Stray Fears Read online

  I took a deep breath. And then another. And then I said, “Go downstairs before I say something I regret.”

  Mason was still sneering as he took the first step.

  Elien had righted the chair, and now he was on his hands and knees picking up ceramic splinters from the plate.

  “Leave that,” I said.

  “I can’t—” He glanced at the wall that blocked Ray from view. “I don’t want it like this. His place, I mean. He tried to keep it clean.”

  “Mr. Martel, please leave it. The coroner is going to have to determine cause of death, and you can’t be in here.”

  He tried to argue, but he kept looking at the wall that divided the kitchen from the bedroom. Every time he looked, his color dropped. Finally, he let me herd him out onto the landing, and then down the stairs and onto the street. The sun was setting in a huge banner of red and orange, but the heat hadn’t dipped at all, and the smell of booze and piss in the Moulinbas street was thick enough to choke on. Mason was pacing in front of the jewelry store, so I made Elien walk to the end of the block and sit on the curb.

  “Head between your knees,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Is that an order?”

  “It can help you control your breathing, and that can help you deal with feeling panicked or out of control.”

  “Great,” he said, leaning back, every movement exaggerated, and planted his hands on the sidewalk. “Thanks for the medical advice, Dr. LeBlanc.”

  The sirens were moving closer, but this street was still strangely quiet. Elien was watching me, and I found myself looking up and down the block, adjusting my shoulder radio, running my tongue over my teeth. I looked at Elien a few times; it was hard not to look. He was pretty much perfect: long and lean, probably 0.1% body fat, light brown skin, his thick, straight hair perfectly windswept. In short shorts and a tank, there was a lot to look at.

  “You saw it,” Elien said.

  I just about swallowed my tongue.

  “Upstairs,” Elien said, his voice low and urgent. “You saw . . . you saw what happened with Ray.”

  I saw a dead man clutching at him, dragging him forward, jaw hinged unnaturally wide.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry he’s passed away.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You saw.” He laid emphasis on the word, the intensity straining his voice. “You saw him grab me.”

  Our eyes met. His were hazel, more green than brown, full of tears and a desperate need.

  I opened my mouth, thinking of that blue thing that reminded me of a firefly.

  The ambulance turned onto the street, sirens blatting.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” I said.

  His eyes held mine for another moment, and, very clearly, he said, “You cowardly little fucker.” Then he raised his chin and looked away.

  ELIEN (7)

  Richard came and picked me up. By that time, it was almost night, and the evening breeze off the lake stirred humid heat. Thick clouds massed along the horizon as we drove home, and then we were under the thick canopy of the trees and the darkness was complete, swallowing the sky and the clouds. The whole way home, Richard was Giving Me Space and Offering Unconditional Support, which made me want to open the window, stick my head out, and improvise a reverse guillotine.

  When we parked at home, I tried to calculate how much the garage had cost. The house was worth well over a million dollars; Richard hadn’t told me that, but I knew how to use Google. The garage had three bays, and it was insulated and climate controlled. A hundred thousand dollars? It had an apartment above the garage, a kind of efficiency unit—my mind flashed back to Ray’s half-story apartment, the wallpaper with a cameo silhouette, the ticking clock—so maybe a hundred and fifty thousand? A hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a garage. The house where I’d grown up, on the last Zillow estimate, was worth a hundred and fifty-four thousand dollars. Almost exactly the equivalent, the whole house, of Richard’s garage. I wondered if Richard would buy the house if I asked. I wondered what he’d say when I showed up to the closing with a jerry can of gasoline and a book of matches.

  “I want you to know,” Richard said with Quiet Understanding, “that I’m ready to talk whenever you are.”

  “How much did the garage cost?” I asked.

  His hand closed over mine; I shut my eyes, because I knew if I didn’t, I’d end up looking at him.

