TheRapist (20 page)

Manny

Palm trees swayed, moved to distraction by the heat of the Los Angeleno sun as Manny eased his convertible out of one of the parking lots adjacent to LAX and headed for the 405. He had no time for jet lag, there were too many things to do, but he needed something, so he pulled off the freeway and stopped at a 7-Eleven to grab a Big Gulp and a couple of sticks of beef jerky. He had never eaten it before but had always wondered why it held such charm for so many consumers. His teeth, veneered to perfection, tore at the jerky, like a dog with a meaty bone. It tasted sour and dead and he spat it out, downing the Big Gulp in two or three
swallows
.
Lurching
back onto the freeway, his foot
found
fifty five within seconds. The sun beat down on his sweaty head. It felt good to be home. Devon would soon be back from her book tour. Meringue would visit him whenever he wanted. And he had found solace in Frankie. Three women, who somehow
had all touched a nerve in him,
making him realize that he could experience true feelings. This was a great day. Now he could choose and as much as Devon tormented him with desire and Meringue was all too willing all of the time, he felt as though Frankie was the one for him. He would send for her and she would come and they would live together and he would love only her, foregoing all others. How would he break it to them? Meringue would be in pieces but Devon probably wouldn’t give a shit. 

He had made up his mind. Now he had things to do, plans to make. This was a decision he could make completely on his own, one where he didn’t even
need to seek the advice of Dr.
Feltz! She had always said that the time would come when he would be able to decide for himself. In fact, she had been telling him that for years. Come to think of it, that was pretty much all she had ever said. He couldn’t recall any suggestion as to what he could do to put a permanent cease to their twice weekly rendezvous.

He jerked his car off the 405 and headed east along Santa Monica. It really was a beautiful day. Blue skies, yellow sun, a clear head, what more could a person want out of life? He drove straight to his office, pulling in to the first available bay, the parking lot eerily quiet on the weekend. Manny felt the excitement surging through him as he rode the elevator to the 20
th
floor. Striding out of the elevator, he pushed open a bar across the door that led up a flight of stairs, leaning heavily against a second door that opened onto the roof. Then he was outside and could see for miles, for even the smog had taken a hike. Manny had a view of the world. It was splendid and bright and full of promise.

‘What a perfect day!’ he bellowed to the skies as he hurled himself over the railings to his death.

*

Suspension

Concurrently,
Mr. Birdman was being cremated in Essex, Manny was laid out in the morgue in Los Angeles, Adrian was making his way to
Jezzy
as she was running for cover, Frankie’s mind was blossoming to her future and Mary w
as changing her mother’s diaper and
a plan
e containing Devon Cage was on its way to
LAX.

*

Jezzy

Was Rash dead? Was he just hurt? What on earth had she done?
Jezzy
felt as though her head was exploding as she sat on the damp, dirty ground beside the dusty railway tracks. She felt like she was in an episode of Prison Break, as she looked upon her filthy
, monochromatic
surroundings with a new outlook. Every dank drain and greasy grate could be the opening to a new life, leading to a brand new place. Couldn’t it? Was it that she had to wallow in the mire before finding her liberty?

She had walked for what seemed like hours, miles, months and now the sun was as low in the sky as it could possibly be, before being declared the winner in an inappropriate game of limbo. Very soon it would be swallowed by the ever constant night and disappear for the duration of darkness. She wished fervently that she too could disappear. Just
evaporate
and re-emerge some years later as a reborn person, because now, sitting on the edge of the darkening railway tracks, all she knew was that Adrian was on his way back to her and she was on the verge of being arrested. Would self-defence be enough to keep her freedom? Her heart was pounding. Rash’s probably was not. She had never done anything even remotely wrong in her entire life! What had happened? Who had she become? And why?
She opened her mouth to scream but there was no sound.
Her mind was a maze. What a horrible cliché. She must be like an earthquake before it rips the earth apart? Silent and still before the torturous onslaught. Perhaps she was made of teutonic plates. Maybe she should be measured on the Richter scale? She must have had a brainstorm, causing her mind to collapse. Surely if that were the case then she would not know it? Crazy people think they’re sane. Don’t they?

Things had never felt quite right since Adrian came into her life all those years ago. Perhaps her mind had started to unravel back then? Maybe a thread of her brain had been trap
ped since
that very first day they had met and it had been unwinding ever since? It was his fault! Adrian. Not really much of a surprise with an anagram of a name like that. He was so draining. A drain. Adrian Grey. A grey drain. He was a drain on the minds of people.

And for that he must be punished.

She stood up from the tracks, brushing down the debris from her clothes. Now she just need
ed
to brush it away from her mind.
The way back had to be the way forward.

Turning around, a strange glint in her eyes, she headed back the way she came
, silently screaming as she flew
along the tracks
.

*

Frankie

Frankie hadn’t
heard from Manny
for
a while
and then she received two messages on the same day.

One was a group email to all of Manny’s contacts to say that he was dead.

