The Other Side (25 page)

He laughs a little.

He says, if only I hadn't treated him so cruelly.

He says he's going out to get a drink at the bar, so that people can see him out and about, so he can establish an alibi. A story, he explains, about where he was, what he was doing when I died.
The next time I see you
, he says,
I'll shoot you in the cunt and then the head
.

He asks if I will love him forever.

He puts a pair of noise-canceling headphones over my ears. He puts the duct-taped glasses back on my face.

I hear the blood in my veins, the faintest murmur of sound from the radio. I see the black back of the glasses, a sliver of his shadow out the edges.

He kisses me sloppily, his hand fondling my naked breast,
pinching my nipple, then drifting down across my stomach to ruffle the upper line of my pubic hair.

He clears his throat, and closes himself behind the door.

I bend my head to look—
how much blood?
—and the headphones slide down my face and into my lap. My body is shaking so hard; it's hard to catch my breath.

The assault rifle leans against the wall in the hallway: I remember how he kept it in one corner of his closet, under the striped sweaters, the cotton briefs, those stupid Hawaiian shirts, always unbuttoned and hanging over one shoulder, his pants pulled to his knees, his fingers moistened with spit.

I shake the thought out of my head; the glasses go bouncing to the floor. The room comes slowly into focus. He'll come rushing back in at any moment. He'll shoot me in the cunt and then in the face, or the ear, or underneath my chin, my hair spattered across the soundproofed ceiling, the carpet, the door.

I wring my arm to see how the thick steel U-bolt around my wrist attaches to the chair: a two-inch galvanized fencing staple hammered deep into the wood.

I look around the room for the camera. I don't see one mounted anywhere. Not on the floor. Or by the door. Not on the back of the chair. The radio blares a song I know:
White noise
, he said.
White of forgetfulness. White of safety
.

I lean my head back against the chair and look at the ceiling, how the thick blue Styrofoam will look when the police find the crime scene. They'll load the pieces of my dead body into a black bag, haul it down the hallway, through the living room, and out to the parking lot, where newscasters with solemn faces will report the story. The bullets that entered my body. Our two names linked this way forever in the headlines.

But that story is not my story
, I tell myself as I wiggle and twist and pull my foot out of the loose leather belt binding my leg to the chair. I lift it onto the seat and underneath my body.

Holding my breath, I pull my arm upward while I push against the seat with my foot. It hurts, this pulling: steel against skin against bone. My arm could break. The possibility of that makes me certain it won't.

I take a breath, pull my arm upward, upward, upward. The skin on my wrist blooms like a flower.

I feel the breath burning in my chest, the pressure of the leather against my ankle, the muscles in my foot on the seat lifting me upward, upward, upward.

I feel my elbow pushing down against the wood, my fingernails scratching tracks through the wood.

I feel the steel like a hinge against the arm I rock back and forth, the steel I pull left and right.

I feel the arm; I pull and force it upward, upward, always upward.

I feel the arm I tear unbolted.

I unscrew the nuts bolting my other arm to the chair. My fingers do not fumble, not once. The movements of my body are intentional and deliberate and precise.

I untie the rope around my other leg.

I unhook the chain around my neck from the chair.

I stand up straight and tall.

I wipe the blood spilling from my body with a tissue I drop beside the mattress before crossing the room to where my clothes lie in a neatly folded pile. I dress fast, stepping back toward the chair, where I pry the loosest two-by-four from the seat.

I hold the board above my head, ready to bash his skull loose as I twist the doorknob. It's unlocked.

My legs carry me into the dark hallway, through the dark living room, toward the windows, the blinds pulled closed. Even in the shadows I spot my keys on a table, the green and white beads of the lizard key ring, tossed into a pile of empty shopping bags, empty cardboard cups, empty boxes of screws and nails.

I lift the chain from my neck, over my head, let it rattle to the floor.

In the pulse of silence that follows, a story begins unfolding. Where it may take me, whether it will end here, I don't know. I don't need to. Because in this moment, when I'm alone in the darkness, all I am and was and ever will be is gathered up inside me. And every last bit of it urges me on.

And on.

And on.

I reach for the door. It's here. It's opening.

notes

from
one

Page 13:
The clock's arms both point to eleven
.
According to police reports, I actually entered the station at 10:06
PM
. At 10:40
PM
, The Female Officer transported me to the apartment building, where she observed a white car tarp lying in the gravel parking lot in front of the apartment. The Female Officer noticed that the door was open. She approached the apartment, knocked on the screen door, and announced herself as a police officer. She could hear music but no one would come to her call. Two other officers secured the area while The Female Officer transported me to the hospital for a sexual assault exam. When the search warrant was issued at 3:22
AM
, detectives entered the building and began cataloging the evidence. The following morning, they applied for an arrest warrant on the charges of kidnapping, felonious restraint, forcible rape, and forcible sodomy.