  “Elien, the deputies told me you had an episode. That’s ok. You’re still processing everything that happened to you. You’re still trying to make sense of it. What happened today, finding your friend like that—”

  “He wasn’t really a friend, though,” I said, slipping my hand free from Richard’s and getting out of the Lexus. “I just knew him from the support group.”

  “Elien,” Richard said as he got out of the car.

  “What?” I asked as I headed into the house. “He’s was just some fucked-up loser, and every week, I sat in a circle with him, the whole lot of us just a bunch of fucked-up losers.”

  Richard followed me into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator, took out a can of La Croix, and popped the top. I took a sip before I realized it was coconut.

  “This is disgusting,” I said.

  “I know that you’re upset,” Richard said. “You don’t have to talk about it now. You’re allowed to feel whatever you need to feel.”

  “Why did you buy this?”

  Richard blinked those ready-to-cry eyes.

  “I just don’t understand,” I said.

  “It hurts when someone we care about takes their own life.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Jesus, you don’t listen to me. I just don’t understand why you would buy something so fucking disgusting.”

  Sighing, Richard shook his head. “I understand that you’re upset. But it’s not fair to take your anger out on me.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.” Then I pitched the can as hard as I could. It hit one of the upper cabinets, shattering the glass door and then smashing the wineglasses stored inside. “You know what? I guess I am upset. I’m upset you bought that fucking suntan-tasting garbage when I told you I don’t like it.”

  “I’ll be upstairs, Elien.”

  Sometimes, he looked like such a pathetic old piece of shit. Sometimes, with his shoulders slumped, with his hair thinning, with those iron-gray curls on his arms and the back of his hands, he looked like a ruin that was about to come tumbling down. His footsteps carried through the house; the stairs creaked under his weight; a door upstairs clicked shut.

  Inside the cabinet, the can of La Croix sputtered and fizzed, the carbonated water forcing its way out of a hole in the aluminum. I leaned on the counter for a minute, my face in my hands, breathing. Then I grabbed a towel. Glass crunched under my tennis shoes as I made my way to the ruined cabinet. I picked out the biggest shards from the door and dumped them in the trash. Then I used the towel to retrieve the can from the mess of splintered wineglasses. I let it finish emptying into the sink. I wiped out the cabinet as best I could, transferring towelfuls of glass into the trash and mopping up the La Croix. Two wineglasses had survived, and I washed them in the sink. When I’d done the best I could with the cabinet, I got online, found a similar style of wineglasses, and ordered replacements. The money wasn’t a problem—when Mom and Dad and Gard had died, I’d been the only one left. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that I didn’t have to get a job right away, especially with Richard footing the big bills. No, money wasn’t a problem at all. It’s just everything else that was a problem.

  I took the kitchen trash, now full of glass, to the outside bin. When I emptied it, it made a tinging, crystalline shimmer. The day had died completely; above me, the sky was a pool of stars that went only to the edge of the property. Then the wall of trees closed off the rest of the world. Mayflies darted around the porch lights; mosquitos hummed in my ears. Behind the house, something big splash
ed into the Okhlili. A gator, maybe. But it could have been something else.

  No fireflies, a part of my brain noted. Not a single one. Not any color. Nothing.

  Something deep in the trees startled, its sudden burst of speed snapping branches, and I dropped the lid on the trash bin and hurried back inside. I leaned against the door. I could feel Ray’s cold, stiff hand clutching my arm. I could smell rot. Eyes closed, I fumbled for the deadbolt and threw it home, and then I wiped my face and stumbled through the house, drawing the curtains closed. We lived far enough out that we never bothered with the curtains, but tonight was different. I did all the locks too, doors and windows. Better than most people, I knew that safety was illusion. Locks were all well and good, but they couldn’t stop real danger. If someone wanted to get into the house, they could pick a lock or break a window or set the house on fire. Even that wasn’t what really scared me, though. What scared me was the reality that sometimes, you locked the danger inside with you. In my case, I’d been getting my brains fucked out in my safely locked house while Gard and Mom and Dad died in the next room.

