The Illusionist (18 page)

Dean focused on me now. His face was smudged from his tears. “I can't leave my truck here,” he said.

“You're in no shape to drive,” I told him. “It'll be okay here overnight.”

“It won't fuckin' be okay,” and his voice seemed like it was breaking again. “I'm taking it,” he said, glaring at Brian. “I'm not leaving it here.”

Then Melanie turned to Brian. “I'm riding home with Chrissie,” she said. “I hate you, Brian. I hate you.”

Driving Melanie back into Sparta, I could feel the wind sweeping up from the river and funneling through the valley, pushing against the car. Terrible wind. Big storm coming, power lines would go down, houses would be buried in drifts, old people would be found frozen to death. All commerce would cease.

Next to me in the front seat, Melanie was huddled down inside her black leather jacket. Her mouth was trembling, her teeth chattering.

We were the only ones on the highway, and as we drove the road seemed to be parting in front of us like water. Hard to see because there was only darkness on the road, and even with my brights on, I could only discern a few feet ahead.

“F-r-eezing,” Melanie said. “Can you put the heat on?”

I tried the heat, but only a blast of icy air came through the vents. “Gotta wait a minute till the engine's warm. You okay?”

She rested her head against the back of the seat, closed her eyes. She shook her head.

“You had to know, Mellie. You had to.”

“No,” she said, eyes squeezed shut.

“I don't believe you didn't.”

“Doesn't matter. He's a guy.”

“Uh-huh. But a lotta guys want to go out with you, Mellie. I don't mean just asshole Brian. Why
him?
”

The heat was starting to come in through the vents, and the car was filling with warmth. “He doesn't hit on me,” she said. “He treats me like I'm a—person. Not some—doll.”

“That's why he wanted you. Cause you're Miss Unattainable. That's why he went after you.”

“Please don't talk about him like he's in the past,” she said. Her eyes were open now, they were blazing, fixed on the road in front.

Suddenly I said out of nowhere, “I love Dean too.”

At this, her lips parted, as if somehow she hadn't realized this. A car was coming toward us on the road. I saw her face caught for a moment in a ghastly light and I could see her skin was mottled from crying.

I laughed. “Don't worry. He doesn't love me. It's not that kind of love.”

She settled back in the seat as if she were relieved. “I guess that's two of us care about him then.”

Now Old 27 merged into new 27, and we were coming into Sparta. At the intersection I stopped for the blinking red light. Nobody on the streets, no house lights on. Secret night, I thought, all yours, universal sleep. Night means all things are possible, gives you the feeling you own everything. It's yours, and you are free.

On Route 7, I dropped Melanie off at her house. “It's late,” I said, as she got out of the car. “Won't your mom be pissed?”

“What can she do to me?” She went a few steps, then she turned, her face swollen and stained with tears. “When you see Dean, tell him I love him, will you?” she asked. “Tell him I'll always love him, no matter what.” And then she stumbled up the walkway to the front door.

I drove off. A fuel truck came barreling toward me, the roar of it filling the hollow air. Then another car, the city was stirring awake.

When I got to Washington Street, I expected to see Dean's truck parked in front of my building, he was to have gone ahead of me. But Dean's truck wasn't there.

Melanie and Chrissie gone. Silence in the parking lot of the Wooden Nickel. Only the sound of the wind whistling through the pines. I'm freezing, shivering in my boots, my teeth clacking. Me and Jimmy and Brian stand there as if we're not even aware of each other, watching Chrissie's car leave, her brake lights blinking red at the exit. And then she disappears.

And now there's no one here but us three—Brian, Jimmy, me. And suddenly Brian turns, glares at me, his mouth set in a thin little line. “Get her, Jimmy. Put her in back of the truck.”

Jimmy grabs my arm, opens the back of the cap, and shoves me down inside. And as I slide across the old rug I've put down to make the truck more like a home my shirt rides up and my skin scrapes hard against the grain. The two of them crawl in after me and I lift my head up and I kick at them, but it's no good. “Get her down!” Brian yells.

