Disconnection (8 page)

Suddenly exhausted, Sela grabbed a nearby milk crate and turned it over, using it for a seat. She rested her head in her hands. Dean had worn her out last night, in more ways than one. Sela smiled to herself.
But what a wonderful way to tire
.

Sela lost herself in the sweetness of her solitude.
It’s nice to be alone, if only for a minute
. Most of the time, coming outside to the back of the café only meant more conversation. Kitchen workers usually waited by the back door, feeding their expensive nicotine habit as they voiced their gripes (poor salary, injuries, cheating girlfriend, broken-down car) to whoever would listen.

But
, thought Sela,
there is no one here now. I am alone now. Deliciously alone
.

Or, she thought she was alone.

She was not prepared for the hand that reached around her shoulder from behind, grabbing hold of her arm.

Sela stood and turned around quickly, knocking over the milk crate in her haste. A shaggy bearded man
(he’s gonna kill me good God he’s gonna kill me)
held her flesh in a tight grip.

Sela reeled at his appearance. Red and blue veins popped from his forehead, wrinkles lined every decomposing curve of his face. His eyes were pale green, like the color of mucus. His mouth opened and closed with silent laughter, revealing stubby diseased teeth and black gums. His breath reeked of dead animals and decaying earth.

The day darkened under the man’s appearance. Clouds rolled over the sky and the city began to die in silence. Sela stared hopelessly into the eyes of her captor.

The man before Sela was a monster. When she looked more closely at him, she saw snakes were slithering upways and downways, sideways and longways along the breadth of his skin.

He wants to kill me
.

Quick, nauseating repulsion rose in Sela. “What do you want?” she whispered as she worked at swallowing the hot saliva that had risen in her throat.
“What do you want?”

“Are you saved?”
the man asked.

Sela struggled to free herself as she watched the snakes feed on one another, their tongues darting out and rising from the old man’s skin, pushing in, pushing out, slime to slime in hungry reptilian ropes. Sela thought she was going to faint—either faint or die, and she wasn’t sure if fainting was the better option. “Let go of me,” she tried to say, but it sounded more like,
“Le gaf me.”

The man’s grip only tightened.

He’s going to kill me this lunatic monster…

His smile broadened, and out came a worm from his tongue. Snail shells peeled apart from his black gums and fell, shattering to the ground.

The man whispered in a hoarse, sinister voice,
“They’ll find you if you’re unclean. The time for the redeemer is at hand. The fish is hooked. They bring you to God if God can’t come to you.”

And then he let go.

His abrupt release caught Sela off guard. She stumbled backward, barely able to catch herself before falling. Quickly she regained her balance.

The time for the redeemer is at hand
.

Sela shivered. Her hand reached up to where the man had touched her. Her arm was burning from his grip. Sela clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut as she ran inside and made her way to the bar. She could hear the man behind her, his echoing laughter ringing like gothic church bells.

When Sela opened her eyes again, she saw her boss—rickety old Frank, hard as nails on the outside, sweet as pumpkin pie inside—within the kitchen, sampling Carlos the Chef’s coconut cake.

“Frank,” Sela called, her voice trembling.

Frank looked up from the cake. His expression tightened with concern. Sela had never needed him for anything. She had worked at the diner so long, she had almost become self-sufficient. Frank let go of the fork in his hand and walked up to her.

“Everything okay, Sela?” he asked, his meaty hands clenched into fists at his side.

Sela shook her head. She pointed behind her. “A man,” she began, “just grabbed me.”

He craned his neck. “Where is he?”

“Outside.”

“Show me,” he ordered and followed Sela to the back door.

“Right here.” Sela said as she forced the door open and pointed to where the man had grabbed her.

There was no one there.

Sela looked around the alley. It was empty. Under a sky that was now bright blue and a city that was dense with sound, the monster of a man had disappeared.

S
ela turned sharply on Coliseum Street Row, spraying puddle water on the sidewalks in front of the historically famous shotgun-style houses as she drove past. When she reached the corner of First and Magazine Street, she turned again, passing one gigantic mansion after another, all of them beautiful, strong, dramatic, drooping with their own unique grandeur. Sela turned a left on Second Street, headed to Camp Street and finally, Prytania Street, home to Chloe Applegate.

