Dirty Eden (19 page)

“You’re not my grandma,” I barked.

“I sure as hell am—your grandpa and I went through three sons before we had your dad.” She put her long, crooked finger up to her cracked lips. “But shhh, one of those sons wasn’t your grandpa’s.” Her already hunched shoulders came up near her cheeks and she cackled quietly.

“Went through them?”

“Yes, miscarried two and the third I aborted myself after drinking down about a gallon of castor oil and some other junk when I was about four months along.”

“You
killed
your baby?”

“Had to,” she said simply. “Couldn’t pass off a black baby as your grandpas, now could I?” The cackling was not as quiet this time.

I began swatting flies away from my head. One flew right into my ear and buzzed furiously as it bounced back and forth before finding its way out again. I slapped the side of my head hard and jerked around frantically trying to get it out even though it had already gone. When finally I looked up again, I was no longer standing at the counter, but at the opposite end where customers pick up the drinks they ordered. I wondered how I got there.

“One medium latte for...” the young man turned the cup sideways to see the name Kate had scribbled there with a black Sharpie. “Norman.” He placed it on the counter and gave it a shove, sliding it over into my hand at precisely the right moment. It barely occurred to me that I wasn’t asked to pay for the drink.

“Your grandmother was a whore,” said Kate not looking at anyone. “Doesn’t surprise me at all. Might even explain where you inherited that sex obsessed stalker part of you.”

“I’m
not
sex obsessed,” I growled, and then set the plastic cup down harshly upon the counter top. “I’ve never done nor said anything to you that would give you reason to think of me that way....”

“No?” said Kate, finally looking straight at me, “You never came in and hung out for over an hour, pretending to read the newspaper while you sat back watching every move I made? Or, what about the time you tried to force me to take a ten-dollar tip when you know I can’t take personal tips. Then when I refused, you stuck it back in your wallet instead of putting it in the tip jar.”

“Yeah but—”

“Or, the night you came in and insisted that I make your drink even though I was busy doing other things.” Kate slammed her open hand upon the counter. “Actually, you’ve done that too many times to count.”

“And what’s wrong with any of that?” I was getting pissed. “You haven’t named one thing that would put me in the stalker category. You act like I’ve been hiding outside your window every night, or watching you use the restroom with my camera phone slipped over the top of the stall.”

Kate tried to speak, but it was still my turn.

“I liked you,” I said with a twinge of embarrassment, “and was too shy to come out and say anything.”

“Too afraid to step up and be a man.” Kate smirked. “It’s guys like you that either fall in the pussy or creepy category.”

“And what about the general nice guy category?” I was furious by now. I could feel the veins near my temples throb and my face and hands were hot with shame. “If I knew how much of a bitch you were I would’ve never wasted my time going to see you. I never would’ve imagined what you’d look like standing next to me in stupid little places like the movie theatre, or ride lines at the fair. I never would’ve—”

“I get it,” Kate interrupted indifferently. She walked away and went back to the register to help the next person in line. “What can we get started for you?”

My mind was spinning with anger.
Unbelievable!
I thought.
And...shit; after all that and I still have a thing for her!
I grabbed my cup and tossed it in the trash next to me.

“He’s always been that way,” said another familiar voice. “He was whiney growing up—
‘I scraped my knee.’
...‘
My head hurts, momma, take me to the emergency room.’
... ‘
I fell down, momma.’
And he’d cry and cry and cry until the sun came up the next morning.”

I stopped cold just when I had made up my mind so quickly about leaving. I couldn’t move. My feet felt like they were sixty pounds each. When I found the will to look away in search of Tsaeb, he was nowhere in sight, but neither was Sophia nor Taurus.

Now I was frozen
and
frantic.

