling against his chest, he pulled Natalie's face to his. Her mouth parted slightly, as his lips reached out to meet hers. Just before their mouths connected, Hector's tongue darted out, a small pink worm wetting his cracked lips to receive Natalie.

Andy looked away from the window, his breathing quick and shallow. He began to hear what at first he thought was the distant howling of some poor, chained dog, but then realized the noise came from inside the house. The noise came from Hector. Andy watched, sickened, as Hector held Natalie's face to his, his lips groping to rediscover that long lost feeling, that long lost taste of so many years ago. As he worked his lips over Natalie's - her eyes shut tight, the pupils moving frantically beneath the lids - that noise resonated from somewhere in the back of his throat. It was hollow. Dreadful. A rasping moan that reverberated through his lips down through Natalie.

She became wooden and stiff. She opened her eyes wide as Hector took one hand from her cheek and slid it down the front of her shirt, unsnapping the buttons of her blouse.

Get off of him, Andy wanted to yell. Get out of there. But he couldn't. His voice was frozen in his throat, the words silently escaping in the chilled mist of his breath.

Hector unhooked the front of Natalie's bra. Her breasts fell from her shirt. The noise coming from Hector's throat was loud now, loud from his excitement, from the releasing of pent-up feelings. As he took his lips off of Natalie's, the growl from his throat took on the form of a loud moan as it passed through his open lips. He stroked Natalie's breasts, his body shaking, perspiring. Natalie's eyes were pointed at the ceiling, although they were looking far beyond that, looking into a vast distance, anywhere but at what was happening before her.

Hector lowered his head level to her breasts. "Emmmaaaaa," he said, the word barely distinguishable from the rest of his moans. He flashed out a tongue at one of Natalie's red, freckled nipples, as if confirming its existence. He brought his tongue back into his mouth, then darted it out to quickly moisten his lips once again. Hector wrapped his lips back around the nipple he'd just tasted. Natalie's eyes were rolled back far in their sockets.

Andy's stomach churned. His heart beat as if in an empty oil drum. He couldn't take this, he had to back away from the window.

Natalie began flexing her lower body on Hector's lap.

- get away, get away from this -

Hector's face was now a deep crimson, the veins in his forehead, in his neck bulged to the breaking point. Sweat poured off his face, perspired through his shirt, dripped from his arms.