“Beautiful,” she whispered as she reached the address that Chloe had given her. The Applegate home was huge, perhaps one of the largest houses in the neighborhood. It was a neoclassical, two-story decorated in a medley of gray stucco and red brick. A porch stretched languidly for miles into the lush, emerald front yard, while tall Corinthian columns lined and dominated the front. Ivy climbed the forest green window shutters. Clusters of day lilies and impatiens, still thriving in what Louisiana’s endlessly warm weather, lined the sidewalk.

The most interesting aspect of Chloe’s house was not the house itself but what was in front of it—a long line of cars along both sides of the street leading up to her driveway. BMWs and Mercedes and Porsches—vehicles perfect for the elite members of the Garden District Neighborhood Alliance. But what were they doing at Chloe’s house?

Sela parked her car near the Applegate home just as Chloe’s cell phone rang. She reached in her purse and took out the phone.

“Hello?”

Sela heard the noises again. Soft, low-key, in harmony, marching into a distant plane beyond Sela’s imagination.
Like the cicadas’ hum
, Sela thought, only prettier, as if they were chiming inside sea shells at the bottom of the ocean.

Then, as last time, it stopped suddenly, and Chloe was on the phone.

“Are you there yet?” she asked. Her voice was so clear, it was as if she were sitting right next to Sela.

“Yeah,” Sela replied. “I’m just outside. Looks like you’re having a party.”

A long pause followed. “A party? No one is here but me.”

Sela looked up at the house again with the cars out front, making sure she had the right place. “1000 Prytania Street, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there are a lot of cars here.”
How sad
, Sela thought.
Chloe must be mentally challenged, the poor thing. How else could she think she was alone? There were more people inside her home than there were on Bourbon Street last night
.

Chloe responded, “There’re not with me, I’m alone. It’s dark.”

Sela cut the engine. “Okay. Come downstairs. I’ll meet you at the front door.”

Sela pressed the “off” button and placed the phone in her purse. She glanced at the mirror, making sure she looked as presentable as one could look in a white shirt that said ‘Frank’s Diner’ in baby blue fabric. She pulled the rubber band out of her hair and shook her head back and forth. Brown tendrils fell along her face.

She murmured, “Give the phone back to the poor girl and be done with her.”

Sela opened the car door and stepped out. The air was still. The final roses of the season cast a dying fragrance into the day. Sela inhaled their scent as she walked up the steps of the house. She looked into the front window beside the door. Rich folk stood on the other side of the window, chatting in huddled circles, sipping tea from Wedgwood tea cups held within their impeccable hands.

Sela felt a small twinge of jealousy.
Maybe in my next life
, she thought.

She approached the glass door and rang the bell. A silver-haired lady opened the door. She wore a black dress with a string of fat pearls around her neck. She was about sixty or so in age, Sela reckoned, but could be older, since she seemed rich enough to have a botox doc on speed dial.

Behind her in the foyer, magnificent bouquets of flowers lined the marble topped table. On one side, in the room next door where Sela had glanced into the window before, the guests were not as happy as Sela had previously presumed. Their faces were solemn, and their voices were hushed tones that rested in a cradle of deep conversation.

“Yes?” the woman said, looking Sela up and down. Her confused expression paused the longest at the big ‘Frank’s Diner’ marquee across Sela’s shirt. She frowned and looked up to meet Sela’s eyes.

Sela tried to speak, but her words were muffled and interrupted. They fell out of her mouth like stones. She felt more uncomfortable by the second. “Hi, is this Chloe Applegate’s residence?” she asked.

The woman said nothing. She opened her lips to reply, but no words left her mouth. Instead, large teardrops crawled down her face. She took a handkerchief from her dress pocket and rolled it under her eyes. She said nothing to Sela, but simply left the door.

Sela watched the woman disappear through the crowd. Sela didn’t know what to think, but she was suddenly aware of an overwhelming sense of darkness and panic,
(what is wrong with me, why do I feel this way)
just like when the shaggy bearded man
(with the SNAKES in his skin!)
had grabbed her arm at the café earlier. Something strange was happening around Sela. She could
just feel
it.