Strange people surrounded me, but each one of them were people that I knew. The woman with the Pomeranian purse was my Aunt Linda. I also didn’t notice that the skinny wrinkled man that stood in front of my aunt was the old man that used to live at the end of my street before I turned thirteen. My friends and I would always go to his house and clean up after his pet goats. The man paid each of us three dollars and sometimes gave us bags of cheap candy he got from the corner store he owned.

“He caught his father and I in bed one night and I could swear that he purposely walked past our room a lot more after that like he was hoping to catch us again.”

“What!” I lumbered angrily up to the woman that, like the little old lady, I refused to believe was truly related to me. “That’s a lie!” And to me, it
was
a lie. I remembered that traumatizing incident vividly, even though I had been trying to forget it for the past twenty-years. I thought things like that really only ever happened on TV. But to insinuate that I wanted to see them again was completely wrong and entirely unacceptable.

But wait...what if my mother actually believed that?

What is this?
I asked myself, though still staring at this woman who looked very much like my mother. She dressed like my mother with her ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved button-up top. Her dark brown hair braided neatly against her back. She wore no make-up and no jewelry.

“...and what a sinner he is,” my fake mother went on, “I tried to teach him the Path of God, but the Devil had too many claws in him. Ultimately, he had to save himself, but not everyone can go to Heaven.”

“Wait a minute,” I said stepping up, “I know you’re not my real mother because she’d never come to a place like this. She doesn’t believe in,” I put up my fingers and made the quotation sign, “polluting her body with chemicals and drugs.”

“But I’m not,” said the woman who looked like my mother. “I only came here because you asked me to.”

“I asked you....”

“Now he’ll pretend he doesn’t remember,” said my ex-wife, Amanda, “so he can get out of it.”

The lump in my throat just got bigger.

OH NO…ANYONE BUT HER....

“Pretend he didn’t remember my asking him to go with me to my sister’s birthday party. Act like he never heard me mention anything about needing the pipes under the bathroom sink fixed, or the trash taken out or the wasp nest above the front door destroyed.”

“I
did
destroy that nest!” I roared. “And got stung twice in the process!”

The woman who looked like my ex-wife ignored my shouting and went on talking to my fake mother and Kate.

“I felt like I was being humped by a dog when he’d screw me.”

“Oh my
word
,” said my fake mother, putting her hand up to her mouth and shaking her head in a disgraced and shocked fashion. She looked like someone next to her just used the F-word in church.

I was so stunned it took a few moments longer than it should have to get my next set of angry words out. “Humped by a dog?” I slammed my fist on the table beside me, knocking two cups of coffee over. “And just how would you know what it feels like to be humped by a dog? You’re a crazy—”

“Hey, my past relationships were, I admit, a bit freakier than ours.”

That was definitely not something I had expected her to say. In fact, my question was more-so a sick joke, a taunt.

My fake ex-wife kept on talking, but I couldn’t hear any more of it. What she had just revealed made my mind dizzy with panic and my ears deaf to anything else she had to say.

“You should learn to control that anger of yours, Norman,” said the woman who looked like my grandmother. A yellow-white maggot slid out of the corner of her left eye and fell in the folds of her dress sleeve.

“This is crazy!” I went quickly toward the door, but was stopped by a man that looked like my father, the only one so far out of all these people who really was dead and may have had a reason to be here.

“Where you goin’, boy?”

“I-I uhhh, I was leaving.”

“Not until you face the truth you’re not.”

“If all this is the truth, I don’t
want
to face it.”

“Well, that’s just too bad. You can’t run all your life. You always did, Norm. You always ran away from everything.”

I listened intently, blocking out all the shocking truths that continued to go on all around me. And my fake father, if he truly was fake, was the only one among them all that I wasn’t afraid of, or disgusted by.

My father stood in front of the glass door. He wore a plaid, long-sleeved button-up shirt tucked neatly in his Levi’s. His dirty-brown hair combed back neatly, revealing the balding area around his forehead.

“Are you real?”

But he can’t be if he’s here. He wouldn’t even know me.

