Reprisal (23 page)

A man said something loud in the office. Said something louder--a sort of shout. A door opened, and Joanna heard a voice she'd heard before but couldn't recall. Whoever it was, that man said, "Turn on the fucking lights in there!"

No rope-climbing now.

Joanna got to her feet and started back through the gears and rollers of the conveyor belt's machinery. She worked her way through as fast as she could and was halfway across the space when the overhead lights came on.

"Been in the office. ..." More talk. Men were coming down the passageway beside the processing line.

Joanna got out from under the machinery and ran-her heart thumping, driving her faster and faster-ran down to the end of the processing room, and past the bathroom to the basement door. She shoved the door open as someone coming down the passage saw the motion, yelled after her--and she was through and leaping down the first flight of cellar stairs in the dark.

"You're not getting out of here ... motherfucker!" And they were at the end of the passage and after her in a sudden surge of motion, chasing, chasing ...

boots hammering across the plank flooring.

It was so odd to be pursued, hunted. It was real and unreal at once.--And the men made hunting noises, hunting calls, shouted curses and encouragement as they came after her through the basement door.

At the bottom of the stairs, Joanna reached the garbage barrel in darkness, and wrenched and wrestled with it as men crossed the landing above her. She heaved it rocking on its concrete blocks-then hurt her back and hauled it tipping and over with a heavy flooding gush of rotten liquid that spilled and foamed stinking over her legs.

She splashed through that as the men came down the last stairs--and she was up and into the hatchway-shoved it wider and slid down the chute while men bayed, milling, stomping in the dark behind her.

As she got to her feet on the basement's dirt floor, lights came on along the ceiling, first one rank of hanging bulbs, then another.

Joanna ran down an aisle of bales, reaching behind her as she ran, fumbling in her belt pack for the fillet knife. The first one to find her would get the blade in his eyes. ...

She ran down to the iron loading doors, saw them impossible, dogged and heavily bolted shut-and as she heard the first man slide down the chute, doubled back behind the farthest stack and ran between it and the basement wall, running frantically up that aisle to anywhere.

One man ... two men were in the cellar now, trotting down other corridors of bales toward the iron loading door. She heard a third man calling as he slid down the chute--and she came to her aisle's dead end at the fireplace. She slid the slender knife into the deep side pocket of her coveralls--then ducked down into the wide hearth, down and under ... reached up into narrow gritty blackness, bent her elbows for a first wedging hold ... and writhed and struggled, hauling herself up and in.

She lifted her feet, jammed her left hand down beside her, and shoved, shoved herself up into another wedge for her elbows.--And knees now, her knees in and bracing so she could pull her feet up after her, cramp them into the flue. ...

It was narrow, very narrow.

She was up.

And kept climbing rough abrading inches in darkness ... a measuring worm in an old brick chimney. A slow worm so as not to break ancient carbon deposits loose. Climbing inch by squeezing inch as men's roaming bootsteps, their angry voices, echoed more and more softly beneath her.

"... Hidin' in the goods. Go through the fuckin' bales. ..."

The flue was coarsely mortared and very old, and its edges bit and gripped, worried and tore at her as she worked slowly up. Slowly, so as not to be heard below, not cause a sudden shower of soot. ... She climbed a little higher--and came to a place almost closed with sharp and crumbling cinders.

It felt bad, obstructed and bad, to her left hand, and would need careful passing. Her left glove was already cut across the palm; she could feel she was bleeding into it. And the belt pack was giving her trouble; the chimney flue was too narrow. She'd have to hang the pack from a length of nylon tape, tie that to her ankle, and drag the pack up behind her as she climbed.

Joanna rested, listening. Heard a man's voice ... but faintly. Wedged in, she bent her helmeted head and could barely see beneath her ... see only with her left eye. The dim light entering the fireplace below was not broken by the shadow of someone bending to look in and up.

It had not occurred to them.

She felt a terrible urge to laugh--it was all so dreamlike, so bizarre--as if hearing her, the men would also laugh, wait for her to come down, and be too amused to kill her. ... But then she imagined them being serious, instead, and beating her to death in the basement. She listened, and heard distant voices beneath--shouts, men calling. They'd be going through the hundreds of bales, pulling the stacks apart to find her ... then backtracking up the wooden chute, checking under the staircase, searching the toolroom, the furnace room.

