In the House of Mirrors (3 page)

I threw the television from the bedroom in the trunk, and piled whatever clothes I could fit on top. I grabbed whatever essentials I had left (toothbrush, deodorant, hair gel, etc) and tossed them on the back seat. A few friends from the office stopped by to have a beer and help pack a few more items, such as my two guitars (one acoustic, one electric). In return for their services, I bought a thirty pack and allowed them to bid on my sixty-inch plasma. Tom Riddick won and cut me a check for seven-hundred dollars on the spot. It was money I was going to need, considering how ridiculous the price of my medication was without insurance. I let the rest of them split whatever furniture Lynne failed to steal.

We said our good-byes, shook each others' hands.

And like everyone else I had come to know in Georgia, I never saw them again.

CHAPTER THREE

Anne was in the driveway when I pulled in, arms open and ready to embrace me. Hugging my big sister felt good, warm, and loving. I unexpectedly felt ashamed for waiting so long to visit. My sister and I were never close growing up, which was understandable considering there were seven years between us. We had different friends throughout our school years, and we were into completely different things. She was into makeup and boys, two things I was definitely not. She married at twenty-two and had a kid soon after. I was an uncle at the age of seventeen.

“Welcome home,” she said. “Glad to have you back, Ritchie.”

It had been so long since I stepped foot in The Riv, but it felt like I had never left. I guess New Jersey wasn't done with me after all.

Robert and the kids helped bring in my luggage. After my stuff migrated to the basement, we ate dinner. The kids showed me what they were learning in school, what extra-curricular activities they were into, or planned on participating in when the weather warmed. Franky wanted to play football, despite his mother's outspoken abhorrence for the violent game. They liked to talk a lot, everything from what their math teacher told them, to their favorite television characters. This was probably a gene carried down from their grandmother.

When supper concluded, the kids went their separate ways and the Uncle-Ritchie-Comes-To-Town show was over. I stayed and had a couple beers with Robert, while my sister sipped from her glass of wine. Age had not been kind to Robert. In his mid-thirties, he was almost completely bald. He'd grown a belly since the last time I saw him. A bushy beard covered the lower half of his face, and I was surprised to find out that his well-paying job didn't make him shave it. He wore glasses because—from what I remember Anne telling me—he refused to buy contacts. My sister was very much the hippie I remembered her as. She wore colorful dresses with flowers on them. The two of them had “Save the Planet” magnets all over the refrigerator. I wondered if the two of them still smoked pot. Before they had kids, that's all they really did. Now they had jobs with decent salaries. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if they sat on the porch and spark up a few doobies after the kids went to sleep. Old habits die hard. Take it from the guy who spent countless hours at group meetings.

The three of us drank and went over a few things,
ground rules,
although we didn't exactly call them that. They were concerned that—with me being single now—that I might invite promiscuous women over the house and indulge in some late-night escapades that may not be suitable for children of all ages. I assured them that wouldn't be the case. It'd be a while before I opened my heart (or my zipper) to any woman. And even if there was a woman that I found myself romantically interested in, I certainly wasn't going to bring her to my big sister's basement.

Secondly, they were big on me
not
paying rent. I didn't understand it, but I didn't argue considering I didn't even have a job yet. I told them I'd help out around the house, do as many chores as I could, and even make dinner a few nights a week. I'd even babysit.

“
That would be wonderful,” they said in unison.

2

The first night spent in the basement brought on a nightmare. It was the kind of nightmare where I didn't know I was dreaming until I awoke. I was sleeping on the couch my sister and her husband supplied me when I heard someone knock on the front door. I sat upright like Dracula from his coffin. The room was blurry and moving in ripples. I felt drugged. The knocking persisted. I called out to the empty house, seeing if anyone could get the door so I didn't have to leave the basement. No one answered, and the dreadful feeling of being alone in the dark settled in.