The other was a
bright
blue line
on a
peed-on
stick
that let her know she was having his baby.

*

Devon

Somewhere between Greenland and Vancouver, above clouds as succulent as a mound of freshly baked meringues, a flight attendant took Devon aside to give her a hand massage. She was of medium, nondescript height, and her name badge revealed that her name was Mina. Her hands were as cold as ice and her fingertips felt slightly gritty, as though she had been scrubbing floors without gloves. As she began to apply the creams and oils from Devon’s fingertips to forearms, Devon wondered why she was just sitting here and allowing this to happen. It really wasn’t pleasant, yet it should have been. A hand massage in the centre of the skies should
literally
be an uplifting experience.

‘I’m supposed to tell you about these creams I’m using,’ murmured Mina, ‘but I’m going to be thirty in five years.’

Devon stared at her dark complexion and angry, spotty chin.

‘You’re only twenty-five now,’ she said, ‘focus on that.’

Mina tried massaging in some more oil. It was still cold. Devon thought that surely Mina’s hands should be soft and smooth if she was doing this to people all the time? She looked so troubled, with her gristly fingers so unsure of what they should be doing.

‘Is something wrong?’ Devon urged, gently.

Mina carried on rubbing at Devon’s wrists and said, ‘You know those reptile houses you get in the zoo, there’s this thick glass between you and the snakes but you still feel a bit wary, and the hairs on your neck stand up anyway?’ she stopped for a moment and looked directly at Devon. Her eyes were very dark and she had the beginnings of deepening circles around them. Her mascara was crusty and starting to crumble slightly onto her cheeks. She looked grubby but Devon felt an odd stirring of something that might resemble compassion and so she nodded to Mina to carry on. ‘I still live at home with my mum, but my sister-in-law lives there too and she is like one of those reptiles in the zoo and my mum and I, we’re so wary of her all the time. I know she wants me to move out so she can have my room for her baby, which she doesn’t have yet, she’s not even pregnant, but I feel so uneasy around her and I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford to leave and I don’t want to leave my mum with her anyway.’

‘Poor Mina,’ Devon spoke softly, at odds with herself
, knowing that this was a girl of honour and old fashioned values
. ‘Don’t leave your home because of your sister-in-law. You stay there with your mother until you meet the right man.’

Mina rubbed a little more, almost grazing Devon’s forearm with her own rough skinned fingertips. ‘I don’t think I’ll meet anyone.’

‘You won’t if that’s your attitude Mina,’ shrugged Devon as she took the bottle of oil, poured a little in her own hands and began to massage it into Mina’s dry knuckles.

Mina gazed at her, ‘I can’t believe you’re calling me by my first name,’ she whispered, ‘ none of my clients ever do that, they’re never here long enough to even remember my name. I don’t know what to do for the best.’

Devon massaged Mina’s hands and arms with long, deep strokes. This girl was
teetering on
the threshold of a troubled mind and she wanted to help her before it was too late. ‘Stay where you are Mina, don’t give in to other people. Do what makes you happy and that will make you strong. You just wait and one day you’ll meet him and then you can move out. Just make sure you take care of yourself, use lots of hand cream and stay soft. Inside and out.’

A glimmer of hope appeared in Mina’s eyes. ‘Thank you, you have made such a difference to me, nobody has ever spoken to me like this before.’

A brief scene in the skies. One that had
strangely
touched Devon’s heart and through it, at least one women now knew where she was going.

Touchdown. The plane grazed the stifling, blue-black tarmac in the City of Angels.

A great cloud of heat enveloped Los Angeles, encompassing everything within its reach, suffocating the unsuspecting inside a faux shroud of rich, tropical escapism.

Dreamland.

The stuff of which nightmares are made.

A perfect backdrop for the trouble in mind.

Devon was back.

But how much further did she have to go to get away from herself? If only she could turn the final corner, leaving the rest of herself behind.

Her book was a great success. Her mind was shattered and she had been lost for so long, somewhere inside her head.

Now she must only ever be true to herself.

She had started. Now she must finish.

*

Jezzy

Jezzy
awoke in a pool of her own sweat. Ice-cold rivulets ran down her neck, resting momentarily in the crevices of her collar bones, then overflowing down to her chest, between her breasts, ending in trickles across her soft belly, the nightmare viciously waking her up. Thoughts raced from her mind as it was still caught in that strange, half-lit, halfway house between being awake and asleep and she could only manage to capture remnants to prove that it had been nothing more than a bad dream. Pulling the damp, worn out sheets from her body, she swung her legs around dizzily to escape f
rom the clutches of the bed and
damp, suffocating sheets. Catching sight of herself in the murky glow of the dressing table mirror, she grimaced at her lost reflection. Stumbling to the window, she grabbed onto the thick, blue velvet curtains and ripped them open, the sudden vibrance of unexpected sunshine knocking her back as it raged through the glass
, casting
light
to
sweep away the shadows. The strength of the sun was her saviour and she sank to the soft, peach carpet to let the natural light surge through her body and then she knew what she had to do.