Please Don't Go (32 page)

7.

She had warned against attempting contact with the outside world, but on Monday he could not stop himself from waiting by the door like a tense dog, ready to bark at the mailman and give chase. This time, Zephyr comforted himself, he would be wearing his pants. Perhaps the pants would serve to portray a sense of sanity to the mailman, that he would say to himself, “
This guy
is wearing pants.
I
wear pants. Maybe him and I are okay.”

The slot opened and Zephyr sprang to life, swinging the door open. “You!” he shouted, standing face to face with Trent through the screen door. Trent turned into a statue, like a male Medusa, unable to speak or move his chubby chafed legs away from the front door. “Mailman,” Zephyr grunted, bordering on a quiet verbal madness that reminded Trent of the feral children he had once read about, raised in the wilderness by wolves or goats or chimpanzees. “Mailman!” Zephyr repeated, louder this time.

“
You stay away,” Trent warned.

Zephyr pushed through the screen door, inching forward with his hands outreached, like an ass-backwards zombie who wanted to get
out
of the house instead of
in.
“Mailman,” Zephyr said again, lunging forward.

When the pepper spray blasted Zephyr’s eyes, he screamed for mercy, falling to his knees in the yard, asking of his attacker, “Why can’t you just help?
I need help!
You son of a bitch....” He clung to his searing eyeballs and rubbed the unforgiving liquid in deeper, which he soon regretted. He gasped for breath in his frozen lungs, a cloud of dust floating at the back of his throat, trying to systematically murder him, or so he was convinced. He saw the outline of Trent between his clenched eyelids, a shadow through the wet tears that he was unable to blink away for the paralysis that had been wrought upon his nervous system. The mailman was out of his reach now and Zephyr could hear his elephantine trudging footsteps on the gravel driveway. The engine came to life and he was gone again.

He’s been forewarned. If you think that there’s a savior, then you must know that he is not it.

Zephyr spit on the ground, trying to rid his sizzling mouth of the vile material inside of it. “I don’t need a savior. I’ll save myself, thank you very much.”

You’ll do no such thing. Back inside with you.

She offered a nudge to his waist, a warden warning her most ruthless prisoner that a kick in the ribs was just around the corner. He swiped at the pressure being applied to his side, coughing up a fistful of yellow mucus on to the grass, gasping for an honest breath of air in his invaded lungs and sinuses. She was always in his proximity, ready to goad him at his failures and encourage future ones.

Feed and rest and bathe, if it be your will. I have plans for you this evening. How do you feel about wine? Rattup had quite a collection and I’ve saved a bottle especially for you and me.

8.

“
If the cops aren’t taking this seriously... and you’re not either... well, guess what, sunshine? I’m going out there to kick the door in. If it’s the last place he was, I’m going in like a goddamned paratrooper. And I don’t give two shits what you say. It’s what you should have done days ago,” Lana informed her purported future daughter-in-law. “Maybe if you had a backbone.”

“
I
have
a backbone,” Jackie shot back, offended by the spew being shot at her from the woman who birthed her absent lover. “I have plenty of backbone, but you’re too wrapped up in whatever it is you do to see that. I’m
good to your son
.”

Lana huffed. “Tramp.”

“
Crow.”

“
I’ll be there tomorrow evening... and you can come with me, or I can go it alone. Zephyr’s father has a prior engagement, but I hope that you can spare a moment or two of your precious deluded day to help a woman find her missing son,” Lana said, taking a drag of her cigarette and sneering into the handset of her phone.

“
I’d rather eat my own shit than spend one second with you. He’s not there. I already checked,” Jackie insisted, unable to bite back her words that she would have kept at bay, unlike before. The gloves were off. It had been an emotional week, and Lana was not helping anything at all with her snippy behavior. In fact, it made matters far worse.

“
Well, I can’t be sure you checked hard enough,
dear
. And what a potty mouth on you, huh?”

“
Blow it out your ass.”

Lana laughed out loud, phony to the last drop. “I’m so glad we had the chance to talk. You’re such a delight, and I can’t wait to call you my daughter. Maybe I can slap some sense into you like your
real
mother should have done a long time ago.”

Jackie clicked her cell phone off with a stiff finger. There was no prideful end to an unpleasant cell phone call, the way you could slam the traditional handsets on to the cradle in previous generations. She wished that there was a method to transfix her anger, and so she reached for a bottle of bourbon that she’d been given on the previous Christmas by an alcoholic uncle. She thought twice. Not such a good idea, not at a time like this. Way too cliché, as well.

“
I’ll cut the bitch,” Jackie growled, not recognizing the voice that had come from deep inside of her, filling her guttural throat and belly with rampant acid.
Who was this woman that she had become?
It was at that moment that it dawned on Jackie that she had referred to herself, inwardly, as a woman. For the very first time.

***

“
Guten tag
, Karen.”

“
Zephyr?”

“
The very same. How’s my sweet darling today?”

“
Fuck off, asshole.”

“
If that’s what you’re aiming at, sure as shit.”

“
What do you want? You know you’re pretty much fired from Richter’s, right?”

“
Certainly. No matter. We need a delivery, my sweet begonia. Food,
mostly
.”

“
Oh, really? Take a hike. I’m not in the mood for your games.”

“
Don’t hang up
. You’ll regret it if you do.”

“
Will I? I doubt it, shit for brains.”

“
We need food, Karen. Sustenance.”

“
Who
needs food? Is this some kind of joke?”

“
WE need food, Karen. Charles Rattup and I.”

