Death Rhythm (3 page)

“You, too.” Andy wasn’t sure whether to call her ‘Aunt’ or ‘Mae’ or ‘Aunt Mae’ or just ‘Miss.’ He set his duffel bag on the step and shook her hand.

“I’m sorry,” Mae said. “You’re shivering. Come in.”

Mae flicked on light switches as they walked through the house. They passed two closed doors in the hallway, one on either side. A third doorway, open, showed stairs going up, which ran parallel to the hallway. There were empty coat pegs sticking out of the wall on the left. Flowers in terra cotta pots were set on the floor on either side of the hallway like runway lights.

The hallway opened to the dining room. A single woven placemat sat on a round oak table. A lone chair faced a window peering out into the night.

As each light popped on, Andy squinted, feeling for the first time the tiredness in his eyes. His lids felt weighted, and he stifled a yawn.

“Would you like something to drink?” Mae asked as they headed into the kitchen. “I’ve got milk, water, apple juice, beer. Or I could mix up something.”

“Water would be fine, thanks.”

The kitchen was clean and well lit, the floor made of white tile, the cupboards painted light blue. Mae motioned to one of the blue vinyl chairs tucked up to a small kitchen table.

“Have a seat.” She turned on the faucet and stuck her finger under it, waiting for the water to turn cold. She watched Andy’s reflection in the kitchen window as she spoke.

“I must admit, I haven’t kept in touch with your mother much. I sent her letters every once in a while, but I never got any replies.” She filled a glass with water and handed it to Andy. “It kind of discouraged me, to be honest with you, so I haven’t sent her anything in the last few years. Did she ever show you any of my letters?”

“No,” Andy said.

Mae opened the cupboard above the refrigerator and took down a bottle of gin. She poured some into a Styrofoam cup and swallowed it.

“Does she ever talk about me?”

“Well, sure. She’s mentioned you.”

“You don’t sound too sure. What do you know about me?”

“I’ve seen some pictures of you when you were younger.” His mouth remained open; he hoped another sentence might produce itself, but all that came out was the tip of his tongue. It flicked at his lips.

Mae poured herself another shot. “But has she said anything about me?”

“Not really.” Andy stared at the tiles on the floor. His face felt hot.

Mae looked at the kitchen window. Her reflection stared back at her above the thick leaves of an aloe plant. “It’s too bad.” She took a sip of gin. “It’s too bad how when things go sour, people let them stay sour. Especially among relatives.” She held the bottle out to Andy, but he shook his head. “Sometimes that’s the worst.” She took another sip. “Why do you think that is?”

Andy shrugged. What the hell was she talking about? Perhaps coming here hadn’t been such a great idea after all.

Mae leaned toward him and caught his gaze. “I forgave her a long time ago.”

She took a swig straight from the bottle and screwed on the cap. She sighed, grinned sheepishly, blinked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how tired you looked until just now. Why don’t I show you to your room.”

She got up and put the gin away, then leaned back against the refrigerator door.

“Tomorrow you can help me plant tulips if you want. I think it’s wonderful how they emerge in the spring, no matter how hard the winter may have been. You can tell me all about yourself then. Catch me up on how your mother’s doing. How does that sound?”

Andy nodded. “That sounds great.”

He followed her back through the dining room and through the front hallway. They went up a flight of stairs, the walls lined with photographs and brightly painted landscapes framed in gilded metal and old, painted wood.

Mae opened up the first door at the top of the stairs. “Here you go. Would you like a wake-up call?” she asked.

“No, that’s all right.”

Mae watched for a moment. Andy said, “Mae - thanks for letting me stay here. Really. I appreciate it. I mean, you don’t even know me.”

Mae smiled. “No problem. I admit I was quite shocked at first, but I’m glad you thought of me, even if it was for just a cheap place to spend the night. Gives me a chance to touch base with family again.” She started to back out of the doorway.

“By the way,” she said. “This used to be your mother’s room.”

She whispered good night and closed the door.

