Drt (17 page)

I nodded, I hadn’t thought of that. I wondered if it was Jerry Morris’ ghost that led me to Sylvia in the first place.
 

“Was it Dravin that made you think of Jerry?”

“Yeah, you don’t forget a name like that once you hear it.”

“I guess not.”
 

“They say DC is a small town.”
 

“It is.”
 

She sank lower into the couch and I heard some more pronounced exhales. I felt like it was time.

“How did you know him?”

“Who?”

“Jerry.”

“I never knew his name. He just started coming here about a month ago.”

“How did you know it was the same person I was talking about?”
 

“Because he was always talking about his wife Leigh Ann. How she moved a guy named Dravin into his house.”

“Did he come here a lot?”

“Twice.”

“Did he come here for the…you know, a happy ending?”

“Fuck you! Don’t call it that! Yes, that’s what these men come here for but it’s not like I’m a hooker. I mean, I don’t have sex with them.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I’m just trying to put all this together. Did he ever mention anything about Hayleigh?”

“No, I didn’t even know he had a daughter. Guys that come here are trying to relax, you know?”
 

“Okay.”

“How old is the daughter?”
 

“Nine, I think.”
 

“Oh my God, I knew about the meth. I remember him telling me about that but I had no idea they had kids.”

“Are you willing to go to the police?”
 

“No, I can’t. I mean, what am I going to say? That I’m some massage girl from Craigslist that this guy spilled his guts to?”
 

“Yes.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You can give a massage, that’s a legal, legitimate business.”
 

“What I do at the end isn’t.”

“No one is going to ask about that.”
 

“So I should lie?”
 

“No.”

“What should I say then?”

“Just stick to the fact that a meth addicted mother is living in a house with two children and her meth dealer boyfriend. We have reason to believe the daughter is being abused. They will probably focus on that more.”
 

Sylvia burst into tears. I felt bad, but I needed her to do this. She needed to be strong at that moment because she was the only one who could give this information to the police.

She was rocking back and forth pressing her stomach into her thighs tucked underneath her.
 

I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up, looking directly into this face streaked with tears. Her eyes told the entire story of what she was feeling at this moment, feelings she wanted to hide from me. She looked away.
 

“I wish that this had never happened.”

“But you have a chance to stop it. I need you to help me. I need you to help Hayleigh.”
 

“I can’t.”
 

“Why not?”

“I’m scared I might go to jail.”
 

“Sylvia, I understand your fear. I’m scared too. I’ve never stopped being scared about all this, about everything really. I…I have been petrified of life for a very long time, long before the ghost ever showed up.”

“What do you mean ‘scared of everything’?”

“Frightened of the unknown, frightened that people hated me, frightened of things that had already happened to me happening again. I was scared that my dreams wouldn’t come true, but my worst nightmares would. I was scared of death every single minute of every single day. I’m not sure I’ve ever known a time without fear, Sylvia. As the fears became worse and worse I had to find a place to hide, a safe place where no one could hate me or even interact me. If they knew me, if they could find me, they could hurt me. I gravitated toward these solitary avenues where I could be invisible but the problem is that I hid so well that everything passed me by, everything, Sylvia.”
 

“…”
 

“My perfectly crafted world of anonymity allowed everyone who might have given a damn to just move on. They kept walking past me because I retreated inside myself so far that I gave them the impression of an empty shell. They never saw the person inside. What I know now is that all that fear and anxiety is the ultimate arrogance. I thought I was being meek when really I was silently judging everyone around me, assuming them to be the enemy I had to guard against. I realized that to be anxious and scared is the ultimate selfishness.”

“…”

“But you were different. You didn’t move past like all the others had before. Everyone at that meeting left the table but you took interest. You made an effort. You were the only person to even talk to me outside of work in years. You…you were the one that helped me understand that I haven’t been rejected by everyone, it was me that rejected everyone else because I was too scared. Now I know that too much time has been wasted on useless defenses, I’m ready to put them away and figure out how to join the world for the first time in my life.”

“…”

“So let’s go to the police. We need to do this for Hayleigh, for Jerry. We will both face our fears and help someone. We can save a desperate little girl. Let’s not worry about ourselves for once and let’s just save Hayleigh.”

She grabbed my head and pulled me close. She kissed me deeply and a charge ran through my body.
   

She rose from the couch and bent over, kissing me with all her might as she moved. I felt a good kind of nervous settle into every fiber of my being.

I got up off the couch and pressed against her. I felt her skin. She felt warm and her mouth tasted so exciting.
 

“Good to see everything is in working order,” she teased.

“What?”

“Well, you are a little older, just very happy that you still have it in you.”

 
A thrilling, foreign feeling shot through my body, I felt happy. I felt the corners of my mouth curling into my cheeks, a smile.

She took me into the bedroom and onto her bed. I trembled slightly at her touch and it made her smile.
 

I decided to call Sergeant Conroy later.

23

I awoke swaddled in a twist of blankets and sheets. Sylvia lay next to me, eyes closed, her body feeling warm against my skin. I blinked and came into understanding of everything around me. The previous hour was a panic of breathless abandon. I felt calm. I felt comfortable, naked there with Sylvia. I felt complete. I felt like I wanted to keep these feelings forever, and that was of paramount concern.
 

I looked at Sylvia and all was right with the world. I was being saved by the smooth skinned savior that lay silent in the blanketed heaven beside me.
 

To ensure that the softness of Sylvia’s bed and the softness that was Sylvia stayed in my life, I needed to solve this. I had to save Hayleigh. I had been focused on that singular goal for a week now but in the last hour I got distracted. Very happily distracted. Extremely happily distracted.
 