She was safe from them. Safe in the warehouse's body, buried in its bones.--And as she climbed higher, if she came past a bend in the flue to a trapping angle, or even the slightest additional narrowing, she might be kept there, and rest in the brick forever.

Parsons Hall, across the campus, was White River's oldest dorm, three-story stone with a slate roof. Only a few students were assigned to it during the summer. Girls roomed on the first floor, but the upper floors were for boys--with, supposedly, no closed-door visits. ... White River, otherwise anxiously politically correct, had bowed to parents in the matter of boys and girls rooming together. A number of midterm pregnancies and a recent boozy rape had turned the argument.

Charis had gone up the stairs to Greg's room over an hour ago. He roomed alone, summer assignment luck, and she'd climbed the stairs to random music--Pearl Jam being played loudest--along the halls.

She'd gone up, and heard someone else in his room, a girl talking ... sounded like Lauren Gomez. Charis had listened at the door, then gone back down the stairs and outside. She'd strolled around Parsons several times ... thought about her paper, about Cozzens's fondness for the dilemmas of responsible men

... then walked around the building one more time, went inside, and climbed the stairs again.--It was late. Greg was going to get laid, or he wasn't.

He wasn't. Lauren was sounding coy, mulching relationship.

Charis knocked once, and walked in. "Hi, Lauren--sorry to interrupt."

"Oh, hi. ..." Lauren didn't look pleased. She was sitting in Greg's armchair in white punk shorts and a long blue T-shirt, barefoot, her legs drawn up.

"May be de trop, but I need to talk with Greg."

"What about?" Greg was sitting on the side of his bed, looking sleepy.

"Just stuff," Charis said, and went over and sat on the bed beside him.

"Well," Lauren said, "--we were having a sort of private conversation."

"Sorry." Charis leaned over and kissed Greg on the cheek. Sisterly kiss. "You okay, guy? You look tired."

"I am tired ..."

"Paper done?"

"It's done and that's why I'm tired." Sleepy, Greg looked even younger.

"Poor boy." Charis kissed him again. Another sisterly kiss.

"Like I said, we were talking--you know, privately?" Lauren Gomez, dark, black-haired, and very thin, affected Latina waif as her social presentation.

She was not friendly with other girls. Definitely not friendly with Charis.

... They had one class together, Sociology--a bogus course in every college, and particularly feeble at White River. But Gomez was into class participation and sat front-row, representing the Third World. Her accent grew heavier in that class, to the amusement of other Hispanic students.

Charis put her arm around Greg, gave him a little hug. "I understand. "Private conversation."" She smiled at Lauren. "--And believe me, I wouldn't have interrupted except it's something really important."

"Oh, sure.--Greg ...?"

"What?"

""What?"'--Oh, just forget it, man. You can just forget it!" And Lauren was up out of the chair, and going. "I don't give a fuck what you two do."

"Chica," Charis said as Lauren went, "--get some bleach on that mustache. You look like an Airedale."

A failed attempt at door-slamming. The piston closure slowed the swing.

"... Jesus, Charis."

"Sorry--you think those scrawny thighs were going to introduce you to paradise?"

"Well, I had hopes ... I had hopes before you showed up."

"Didn't want to see me?"

"Charis, I always want to see you."

"Nice to hear. ... If you want Gomez, just talk me down hard--I'm crazy, sick with jealousy because you love her."

"I don't love her. ..."

Charis, really fond of him, gave Greg another one-arm hug. "Sweetie, everybody likes being told someone loves them. They always like it, and they always believe it. It's one of life's great mechanical manipulating arms."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Do that.--Don't waste my lessons, Greggis. They were learned in a hard school."

"That I believe."

"Now, speaking of love, we have a problem. ..."

"What problem?"

"Don't look so worried--your little face is all scrunched up. The problem is that you are loved, Greg. You are the object of my poor roomie's affections."

"Come on. ..."

