A Night at the Asylum (2 page)

My eyes were open. My bedroom was unusually
bright, and I realized I had fallen asleep with the light on. A few
seconds passed before I remembered what I was doing here, who I
was. The past five years came back to me with a burdening clarity,
and tears stung the corners of my eyes.

My brother was still dead.

I was still alive to know it.

Damn
.

I rolled over with a groan. My stomach
screamed and my legs were shaky and threatened to give way as I
stood. Never had I had a dream where I felt so
awake
.
Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, it was difficult to not
see a specter of my brother. We had the same greenish wide eyes and
high cheekbones, the same light mocha complexion, but my hair was
darker and now hung defeated from the throes of sleep. I fingered
the long strands and sighed. The flushed, harried look on my face
caused me to turn from the glass.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, they swept
the room in disgust. Piles of clothes gathered dust on my desk, my
computer monitor sitting silent as a boulder as it had for months.
On the walls were the same drawings, the same posters that had been
there since I was a little girl, curled up at the corners and
yellowed with age. I was in a time capsule; outside the world had
changed and in here I was still hanging on to the past. I was
almost twenty years old but time had stopped for me five years ago
with a kid running his motorcycle into a tree, and the life I had
been living had never restarted.

Rarely was I so melodramatic. Throwing myself
on the bed again, I decided it must be the stress of still living
with my parents, working like a dog at the restaurant, my break-up
with Raymond.
It has to be my total lack of ambition,
I
thought. The walls seemed to be closing in on me. I tore the
blankets off and tossed them on the floor, pulled on my jacket.
It has to be that I am going nowhere
. I’d suffocate if I
didn’t get out of this house. Clicking off the light and stumbling
out of the room, I closed Tommy’s door, which seemed adept at
mysteriously opening itself.
It has to be that I have
nothing…and no
one
.

Downstairs on the kitchen counter, my cell
phone was mocking me. There was a blinking green light that meant I
had voicemail. I knew who it was from before even pressing the
button to listen. Raymond. My recently extricated ex-boyfriend, who
removed himself from my life after four years with only an “I can’t
tell you why”. I’d called him endlessly; he hadn’t returned my
messages. Until now. My heart cracked hearing his warm, familiar
voice. “I’m really sorry. I just needed some time. But let’s please
talk…soon.” Blah-de fucking blah.

Yeah, well, you have a tiny penis
, was
the last thing I’d said to him. Totally uncalled for. Totally not
insulting enough to make me feel better. I closed the cell phone
with a clap, resolving to never call him again.

My desperation to leave the house wouldn’t
let up. I picked up my mother’s keys (not having a car of my own,
of course) but put them back down, deciding to walk. I needed
fresh, cold night air; I needed to clear my muddled brain.

I closed and locked the front door as
silently as possible. Though they’d never given me an official
curfew, it was strongly frowned upon for me to leave the house
while my parents were asleep. I could hardly blame them. One call
in the middle of the night telling them their child was dead was
probably enough to last them the rest of their lives.

My sneakers squelched on the slushy pavement
as I made my way down the gravel driveway. This town was quiet,
tiny, a suburb of Kansas City with less than 10,000 people. It was
generally safe to walk this time of night. You were more likely to
be harassed by the overzealous police force than to fall victim to
a violent crime. Still, it did happen. I gripped the house keys
tightly in my hands, staving off a fit of cold chills.

The street was cold and dark, just as I hoped
it would be. I fished around in my pocket and found a five dollar
bill. Beautiful. Nothing would clear my head faster than caffeine
and sugar, and if I was too wired to go back to sleep, there could
be no more dreams in HD.

One of our town’s four gas stations was only
a couple of blocks away. As I walked, each house automatically
checked itself off in my mind: The crazy bible-thumper lady lived
over there with her nutty granddaughter, Jamie…these people have
the fiber-optic scarecrow on Halloween, those had a dog that chased
my brother during his paper route. The woman on the corner gave me
a dollar for helping her pick up a broken coffeepot on her
sidewalk; Tommy swindled me out of it later. These people have a
pool that’s always full of algae, those have wild parties on the
weekends…every house I saw was a separate memory. I’d lived here my
whole life and was never going to go anywhere else. That wasn’t
because I didn’t want to. It was just because I’d never get off my
ass to do it.