I climbed up the stairs, slowly, as if I were a decrepit old man. They led me to the hallway, and the front door sat to my left about twenty feet away. The knocking echoed once more. Louder this time. As if the door had been between my ears. I yelled at the impatient guest to knock it off, that everyone in the house was sleeping, even though my dream-self knew I was alone. Twice more fists raged upon the front door.

Someone (or something) wanted in.

My dream-self was hesitant, but seldom do dream-selves have control over their actions. I reached for the knob and turned it. I opened it and saw two familiar figures on the porch, both completely naked. One was the three-hundred pound lineman Buster Gritton, the other was Lynne. They were—for lack of a better term—fucking.

As I stood there watching them have at it, their faces began to change. No longer was Lynne's hair golden blond, no longer was her skin soft and pallid. It was greenish and scaly, like that of a lizard. Buster's too. Thick scales covered his face. His tongue slithered in and out of his mouth. Their yellow eyes locked onto me. Lynne hissed while Buster plowed into her. Buster smiled like a sinister carnival clown.

“
Welcome to the show, baby!”
Lynne the Lizard said to me.
“We'll see you real soon, hehaw-hehaw,”
she cackled.

Buster chimed in.
“I'm gonna come! I'm gonna come!”
I thought he was warning Lynne, but then he followed it up with, “
We're all gonna come for you, Ritchie-my-bitchie!”

Together they shouted, “
Ritchie-my-bitchie! Ritchie-my-bitchie! Ritchie-my-bitchie!”
over and over again, until my dream-self finally found the courage to slam the door in their faces.

I turned around and Lynne was standing there, just as she was when the lizard version of Buster Gritton was taking her to pleasure town. She grabbed me by the back of my head, then pulled me toward her. She put her mouth inches away from my ear. I felt her snake tongue tickle my ear-hole.
“Don't doubt us, Ritchie-my-bitchie. We're coming. We're all coming. You cannot stop us. We'll all be together in the House of Mirrors real soon!”

3

I awoke screaming, but apparently not loud enough to wake anyone. I slumped back down on the couch, which I could see was going to take some getting used to. I couldn't sleep after that and spent the rest of the night, into the morning, thinking about that stupid nightmare, my fresh start, and to which direction my life was headed.

I should have known to never come back.

CHAPTER FOUR

I didn't get much accomplished in my first few weeks back. I mostly kept to myself, laying on the couch, watching TV, and reading articles on
The Georgia Press
website. I had to pay for a membership, which cost four dollars and fifty cents a month. I read most of Riddick's articles about the murders of several dead prostitutes. All of them had organs removed. The term “Serial Killer” had already been mentioned, and Riddick had appropriately labeled him “The Ripper” since this sicko's morbid handiwork mirrored Jack the Ripper. Riddick's writing was crisp, and it made me a little jealous. Not to mention homesick.

I wanted to be writing again. During the first few weeks I occasionally opened my word processor and began writing whatever cropped up into my brain. After two weeks of doing so, it only amounted to two paragraphs about my cheating ex-girlfriend. I eventually became so frustrated that I deleted the file without any hesitation.

Occasionally, I'd make an appearance upstairs. I'd help the kids with their homework when they asked. Especially Franky, who struggled in English. We went over the composition of a sentence several times before he grasped the concept.

Mom came to visit during the first weekend I was home. She smothered me with hugs and kisses, and then sat me down for a serious talk. This serious talk consisted of telling me that Lynne was a good-for-nothing-whore and that she saw this sort of thing coming a mile away. She said she would have told me about it, but didn't want to hurt my feelings. I told her not to beat herself up about it. She proceeded to tell me I looked good, if not slightly frail. “You need to eat more,” she told me, which she did almost every Christmas. Coming from a large family that loved to eat, she couldn't help it. Those five words were permeated in her brain. I did lose a few pounds during those stressful few weeks, but nothing to be concerned with. I was certainly better looking than Lynne was when she was using.

“How's your heart?” she asked, pointing to my chest.

“
Still ticking, Ma.” Just like the doctor said, as long as I took my medicine, I was fine. The one day I forgot, I felt funny. Nothing happened, I just felt like I was walking around with a bomb in my chest.