"No, I mean it--and unfortunately, it's not funny. We're not dealing with a skank like Lauren Gomez."

"Hey, I haven't even talked to Rebecca." Greg was awake now, alert. "I never talk to Rebecca."

"Maybe that's what did it! As long as you kept quiet, she could imagine you were something special--not just fairly cute."

"You are a bitch."

"No, I'm busy. And I have a very, very troubled little roommate."

"Hey, like it's my business, Charis! It isn't. I never even talked to her!"

"Makes no difference. She thinks you're wonderful. And the reason this is very serious is that she is very serious about it.--And we're discussing a young girl who has just lost her father and grandfather, and who is probably looking for even a pitiful substitute for those men."

"Thanks a lot." Greg reached over into his bedside table drawer, found a midsize roach, and lit it with a transparent orange lighter. "But don't, please don't tell me I'm supposed to pretend--"

"No, no, no. Absolutely not. That's the last thing." Charis held out her hand for the joint. "What's needed is a very gentle correction--you really like her, she's a pretty girl, a really nice girl, but you're just not ready for a serious relationship." She took a toke.

"Oh, thanks, Charis. That's great.--But what about just ignoring it, letting it go away in its own good time? What about that?"

"Well." Charis passed the joint. "The problem with that is, she has mentioned killing herself."

"... Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Wish I were, Greggis, and don't give me the college-clinic-and-counseling routine. I already tried that one--professional help --and I got a fit of hysterics in return that really scared yours truly. And I'm not an easy scarer."

"What about her parents?"

"Her father's dead, Greg. Remember? Died about three weeks ago?"

"What about her mom?"

"Well, I'll tell you ... I've met her mother, and I can't quite see myself calling Joanna Reed and saying, "Hi. I'm your daughter's roommate--Charis? We met when I drove Rebecca out and you scattered your husband's ashes?--Oh, by the way, I was really sorry to hear your dad was just burned alive. ...

Anyway, the reason I called is, I think your daughter might be going to kill herself.""

"Man. ..." Greg pinched out the joint. "Shit won't stay lit."

"I haven't figured out a really good way to make that call, Greg. I also have a feeling that doing that--telling Mama--is just what might push my roomie over the edge. So, I thought we might be able to defuse the situation, let Becky down easy, and allow truth, common sense, and caring to do their work."

"I don't know. ..."

"Because, I'll tell you, I'm terribly worried about her. I know that's not cool to say, but it's the truth. I just wish to God she didn't go absolutely nuts when I mention seeing somebody at the clinic."

"Not good. But I don't know. ..."

"I want--what I want to do is go to the clinic myself, talk to somebody there about it. It's getting too fucking serious, Greg. I mean, that's all she talks about ... that then she could see her dad again and so forth. I mean really weird sad dangerous stuff."

"Charis, you need to go talk to somebody."

"And if she finds out? When she finds out--what then? ... I don't want to be responsible for a girl committing suicide! I couldn't ... I couldn't stand it, Greg. I know I'm supposed to be the older woman and tough and so forth. ..."

"Well, you are."

"Oh, thanks. But I'm not tough enough for this. I'm worried sick, and I thought if she wouldn't let anybody else help, at least we could try. ..."

"I guess I could tell her what you said--you know, that I think she's pretty, that she's a great girl, but I'm ... I'm just not ready for that kind of serious relationship."

"Greg, I think we have to do that.--Are you going to re-light that joint, or what? ... It may not help her, but at least we're trying, because Rebecca's just making herself sick over it. She's really, really going absolutely off the wall about you, about the whole thing."

"Oh, boy." Greg fell back on his bed. "I really hate to do this kind of shit

... this kind of embarrassing shit."

"What a sophisticated dude.--Greg, you're going to have to learn to let a lot of girls down easy."

"Oh, right. That's really funny, Charis. I'll be doing that a lot."

"Well ... could happen. Rebecca fell for you."

"Right. A nut case."

Charis stood up. "Just give her a call-don't say a lot on the phone, don't go into detail when you call her, or she'll know I talked to you and it's a plot and so forth. ... Just be nice, just say you'd like to talk to her, like to meet her somewhere."