The light from the Gas N’ Go beckoned me and
my walk sped into a run. The place looked deserted. This station,
with the exception of its twin on the west side of town, was the
only convenience store open at this hour. The automatic doors slid
aside for me and I hurried inside, averting my eyes from the torn,
weathered MISSING poster of Jenny Marie Allison plastered to the
glass. Like I said, it doesn’t happen very often here. Just like
anywhere, however, it does happen.

I’m not a coffee kind of girl; I naturally
gravitate toward the soda fountain. Grabbing the biggest cup on
display, I quietly filled it with carbonated poison and trudged up
to the counter. Big Mike was working. He’s a former classmate of my
brother. He nodded at me from under his long dark mane of hair. Big
Mike is Indian, and by Indian, I mean Native American. There are a
lot of us in town, though technically I’m only half. We’re a real
melting pot here.

“Heard you broke up with Raymond,” Big Mike
grunted, and I immediately winced, but he didn’t apologize. Nobody
ever does in a town this small. There’s no such thing as privacy or
boundaries or tactfulness. “What’s up with that?”

I stared at Big Mike for a moment, hoping to
convey through the dead look in my eyes my complete and utter
contempt. He didn’t seem to notice. “Shit happens,” I muttered.

He was unfazed. “Bummer,” he said, ringing up
the soda, passing me my change.

I heard the sliding doors open behind me and
half-turned, seeing out of the corner of my eye the vague shape of
a guy in a hoodie stumbling in – most likely some drunk. “Yeah, it
is,” I said, rolling my eyes in answer to Big Mike’s clever
statement. My gaze automatically fell on the even more potent
poison lining the shelves behind his head. “I…need a pack of those
too.” I pointed lamely.

He frowned, but rang the cigarettes up.
“Since when do you smoke?” he murmured. I scowled at him and
snatched them out of his hand, shoving them in my pocket. Behind me
the drunk guy knocked something over loudly. “Dude, can you leave
that stuff alone, please?” Big Mike called. I turned to leave.

“Saw Bonita Taylor this morning,” Big Mike
said to my back, and I froze.

Now to be fair, Big Mike was just doing his
job perpetuating gossip. He had no idea that as soon as he spoke,
his words would turn my insides to ice, that I would have to
swallow a scream like a jagged stalactite before being able to
speak again.

Oh, what those five words did to me.

I should have left then, should have gone
home and climbed into my bed, back to the restless dream that I
dreaded. If I were anything other than a coward, I would have. How
was I to know that the first in a twisting trail of dominoes had
been toppled; that this night would be the one in a thousand of a
now meaningless life that I’d never forget?

I should have seen it coming.

Instead, my attention was focused on how much
I would chain smoke tonight, and how that would require a lighter.
I turned back to Big Mike, hoping my face looked appropriately
bored, but my mind was connecting dots. My heart was beginning to
pick up its rhythm, but it wasn’t from the sugar or the
caffeine.

“Yeah…nobody’s seen her since…” he trailed
off, but I knew what he was going to say. The bitch hadn’t even
come to my brother’s funeral.

“Yep.”

“She wouldn’t tell me why she was in town,
just said she was visiting someone. Wouldn’t say who.”

“Imagine that.” I scowled at him. The gas
station clerks here – particularly him – are like old busybodies
staring out the window at the neighbors, only with shittier
prescription drug coverage.

“She’s better off, frankly. Got to get out of
this town while you still have the chance.”

The commotion in the aisle behind me
continued. It was like the drunk back there couldn’t stay standing
up, virtually the condition I feared I was about to be in. My legs
trembled, my forehead broke a sweat. “Dude, buy something or get
out,” Big Mike called. “We don’t sell beer after midnight, so don’t
even try it.” He turned back to me. “I can’t believe
you’re
still in this town. You gonna work for your parents at that café
forever?”

