Unhinged (21 page)

I was now starting the second week of my leave. Jennifer was working, and I stayed home and tried to keep busy. Spider hadn't reached out to me again, making me glad and disappointed at the same time.

I saw Greta Lotz's house on four news reports and Eleanor's house on two other channels. Nothing was mentioned about the president or Dorrick, so I assumed the big secret was still safe. Hordes of reporters were camped out, hoping for a word from either of the relatives. I hated watching, but like the O.J. chase, I couldn't help myself.

Over the past two days, I had decided to break out the ring. The time was right to propose to the love of my life. I had wondered if Jennifer would say yes, but if she hadn't grilled me about Sarah yet, then I had to be in the clear. The guilt was still with me, but I began to think that if I kept my mouth shut, I wouldn't have to explain anything. I promised myself I would never cheat again.

I then asked myself if I was just proposing to appease the monogamy gods, but I had been planning it all along, so I knew it wasn't the guilt factor. Tonight it would happen, and tonight the wait would be over. My frazzled nerves couldn't handle the anticipation anymore.

The traditional proposal would be best. Some men incorporated how the two met by taking them back to that magic place. I couldn't very well do that considering I had met Jennifer because of her sister's disappearance. And if I tried something outrageous, I could end up embarrassing one or both of us. I felt like a moron for using the process of elimination, but I was a detective—it was second nature.

I prepared a new dish for the occasion: broiled salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach. When I was in high school, I had learned to cook gumbo and jambalaya to impress girls early in a relationship but had never ventured to add new dishes to my culinary skills.

I set the table with our good plates and lit two plain purple candles on opposite ends of the centerpiece. My grandmother's crystal wineglasses sat elegantly next to the dinnerware with another glass for water.

Jennifer arrived home at 7:30, still wearing her blue scrubs. She threw her purse on the chair by the couch, and I stopped her before she walked into the kitchen.

“That smells good. Are you cooking?” She tried to peek behind me to see. She still wasn't her normal self, and it worried me. Normally if I attempted a simple, home-cooked meal, she'd have at least ten good jokes.

“Go clean up, and meet me in the dining room. I thought I'd make a nice dinner since I have all this extra time on my hands.” I pushed her toward the hall, then returned to the kitchen for the final touches.

By the time I had the food on the table, Jennifer was changed and watching in silence from the dining room entrance. “This is nice. Did I forget an anniversary or something?”

“Just sit down and let me take care of everything. How was your day?”

“Same as always. Nothing exciting. You know, your cuts are healing up nicely. You should put a little lotion on them so they don't dry out.”

“If you say so.” I sat down with her.

The table was a hand-me-down from Jennifer's mother. It was cherry pine and big enough to fit six people without the leaf. We sat opposite each other on the same corner like we always did. Everything had been served, and I picked up my wineglass for a toast. She clinked my glass with hers, and we took a drink at the same time. I waited for her to try the salmon before I took a bite of mine.

“Oh, this is really good. It's about time you learned more than gumbo.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I had planned to shoot from the hip, without any rehearsed words. Jennifer knew I wasn't a poet, but I couldn't simply hand her the ring and say, would ya? I wanted to do my proposal spontaneously, but now as I sat and gazed at her angelic face, I thought it was a bad idea.

We ate slowly because we rarely enjoyed a home-cooked meal. When we were close to finishing, I warmly mingled my fingers with hers and looked into her eyes.

“What?” She knew I was up to something.

“I got some champagne. You were right; we are celebrating something.” I went into the kitchen, taking most of the dishes with me.

“Oh, shit. What did I forget? I'm usually good about those things.”

I came back in with the champagne glasses full and handed one to her. Jennifer didn't notice what was at the bottom of her glass. Yet.

I held mine up. “I love you,” I said simply.

“I love you,” she returned, then took a sip. “Deck, this is the good stuff. What's going on?”

The object at the bottom of her glass finally caught her eye, and she stared in amazement.

I took my cue to get down on one knee. “Jennifer,” I said as she placed her hands over her mouth, tears beginning to form, “over the years I've come to love you like no one else. Not only have you been my girlfriend, but you've been my best friend, and I couldn't imagine my life without you. My love for you is heart and soul to me. I know you're not knocked up, but will you marry me anyway?”

Jennifer began crying before I got an answer, and I started to well up myself. She bent forward and hugged me, stooping to my level. “Yes, yes,” she said with what little breath she had left. “You can knock me up later.”

I grabbed her glass and drank until the ring fell into my mouth, and then I put it on her finger, holding tightly, knowing this was right.

I
n some moments, the world seemed to be crashing down hard on Spider. At other times, New Orleans was his oyster. The agony of always wanting to be alone yet forever needing another was enough to make him want to scream. Sometimes what he thought was good for him was actually bad and vice versa. He hated who he had become, but he always had to please himself, no matter the evil. He would cry, he would pray, and still he would kill as if someone were winding him up like a walking murder toy. To be in Decland's arms one night, he thought, would certainly deliver him from his cancer.

The owner of the house where Spider lounged was not home at the moment. He sat naked on the sofa and looked around. It was nice. There was new furniture, beautiful art on the walls, and a clean carpet, not like the places he had stayed in the past.

The corroded shack that Decland and the FBI had raided was a shit hole, but it was his shit hole. The squalor he had become accustomed to behind his grandmother's house resembled the lower-class surroundings in which he had been raised when his dad was still alive. But now he had nowhere to go. He was as recognizable as Tom Cruise and, in his mind, a bigger star. Although the goal wasn't to become a media juggernaut. It was icing on his fruitcake. But the owner of this dwelling was his means to an end. This man took him in, no questions asked, no judgments passed.