The room was small, with only a single bed, a wooden dresser, and a closet. The bed was bare with a set of folded sheets and a pillowcase sitting in the middle of a stiff, frayed mattress. On top of the dresser was an ancient box of tissue paper. Andy traced his finger along the edges of the dresser, scraping at some of the peeling white paint. Probably some good solid oak under there, he thought. He opened up the drawers one by one, which were all empty, save for the bottom one, which held a folded afghan.

My mother’s room. Wow.

He got up from his kneeling position, wincing at the sound of his creaking joints. He went over to the closet and opened it. Inside were five summery dresses, each with a different flower print, hanging from a wooden rod. Did these once belong to his mother?

It was strange to think that she used to live here. Strange to think she had some other life before giving birth to him. A life he knew nothing about. A life she never bothered to share. But to be fair, he never pried very deeply.

Thin, green curtains outlined the room’s lone window. A white shade was pulled over it and a bare light bulb hung from the middle of the ceiling.

Andy wondered what the room was like when she had lived here. Certainly not as sparse as this. He tried to soak in some feeling of her presence, but he couldn’t. Did she have pictures on the wall? Did she leave clothes scattered on the floor?

I should call her, he thought. Let her know where I am. He was sure Cathy had called her by now. Not that they were close friends. In fact, it was rare they ever said more than two words to each other. But he knew Cathy, knew she’d want to call Edna and let her know her son was far from perfect.

Shit.

He started to make the bed. First the sheets. Then the pillow. He pulled out the afghan from the dresser. He could already feel a chill settling into the house for the night.

He pulled the sheets back. They were clean, but smelled musty, like they hadn’t been used for years. The pillow was stuffed tight and fat with little bits of feathers poking out here and there. Andy hoped he wasn’t allergic. He went to the light switch and put his hand up to it, making a mental picture of the room before turning it off.

The pillow felt nice as he laid his head back. He closed his eyes, closing out the darkness of the room, of the house - closing out the day.

Jesus, what a day.

He was here in a house foreign to him with a person who might as well have been foreign to him, sleeping in a bed he’d never slept in before. Last night this was the last place he ever expected to be.

He listened to the creaks and groans of the house, listened to the wind play it like a musical instrument. It’s an old house, he thought. I’ll get used to it. The noise would eventually become an ordered rhythm, then a drone, then a hum, then silence.

And soon he started to think about Cathy.

He started to dream about her.

He was penetrating her again, and her screams pierced his ears. He held a knife to her throat with one hand, and with the other, he slapped her, trying to get her to stop
screaming
.

“Make love to me, Andy!”
she screamed.

Soon she was no longer Cathy; instead she was a young girl with a summery flower print dress hitched above her waist. Andy’s knife disappeared from his hand.

She cried, and Andy breathed heavily, loudly, to drown out her cries. He didn’t know who she was, but he wouldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop.

Stop it, you’re hurting me,
she said.
Stop it, Ed. Go play with your dolls.

And she became a doll. A rag doll, and he kept pumping into her, sliding himself into her, not wanting to stop. But her opening was dry, made only of coarse wool. Andy’s cock became raw from the friction, the skin peeling back, the nerves burning painfully. The doll’s stuffing started spilling out, and Andy’s stuffing spilled out, too, as he lost himself inside of her. His cum was old rags and yarn and cotton. There was a frown on the doll’s face.

Now look what you’ve done. You’ve made me grow and grow, and where I stop, nobody knows
.

Stuffing continued to pour from Andy’s erection, filling up the doll, making it grow, expand, enveloping his entire body until he couldn’t breath, until he was suffocating in her rag guts, he was dying, he -

He woke up, hot and sweaty, the pillow tucked under his belly, the head of his penis buried in it. He pulled the pillow out from under him. There was a wet spot on it, slippery and sticky with ejaculate. His underwear was around his knees.

Jesus
.

He pulled them back up. Got out of bed. Stubbed his toe on the duffel bag. Groped for the dresser and bumped his hand on it. He traced a finger along its top edge until he felt the box of tissue. He pulled out a few stiff sheets, wiped the pillow and the mattress in the darkness, then himself, and tossed the tissue under the bed. He’d throw them away in the morning. Didn’t want to bump into anything looking for a wastebasket, let alone the light switch.

