The Girl Next Door (29 page)
I guess I wasn’t her favorite kid on the block anymore.
“Get the tire iron,” she said.
And Eddie did.
They held it to the flames. It was very quiet.
When she judged it was hot enough she told him
to remove it and we all went back inside.
Chapter Forty-Two
I’m not going to tell you about this.
I refuse to.
There are things you know you’ll die before telling, things you know you should have died before ever having seen.
I watched and saw.
Chapter Forty-Three
We lay huddled together in the dark.
They’d removed the work light and closed the door and we were alone, Meg and Susan and I, lying on the air mattresses that Willie Sr. had provided for his family.
I could hear footsteps passing from the living room to the dining room and back again. Heavy footsteps. Donny or Willie. Then the house was silent.
Except for Meg’s moaning.
She’d fainted when they touched her with the iron, gone rigid and then suddenly limp as though struck by a bolt of lightning. But now some part of her was struggling toward consciousness again. I was afraid to think what it would be like for her once she woke. I couldn’t imagine the pain. Not that pain. I didn’t want to.
They’d untied us. At least our hands were free.
I could tend to her somehow.
I wondered what they were doing up there now. What they were thinking. I could picture them. Eddie and Denise would have gone home for dinner. Ruth would be lying in the chair with her feet up on the hassock, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside her, staring at the blank screen of the television. Willie sprawled across the couch, eating. Woofer on his belly on the floor. And Donny sitting upright on one of the straight-back kitchen chairs, having an apple maybe.
There would be frozen TV dinners in the oven.
I was hungry. I’d had nothing since breakfast now.
Dinner. I thought about that.
When I failed to come home to eat my parents would be angry. Then they’d start to worry.
My parents would worry
.
.
I doubt that it had ever occurred to me before exactly what that meant.
And for a moment I loved them so much I almost cried.
Then Meg moaned again and I could feel her tremble beside me.
I thought of Ruth and the others sitting in the silence upstairs. Wondering what to do with us.
Because my being here changed everything.
After today they couldn’t trust me. And unlike Meg and Susan, I’d be missed.
Would my parents come looking for me? Sure, of course they would. But
when?
Would they look for me here? I hadn’t told them where the hell I’d be.
when?
Would they look for me here? I hadn’t told them where the hell I’d be.
Dumb, David.
Another mistake. You knew you might be in trouble here.
I felt the darkness press tight around me, making me smaller somehow, crimping my space and limiting my options, my potential. And I had some small sense of what it must have felt like for Meg all these weeks, all alone down here.
You could almost wish for them to come back again just to relieve the tension of waiting, the sense of isolation.
In the darkness, I realized, you tend to disappear.
“David?”
It was Susan and she startled me. I think it was the only time I’d ever heard her speak to me—or to anybody for that matter—without being spoken to first.
Her voice was a scared trembly whisper. As though Ruth were still at the door listening.
“David?”
“Yeah? You okay, Susan?”
“I’m okay. David? Do you hate me?”
“Hate you? No, ’course not. Why should I... ?”
“You should. Meg should. Because it’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Susan.”
“Yes it is. It’s all my fault. Without me Meg could have gone and not come back.”
“She
tried
to, Susan. They caught her.”
tried
to, Susan. They caught her.”
“You don’t
understand.”
understand.”
Even without seeing her you could tell how hard she was trying not to cry.
“They caught her in the
hall
, David.”
hall
, David.”
“Huh?”
“She came to get me. She got out, somehow.”
“I
let
her out. I left the door open.”
let
her out. I left the door open.”
“And she came up the stairs and into my room and put her hand here, over my mouth so I’d be quiet and she lifted me up off the bed. And she was carrying me down the hall when Ruth, when Ruth ...”
She couldn’t hold back anymore. She cried. I reached out and touched her shoulder.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s all right.”
“... when Ruth came out of the boys’ room—I guess she heard us, you know—and she grabbed Meg by the hair and threw her down and I fell right on top of her so she couldn’t move at first and then Willie came out and Donny and Woofer and they started beating her and hitting her and kicking her. And then Willie went into the kitchen and got a knife and put it right here to her throat and said that if she moved he’d cut off her head. He’d cut her head off’s what he said.
“Then they took us downstairs. Later they threw my braces down. This one’s busted.”
I heard it rattle.
“And then they hit her some more and Ruth used her cigarette on her ... on her ...”
She slid over and I put my arm around her while she cried into my shoulder.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “She was going to come back for you. We were going to figure something out. Why now? Why’d she try to take you? Why’d she try to take you with her?”
She wiped her eyes. I heard her sniffle.
“I think because ... Ruth,” she said. “Ruth ... touches me. Down ... you know ... down there. And once she ... she made me bleed. And Meg ... I told Meg ... and she got mad about it ... real mad and she told Ruth she knew and Ruth beat her again, beat her bad with a shovel from the fireplace and...”
Her voice broke.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it. She should have gone! She
should
have! I didn’t mean for her to get hurt. I couldn’t help it! I hate it when she touches me! I
hate
Ruth! I
hate
her. And
I
told Meg ... I told her what she did and that’s why they got her.
That’s
why she came for me. Because of me, David. Because of
me
!”
should
have! I didn’t mean for her to get hurt. I couldn’t help it! I hate it when she touches me! I
hate
Ruth! I
hate
her. And
I
told Meg ... I told her what she did and that’s why they got her.