“You came here for the seed,” my father went on, ignoring my question, “but I hear you have to face the truth before you can find the truth. That’s what they say.”

“I had a crush on Norman,” said someone in the crowd behind me, “but bein’ his cousin an’ all, I thought I shouldn’t say anything. I just fingered myself looking at his picture a lot.”

“I couldn’t believe I got away with it,” said another voice, “and still, twenty years later I’m running free—I liked killing them both.”

“She had six kids; and the baby, the one that pulled that hot pan of macaroni off the stove will be horribly scarred forever—she poured the water on that baby. She lied and put on a great show. I saw it happen from the window...but I never said anything.”

My favorite uncle, Uncle Bill, sat at a table talking with a small girl, no older than seven who I realized was my cousin. My uncle said to my cousin, “I’m sorry, Rachel, but I just can’t help myself when I touch you. Just keep it a secret from mommy for a while longer until I get some help, okay?”

The young girl lowered her head. “Okay, daddy, I won’t tell.”

I turned away from my father and looked more closely. I felt like my head was about to explode with fury. My chest heaved with rapid breath. I marched over to the table, grabbed my former favorite uncle by the throat, and lifted him off his feet, slamming him onto the tabletop. The table wobbled side to side, almost turning over completely.

“You
molested
her?” I was out of control. “You sick fucking bastard! What the fuck is
wrong
with you?” I pulled back my fist and started pounding his face with it. Uncle Bill did not fight back, and despite the crushed nose and the blood that flew everywhere, Uncle Bill did nothing and said nothing.

Neither did my cousin, Rachel.

She sat there staring eerily up at me, and this was the only thing that brought me back from my murderous rage. She didn’t flinch, or scream, or run.

“My daddy can’t help it when he touches me.”

“Just like I couldn’t help myself when I raped that woman in Central Park last year,” said a man who I refused to look at.

Everything about this was wrong. Dumbfounded, I pulled myself off Uncle Bill. Blood covered me.

“I told him he needs to learn to control his anger,” said the woman who looked like my grandmother.

“Great,” Kate said, “a sex obsessed stalker
and
a violent murderer.”

“Nah, he’s no murderer,” said my fake ex-wife, “and I wouldn’t say he’s obsessed with sex, either. I tried to get him to engage in a little harmless Slave and Master, but he wouldn’t even go for that—hate to say it, but I felt forced to screw around on him as much as I did. Now his boss, Hugh Westardi, he was a good lay, and Danny, his worthless best friend—”

“What’s
wrong
with you people?” I raised my hands in the air. “All of you! You’re crazy and you’re sick!” I almost had tears in my eyes, or maybe I did, but wiped them away before I let myself notice them too much.

“I’m outta here!” I pushed my way right past my father and left; the echo of voices telling all sorts of truths I only wished were lies faded in the distance as the door slowly closed and swallowed them up. And when I looked up and all around me, I saw that I was not in, or anywhere near Fiedel City anymore. I was in the city of my hometown, not far from my job and the park and the apartment complex I lived in...or used to live in. My old city was now a gray place, much like the coffee house I just left. Where there should’ve been hundreds of people marching up and down the sidewalks, there was no one. There were cars everywhere, but all of them abandoned. It appeared each one had been deliberately parked in a tidy straight line. Motors shut off. Windows up and doors closed.

The buildings towered over me and a great black sky with thick, stagnant clouds hovered over them. It was cold, nearly freezing, and I pulled my trench coat closed and let the sleeves fall down over my hands, which covered all but my knuckles and fingers. The wind was not constant, but when it whipped by, it was ruthless and cruel.

A crow landed on the hood of a car and cawed, startling me, but then flew away and joined a murder of crows soaring high above me. They seemed like the only sign of life in the city. I looked toward the window of Lou’s Coffee, but there was no one inside. It appeared as empty as the city streets.

“Helloooo!” My voice echoed between the tall buildings.

