Vein Fire (21 page)

CHAPTER  34

Dogs

With a palm on the back of Jared’s neck, the policeman pushed him into his holding cell. Jared cooperated, yet he couldn’t help but remark upon the excessive time the officer had taken when searching his crotch during the pat-down. Pissing off the officer resulted in Jared being mishandled and he hit the side of the wall. A bruise waited to seep through his skin tissue on his face. Such a thing was an asset when you were in Jared’s position. The cell door slammed and the officer walked out of sight.

Jared raised his cuffed wrists in frustration. “Great! How the fuck am I supposed to take a piss?” Hysterical laughter echoed out of his chest, down through the other cells. Someone yelled at him to shut up. “No, YOU shut up,” he screamed back as he laughed, pacing his cell.

Jail did not bother him, nor did the hospital. The only thing etching regret into his anxiety was the thought of not seeing Hannah fulfill her destiny. Everything was going as he had planned—better actually—and then he was finding himself, “Chained like a fucking dog!” he screamed.

The cement bench formed outward from the wall and was freckled with areas of darker gray stains. Jared gave up and sat on it. Nothing was of any use until his lawyer could get him out of there.

*

Jared was digging up a garden of Hannah in his head—going through what it was like to be with her and explore her body when an officer began unlocking the cell door. The interruption annoyed him; he was just about to gather his fingers around her leafy crown and extract her roots.

“Let’s go.”

Jared smiled. A few inches made a world of difference to him and he slipped past the iron cell door with the movements much like a house cat who knew the contents of every cupboard in the home in which he slept. He could have skipped down the hallway, but he chose to walk with confidence instead. Festering in the system’s guts had only taught him which knotty ropes he could climb, and which would leave him trapped. The lawyer and the law would set him free—nothing else.

The private consultation with his lawyer was short. A brief insistence when Jared exercised his right to remain silent during the questioning was all the lawyer needed to say. Jared rolled his eyes and squeezed out a tight smile. “I
know
.”

The green indicator light illuminated on the mounted camera in the corner of the room. An ordinary man with an ordinary build, wearing an ordinary, but slightly wrinkled, gray suit, entered the room with a cardboard box in his hands. He nodded his head once at them and sat the box on the table. Jared fidgeted with the sole arm handcuffed to the table.

“Jared, I’m Detective Lewis. I’m going to ask you some questions.”

Jared replied with a narrowing of his eyes. The detective removed an overstuffed manila file from the box and began reading it. “You’re no stranger to this, I see. Third time familiar, first time arson.” The detective flipped a few pages. “Oakmont, eh? And you just got out. How did you like it there?”

Jared ignored him. Detective Lewis closed the file and slid it to the side. “You want to tell me about the fire?” Jared fiddled with his handcuffed wrist again, twisting it back and forth. “I guess that’s a no, then?” The detective sighed and leaned back in his chair, his fingertips tethering him to the table as he rocked his chair backwards on two legs—like a boat tied in a dock. “Listen, I’m not going to mess around here. We have your fingerprints on the bottle you threw.” Jared didn’t flinch, but he stopped fidgeting and listened carefully.

“Crisis intervention, your lawyer here, and the District Attorney have all agreed to let the hospital sort you out for the time being—get you back on your medication.” Jared still didn’t respond. Detective Lewis’s attitude shifted. “I thought you might like to talk to me about Hannah.” Jared’s attention flickered, and so did his eyes.

“I sent some officers over to City Hall to pick her up and bring her here to be interviewed. I assume she won’t have a lawyer with her, so maybe you can save some trouble and tell me about her before she arrives.”

Jared’s voice was succinct and on the verge of hissing, “Hannah has nothing to do with this. Hannah knows nothing and you aren’t worthy of even speaking her name,” he spat.

The Detective was quiet, studying Jared. “Heh. You don’t say. Okay, maybe we can talk about something else.” The detective reached into the cardboard box and withdrew Jared’s backpack. He set it on the table and unzipped it. “I guess you can recognize this as your backpack. We’ve already searched it. I found the most interesting box in it.”