She asked me what I planned to do for work. I told her I was looking, which was half a lie. I browsed a few websites, but no one was hiring writers. Most of the work was freelance. There were a few magazines looking to hire staff writers, but they were based in New York City, and I wasn't really looking for a long commute. I wasn't that desperate yet. Besides, I had just left the city life, and I wasn't looking to go back any time soon.

Mom stayed the whole weekend, and I have to say, it was good to see her. As much as she can be a handful, I still loved her. In some weird way, she was able to make me feel better just by talking. She left after supper on Sunday, and I told her I'd be in touch.

“
If Dad were alive today...” she said solemnly, as she opened the front door.

“
I know, he'd be proud of me.” Dad passed when I was in high school. Colon cancer. I don't know how proud he'd be of his jobless son mooching off his big sister and her husband, but I suspected he'd be glad I didn't end up in jail or a gambling addict, like some of his brothers and sisters.

“
Yes,” she said. “He would.” She pecked me on the cheek and left.

2

I swear that coming back to Jersey and living off my sister and her husband's kindness was not my intention. I really did want a job. I really did want to be on my own. I don't know what my problem was in that first month back.

I guess you could say I was in a funk. A rut. Feeling blue. Down and out. However you want to put it, that's how I felt. I wrote it down in my word processor as “a man who lost his faith in the world, and now teeters on the brink of his own future, to where he's headed is unbeknown to himself.” Slightly dramatic, but you get the gist. I was so down in the dumps that first month it was going to take an excavation team to drag me out. The nervous excitement I had felt when I drove down the Garden State Parkway was gone, replaced by an empty hole of uncertainty.

I felt like a burden on Bob and my sister. They didn't ask for a dime. Sure I'd babysit once in a while, help the kids with their homework from time to time, take the dogs (Columbus and Magellan) for a walk, but I hardly think doing third-grade mathematics and scraping dogshit off their neighbor's sidewalk made up for their hospitality. I used their water, heat, and electric. I ate their food. I tried to contribute to that department last week, but Uncle Ritchie made one of the worst meals ever eaten in the Davis household.

At least I tried. But there came a point, when trying was just not good enough.

3

I'd been at my sister's about five weeks when I awoke one night with shadows dancing on the concrete walls around me. My alarm clock, the one I hadn't used in over a month, told me it was just after three. The interruption of my sleep wasn't some nightmare (I did not have one since that first night back) or the result of having too many worries on my mind. It was because I was craving a drink, something alcoholic. A beer perhaps. I was never a heavy drinker—not since my college days—and even then I never had a craving. It's not like I wanted to get shit-faced or anything like that. I just wanted
one.

I dragged myself up the rickety old stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. It was a school night and the kids would be up in a few hours. Robert had work and he usually got up around six. His commute to Newark Airport was one hour. Robert is an air-traffic controller, and sometimes works strange hours. Anne is lucky enough to work from home and make her own hours. She designs websites for some local company who doesn't care if she shows up to the office. The house was quiet at ten after three in the morning, even the dogs and cats were silent.

I entered the kitchen and felt my way through the darkness, being extremely careful not to step on any pets. I turned my cell phone on, which gave me little luminescence, but enough to ensure safe passage to the fridge. I did manage to bump into a chair, which made an obnoxious squeak when the wood dragged across the linoleum floor. It wasn't loud enough to wake anyone, so I pressed on without waiting to hear if anyone upstairs had gotten out of bed. I shuffled toward the fridge and opened it. I heard a dog collar rattle behind me, and I nearly relieved my bowels. I turned and saw Magellan in the doorway, his head cocked sideways, asking me what the hell I was doing up at this hour. I ignored him, and returned to the fridge, where a bottle of beer awaited my lips.

The kitchen lights came on.

“Ah!” My head jerked up and hit the freezer door. The impact would leave a lump the following day. “Goddammit,” I muttered, while turning to see whom I had disturbed.