Yet she waited at the door, unsure of her next move. Finally a man entered the foyer and walked toward her. His blond hair—which looked suspiciously like a hair piece—stood straight up, uncombed. His cheeks and throat were flushed with a high blush. A fat unibrow sloped over two steady eyes. He looked to be around forty, maybe forty-five. He wore a traditional black suit, but with a twist—wedged under his black jacket was a tacky, vibrant tie. Little penguins and polar bears in bright reds, yellows, and blues jumped around with drums and trumpets in their hands. When the man spoke, his manner was sympathetic, helpful. “May I help you?” he asked.

Sela took a deep breath. “Hi, I’m Sela Warren. I don’t know if I’m at the right place. Is this the Applegate residence?”

The man’s eyes wrinkled with an emotion that Sela could not quite interpret. His hands folded together. “Are you looking for Chloe?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and unfolded his hands. He stepped away from the door as he closed it, and began walking toward the stairs. “Follow me,” he said, motioning toward the sidewalk. As soon as Sela was on the bottom step, he took a clean white handkerchief from out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. “You might need this,” he suggested.

Sela looked at the handkerchief questionably. “I don’t suppose I would,” she said. “I mean, I don’t understand
why
I would.”

Sighing, the man refolded the handkerchief back in his pocket and looked up to where a flock of crows were flying past, their dark wings beating back into the clear blue sky as they screamed.

The time for the redeemer is at hand
.

Sela shut her eyes. A vision of the shaggy, bearded man appeared before her, his head engraved in the body of a black bird soaring over decrepit trees and oceans laced with pretty ancient poisons and brittle bones decaying under hollow mountains.

The time for the redeemer is at hand. Gawk, gawk
.

Sela opened her eyes. She looked up to the sky. The birds were gone.

If the man was affected by the birds’ screams, he did not show it. His eyes focused on Sela. He stretched out his foot and began digging his heel into the grass. He waited another moment and then said, “Ms. Warren, I’m Chloe’s uncle—Harold. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but Chloe’s dead.”

A cold chill filled Sela’s body. The birds were crying again, but this time, it was in her head, all in her head. She stepped back. “Chloe is dead?”

Uncle Harold nodded, his expression darkening. Sela asked, “How? What happened?” How could she have died in a just a quarter of a minute? Sela had just
spoken
to her.

The man coughed lightly and said, “They found her last night, in the river.” He paused. “Asphyxiation. She’s with the Lord now.”

Sela could hear Chloe faintly in the back of her mind:

(It’s so cold here. Can you come, it’s so cold…)

Harold continued, “My brother and his wife aren’t taking this very well, as you can imagine. The funeral arrangements are presently being made, though nothing has been set in stone yet. Would you like me to call you, Ms. Warren, when arrangements are made? Or perhaps you would like to contact me for spiritual guidance? It would be a blessing for me to help you in this dark time.” He took a card from out of his pocket and handed it to Sela. The card read:

If you want EXERCISE, try RUNNING with GOD
.

First Gate Church. Harold Applegate, Pastor
.

“You know,” he began, “you look very much like her. I suppose many people have told you so. That’s probably why her Aunt Iris reacted the way she did when she opened the door—she was not prepared to see a girl so similar to Chloe’s appearance.” He smiled sadly.

The cell phone began ringing.

Sela jumped. The familiar musical tones filled the air with its mocking familiarity. Sela was once again—for a moment—trying to remember where she had heard the song before. Perhaps she would ask Chloe the next time they spoke.

But Chloe’s dead! Her uncle is standing here, telling me that she is dead
.

(But I just talked to her!)

The phone shrilled louder. Harold stood near Sela, suddenly plain-voiced when he said, “Go ahead and answer your phone, Ms. Warren. It may be important.”

Sela nodded and lifted the phone from her purse. The bright phone looked garish in the light of the afternoon. Sela placed her thumb on the “on” button. She held it up to her ear. She answered, “Hello?”