Jared’s head turned and his eyes widened with fury as the detective extracted the treasure box full of Hannah’s stuff from the backpack. Carefully, he placed it before him and opened the lid. Pictures of Hannah, a pair of her underwear, and pages torn from her diary were set aside on the table top. The detective unwrapped, and then lifted the section of Hannah’s hair, holding it under his nose. He smiled at Jared. “Pretty. Does she know you took this?”

Gestating rage birthed into something Jared could not control. In one quick movement, he stood, knocked his chair backwards, and climbed the table, kicking his feet at the detective. His foot caught the detective’s arm and the long strand of Hannah’s hair was released into the air. Horror dealt an uppercut and a kidney shot to Jared as his inner monster crept out from the closet in his mind. Tethered to the table by one arm, his other three limbs flailed as the detective and the lawyer sought safety out of Jared’s range. Jared howled and screamed, thrashing about, painfully pulling at his captive arm. If time belonged to him, he would have chewed his own arm off to be free to gather Hannah’s hair.

Two uniformed officers came in and restrained Jared by cuffing his hands behind his back. Each one took a side and dragged him out by the loops of his arms. His feet scuffled and sought the ability to snag his body to a halt. Jared was reintroduced to his cell, face first.

He lay on his stomach, crying, snorting, screaming, and drooling until a large, wet puddle gathered under his face. He calmed down and rested his cheek in the spittle, whispering,
“Little bird, little bird.”

CHAPTER  35

Halves

Hannah stretched on Iris’s couch and ran her hands over the material. “I feel like this couch could swallow me, rinse all of the problems out of me, and spit me back out, freshly laundered—kind of like when Dorothy arrives at Oz and they take the time to clean her up and solve all of her problems. Perhaps I should reach my hand between the cushions to see if I feel a bunch of munchkins running around down there.” Hannah looked at Iris and chuckled. “Okay, I’ll start:

I have to think of Jared in two sections—almost like cutting an apple apart. I know it’s my black and white thinking. I know that. I can’t have him be gray, or whatever color he is, I have to think of him as good Jared and bad Jared—not coexisting in the same body. It doesn’t make sense to me. We made love before he went away. And I know it was love. I’ve never had it that way before—he was gentle and sweet with me. Like he wanted to be with me, and not just for sex. He was kind to me, all of the time…always concerned how I was and he kept saying he adored me and that I was his little bird—sometimes he’d call me his little blackbird. It makes me smile to even think about it.

But there’s the other Jared—the one Matt tried to tell me about and the one that did all of those things this week. The fire in town last week? He did that. He had told me as much. But is he really sick, or just misunderstood? And the police have him painted as some sort of sociopath. They said he had a lock of my hair and a key to my house

He does have to pay for setting the fire. He’s lucky no one was hurt and I’m lucky there were witnesses. I was humiliated when they came to my work. Can you imagine? I could have died. But thank God they didn’t haul me out of there or anything. They just asked me a bunch of questions. He had taken my car and they wanted to know why he had picked that house. I told them about being attacked in there. They never even flinched or tried to take my police report—can you believe it? If they would have asked, I probably would have filed charges. I think my arm cemented it for them; the
y knew I couldn’t have set the fire with a freshly broken arm. Like the self-harm fairy had finally delivered and made me hurt myself to keep me safe. Ha. Not likely, I know.  

Yeah, the arm. I guess there’s no hiding it from you—normal people are suspicious, I can imagine you’d see right through the ‘slipping out of the shower’ lie. Hate builds up inside of me. It gathers between the boroughs of self-loathe, punishment, and the need to feel better. I know it’s sick. I regretted it a couple of times. After it first snapped, it hurt worse on the outside than I did on the inside. That almost never happens. 