That’s
why she came for me. Because of me, David. Because of
me
!”
I held her and it was like rocking a baby she felt so frail.
“Shhh. Easy. It’ll be ... okay.”
I thought of Ruth touching her. I could picture it. The broken, helpless little girl, unable to fight, the woman with the empty glittering eyes like the surface of a fast-running stream. Then I blocked it from my mind.
After a long while she subsided.
“I have something,” she said, sniffing. “I gave it to Meg. Reach over behind the far leg of the worktable. Past where Meg is. Feel around.”
I did. I came up with a pack of matches and the two-inch stub of a candle.
“Where’d you ... ?”
“I rooked it off of Ruth.”
I lit the candle. Its honey glow filled the shelter. It made me feel better.
Until I saw Meg.
Until we both did.
She lay on her back, covered to the waist with an old thin dirty sheet they’d thrown over her. Her breasts and shoulders were bare. She had bruises everywhere. Her burns were open, liquid oozing.
Even in her sleep the muscles of her face pulled her skin tight with pain. Her body trembled.
The writing glistened.
I FUCK FUCK ME
I looked at Susan and could see she was going to cry again.
“Turn away,” I said.
Because it was bad. All of it was bad.
But worst of all was not what they’d done to her, but what she was doing to herself.
Her arms were outside the sheet. She slept.
And the dirty jagged fingernails of her hand worked constantly and deep against her left elbow all the way down to her wrist.
She was tearing at the scar.
Tearing it open.
The body, abused and beaten, was turning finally against itself.
“Don’t look,” I said. I took off my shirt and managed to bite and rip my way through the seam. I tore two strips off the bottom. I moved Meg’s fingers away. I wrapped the shirt tightly twice around her arm. Then I tied it off top and bottom. She couldn’t do much damage now.
“Okay,” I said.
Susan was crying. She’d seen it. Enough to know.
“Why?”
she said. “Why would she do that?”
she said. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know.”
But I did, in a way. I could almost feel Meg’s anger at herself. For failing. For failing to get free, for failing herself and her sister. Maybe even for being the sort of person this could happen to in the first place. For allowing it to happen and thinking she’d get through it somehow.
It was unfair and wrong of her to feel that way but I thought I understood.
She’d been tricked—and now that good clear mind was angry with itself.
How could I have been so stupid?
Almost as if she deserved her punishment now. She’d been tricked into thinking Ruth and the others were human in the same way she was human and that consequently it could only go so far. Only so far. And it wasn’t true. They weren’t the same at all. She’d realized that. Too late.
How could I have been so stupid?
Almost as if she deserved her punishment now. She’d been tricked into thinking Ruth and the others were human in the same way she was human and that consequently it could only go so far. Only so far. And it wasn’t true. They weren’t the same at all. She’d realized that. Too late.
I watched the fingers probe the scar.
There was blood seeping through the shirt. Not too much yet. But I felt the strange sad irony of knowing I might have to use the shirt to tie her up again eventually in order to restrain her.
Upstairs, the phone rang.
“Get it,” I heard Ruth say. Footsteps crossed the room. I heard Willie’s voice and then a pause and then Ruth’s voice, speaking into the phone.
I wondered what time it was. I looked at the tiny candle and wondered how long it would last.
Meg’s hand fell away from the scar.
She gasped and groaned. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Meg
?
”
?
”
She opened her eyes. They were glazed with pain.
Her fingers went back to the scar again.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t do that.”
She looked at me, not comprehending at first. Then she took her hand away.
“David?”
“Yes. It’s me. And Susan’s here.”
Susan leaned forward so she could see her and the corners of Meg’s mouth turned upward in the palest ghost of a smile. Then even that seemed to pain her.
She groaned. “Oh God,” she said. “It hurts.”
“Don’t move,” I said. “I know it does.”
I drew the sheet up to her chin.
“Is there anything ... anything you want me to ... ?”
“No” she said. “Just let me ... Oh God.”
“Meg?” said Susan. She was trembling. She reached across me but couldn’t quite reach her. “I’m sorry, Meg. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Suz. We tried. It’s okay. It’s ...”
You could almost feel the electric pain run through her.
I couldn’t think what to do. I kept looking at the candle as though the light would tell me something but it didn’t. Nothing.
“Where ... where are they?” she said.
“Upstairs.”
“Will they stay? Is it ... night?”
“Almost. Around dinnertime. I don’t know. I don’t know if they’ll stay.”
“I can’t ... David? I can’t take any more. You know?”
“I know.”
“I can’t.”
“Rest. Just rest.” I shook my head.
“What?” she said.
“I keep wishing there were something ...”
“What?”
“... to
hurt
them with. To get us out of here.”
hurt
them with. To get us out of here.”
“There’s nothing. Nothing. You don’t know how many nights I ...”
“There’s this,” said Susan.
She held up the arm brace.
I looked at it. She was right. It was lightweight aluminum but if you took the pole end and swung the jointed brace you could do some damage.
Not enough, though. Not against Willie and Donny both. And Ruth. You couldn’t underestimate her. Maybe if they were nice enough to come in one at a time with a couple minutes’ breather space in between I might have had a shot but that was damn unlikely. I was never much of a fighter anyway.
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