Seven Deadly Pleasures (13 page)

E
van Shaw was lanky. He had a lean face and boyish sandy hair that was always hanging just enough in his eyes so he could give that haughty jerk of the head to clear it off if the moment suited him. He was a sweater-and-jeans guy, a casual guy, the kind of twenty-seven-year-old that had joked his way through high school, breezed through college with a degree in communications he had no use for, and put himself on track to become a thirty-something man's man, king of the golf outing, lord of the watering hole. He was the phone-tanker at a power tool distributor in West Philly, and it bored the hell out of him. He rented in the 'burbs and cooked a mean paella. He often painted on Saturdays. Oils on canvas. He never showed that stuff to his co-workers, but he and Eddie Boylan, the shipping assistant, sometimes held bachelor parties for no reason.

He had a '96 tan Toyota Corolla passed down to him by his mother, and he always had his stuff tossed around in there because it was a shit-heap. His chest pad, knee protectors, and face mask from the over twenty-one summer hardball league were all still strewn across the back seat along with a dirty squeegee, a black umbrella, an unread copy of
How Football Explains America
by Sal Paolantonio, and a AAA map that he had never taken out of the plastic. Up front, there was a red canvas Staples bag on the floor of the passenger seat crammed with three empty half-gallon jugs made of brown glass. He could still return them to the Iron Hill Brewery if he wanted a discount on some very expensive and very potent Belgian Triple. There were a bunch of old cash receipts and straw wrappers in the change-holder between the seats along with some pens, a clay man figure in a reclining position that his little brother Robert had given him for his twenty-fourth birthday, and a bunch of pennies that looked as if they had been on the bathroom floor of every truck stop in America.

It was the day before Halloween and Evan was driving sort of fast. He'd originally intended to stop at the gas station on Haverford Avenue and do a quick vac job to the old rustbucket, but Horowitz had pinned him at the loading dock with questions about how to properly tag some repairs. It held him up for thirty-five minutes. Evan prided himself on the fact that he got along with everyone: diesels, wise-asses, and even the sensitive intellectual types (usually electricians and specialty carpenters) who came along once in a while in the trades. Still, his sincerity with Horowitz had come off a bit condescending. He would have to work on that.

He hawked up and spit out through the open window while curving past the bowling alley. Now he was going to miss the first hour of Comcast Daily News Live. The T.L.A. Video was way up Lancaster Avenue almost to Villanova University, and by the time he returned the DVD and doubled back to his small apartment in Wynnewood, Michael Barkan would be long done talking about the Phillies and their miracle run. They'd be into that "Quick-Six" bullshit where the reporter looked right into the camera to answer some "funny" little question, as if that wasn't the creepiest thing in the universe, and then they'd digress to the dregs, like interviews with retired basketball coaches from St. Joseph's or LaSalle, or some such dumb shit.

Evan flipped on the radio and hit the four programming buttons in succession. Super Tramp, too queer, Three Doors Down, too predictable, Papa Roach with that annoying way he curled his "R" sounds, and a Journey song that made him want to scratch his eyes out with a fork. Nothing. He had installed a CD player last June, yet anything but Puddle of Mud's "Famous" or Metallica's black album came through the speakers with too much bass no matter what combination you threw on the dials, and he had killed both records with overplay weeks ago. Someday, he would buy a long American car with soft seats, a smooth sound system, and shitty gas mileage. He did have plans.

His nose was bleeding. He recognized it immediately; heavier and quicker than snot, and he could feel a runner drop over his upper lip like a stone. He sniffed in hard, tilted back his head, and felt along the seat for a tissue or something. He'd had a Kleenex box with the cartoon rat from that Disney movie on it, but to the best of his memory it had migrated to the trunk for some reason, there along with an old hubcap, a cheap red and white blanket, a mini-stepladder with rubber tread on the stair grids, and a million plastic water bottles he'd forgotten to recycle.