I did it because of Matt. He treats me like a whore, even after all I’ve done with him. And his girlfriend? The other Hannah? She’s prettier than I’ll ever be. I can see how he’s not only attracted to her, but he’s comfortable with her—something he never was with me. It makes me feel like a fool for ever thinking there would be anything between us. Besides, could you imagine my parents if they found out I’ve been fucking him? Jesus! They’d kill me.

I don’t know why I seek his approval so much. It’s almost like I need to validate why he did this to me. If he keeps rejecting
me, it must be because I am bad; therefore, I deserved everything he did to me. It’s like I need that from him. I can’t even see living life without getting some sort of acknowledgement from him as to why he hit me with the cinder block.

I went back, you know, back to the cemetery with Jared over the weekend when we went to my mum and dad’s house for a cookout. It was like I was a child again. We rode bikes down to the end of the road to the cemetery and…well, it is kind of a beautiful place now. Maybe in my head it can stay like that. Sometimes it is almost like a shape shifter, switching between the good times and the bad times there. It was my first time back there since the incident with the cinder block. I was nervous at first, but then, it was peaceful. It’s hard to think of a cemetery as such—all of those dead bodies of children beneath my feet—but it was.

I was trying to block the rape out of my mind, well until Bob came. He was picking Donna up for lunch and when she left to go to the bathroom, he shoved his hand down my pants and stuck three fingers inside of me. I didn’t move or even say anything. I was terrified that Donna would find out. I didn’t want to suck his dick the first time, but I had done it. I didn’t say no, I just did it. I could never tell her what I’ve done. I could never face her if she knew I did that to her husband. She’s been such a good friend to me. Maybe she’s the only friend I’ve ever really had and look what I did to her. I don’t know how to even keep simple boundaries with people—who I should fuck and who I should not fuck. Inside of my head, things are so messed up, I don’t know if I’ll ever set them straight with her again, but I can’t let her know.

Tomorrow they’re having another cookout. Bob asked me if I’d sneak off and fuck him. I didn’t answer him. I don’t want to. I know I don’t want to…but if I’m put in that position, I might. I can see that—just sneaking off with him. It’s not the sex for me. It’s the need to have someone think I’m good enough to fuck. That’s how I view sex—a confirmation of something I can’t feel on my own. I equivocate sex with love. Sometimes having it multiple times with one guy isn’t enough, I need approval from many men. And there’s something else—this desire to make a mess of everything. I know I’m self-destructive. There isn’t a star in the sky I wouldn’t rearrange if I could, no matter the consequences. I’m impulsive to begin with and the urge to ruin it all for myself? Humph. It runs deep and wide within me.

And Matt will be there. I don’t even need to wonder if he will for sure or not; I know he will be. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought the other Hannah. It’s hard for me to see them together. I know he never made a commitment to me, but after all we had done together, I felt like there was something more there that would stop him from passing me aside so he could be with someone better.

I did have Jared to help me through it. Honestly, even after everything, I’d take him back. I’m lonely and he filled up a spot beside me where no one had ever sat before. It was nice while it lasted. Oh, I did find the place where he had cut a chunk of my hair away. That does piss me off. But besides that, I feel alone. Empty too—like I swing between being overwhelmed with how I feel and complete numbing emptiness. Both extremes hurt.

God, the past two weeks have been so crazy—the drugs, the rape, the fire, Jared messing with me, and now the police stuff. One more week like this and I really will crack—right down the center, like a halved-Hannah—the good parts and the bad parts separated by a peach seed.

CHAPTER  36

Trap  Doors

The revenge arsonist’s capture made the local news. Matt had been watching in case information about the incident was released. Jared’s mug shot flashed on the screen in-between interviews with people who were happy with the police department’s success. Matt’s plan had trumped Jared’s. By Matt remaining a passive player, Jared destroyed himself. His insanity and desire for Hannah made him carelessly confident. Matt was relieved he was gone and immediately began preparing to lure Hannah back. He broke up with Hannah number two and planned to be at Bob’s barbeque.