Spider briefly considered his next move. He had looked up Marcy Latner's address a long time ago. If conditions were favorable, she would be his next victim. He especially wanted this woman because of her status in Decland's life—the girl who took his virginity. That was what Decland had told Spider one night at work; that was what he remembered all this time. The anticipation of taking what was once Decland's and making it his own filled him with a joy that made him giggle.

He revisited a memory of his own first time with a girl. Even at the age of eleven, he had been well on his way to a mental thirty-car pileup.

His dad had mentioned to him that Pamela, the cute ten-year-old two blocks away, was the type of girl he should be trying to screw (his exact words).

That particular day had been overcast as Spider and Pamela had wandered two blocks deep into the trees. She had a crush on him, and he needed to prove to his father that he wasn't a faggot. If he was to put his penis inside her, the reason for doing this he didn't know, then he could brag about his glorious conquest and possibly the beatings would stop.

At first, kissing freckle-faced Pamela had been nice for him but not arousing. He had kissed harder with his tongue, holding her tight, but still nothing. She tried to push him away, but he persisted until they both fell into the dry leaves. Seconds later, she screamed, and he became frightened. Why wasn't she cooperating? he wondered. Why wasn't his dick cooperating?

Gene put his hand over her mouth to stop the screaming, but she bit his finger. No cunt was going to do that to him, and he wasn't no cock-suckin' faggot. He punched her face as hard as an eleven-year-old could, drawing blood. She cried when he hit her over and over. And before he knew it, his penis was erect, and he was able to fulfill his father's wishes. Her blood, her cries, the pain—that was the arousal.

The body was found three months later when some stray dogs dug up her remains. Gene acted as shocked as every other kid in school. His father, never knowing his personal project had even approached the little girl, consoled him by saying that he should have taken his opportunity when he still had the chance.

At that moment, he had been anxious to confess his dirty deed, even if it meant jail time, but he couldn't utter the words. His father kept reading the paper, wearing his stained, torn wife-beater. A faded Angel of Hell tattoo beckoned Gene to spill the beans, but he couldn't even manage an “I fucked her” over his dry breakfast toast. Maybe the beatings wouldn't stop either way.

And now, the fact that Spider had almost been caught two weeks earlier had not bothered him at all. Once it was over, it would truly be over. To be caught would put an end to his own torture, something he couldn't do by his own hand. Getting caught was an inevitable byproduct of his actions, so he wouldn't relent. He was compelled to bring himself closer to Decland Dupree in the only way he knew.

He sat more comfortably on the sofa and unwrapped the aluminum foil holding the second set of nipples he had acquired, the same set he had been holding when Decland had busted into his makeshift home. He placed the frozen areolas on his stomach, covering a three-inch scar near his belly button, and scooted down into a more reclined position. He gently rubbed himself, not fantasizing about the woman but Decland's face on the gay man who had given him sex. His rubbing progressed to a hard stroke until he released himself on his thawing trophies. The two worlds in which he lived were now satisfied for the moment, his homosexual reality and his father's reality.

Spider remained on the couch, carefully massaging the pain in his testicles. There was always discomfort after ejaculation thanks to a particular episode with his dad, the worst beating of his life. When Gene had turned twelve, in a tequila-induced flash of inspiration, his father decided to find a woman to guide Gene as he fumbled around her woman parts.

They had set out for a certain block of Canal Street at one in the morning where prostitutes were known to gather. They crept along in the slow lane until coming across a pale-skinned hooker with a shotgun blast of makeup on her small face. His dad pulled over to the curb and propositioned her, telling her that Gene was sixteen and small for his age.

Gene's whole body shook as if he were naked in freezing temperatures, hoping beyond hope that she would decline. He rubbed his thumbs repeatedly across his thighs as his father tried to convince the hooker that no one would ever find out. He would park the car and take a walk for a while, leaving her and Gene to conduct their business. In his closing argument, his dad convinced her that all boys his age desperately wanted to have sex, and it wasn't an issue of forcing herself on him. He waved a fifty in front of her ruby lips.

His dad nudged Gene to climb into the backseat, and then the hooker got in next to him. A wave of cheap perfume and body odor almost made him gag. They drove down Canal to a closed snowball stand and parked behind it where it was nice and dark. His dad slammed the car door and told the duo to have fun before he walked away.

The hooker asked him what he wanted to do, but Gene's jaw muscles seemed to be clamped down from the nervous shakes. He stared at her with watery eyes. She lightened her expression a little and told him it was okay to be nervous. She told him that she would do all the work, and he nodded.

He kept his eyes forward when she pulled down her tube top, revealing small, paper-white tits in the moonlight. He looked at them, then looked away, feeling as if he were pushing his teeth back into his gums. She began doing the things she was paid to do, but it was all for naught. She stopped when Gene started crying.

His dad had come back to the car in twenty minutes. The fact that Gene was sobbing like a little girl and couldn't manage to complete the transaction enraged him. Gene trembled because he knew what was coming.

After they returned home, he pulled Gene out of the car and tossed him through the front door where he began to backhand his son around the living room.

“I give up,” his dad had yelled. “Are you a fuckin' queer? Are you, boy? My old man used to punish me the same way I punish you when I stepped outta line. Oh, I never had your problem, Sally, but I was a hell-raiser, and my old man used to whup me good and I learned.”