Fear Itself (14 page)

Amber, of all people, had agreed to watch Sarah so that I could play security guard. “And no touching.” She playfully warned me (referring to Melanie) before she kissed me passionately and patted my behind, sending me off with my loaded pistol to guard her Beautiful friend. She had given her detective the slip again, this time by paying a valet to drive her car to the opposite side of the mall and wait for her as she passed from one entrance to another on the opposite side. The detective was left to chase her on foot for twenty yards or so before realizing the futility of his efforts. She was a clever girl, but how long could she keep it up?

We arrived at the job, a large hotel in downtown Wichita. A valet parked our car and we took an elevator up to the room. I held a small portable stereo in one hand and a satchel of costume attire in the other. When we arrived at the room I knocked and asked to speak to Jeremy, the organizer of the event. Jeremy was a tall neatly dressed twenty-something with a trimmed black beard and a bony face. He handed me a wad of money which I counted out to be six hundred dollars and then I looked at him with a firm smile.

“Rules.” I said. “Rules?”

“No touching unless she initiates it.” “Okay.”

“If she says stop, then they remove their hands.”

“Okay.”

“If anyone gets rowdy you calm them down or we leave; no refund.”

“Okay.”

“I will stay in the room at all times.” “Okay.”

Jeremy walked us into the suite to a host of youthful whistles and cheers. The room was crowded with well dressed young men holding cans of beer and glasses filled with mixed drinks. I ushered Melanie into the bedroom and folded my arms and guarded the door from outside.

“Would you like a drink man?” A fair-haired gangly pock-faced boy in blue-jeans and a white dress shirt held out a can of beer.

“No.” I said stoically, trying to portray a tough façade despite the fact that I could have very well used a tall scotch on ice to calm my nerves. I felt absolutely ridiculous, like the third cog on a motorcycle or a chaperone at a prom. As I saw it those boys were frothing at the mouth fantasizing about what they wanted to do to little Melanie and I was the unqualified guardian of her precious body. I stood stone- faced until Melanie came out of the room. She was dressed in a tight black leather bodice, black fish-net stockings and black stiletto heals. I plugged the boom box into a receptacle near the front door and I watched as Melanie slowly stripped to Joe Cocker’s rendition of “You can leave your hat ”; I watched as the young men shifted in their seats and awkwardly covered their laps in vein attempts to hide their arousal. Melanie stripped the groom down to his underwear and planted him on an armless chair in the middle of the room and gave him a lap- dance. Afterwards Melanie gave a few more lap dances at twenty dollars apiece and then she went back into the bedroom and changed into her street clothes and we left.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” “No, I suppose not.”

“So how did you like it?” “You have a Beautiful body.”

She smiled at me as she soaked in the expected compliment.

Sitting in the front passenger seat now, she reached over and hugged me, “Thanks, she smiled up at me and I couldn’t help but smile back at her. I could tell that she was looking for a father figure. She was seeking approval. What a strange sensation; a Beautiful naked young girl showing off her fertility and sexuality and seeking approval from her father figure. I was completely confused. I was torn between wanting to sleep with her and wanting to protect her. Given my dreams of late the last thing I needed was Melanie blurring the lines between paternity and intimacy.

The second party was at a house in an upscale neighborhood. It started much the same as the first with me guarding a bedroom door while Melanie changed into a white maid costume with a top that thrust her bosoms awkwardly forward. She wore bright red lipstick and a little nurse hat. She danced and stripped and she ground her pelvis against the bulging briefs of the young groom-to-be until a crowd gathered round her and obscured my view of her. The young men were jeering and hooting and screaming but through the noise of the party I heard Melanie’s muffled cry from within the circle and then I felt a thud to the back of my head and apparently I blacked out.

When I came too I was in the passenger seat reclining while holding a bloodied towel over my nose.

“You did great in there.”

“I’m sorry; what happened to me?” I lifted the towel and looked confusedly at the blood drenched garment that was in fact the white v-neck t-shirt that Melanie had worn into the house. I felt a hard throb about my nose and I pressed the t-shirt back to my face. I looked outside the window as large Beautiful houses with fancy landscapes passed my line of sight.