Robert stood in the doorway, wearing his navy-blue robe which exposed more chest hair than I cared to see at ten after three in the morning. “Everything all right?” he asked.

I suddenly thought this might be another nightmare, that at any moment Robert's head was going to transform into something reptilian. I could see him chasing me around the kitchen until he caught me, opened me up, making a mid-night snack out of my innards.
You taste delicious, Ritchie-my-bitchie!

“
Couldn't sleep. I was just going to grab a beer, hoping it would help,” I told him. “Want one?”

“
I don't think the FAA would approve.”

“
Of course.”

He looked at me discerningly. “You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” I know I looked a little dazed. As he stared at me with that disapproving-father-like expression, I knew what conversation was going to follow.

“
Why don't you have a seat, Ritchie,” he said. “We need to talk.”

I hate it when I'm right.

4

“
Look,” Robert said, “I like you. I've always liked you. And you know you're welcome to stay as long as you like...”

“
Robert, I understand—”

“
I've been telling you to call me Bob for years.” He smiled.

“
Bob. I know I've been a burden—”

“
Stop.” He put his palm up as if he were directing traffic. “You haven't been a burden, not at all. In fact, you've been quite helpful; helping Franky and Rachel out with their homework; playing with Alice when nobody else will; taking the dogs out. You've done a lot and I'm grateful. It's hard raising three kids with the hours I work. Anne makes her own schedule but even still, it's tough. We're glad that the kids have their Uncle Ritchie here.” He stirred his coffee, then sipped from it. The mug stated that Bob was the “World's Greatest Dad.” I wouldn't disagree with that. He was as good as fathers get. “It's just... Anne and I are a little concerned about your well being.”

“
Oh...” I shrugged. I didn't know exactly what to say. “The doctors said I'll be fine, as long as I take my pills and—”

“
I'm not talking about your recent medical situation.” He stared at me, his head tilted down so I could see his eyes without looking through the lenses. “I'm talking about you,” he said, pointing to his head. “About what's going on up here.”

I almost laughed. “Are you telling me I need to see a shrink or something, Bob?” I chuckled softly. The idea was ridiculous. I might not have been living the white-picket American Dream everybody wished for, but I was far from needing advice from some quack. Sure, I was a little down, and sometimes moody, but the idea of spending my afternoons sharing feelings with a complete stranger was laughable. I was sure I'd bounce back with time.

“No, that's not what I'm saying.” He shook his head, still grinning. “You know what I mean. You need to get out, especially out of the basement. You spend entirely too much time down there. It's been over a month, Ritchie. Are you actively seeking a job?”

I shook my head slowly, like a scolded child knowing he had disappointed his parents.

“There's a paper in Carver's Grove. Not sure if they're even still in business, but it might be worth a try. There's a small paper in Treebound. Not sure if they even have writers on staff. From my understanding, mostly everything is freelance these days. Am I right?” I nodded. “Then there's the big publication in Asbury—”

“
I'll start looking tomorrow, Bob.” I knew he was right from the second he said it. Not only did I need a change of scenery, but I needed income. The few grand I had managed to save over the past few years, plus the returned security deposit, was rapidly dwindling. What I really needed to do, in addition to finding work, was to stop buying DVDs and purchasing songs on iTunes.

“
I mean shit, man. Even if you have to pump gas at Gar-Gar's down the street. It's something.”

“
Not sure if I can go from being a reputable newspaper writer to a gas station attendant. But I get what you're saying.” I made up my mind; I'd start looking the next day, which would probably begin around noon, barring any lucid nightmares or unusual cravings for alcohol. I had a feeling the craving was just a fluke. It wouldn't become a regular thing. The nightmares however, scared me. They could return with ease, at any time. Deep down, I knew this.

I shook Bob's hand and thanked him for the inspirational conversation. He wished me a good night's sleep, and hoped my job hunting went well.

I tossed and turned that night, afraid if I closed my eyes, the nightmares would return.