I pulled off the covers, sat up and turned, putting my feet on the floor.
 

“Where are you going?” Sylvia asked, apparently awake.
 

“I still have to figure some things out.”
 

“You can lie here a little while longer if you want. I don’t mind.”
 

“I will be back in a minute.”
 

“Okay.”

I got up and left her in the bed. I pulled on my boxers, walked into the living room, and stood in quiet for a moment, feeling the fresh air from the open windows on my skin. I may have been on the edge of death but I had never felt so at peace. I felt the casual settling of the world around me and the thought that I didn’t have to go to work helped this along. The first day I had off in years was going well so far, very well.

I had to use the bathroom, so I wandered into the small room caked in porcelain, stood in front of the bowl and released. When I was finished, I stepped to the side and washed my hands. I looked up. A mirror, the image of a man I had avoided for years was staring back at me. I turned the faucet off and stood there, staring at my reflection in these eyes. Eyes I had avoided for a long time to keep from having to recognize the pain I was causing them.

Every time I moved into a new place, the first thing I would do was to throw out the mirror. If there was a reflective surface, I never looked at it. I hated my reflection, hated my appearance, how ugly I was. I grew old in the reflection, so I avoided the constant reminder of why no one liked me, why I was alone.

I stared at the man in the mirror. There wasn’t anything revolting in there that I could see. My self-hating imagination had told me I was far uglier than this reality was now proving. The person whom I saw in the mirror while standing in Sylvia’s bathroom wasn’t going to be confused for a fashion model, he was bald as a stone on the top and gray haired on the sides. His small glasses fell down to the bridge of his nose, but this was not the horrible sight that I had been willing myself to avoid.
 

It had been more than just aversion to my appearance that had led to my shunning of mirrors as if I was perpetually sitting Shiva. I had spent years prior to that staring in the mirror trying to figure out how many hairs fell out, collapsing into depression every time more did. I traced the lines that formed on my face like a cartographer, continually documenting every single flaw and stretch mark, watching them duplicate and grow over time.

The time away from the finished product, the time to forget my flaws had given me perspective. I could see the forest through the trees. I realized how foolish the entire thing had been. I blamed others for ruining my life, when these choices were mine all along.
 

All that lost time, the time I threw away blaming other people and licking perceived wounds. I felt a lump form in my throat. Everything I had told Sylvia earlier was true, and it had taken Jerry Morris’ ghost for me to understand that as soon as I started interacting with people again, I realized how much I had missed them.
 

My epiphany was broken by the sound of tears. I broke my mirrored gaze and walked back into the bedroom. Sylvia was silent and unconscious, yet the cries continued softly. I walked out of the bedroom and into the living room. The smell of exhaust was immediate and the living room was darker than I had left it minutes ago. The furniture was only shadow. Jerry was bent over on the couch, leaning forward with his head in his hands. He must have sensed me entering the room because he lowered his hands, staring out into the darkness.
 

Jerry’s eyes were lights this time, like softly glowing headlights that illuminated the table in front of him with spotlight intensity. He looked over his shoulder at me and then went back to crying. I walked toward him, feeling the twinge of regret for not being able to help him more. I wanted to comfort him, this thing that planned on killing me.
 

In a flash it all was gone. An echo of a sob bounced off the walls for a moment but then dissipated into nothing. The light in the room returned to normal and the exhaust fumes were gone. The couch now sat empty in the living room. There was no sign a desperate presence had been there at all.
 

I checked on Sylvia, still asleep. I pulled the door closed. I went back out into the living room and sat down. The spot Jerry had occupied was unnaturally cold. I shivered and looked around the room. Everything was still bathed in the orange glow of afternoon. The sun had not yet gone down but the world was teetering on the edge of twilight. It gave everything a surreal feeling that was only added to by the appearance of the ghost only moments ago.
 

Why was he crying? I looked around the couch and found nothing. I motioned my hand around the cushions before turning and lifting the couch. I looked around the room. I saw things that Sylvia would use for her massages like lotions and oils. I saw incense in various receptacles around the room and a series of books packed tightly into a bookcase. I saw wrappers and paper and trash but nothing that Jerry could have been crying about.
 

I wondered if he was crying about the apartment itself. Jerry had been paying Sylvia to give him massages while his wife and children sat at home. At home with another man, and that man was Dravin.
 

The thought of Dravin always brought detestable feelings to my mind. I wanted so badly to catch him, to expose him for what he was, whatever that might be. I racked my brain trying to come up with something, anything, which would explain why Jerry had chosen to appear here. What did it mean? What did he want me to know?
 

I looked onto the coffee table and saw the collection of papers I had brought with me. On top was the print out with the Craigslist phone numbers on it. I picked it up. It was crinkled along the margins as if gripped with two angry hands. Had it been like that before? I didn’t think so. I stared at it a while, focusing on each of the entries listed. It took me longer than I’m proud to admit to see that the page was now stained with tears.

These were Jerry’s tears. Was he feeling remorse for coming here? No, wait that wasn’t it. There had to be something else, something more important than a lonely, depressed guy feeling guilty about a few massages. I studied the paper even harder.

There were four ads on it. The top one said: “SEXY LATINA can make all of your stress go away. You will melt at my touch and experience, full relaxation guaranteed. CALL FOR APPT (leave message).”

The next ad read, “TALENTED ASIAN ladies that use their fingers all over you. Half hour or hour massages and/or performances. WE PERFORM ALL OVER YOU,” followed by a phone number. I skimmed the next few ads that were just more of the same. Then my eyes travelled to the last listing on the page.