“You don’t have to apologize.” She sounded to me a little dejected.

“What happened? Are you alright?” my voice seemed to me to be nasally as though I had a cold, “It sounded like you were trying to yell for help. That’s the last thing I remember.”

“I
was
yelling for help.” “What did they do to you?”

“One of those fuckers stuck his fingers up me. The nervy little bastard, and the others were groping me and one of them put his hand over my mouth.” She pounded the steering wheel in anger with her little palm and then she drew a long sigh, “I’ll be okay.”

“I should have stopped them from crowding around you like they did.”

“How’s your nose?” she reached out to touch it but I pulled away.

“Someone must have knocked me out before I could get to you.”

“Yeah right! You were great! Lonny would never have done what you did!”

“What did I do?” I was completely in the dark.

“You kicked some ass, that’s what you did. Those bastards are sorry they ever messed with you.” She laughed as if she were reliving the moment.

“What do you mean ‘I kicked some ass’?”

“I mean you beat the crap out of three of those guys, but when you shot the gun through the ceiling those little rich boys shit themselves and scattered.”

I reached down and felt for the little twenty-two caliber pistol. It was still in my pants pocket. “I don’t remember that. You’re just saying that so that I won’t feel bad.” I scoured my brain for the slightest flicker of a memory; the least recollection. “I don’t remember a thing. The last thing I remember was hearing you call for help, and then someone must have hit me on the head.”

“You were an animal.” “I was, huh?”

“Yeah.” She smiled as she slowed the car for a red light.

“You’re not just trying to make me feel better?”

She reached over and kissed me on the cheek then looked into my eyes reassuringly, “You were wonderful.”

“What about the police? Won’t they be calling the police if I shot a gun in their house?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think they want anyone to know that they tried to rape me.”

* * *

Sarah and I stayed with Melanie through the Thanksgiving holiday, enjoying a wonderful feast and a crackling fire. Amber came by for a little while too, although I was beginning to feel like the kept man, always waiting for her to steal time away from her family to get to see her. I could see that our part-time arrangement was going to put a strain on our relationship. I didn’t like the idea of sharing a woman with her husband. I’ll admit that he had her first, but I was beginning to feel lonely. Melanie had made a few overtures, but as enjoyable as sleeping with her might have been, it wasn’t sex that I desired; it was love and comfort and affection. I missed what Catherine and I had shared. In Amber’s defense she had not invited me. I had begged her for help, and in my position as a fugitive from justice I was powerless. I was at her mercy. I knew that she had three children who she loved. I knew that if she left them for me that justice would follow her to me. It was all so unfair. I hadn’t killed my wife but I was destined to live the life of a refugee, constantly at the mercy of others.

And except for the occasional once a week romp my relationship had hardly changed from the time when we lived a thousand miles apart. We still spent far more time on the phone together than we did in close quarters. When we did spend time together it was wild and intimate and incredible, but she would inevitably leave me in the wee hours of the morning and I would wake up alone; or worse yet, rushing to cover my nakedness as I heard Sarah approaching.

Melanie was disappointed when we moved out of her house, but we had spent a month there and Amber was finally able to rent a house for us. Much as I came to enjoy Melanie’s company and her cooking I was happy to have a place of my own away from the temptation of her subtle advances. I went with Melanie on a few more jobs and her naked beauty only made my fidelity to Amber more difficult, but she eventually found a replacement for me as I had requested. Working security was obviously not the kind of work to which I was well suited. I worried about my blackout. I wondered if I had developed a brain tumor. I wondered, if someone could clump me on the head and cause me to go berserk, what else I might I be capable of in such a state. Such work was not for me. Besides I didn’t need to draw any unwanted attention to myself. If I had gotten pinched for fighting I was going home to Willoughby in handcuffs.