  When I went upstairs, the door to Richard’s study was open, and the room was dark and empty. I continued down the hall to our bedroom. This door was open too, and the lights were off, the bedcovers pulled back as though Richard had tried to sleep and then given up. Under his bathroom door—we each had our own bathroom, just another nice touch—a line of light showed. I knocked.

  “Richard?”

  I pressed my ear to the wood.

  “Richard, I’m really sorry.”

  We’d been here before, of course. Even saints like Richard finally ran out of Quiet Understanding and reached Just About Fucking Enough.

  “I’ll call tomorrow and have someone come out and fix the glass on the cabinet,” I said, but my voice was getting smaller and smaller. “I’m ready to talk about what happened today, whenever you are.”

  A series of soft splashes came from the other side of the door; Richard easing himself into the tub, I guessed. The house settled around us, and crickets called from the lawn, and I set my hand gently on the door and tapped a few times. Finally, stripping out of my clothes, I showered and got ready for bed. When I’d finished, Richard still hadn’t emerged from his bathroom. I crawled into bed naked and pushed the sheet below my waist; maybe Richard would ravish me. Maybe I’d sleep through it. I drifted off, wishing I weren’t so fucked up.

  The dreams were like the flashbacks: explosions of sensory information, there and then vanished, going on and on. The light of the clock radio, neon green. The smell of fried catfish. The hand over my mouth. The hand around my neck. The pressure building in my head. Forever. That was the problem with this kind of nightmare: it was real, it was now, it never faded or got any easier. The dumbass I’d picked up at the club just kept plowing into me, drilling, and I whimpered into his hand as each thrust carried me closer to climax. A little sound. Something soft. A thud. Dripping. The taste of grass in my mouth. All of it happening somewhere else. The light of the clock radio. The smell of fried catfish. The hand over my mouth. The hand around my neck. The light of the clock radio. Drilling into me. My pathetic moaning into his hand. The smell of something foul and corrupted. A hand on my arm, grabbing me, dragging me forward. The light of the clock radio.

  The light of the clock radio.

  Not green anymore. A soft, firefly blue.

  I sat up, gasping for breath, covered in sweat. I was shaking. My legs were tangled in the sheet. For a moment, I had to press a hand over my mouth, rocking back and forth as I sucked air through my nose. And then, bit by bit, the nightmare pulled back. I kicked my way free of the bedding, only now noticing that Richard was still in his bathroom, that less than half an hour had passed since I’d dozed off. I stumbled into my bathroom and splashed water on my face. I grabbed the towel, still wet from my shower, and dried off my sweat. When I was getting back into bed, Richard’s door opened. He was an outline against the grayscale darkness behind him.

  “How are you?” he asked quietly as he got into bed. “Are you still angry at me?”

  I focused on the folds of the sheet, tracing them, trying to disappear into their pattern.

  He kissed my shoulder, and I shivered, and then I started to cry.

  “Come here,” he whispered, pulling me against him, his arms wrapping around me. “It’s ok. Things are going to be ok.”

  DAG (8)

  At end of shift, I cornered Mason in the locker room.

  “Nelly’s,” I said.

  “Man, I’m beat. I just want to go home and see Mary Ann.”

  “This isn’t optional.”

  He didn’t meet my gaze; he was staring at one of the changing benches. Then he sucked his teeth, shrugged, and said, “Yeah, ok.”

  Nelly’s was a cop bar just off the Quartier, the docks district. Bragg didn’t have any major industries that still operated on the lake; by this point, the docks were purely a tourist attraction. Sometime in the 90s, someone had gotten the grand idea to “revive the Quartier” and “stimulate local businesses,” which was a fancy way of saying they wanted to sell most of the Quartier to a St. Tammany Parish developer. It happened the way a lot of Louisiana business still happened, and most of the original architecture was bulldozed and replaced with chain restaurants and boutiques, all of it housed in a faux Creole style. Kind of the Disneyland version of Moulinbas or the French Quarter.