“
You know...they’ve been looking for you. That bitch girlfriend of yours. Mommy called here, too. What a crock of shit. So what rock are you hiding under, if they come nosing around here again?”

“
You must be quiet. This call is between you and I, if you ever want to see me again.”

“
I’d rather puke on myself, dirtbag.”

“
That’s a lie. But also adorable. Bring us food, Karen. Bring us food and other things.”

“
Other things
?”

“
We want
you
, Karen. We want you so very bad. We can taste you from here.”

“
Are you screwing that old fag? Is
that
what this is about it? I always guessed that about you.”

“
Your arms around my waist. Your lips around my genitals.”

“
Fuck off, Zephyr. I’ll file a report, you watch me... is this
really
you?”

“
In the flesh, my cherry pie.”

“
And you’re at Rattup’s? Is this a fucking prank? Did he put you up to this?”

“
Bring us food, Karen. We’ll pay you in satisfaction.”

“
Oh, is that right?”

“
That’s right. You can picture it. And I can picture you picturing us, locked together.”

“
I won’t let that wrinkly bag touch me. No way in hell. And stop
fucking
with me.”

“
He won’t have anything to do with this, Karen. You and I. Alone. Bring me food. Bring me your body.”

“
And how do I know this is this for real? I’m not
like that
, by the way.”

“
Ain’t you just the Virgin Mary?”

“
If you’re fucking with me, I’ll cut your dick off.”

“
Grab your pen.”

“
What do you want?”

“
The usual, same as the last time. But a few additions. Artichokes, quartered. Black olives, sliced. Three pounds of porterhouse steak. Half a pound of portabella mushrooms. Sausage. Lemon. Garbage bags. Ammonia. Bleach. Salt. And a bottle of chardonnay. You pick the brand. Pick your favorite.”

“
I don’t drink wine.”

“
You will tonight, my lover.”

“
Your dick.
Off
.”

“
The thought of that makes me blossom in anticipation. Hurry up, before I go flaccid on you.”

9.

You haven’t touched a bite.

She had prepared a dinner for them, set atop a card table (since Rattup had no dinner table) that she must have pulled from a crawlspace, the attic, or the basement. The food looked quite fantastic, Zephyr had to admit. Steamed broccoli, a barbecued pork chop, and white rice. Healthy, but also visually stimulating, like all of Rattup’s meals had been. In addition, the previously promised bottle of burgundy wine was poured into silver goblets that reminded Zephyr of the sort of vessel that Henry The VIII may have guzzled mead from. “I’m not hungry.”

Eat. You know that I’ll make you do so, anyway.

“
I don’t eat meat,
dear
.” She did not respond right away, and something in Zephyr told him that she had enjoyed the saccharin pet-name, that it was deceiving enough to skip her heart a few crucial beats in her slimy translucent chest. “I haven’t eaten meat in quite awhile, actually. I swore it off. If we were lovers, as you purport yourself to be, then you would know that already.” He wanted to cross his arms at his chest, as a pouting child may do, but held back on the simplistic urge.

You need your strength. There’s nothing wrong with the flesh and hide of beast. You’re just stubborn, that’s all.

“
I’ll make my own dinner, thank you.” Were he not fearful of the tormenting repercussions she could so easily deliver upon him, he would have spat on to the plate, to land a thick wad of snot on the sizzling pork chop. He had tested the limits enough, and had felt repetitive pain for such actions. In that, Zephyr admitted, she was defeating him.
Breaking him
, as Rattup had called for in his parting written words. If he took even a single bite of her dinner (where had she gained such expansive culinary skills?), then she would see that he was succumbing, even at an infinitesimal level, and she would be delighted to no end. “If I have some of the wine, maybe you won’t look so ugly.” He reached across his table, gripping the goblet, slugging it down in one stinging gush as he stared straight ahead at the empty table setting before him, beyond his own meal, wondering if she was planning to sit down with him and break bread.

Such words. You hurt me, lover. I wish you would approve of me a bit sooner, rather than later. I’m trying. I’m really trying my best.

To his surprise, she did not attack him. Did not grip him. She was saving her wrath for bigger fights. But where was the bigger fight? For certain, the bigger fight was always right around the corner, ready to pounce. There was no such thing as a pacified state of existence in her twisted home. Or maybe she was putting her best foot forward to trigger his love for her over a candlelit dinner, as disillusioned as that seemed to him.

Across from him, he looked again at the empty plate, and an accompanying assortment of utensils. “The fine silver-wear,” he noted, as his mother might have called it in the post-rebellion years of her life. It was the kind of china and dishes that were brought forth only when somebody special was coming for a meal, someone who needed to be give an inflated impression of you and your brood. Grandmothers and grandfathers, bosses and co-workers, the priest after Sunday service. “Are we having guests?”

Perhaps. I would dine with you, but I have no mouth.

“
I noticed. But still you get at me with your words, which is pretty amazing. You don’t have a mouth. Legs. Arms. A head. You don’t have much of anything,” he jabbed at her, while she was in a state of general positivity (interpretation:
not
grinding into his arm flesh with a rusty drill bit).

You’re terrible.
There was something playful, yet domesticated, in her “voice.” June Cleaver, he thought for the hundredth time. She wanted to be a modern June Cleaver—that shining beacon of industrious servitude, at the feet of men but loving and nurturing at the same time. A goddess among mothers. Unfortunately, when she was down near those very same feet of men, she tended to tear toenails out for sheer pleasure. The thought of a grainy black-and-white June Cleaver, hair up in a bun, biting into his thick toenails and tearing them free of his foot sent shivers through his spine.