Multiplex Fandango (30 page)

Elsie doubted it.

Even though the parody had a certain poetic quality, she believed it was because of the little ones.
Not everyone could converse with them.
Many even believed they weren't real.
But Elsie, like many others, understood their significance and treated the little dust bunnies like the rare, mystical beasts they were.
More than mascots, the dust bunnies were proof that their cause was right
—
natural.

For the rest of the day, Elsie ensconced herself into the mundane tasks of Dust Bunny disruption.
She added dirt to the pepper shakers at the pizza place.
She placed Celexa into the salt shakers of another fast food restaurant.
When she dropped Ativan into the water cooler of a new car dealership, she couldn't help but grin in anticipation of test-drives that would now be conducted by tranquilized prospective buyers.

Very nice.

Very messy.

Even with all the satisfaction her deeds created, the possible fates of the restaurant manager she’d met earlier was still weighing upon her mind.
The fact the woman was abused was certain.
Elsie knew the signs: bruises, old and new; too much make-up; the inability to make eye contact; the nervous shifting from foot to foot as if her place in life was not yet determined.

Elsie knew them well.
After all, since she had been six years old she’d experienced those very same symptoms.

Everything began when she turned six.

Everything.

It was when Elsie had turned six that her stepfather had started the slapping and the pinching.
Elsie had spent long hours in
The Land of the Under-bed
waiting for her mother to come home, squeezing herself tightly into the place where the bed met the wall and pulling old toys and dirty clothes over her so her stepfather wouldn't find her.
He would call and call, his schizophrenic shouts both angry and cajoling.
Sometimes, when he reminded her of all the good times, she would begin to leave her haven.
It was the screams of the dust bunnies that held her back…

…kept her safe.

…those wonderful fluffy dust bunnies.

Finding out where the woman lived was easy.
Her name tag had said
Tracy
.
Even better was her discovery that the staff at the restaurant had their own parking spaces.
It was only half an hour of delving through glove compartments and under the seats that resulted in a silver Cellica with an old cable bill that promised a Tracy Wilson lived on
234 East King Street
.

The address was only a mile away.

When Elsie arrived, she was pleased to discover a doggy door at the back of the house.
At five foot and one hundred pounds, her
slim body fit easily through
—
the major reason she had been promoted to domestic duty.

Of course, the problem with doggy doors is that it meant…

Halfway through she came nose to nose with a brindle bulldog.
An immense head boasted very thick teeth from a dog who was eager to show them to her.
Bulldog drool glistened along its jowls and dripped upon the floor, each drip a promise of how tasty she could be.
Elsie stared into the animal's eyes and after about a minute, she pushed the dog aside, scooted the rest of the way in on her knees and stood.

"That's right, big boy.
I'm a friendly."

She’d always been a dog person.
When she was married she had a friend who raised Dobermans for a guard service.
After Elsie's first time in the pen, she wasn't allowed in again.
She’d ruined the litter, infecting it with love.
As a Dust Bunny it was even better.
The animals smelled the nature upon her.
Free of the cloying smell of perfume, soap, and other toxic chemicals, dogs, with their super-human olfactory
sense
, appreciated her stoic imperfection.

Elsie patted the dog and took in the bottom floor.
She’d known what she would encounter before she had arrived.
A kitchen, dining room and living room in immaculate
,
Better Homes and Gardens
condition.
Everything shouted out perfection.
It was a place that Miss Manners, Gloria Vanderbilt and the First Lady could easily transplant themselves into.
It was sad how so many men dictated to their women that the lifestyles of
Leave It To Beaver
and
Ozzie and Harriet
should be emulated.

Even the garage was
dress-right-dress
.
Elsie imagined the repercussions that
Tracy
faced if anything was out of place in the house.

…a dirty plate?

…
SMACK
…

…an unmade bed?

…
SMACK
…

A house ruled by a man who’d fallen for the great lie:
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

It was mankind who insisted upon order.
Nature dictated chaos.
If God created both, which should be the dominant?
Elsie knew that the question wasn't rhetorical.
Man existed within nature, therefore man should be part of the environment within which he was created.
Ajax, Clorox, and Spic
–
N
–
Span were created by man to put order to nature
—
to change nature.

Nature is dirty.

The world is dirty.

Nature is natural.

There were lengths of boards stacked neatly along one side of the garage, leaving space for only one vehicle.
The wood came in many sizes: ten, six, five and four feet.
Each one was treated with a slick polyurethane coating, as if it was meant to be waterproof.

Elsie halted amidst her inventory.
She heard the sound of a car entering the driveway and the garage door began ascending.
Grabbing a four-foot length of two-by-four, she slipped into the house and ascended to the second floor.
It was in the master bedroom where she slipped under the bed and began her wait.
As the front door opened and slammed, she lamented the fact that there were very few dust bunnies.
She would speak to them.
Tell them of their brethren and entice them to multiply.