Brian and Jimmy kneel on either side of me and pin me by the shoulders. I try to sit up, but they shove me back down and my head smashes against the floor of the truck. There isn't enough room in the back for all three of us. We're all squeezed together and I can hear them panting and grunting in the darkness, can smell their stink of beer and mildew and sweat. And I can just make out Brian's eyes, flashing with pure hatred and Jimmy's big fat face, flesh all swollen on the cheeks and forehead, and suddenly in the middle of it all I notice that Jimmy's ears are too small like they're cut off at the top or something.

“Get her pants down,” Brian tells him, and I'm thinking, they can kill me and nobody will know because no one can see me here in the truck, there won't be any cars going by till morning. I realize I haven't heard a single car pass by on the road since this all started. And it flashes on me, this is what dying is, someone takes you by surprise in some place when you least expect it, and then it happens—in just a second or two, just like that you're gone.

So I go limp. I let my arms lie by my side while Jimmy thrashes open my belt buckle and pulls my jeans down again. Brian unzips his own jeans and I see his hands with their spiky knuckles grasping at the top of his pants and with one quick jerk, he jams down his zipper, fumbles inside, and he pulls out his thing.

He kneels over me holding it down at me like it's a pen or something, it's long and thin and silvery and veiny, curved at the end like a fishhook that will tear into flesh. Stupid stupid looking thing.

Brian flings his long hair off his face, as if getting ready to aim. There are no words in the truck now, only the sounds of the three of us struggling and as I lie there I realize that Brian's thing is going to cut through me like a knife—because I'm sealed there with like this sheet of flesh. It's going to cut me right in half, going to bore this gaping hole through to my backside, and freezing air will rush in it'll be like electricity, and there will be no inside or outside any longer and I'm going to bleed to death right there in the truck.

“Lie still or I'll kill you,” he tells me.

I can hear myself begging, “Don't . . .”

“Hold her down.”

Jimmy leans down over me, all thick folds of flesh. He clamps his hand down over my mouth, and now I can't breathe and I'm jerking my head from side to side, struggling to free my mouth. I've got to survive, and I'm so strong wanting to breathe, refusing to have my breath cut off, like a kid being smothered who will fight as hard as he can, it's just instinct, like an old person trying to kill himself will pull the plastic bag over his head, but still struggle and fight to breathe.

At last, I free my mouth from Jimmy's hand and I lie back, gasping.
I lift up my head a second, but Jimmy smashes it down again. Then suddenly, Jimmy rears up and brings the heel of his hunting boot right down on my cheek. I can feel my flesh split open and my cheekbone crushed under the sharp edge of his sole and for a moment everything goes black. “Please . . .” I gasp, my voice all tiny like a child's, a little girl's. If I just go along with them, make my body go limp, it won't hurt as much and they might not kill me.

And I feel myself lifting my hips to cooperate, and it's hard to keep my pelvis off the ground to comply with them, and my thighs are trembling like jelly flesh. “Please,” I beg them. “Please don't hurt me.”

Now Brian's on top of me. He pushes my thighs apart. He aims his thing at me, then rams it up against me, keeps ramming it against me, trying to push it in. And I feel it ripping my flesh apart. And then it's in, and there's this burning pain there like it's this terrible foreign object inside me and he's stretching me, and moving up and down, grunting and each movement's like he's tearing me apart and I think I can't endure this. And I try to pretend it isn't really me, that it's far away somewhere else this pain which is like torture so bad it isn't real.

Then I hear his gasp above me in the air. He shudders. Then, with a violent gesture, he yanks it out.

It's over. His voice comes to me from somewhere above me, “Tell anybody about this and we'll kill you. Go to the cops and I'll fuckin' kill you.”