I am a bit of a cynical person. Mostly I keep
it to myself, but damn it, some people just push too far. My heart
was already seizing, my fury beginning to boil, thanks to my
rampant thoughts about Bonita. I tore open the pack of cigarettes,
shoving one in my mouth with such force that it nearly broke in
half. I stalked back up to the counter and slammed a lighter down,
a death glare fixed on Mike. “Dude,” I spat. “You’ve worked here
for
eight years
.”

“I’m manager now,” he pointed out
distractedly, trying to see around me.

There was nothing else to say. I shot a
parting scowl at Mike but his eyes were on the noisy patron who was
now stumbling out from one of the aisles. I stifled a gasp as I
recognized the drunk’s face. Big Mike recognized him at the same
time and swore loudly. It was Emmett Sutter, son of the police
commissioner. He was a year younger than me, which wasn’t old
enough to drink, and by now he probably had half the cops on duty
trailing after him. I laughed inside. Big Mike deserved any heat he
was about to get from this. “Kid, get the hell out of here,” he
growled threateningly, scurrying out from behind the counter to
catch Emmett just before he impaled himself on a shelf stacked with
fishing poles.

Thank you. Come again.
Screw you, Big
Mike
, I thought, snatching the lighter without paying for it in
my defiant stride toward the door.

The automatic slider opened, and as I went
out, my eyes trailed to Emmett once more. His slouch cut him a
couple of inches shorter than he actually was, unruly reddish hair
swirling about his scruffy face. In that instant, our gaze locked.
Even beneath the glaze of inebriation, his green-eyed stare was
unsettlingly intense. There was something about him that always
made me feel uncomfortably exposed. When Big Mike grabbed him
roughly and he had to look away, I felt an almost physical
sensation of being let go.

The cold air hit me then, relief to be
outside slicing sharply through me. I pushed Emmett out of my
thoughts. Once again I avoided the poster immortalizing Jenny’s
smiling face and half-jogged down the block, breathing heavily from
the hate that pressed me on. Like precision research, my brain
picked up where it left off, choosing one from a myriad of images:
The strange black car occupying the driveway of Raymond’s house the
night after he dumped me…the incriminatingly lightless windows. The
girl who would walk out of the house in the morning was ingrained
in my memory; I knew her face well. Long hair, surreptitious smile,
black fingernails, dark riveting eyes…her name made my teeth clench
and my fists contract. Bonita Taylor. Town tramp. Pierced princess.
It seemed I could not get away from the very real ghost of this
girl even Tommy had pined over, who had stolen so many boyfriends
that her exit from our town was practically a local holiday. I
hadn’t recognized her old black Mustang that night, walking much
like I was now in the mud-slathered pre-winter slush. It had been
so long since she’d been seen around this town. Now Big Mike
confirmed she was here. Raymond shared the house only with his
brother Jon, who had been Tommy’s best friend, but why would she be
visiting him so late at night? No. There was only one reason for
all of it, I could see that now.

I didn’t know who I hated more, her or
Raymond.

Still clutching the giant soda in my hand, I
plopped down on the concrete planter just outside the Catholic
church a block from my house. Reaching for the lighter and a
cigarette, I tried to fulfill my own destiny, but after seventeen
failed attempts I shoved them back into my pocket and accepted the
reality of things. My loser status was complete and undisputed, and
I couldn’t even steal a lighter that worked.

Fuck
.

I put my head in my hands, the cold clear
night air moving in and out of my lungs noisily, until the faraway
sound of a dog barking drowned out my labored breathing. I looked
up, my eyes moving back and forth on the street.
Be aware of
your surroundings
. Isn’t that what they teach girls who are
dumb enough to go walking alone at night? Jenny’s face flashed
before my eyes and I shook it off. What was I worried about? My
porch light glowed a block away, and somewhere nearby a cop was
just waiting for a malcontent to harass. The problem was, if I
didn’t get home soon, that malcontent could be me.

That’s when I heard the footsteps: scraping,
trudging really, hesitant and inconsistent. That dog from down the
street was going insane. I froze in a half-standing stance, every
pore in my body listening. It wasn’t unusual that someone would be
walking this way in the middle of the night. The bar was open and
it was only a few blocks south of the Gas N’ Go.