Missing Hannah pulled at his gut, but wanting her pulled everywhere else. Once, while she was sleeping at his house a few weeks before, she started talking in her sleep about a revolution. This is how he saw her—eternally battling herself. Matt blamed himself in part, but he also wanted to save her from herself. The parts of her that were fucked up could be fixed and he wanted to try.

Matt sensed that with him, Hannah would never know when bad things might happen. She’d never understand what segregated her life from safe and unsafe. It would be as though she was always sitting on the cracked bench at the park, waiting for the wood to split. As selfish as it was, he still wanted to be with her. Too much of his time was spent figuring out whether or not this was because he was looking for redemption, so he gave up and submitted to his desire to be with her. To do this, he understood that he would have to undo a towering stack of dysfunction. Like pages in books randomly filled with parchment pressed flowers, he would have to sort and learn the stack as he disassembled
it
—disassembling Hannah—with his mind and fingers instead of a cinder block.

*

Bob picked Matt up early so he could help him arrange the tables, move chairs, and stack the wood for the bonfire. Matt wanted to be there when Hannah arrived, so helping with the party preparations worked well. Bob talked a lot, but Matt never listened. As both men loaded wood from the pile along the edge of the woods onto the trailer, Bob was able to chat without the fear of Donna hearing.

“Once Donna gets drunk, she’ll be in the house playing cards with her sisters. I’m gonna take her behind the wood pile and fuck the shit out of her.”

Matt shook his head. “What are you talking about? Why would you fuck Donna behind your woodpile?”

Bob laughed, “Weren’t you listening to me? I didn’t say Donna, I meant that little whore she works with—you know—the girl you went to high school with—Hannah.”

“You were talking about fucking Hannah behind your woodpile?” Matt’s grip tightened on the quartered piece of log he was holding.

“Yeah,” Bob laughed so heartily that he had to take one step backwards to keep his balance.

Matt focused on the piece of wood in his hand and considered striking Bob across the face with it. “Does she want to fuck you?” He started shaking from his anger.

“I doubt she
wants
to, her being friends with Donna and all. But if I get her drunk, I know getting her back here will be easy. Plus, with her, that’s half of the fun part. She’s all scared and shy. I don’t think she’d say no to anyone, so why shouldn’t I try her?”

By knowing this, Matt could stop it. “Yeah, Bob, why not?” He shrugged and went back to loading the wood.

Eventually guests began to arrive so Matt sat at a table where he’d have a full view of the driveway. Some square shaped woman in her late twenties talked to Matt the entire time, despite him ignoring her. She smelled like cheap cigarettes and the faint odor of shit lingered from her. When she started to annoy him, he responded to her for the first time, “You know, you kind of smell like shit.”

The woman did a half snarl, “Excuse me?”

“Shit. Feces. Manure. Whatever it is that comes out of you, I can smell it. Didn’t you wipe your ass very well, or is that your breath?”

“Fuck off.” The woman stood up and walked off, leaving Matt alone at the table with a bowl of potato chips and a half-empty bottle of beer. He kept doing what he did best—watching.

The gravel popped under tires and Matt strained to see if it was Hannah’s car. So many vehicles were parked in the driveway; he no longer had a clear view. He stood and watched as Hannah’s car came to a stop. She got out and shut her door—a large silver pan was carefully held in her one good arm while her casted arm balanced it. Matt ran up to her.

“Here, let me carry that.” As he took the pan from her, they smiled at one another, but Hannah quickly looked at the ground. “What is it?”

“Strawberry pretzel salad.”

“No shit. Did you make it?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m so late.” Hannah held up her broken arm.

“Oh…yeah…how is your arm?”

“Um…still broken…but it doesn’t hurt as much.” She nodded her head, raised her eyebrows and looked at the ground.

“How about we take this into Donna and then we can go sit and have a beer together?”

“Sure.” Hannah smiled with uncertainty, but followed Matt inside the house.