And now they're scrambling out the truck and I feel a sudden rush of cold air where a second before they've been and I hear their car door slam, the engine revving up. I hear them pulling away, the sound of the motor growing fainter and fainter. And now it's quiet again and I'm lying there in the truck alone. But maybe they're still out there, only just pretending to be gone and if they see me try to escape, they'll kill me. So I lie still and I force myself to count to ten. One—two—three . . . I can still smell them in the air of the truck, the odor of hair and sweat and sex. Did Jimmy really leave with him? Have to be sure Jimmy is gone too, not lurking out there in the shadows. But I hear
only silence, the wind rising from the river, and I dare to lift my head, to glance out the window of the truck. Nothing.

The real pain takes a moment to take hold. But then I feel it—this raw, burning sensation between my thighs, the flesh throbbing, it's on fire and I'm so torn, Jesus, I won't be able to pee anymore even and my thighs are all wet and Brian's come is running down my flesh. I'm afraid to sit up for fear I'll faint. I touch the place with my fingertips, afraid to touch it for fear of what I'll find and when I bring my hand back up, I see something dark and glittering and I know it's blood and that freaks me out even more 'cause I've got to stop the blood or I'll die.

Then the cold air hits it there and makes it sting worse and I can feel my whole body hurting like I'm bruised all over. I grope around till I find my jeans down around my feet and drag them toward me, then I try and sit up, but my ribs and back hurt like I've been kicked and so I fall back down again. Got to get out of here, is all I'm thinking. They're coming back to kill me.

At last, I succeed in sitting up. I lean over the back of the driver's seat, then push myself headfirst down into the front. I'm afraid to get out of the truck and go around because who knows who's out there. Blood's oozing down my cheek. My jeans are wet between the thighs, blood there. How much am I losing? And suddenly I feel lightheaded, my head's spinning and there's a prickling behind my eyes. Don't faint, I think. Have to get out of here before they come back.

I dig around in my pockets for my keys. Miracle—still there. And somehow I insert the key in the ignition. The engine scrapes, doesn't catch. Please. I turn the key again, and this time the engine starts up.

Jerking the shift down into reverse, I back out of the parking lot. Can hardly see, it's like it's all swollen now around my left eye. The virus gets in through torn flesh, I think. Her mom wouldn't let me back in the house after the arrest. Said I carried AIDS.

I turn onto the road. I accelerate, and then I drive on Old 27 in the dark, driving the truck though I'm practically blind and it's a good thing I know the way along the road by heart.

*  *  *

When I get to the hospital, the hemlock trees in front are hung with tiny Christmas lights winking up and down like water running through the branches. I pull up under the canopy and there's a sign says, Do Not Block Emergency Entrance Private Cars Towed at Owner's Expense, but I leave my truck there anyway, and I struggle in through the doors.

There's a waiting room, but no one there. A nurse's desk, but the chair is empty. From a speaker near the ceiling comes the sound of “Jingle Bells.” There's a TV set in the waiting room, and on the screen I notice a figure in a diving mask coming up from under the ocean. It's as if all the inhabitants of the place have been swept away by aliens or something. Yet all the objects of daily life remain, all the machinery's still running.

The bright light makes the cut under my eye burn. In front of me is a pair of double doors with wire-glass panes leading to a long hallway and I push against them but they're locked. I see a man in a white coat walking down the hallway carrying a plastic glass and I bang on the window to get his attention and he hurries toward me. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“Yeah—I been attacked!” I tell him.

He looks blank a moment. “I been sexually attacked,” I tell him. “They fuckin' ripped me open!”

He opens the doors right away, guides me in, then down the hall to an examining room with a gurney. “Up here, please. I'm Rob, the physician's assistant,” he says. Big, round man in his fifties, little white beard. He holds my wrist to time my pulse, and I can smell wine and garlic on his breath, must be having their Christmas party.

Rob releases my arm and lifts the phone on the wall: “Dr. Chu, room nine. Dr. Chu,” and I can hear his voice echo on the loudspeaker outside in the hallway. I'm starting to shiver and shake again, and Rob reaches for a paper gown from the shelf and a thin cotton blanket. “Please change into this. You can put this over you when you're changed.”