He strained his eyes down at the road and looked for a place to pull over. He had just passed the D.M.I. Home Supply, and the parking lot for the commuter train was on the far side of the street. The trees were a red and orange blur and the asphalt a slick black mirror with leaves stuck in the wet gutters like paste. Evan almost knocked "Vantage Point" on the floor, and he caught it just in time. He was coordinated for a big, lanky guy. In fact, Jimmy Savoy in accounts payable told him that he was a ringer for the dude who had done those "There's only one October" commercials this year. That guy caught a baseball coming out of the television.

Evan snorted a laugh at himself and instantly regretted it. Hard breathing in any way, shape, or form was not the wisest idea right now. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and cursed himself for not setting up his humidifier earlier in the month. He'd had nosebleeds in the cold weather since junior high school, and he knew better. It's just that he seemed to forget every year whether he was supposed to dig out the humidifier when he brought his sweatshirts out of the closet or when he started actually using the heat all night. He suddenly thought that it would be a good idea to keep a notebook for that kind of stuff. He hated nosebleeds. Even when they stopped, they fucked his confidence for a day or two.

He passed Ardmore Avenue and felt a sneeze coming. This would be an interesting test. Sometimes he had a bleeder for just a minute or so, but now it would be determined whether or not he was going to have a gusher. He moved his head down a bit, studied the road, memorized his position as opposed to the oncoming vehicles across the double yellow line that made
whoosh
sounds on the wet street as they passed, and let his mouth come open.

His nostrils flared out, his eyes squeezed shut, and he sneezed.

No blood, no gusher. He would have felt it immediately.

He opened his eyes to check and possibly realign his position on the road, and he saw something in the afterimage left by the sneeze. It was right on his eyes, like a brand. Behind the image, the road was clear through the windshield, the drooping trees with huge L-cuts in them to let through the electric cables, the dark sky pushing black clouds behind a traffic light suspended on a steel cord, but this thing, this "face" stayed superimposed on all that for a good few seconds.

Evan had two immediate thoughts. First, why is this image in my head, and second, how is it so goddamned vivid?

The shape was the bust of a circus clown with fat cheeks that had red dots on them. The thing was wearing a white party hat with red and blue stripes going up to the tip like a barber pole. There was a golden star at the top on a thin post. The shape wore a skull cap that was as powder-white as the face paint, but there was a clear line where it ended at the top of the forehead and along the temples. Wide eyebrows drawn in arches were colored in solid blue, but that was where the jolly stuff ended.

The brow arches were not located on the front of the face. They were in three-quarter view, almost as far back as the ears hidden by the skull cap. They sat above bulging eyes, wet black eyes bursting out of the head on the sides the way they did on birds. There was no nose, just a furrow with two seed-shaped breathing holes slanted inward. The entire bottom portion of the face was a mouth with no chin. There was a red lip drawn across the top of the maw, and there were teeth, so called. At first, it seemed as if the top row was made of dark, slithery streamers for lack of a better word, like small versions of those rubber strips that dragged over your windshield at the car wash. They were snakes poking out of the gums. The bottom, where the grinding teeth usually stood, was one wide piece of curved bone, sparkling in an idiot's grin. Around the neck, there was a ruffle piece with blue trim and crescent moon patterns. The image stood on Evan's eyes for a moment, then started to fade.

Evan shook his head, hard. He blinked twice and widened his eyes. He touched his upper lip, checking for blood almost in afterthought, and banged a right on Bryn Mawr Avenue. He passed the hospital and the library, then doubled back a block on Lancaster. When he parked in the handicapped spot in front of the video store, he realized he was sweating.

What the fuck
was
that? He wasn't one to like carnivals, and he'd never actually been to a circus. He knew that clowns were also a cliché horror thing, but they had never really interested him in that way either. Political thrillers tickled his fancy more than those jack-in-the-box slashers. He shut the car off and put both hands up on the steering wheel. He'd never paid attention in that high school psych class about Freudian stuff, but he had to wonder how this thing with bird-eyes and greasy-looking snake teeth had made it into his conscious awareness. For something to come into the conscious, didn't it have to be planted somewhere in your experience?