Two hours later,
Tracy
came home.

Half an hour after that, he hit her…

…three times, because there were spots on the glasses.

Elsie heard it all from her space within
The Land of the Under-bed.

…the yelling.

…the screams.

…the cries of pain.

If it hadn't been for the warnings of the dust bunnies, Elsie would have unleashed her anger right then.
Even now, she gripped the two-by-four with whitened knuckles waiting for the night to fall so she would reveal her response.
For now, however, she would lay within
The Land of the Under-bed
and whisper tales of her past deeds to the dust bunnies, petting and gathering them into her arms.
She was relating the car dealership incident to them and reveling in their raucous laughter when she finally succumbed to sleep.

Elsie awoke to the rebounding bedsprings, bouncing millimeters from her face.
Fighting the urge to erupt from beneath the bed with her weapon, she waited.
Even the dust bunnies were silent as the woman's subdued crying filled the room.

The bedsprings eventually ceased their bouncing and as the whimpers descended into snores, Elsie extracted herself from
The Land of the Under-bed
.
She waved off the dust bunnies eager to help her, explaining to them that what she would do was a guarantee to their future proliferation.
It was something that she had to do.

So, it was, ignoring their
thrill-kill
cries, that she disengaged herself from the darkness.

Gripping the board, Elsie stepped silently to the head of the stairs.
Below, halfway in her vision was the husband, Mr. Wilson.
She imagined him sitting as the perfect stereotype with a beer in one hand and a remote control in the other, dictating and controlling.

Yet, it wasn't that way.

He was sitting upon the couch...and crying.

Elsie padded down two steps for a closer view.

He was staring at his hands
—
at knuckles still red and patterned.
The television was muted and all she could hear was his occasional question:
"Why?"

Thirty seconds was all it took for Elsie to decide.

For all the world the man was in pain.

Elsie knew that pain.
She
had spent fifteen years with it
—
on the other side of it.
It was the forever pain of guilt and she had no patience for the man's cries.
She hefted the board, anticipating the screams and the
thwack
of wood meeting flesh.

Elsie smiled.

This was going to be a good one.

She reentered the master bedroom and stood above the sleeping woman.
There were new bruises.
Not on her face, no, those were too easily noticed.
The way the woman's nightgown hung, however, provided all the evidence she needed.
The rib cage was a mosaic of blues and yellow and greens.
Hidden enough so that nobody on the outside would notice.

Out of sight, out of mind.

It was the mantra of all those who loved to clean.

It was why the dust bunnies survived.
Nobody in their right mind looked under beds more than once a year.

It was the reason that Elsie had a place to sleep.

Nobody looked under their beds at night.
There were too many thin
gs that could be under there
—
things promoted by fairy tales, movies and nightmares.
Elsie smiled with the knowledge that nobody would ever believe that she spent her nights within
The Land of the Under-bed
.
Nobody would ever know that as they drifted off to sleep, there were Dust Bunnies who listened beneath.

Waiting…

Elsie stared at the bruises again, imagining h
ow the woman's chest must look
—
c
andy apple red, a color that worked on BMWs, but had never seen life in reality.

She glanced toward the door.
The husband was downstairs, sitting and feeling sorry for himself.

Elsie sighed.

She raised the four-foot piece of two-by-four above her head and brought it down upon the woman's face.

…once

Tracy had lived too long with the secret.

…twice

No one would ever believe her.

…thrice

The right cheekbone shattered and blood sprayed from the wound.

As
Tracy
awoke screaming, Elsie moved to the bathroom, dropping the board in the hallway.

The husband's footsteps thundered up the stairs in response to his wife's screams.
As he crested, he saw the bloody board and picked it up.
Staring at it in confusion he advanced into the room, like a batter, ready for whatever.

Finding nothing, the husband rushed to his wife's side, alternately consoling and denying.
Elsie padded down the stairs and slipped out the doggy door.

It wasn't until she was two houses down that she found another doggy door and slipped inside.
She called 911 and reported screams.

As she fell asleep in
The Land of the Under-bed
of a child's room in the house she had made the call from, Elsie listened to the wails of the police siren.
They would enter the house and see.
They would pay attention to the bruises and the blood.
They would fingerprint the wood and find his.
They would notice old and new bruising.

Truly, it was a good day.

Dust Bunny Logic
had been promoted.

If the justice system was any good, the husband would be in prison for a long, long time.
At the very least, away from his wife.

And the dust bunnies would multiply.

All this, Elsie thought about as she fell into a satisfied sleep, wrapped in a cloak of dust bunnies within
The Land of the Under-bed
of a young girl named Nikki.