  Because Nelly’s wasn’t on a major thoroughfare, it was spared. Inside, it consisted of a chain of smoke-filled rooms, the plaster walls yellow with cigarette tar and nicotine, small tables crammed into every available inch. City cops tended to take the back room; deputies stayed near the front. I attributed this to the fact that the deputies had to handle just about everything on their own; we might as well have an easy exit.

  Mason had already gotten a table in the front room, and I sat opposite him. When Amanda patted my shoulder, I asked for Sugarfield on the rocks. Mason had already placed an order, I figured, because he just nodded when she asked if he was ok.

  “Look, Mary Ann’s waiting—”

  “Mary Ann can’t be bothered to drive you to your support group,” I said. “She can wait a fucking minute while I talk to you.”

  “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “What the hell happened today?”

  “Don’t ever talk about her like that again, do you hear me?”

  “Mason, Jesus, we had a civilian call for a wellness check, and you treated that guy like he was robbing a bank.”

  “He’s fine.”

  “He was scared. Really scared. And he was worried about his friend, and—”

  “Christ, if I have to hear one more person worship Elien fucking Martel, I’m just going to put a fucking bullet in my head.”

  I sat back in my chair until Amanda got back with the Sugarfield and a draft beer for Mason. Then I rolled the tumbler on the edge of its base, the ice clinking. I took a drink. Then I rolled the glass a little more.

  “I’m sorry,” Mason said. He was rubbing his thumb on his glass. “I haven’t been sleeping, and when I do, I have these fucked-up dreams.”

  “Are you apologizing for this, right now? Or for earlier, with the civilian?”

  “Can you just call him Elien? You’re obviously in love with him already, just like everybody is.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Both, I guess,” he said with a sigh.

  “What’s your deal with him? You said he was an asshole.”

  Mason took a long drink, watching me over the glass.

  “Ok, he’s kind of got a smart mouth,” I said. “But he actually seemed kind of sweet.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “Oh my God. I was just joking, but you really do like him.”

  “I responded to a callout, Mason. I didn’t show up for a fucking Grindr hookup.”

  “You think he
’s cute.”

  “So what’s his deal?

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “You keep saying that. What does that even mean?”

  For a moment, Mason looked at a loss. Then he took another drink. When he set down the glass, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know why I keep saying that. I guess I don’t like him. People in the support group practically fall over for him. He’s kind of funny, you know, making fun of himself. And he’s good looking, fine. He does help people. I know that’s not the first time he’s checked in with Ray, and he’s done that for other people. He even texted me a few times when I first started going. I kind of . . . I kind of didn’t respond, and he stopped after a while.”

  “He said he thinks you don’t like him because he’s gay.”

  “I like you.”

  I sipped the Sugarfield. “That’s what I told him.”

  Mason released his drink, spread his hands on the table, and drummed his fingers. Then he stopped, and the look he shot me was intense and direct. “Don’t you think he looks like him?”

  “What?”

  “Elien. Don’t you think he looks like Noah?”

  “Noah’s white.”

  “Ok.”

  “I don’t know, maybe a little.”

  “Not just a little. Elien’s close to Noah’s age. He’s got the same hair—”

  “Elien has way more hair than Noah.” I mimed over my head. “It’s probably takes him an hour to blow it out.”

  “But it’s all windswept and brushed back just like Noah’s. And he’s got green eyes like Noah.”

  “Elien has hazel eyes.” My face heated, and I took a drink. “I mean, that’s what it looked like to me.”

  “You’re pathetic,” Mason said.

  “So, you’re telling me you hate Elien, even though he’s sweet and funny and supportive of all the people in group, because he has a vague resemblance to the kid who shot you? I mean, like probably fifty million other guys, he’s young and has green eyes and blow dries his hair. That’s why?”