He got the movie and pushed open the door. He stepped in a puddle and soaked his sneaker. He cursed softly. Then he laughed. It was drizzling. He ran his free hand through his hair and it comforted him. He stuck the DVD in the drop slot and by the time he got back to the car the memory of the image had already tapered off. Maybe it was the wind on his face. It felt good. Sweet and damp. Evan loved the autumn. It meant burning leaves, and Thanksgiving, and bare trees scratching art onto a cold, naked sky. Made you want to stop for a moment, cross your arms across your chest, and marvel at the wonder of things.

He pushed back into the vehicle, turned the key in the ignition, and started thinking about change, about possibilities. Maybe he would take a class or something, go back to school, go into teaching. He went for the back exit of the parking lot because there was a light there after you wrapped around. For some reason he liked going home via Lancaster Avenue, and he hated making that left out by Bertucci's against the flow of traffic.

He passed the Viking Culinary Center, pulled up, and waited for the light. Across the street in the Walgreens parking lot, a woman with blonde hair braided in long pigtails got out of a maroon Dodge Caravan with a soccer magnet on the back window. She was wearing a white back-ring halter top, cowboy boots, and a short brown leather skirt with a slit in it. She dropped her keys and bent over. Something in the background moved, and Evan's eyes drifted upward.

There was something in the second-floor picture window. Movement. Colors.

For the second time that day Evan blinked. The Walgreens used to be a Barnes and Noble bookstore. The second floor where the sports books had been along with the children's racks, the brown tables with the wooden chairs only a foot high, and the gourmet coffee shop, was now dark and vacant.

There was a clown up there. He was there in the window. This one had on a big fireman's hat and a mop of bright orange, frizzy hair sticking out to the sides. He had a huge, red bulb of a nose that was tied around the back of his head with a rubber band, and a reflective silver collar piece that rose up almost higher than the back of his head. He was wearing a baggy tinsel-green jumpsuit with oversized buttons that had propellers that moved. His shoes were enormous duck-foot cushions with sparkly, coiled circular twirlers on the toes that gave the optical illusion that they were disappearing into themselves and simultaneously growing as they spun. He had white face paint and black arches drawn high above the eyes that protruded out the sides of his head. There were short black mime lines drawn vertically on the lids and below the lower rims, and that gave the immediate impression that the black eyes were smiling.

There was a kid with him, a little boy of around five or six, in sweat pants and a navy blue pullover with a hood on the back. He had brown hair in a bowl cut and his eyes looked almond-shaped. He could have been Asian, but it was hard to tell. The two looked like they were playing "Catch Me If You Can." The kid ran to the left and out of sight deeper into the space. The clown looked one way, then the other. He put up his hands and gave a big shrug. Then he brought his elbows up twice, leaned down a shoulder, dug at some imaginary dirt with the sole of his foot, and galloped out of sight into the darkness.

A moment later the boy was back at the glass. His face was wet with tears. He looked over his shoulder and tried to run to the right. The clown then emerged and grabbed him by the back of the hood. Clotheslined, the kid's feet almost kicked out from under him. The clown yanked him across and lost his grip for a second. The kid fell toward the glass, then pressed up against it, his face a wide grin of terror. He pounded the window with his open palms. Evan saw it shake with the contact.

The woman by the minivan did not hear a thing. She shut her door, adjusted her purse, and reached up the sides of her ribs to straighten her bra with an exasperated little tug and twist with both hands. Evan usually took his time to savor that particular move, but was compelled to glance back up to the dark glass. The kid was facing sideways now, trying to run, clawing at the grip the clown still had on his throat through the hood. With his free hand, the huge circus creature drew something from the back of his jumpsuit. It was a meat hammer. He raised it up and looked right at Evan. He nodded his head as if they were sharing the cutest little secret, and then he brought the weapon down.

The head of it disappeared into the boy's skull. Something dark splashed the window, and wet matter sprayed the clown on the cheek. A black tongue squirted from the thing's mouth and lapped the splatter off his face. The boy was going through convulsions and a milky discharge was coming out of his mouth. The clown yanked out his weapon, and slyly looked out at Evan. The head was sideways. One black eye winked. Then he lowered his face to the back of the boy's head and let the snakes in his gums start the feeding process.