When Donna saw Hannah, she did a drunken trot over to her and gave her a hug. “Hannah! You made it! Oh, and you didn’t have to bring anything.”

“It’s strawberry pretzel salad. I’m sorry, it probably should be cut up but I didn’t want to try to do it before I brought it in the car.”

“No, no, that’s fine. I’ll cut it now and put it out for everyone. There’s food out there—Bob’s been at the grill for the past few hours, and help yourself to a drink. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” Hannah nervously exited the house into the backyard crowd while Matt followed closely behind.

“It’s been getting pretty crowded, but I was sitting over by the one pine tree at an empty table. I’ll grab us beers and you can follow me.”

Hannah wrinkled her forehead, but followed Matt. As he stopped to grab the beer, Bob winked at him and pointed at Hannah. Matt nodded and led Hannah to the table.

“Why did you get four?” she asked.

“Four beers?” Hannah nodded. “You’ll see.” Matt opened two of the beers. “Okay, get ready to drink fast. You won’t be picking your bottle up, so slide in closer to the table.” Hannah slid in. “Ready?” Hannah nodded. “When I tell you, drink it, but you can only touch the bottle with your mouth.” Matt slammed the beer down on the table and it started erupting like a volcano—beer foam frothed out of the top and down the sides, “Suck it down, quick!”

Hannah put her mouth over the top of her beer and drank it as it gurgled out the top. When it stopped overflowing, she sat back and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

“See? You drank half of your beer already. Now chug the rest with me.” Matt raised his beer and waited for Hannah to do the same. “Ready…on the count of three…one…two…drink!”

Matt kept watching Hannah even though his beer was raised upwards as he chugged it. Drinking so fast seemed like a struggle for her, but it made an even more enjoyable sight for him.

She set her beer down and swallowed hard. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“I’m not. Someone else might
though.” Matt lowered his eyes to meet hers. Hannah quickly threw a glance at Bob.

“Will you tell me what you mean?”

“I think you know Bob has plans for you.”

Hannah stopped watching Bob cooking at the grill and bit her bottom lip. She turned on the bench so she was facing Matt. “He thinks he does.” Her left eyebrow arched up for a second.

“Hannah Simmons…there’s fight in you after all.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had enough.” Hannah turned back in her seat and continued to watch Bob.

“Careful with all of that staring—Bob’s gonna think you want him.”

Hannah took a drink of her beer. “It’s not a want. It’s a dare.”

“Trouble like that isn’t a Frisbee; it’s more of a boomerang. Maybe you should be careful.”

Hannah tilted her head to the side and rested her eyes on Matt. She looked him up and down—once. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

Matt could tell Hannah was mad. He’d never seen her like this, and it seemed out of character. Instincts told him that if he pushed back, she’d return to her timid self. “I broke up with her because I want to be with you.”

Hannah’s façade began to collapse. “What do you mean, ‘be with me’? Do you mean fuck me?” Rolling her eyes, she took another drink of her beer.

“No. I mean I like you.”

As she shook her head, Hannah’s chest bobbed with stifled laughs. Her tone was sarcastic, “Yeah—I like you too.”

“No, I mean I love you.”

The beer in her hand slid down in her grasp a few centimeters until she tightened her grip. She wouldn’t look at him. “Stop fucking with me.”

“I’m not. I’ll show you.”

“How can you do that?”

“Go tell Donna your arm hurts and you’re leaving. Tell her I’m driving you home. Leave out their front door and meet me at the car.”

Hannah paused her breathing. Matt reached across the table and lightly touched her fingers. “
Breathe, Hannah. There are no more surprises, I promise. Just do what I said and I’ll show you, okay?”

Hannah didn’t respond to Matt. She stood up and began walking towards the house, her hurt arm pressed a
cross her stomach. Matt waited until she opened the front door, and then he started walking towards her car. Nervousness was an unfamiliar feeling for him, but it cast a scant beam of happiness through the shadows in his mind.