I shouted several more times, each one less strident as I knew in my heart that no one was going to answer. Then I leaned against the nearest car and slid down to sit on the cold asphalt. I drew my legs toward me and wrapped myself tighter within my coat, trying to keep warm, but the frigid air was not the heavy thought on my mind.

“I wish I had never gone through with this.”

And against yet another one of the Manly Codes, I buried my scruffy face in the palms of my hands and cried. I cried for many minutes as so many questions, regrets and blame went through my mind. I had given up, completely. I intended to go no further, but instead to sit against the black car and let the afterlife, or whatever it was, do with me whatever it damn well pleased. And as if I expected that very thing to happen, I finally found within myself that ounce of courage that one always needs just before they die. I was no longer afraid. But that thing did not happen. Nothing happened, and so I opened my eyes and lifted my head to the black churning skies and I screamed, “Don’t leave me here like this!” And I damned God, cursed Him and tried calling Him out, but still, nothing happened. The streets were still motionless and dead. Everything around me seemed like the backdrop of a grim play, and only the clouds and the crows and my coat, whipped by the brutal wind, were animated with any sort of movement.

I let my head fall against the car door, my arms dangling over my knees at the wrists. I could taste the blood from Uncle Bill’s face and could smell the poisonous, yet attractive scent of a burning cigarette.

My eyes popped open and I jumped to my feet looking around frantically for the source of the cigarette smoke.

And I cursed myself for almost being delighted to see the Devil again.

“Yeah,” said the Devil, “The truth is always the hardest to face, isn’t it?” He began to dance around, and with a harmonious voice he sang, “Tell me sweet little lies and I will forever be in your debt. I will love you and follow you and be whatever you want me to be, so long as you hide the dreadful truth from me!” His display was dramatic, as if he were putting on a play.

“Skip the games and the riddles, Lucifer, and let’s talk.”

The Devil wore a dingy black top hat this time, a matching black suit and glossy black shoes. He reminded me of the twins. The Devil smiled, took a puff from his cigarette and let it come out of his nostrils and his mouth as he spoke. “So
now
you take this seriously,” he said and smiled some more. “It’s about time, which I might add, is something you don’t have much more of.”

“How can you be here?” I said. “Here in Creation—how?”

“This isn’t Creation. No, this is Earth, and you’re standing on the real street just blocks from where your real apartment used to be. And up that way,” the Devil pointed, “is your terrible place of employment, and back that way—”

“I get the point.”

The Devil waited as though expecting me to say something angry, but then his bright smile faded quickly. “You’re no fun anymore.”

“I’m not here for fun!” I stepped right up into the Devil’s face. My eyes were slanted and furious, my lips pressed together over my grinding teeth.

The Devil, barely fazed by my display, raised his index finger and twirled it about in a surrendering fashion. “Fine,” he said with a disappointed grunt. “Look, Norman, this world, this
place
you call home where you live out your fake little lives, is just a mask. I created it, and...” the Devil smiled again, looking proud and in thought, “...did an excellent job.”

“So, everything is fake?”

“Geez, no, you watch too many movies. Everything is real, right down to your first love and your second screw, but people have to be blind to most of what really goes on, or else they might start believing in...” he looked up, “...well,
Him
.”

“What a tragedy,” I scoffed.

“It
would
be!” the Devil shouted and threw up his hands. “I’d have next to nothing!”

“Forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for you.”

“Forgiven.” The Devil hopped up onto the hood of the car, his legs dangling. “Did you know that every disease was created by man?”

The Devil nodded and continued, “They were, Norman. AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, Alzheimer’s—all of it made by people just like you. I mean sure, I had a hand in it, but I can only be credited for influencing the stupid things you people do. It’s way too easy.”

I was fed up, too beside myself to say anything; at this point I cared little about anything the Devil had to say. I just wanted to walk away and never see him or speak to him again, but I knew it would not be that simple.