He crawled back into bed, keeping the damp side of the pillow down, trying to ignore the dampness he felt on his back, and pulled the covers over him. He shivered. Clutched the afghan tightly to his neck. Hoped he didn’t fall back into the same dream.

Where the hell did that come from?

But soon he fell asleep and dreamed of a deer smashing into his windshield.

THREE

When Andy opened his eyes to the morning, he laid there, disoriented. He squinted at the unfamiliar walls, at the dark wooden door lit up softly by the sun muted through the drawn shade. He sniffed at the musty scent of the bed, the thin layer of dust on the floor. He sat up, the bed creaking, and remembered where he was. He shivered at the chilled air.

The smell of strong coffee reached his nostrils.

“Mae?” he called.

No answer.

The door across the hall was open, the bed inside neatly made, a blue quilt folded at its foot. His aunt’s room.

He grabbed his duffel bag and carried it into the bathroom. A dark green towel waited for him next to the sink. He stepped into the shower and let the hot water pour over his body. It felt good.

He stood there, still and silent, not wanting to move, listening to the water smack at the white porcelain at his feet. He stood there for twenty-five minutes, a marble statue in a fountain, transfixed and hypnotized by the constant stream of wetness, thinking about Cathy. What had he done? What had gone wrong? He missed her.

The water turned cold, jolting him out of his trance. He jerked away, reached a shivering hand through the cold jet of water and slammed the shower knob off. He spit water from his mouth, the metallic flavor lingering as he dried off and dressed.

As he descended the stairway, he stopped halfway, noticing the pictures that hung on either side. Most of the photographs were in black and white, a few in fading color. He recognized his mother, recognized Mae, too, both of them children in the photographs. And there was another girl, younger than the two of them. Who was she?

He recognized a picture of his grandparents. His mother had the same one in a silver frame on her dresser, but that was the closest he ever came to meeting them. They had died before Andy was born.

The third girl. He would have to ask Mae about her later. There was one picture in particular that caught his attention. In it, this unknown girl had a drum in front of her held up by a strap over her shoulder. Both arms were in mid-swing, one raised in the air at ear level, the drumstick pointed up, while the other one was almost at the point of impact, the drumstick ready to connect with the head of the drum.

She looks pretty damn serious, Andy thought.

In the background, with a hand over her ears and a grimace on her face, was Edna. Andy’s mother.

Andy chuckled.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he found a note.

Andy -

Help yourself to breakfast. I’m outside raking the yard. Join me if you’d like.

Mae

He looked through the cupboards and found a box of Rice Krispies. He poured himself a bowl, leaned back in his chair at the small kitchen table and breathed in the smell of - what was it? A fresh smell. Fresh. Milwaukee had smelled of exhaust fumes and burnt air. It smelled hard and rigid. Metal and concrete and business suits. Rotting vegetables. All mixed together in that aroma unique to cities. He'd gotten used to it, hadn’t even noticed it.

Until now.

Now, sitting in Mae’s kitchen with the window slightly open, letting in a crisp autumn breeze, the smell of Milwaukee had become distinct and foul. The chilled wind coming in through the window, sweeping over the Aloe plant, sneaking into Andy’s nostrils, filling up his lungs - was fresh. He couldn’t think of a way to describe it, only to compare it to Milwaukee, compare it to his apartment there, overflowing with the scent of air freshener. Now he relaxed. The fresh air surrounded him like an oxygen mask.

He took a deep breath, tried to fill his lungs with a reserve he could take home with him.

Or maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe that would only remind him of the stench at home. The stench of his apartment. Of Cathy’s apartment.

Cathy. Shit.

The clock on the stove read 11:00.

He decided to join Mae in the yard.

The house stood on a two-acre lot. The front of the yard ended in a row of juniper bushes that separated the property from the highway, across from which stretched endless fields of dried and withered cornstalks. To the west was another large cornfield, spotted with geese in search of kernels strewn across the black soil.