The house that Amber had rented for us was just a few blocks from Melanie’s home. It was actually the second floor apartment of a two family unit, a white colonial with a two story front and back porch. The house was far from modern in its finish with its beige paint and its plaster and plastic tiled walls both in the kitchen and the bathroom, not to mention the old white painted cupboards in the kitchen, but the rent was cheap (four hundred dollars a month) and the neighborhood was safe enough. The floors were oak and cold to the bottom of our feet in the mornings and the bathroom tub was a squat, but deep, claw-foot cast-iron antique, but Sarah loved the tub because she could fill it to her neck and almost swim in it. For me it was too short and caused me to bump my knees to my chin when I sat, but as there was no shower I resigned myself to get used to this little discomfort.

The apartment came furnished with beds and dressers and the drabbest of plaid living room furniture which we were welcome to replace if we wished so long as we didn’t discard the old (but rather stored it in the basement). As funds were dwindling and I had not yet found a cash-paying job I resigned myself to the poverty of our situation indefinitely.

We celebrated that Christmas at Melanie’s house as well. Sarah helped Melanie in the kitchen while I sat lazily in the living room watching holiday movies in between stoking the fire. Amber had promised to stop by, but as I expected she failed to show and once again I felt like the forlorn lover. But with Melanie at my side and Sarah sandwiched between us we almost seemed like a family. Melanie’s actual family had discarded her as the black sheep after she left what she described as an abusive home life as soon as she turned eighteen. She had no family to speak of except for the dysfunctional fraternity of girls with which she danced, and of course

Amber. So the holiday was a bit melancholy for all of us as Sarah and I mourned our first Christmas without Catherine. By the end of the night, filled with a glorious turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy and cheese covered cauliflower and too much spiked eggnog, I fell asleep with my head on Melanie’s lap, her fingers stroking and combing through the hair on my head, and Sarah asleep on my lap; the three lost shepherds.

After the holidays I began to look for work. I wondered what sort of work I would be able to find with my undocumented status. I was worth little more than an illegal immigrant. I had no skills to speak of when it came to manual labor. Sure I had assisted my father while he did electrical wiring when I was a boy but I had learned very little besides pulling wire and installing receptacles. Furthermore, it was such hard and grueling work and I watched my father get zapped with electrical current on many occasions and although he took it like a man I could tell by his grimace that the experience was not a pleasant one. But truthfully there were few options. I could go back to guarding Melanie but that whole affair was a time bomb waiting to explode.

I scoured the newspaper for labor ads and called one after another from the house phone that Melanie had put in her name (the apartment was also leased in her name as were the other utilities). As I phoned potential employers I disregarded all of the companies that had receptionists to answer their phones. I knew that those companies were too big to consider paying me under the table. When I ran out of ads from the newspaper I scoured the phone directory. I dialed number after number until I heard a grungy sounding workman-like voice.

“Tony’s Electric.” It sounded to me as if I had called him on his cell phone as I heard noises in the background (the shrill high pitched squeal of a circular saw and the pounding of a hammer) that indicated that he was at a construction site.

“Are you hiring?”

I heard an extended breath, “I might need a laborer.” He said with a Bostonian sounding accent.

“How much does it pay?”

“How many years have you worked in the trade?”

“Four summers…with my father.” “Maybe ten bucks an hour for the right person.”

“Can you pay cash?”

“Are you from the labor department? No, I can’t pay cash.”

“I really need the job.”

“When can you meet me? I gotta see if you got what it takes.”

“What does it take?”

“Hard work. Show up on time. Don’t ask, just do. That’s what it takes!”

I met Tony at a fast-food restaurant about twenty minutes from my house. He was a large hulking Italian man with a wide squat nose and a broad bull face. He had dark skin and a husky build. I was immediately intimidated by him. My interview consisted of Tony grabbing my wrists and looking at my “pussy” hands and telling me that I wasn’t cut out for the kind of labor he needed; to which I replied with a tone of desperation:

“I need the job.”

“What are you, like forty? You said you worked two summers with your old man. I thought you was a kid. Don’t you have nothing you know how to do at your age?”