I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 (5 page)

“Som’o’nah’beeesh!” he cried, hopping out of his dead people delivery truck. Cheff was about five foot two and pushing 50.

Sluggishly scratching underneath the crevice of his oversized belly, he took a minute to calculate his next step like a mover who faced an odd-shaped piece of furniture and a long flight of stairs. Dead man riding shotgun watched me from the side mirror.

“This one is nice, huh? Que linda. She’s preeetty,” said Cheff, sucking his teeth, towering at the dark-haired woman’s oddly twisted feet.

Cheff swung and scooped her up from underneath her arms, fully palming her breasts on the second try.

Pumping and lifting, fighting to maintain his balance, Cheff probably never felt breasts like these from a living willing woman.

“She’s still warm, eh?” he said, grappling her lifeless limbs like a Greco-Roman wrestler, but she was larger and thicker than he was and putting up a fight.

Two more tries and a gut-wrenching toss back onto the truck finally did the job, but not a good one.

“Papi, you see something you like, you take, no problem,” he offered with dancing eyebrows.

“No thanks. I’m not into feeling up dead chicks, Cheff. I think I’m going to go home now.”

“Okay, no problem, my freng.” Cheff looked at me as if I were crazy for not indulging in a good thing and took off to the
SEMITARIES
in his gagging Death Barge again.

JANE’S REMAINS

New Year’s Day

3:48 p.m.

It was late afternoon when I discovered her limping and wandering aimlessly in a tattered powder blue hospital gown outside. Something told me she was up shit’s creek because her bare ass was showing and it was twenty-two degrees out.

“Come on, go away
,”
I said hurrying her away with my eyes. “Go die somewhere else.”

And then she collapsed to her knees.

Goddamnit.

She needs help, Charlie.

I grabbed a coat from the closet and ran out to her, wrapping her shoulders in it. She didn’t resist me when I took her by the hand and brought her to the porch.

“You’re safe now, it’s okay,” I told her, warming her frigid hands between mine. She seemed so vulnerable and weak, lost as a child abandoned in the dizzying maze of a shopping mall parking lot.

When I asked what her name was, she couldn’t respond, but the hospital tag on her wrist read:

NEW YORK HOSPITAL - QUEENS MENTAL HEALTH CARE–JANE DOE – AGE 24/25

Shit, that nut house is only six blocks from here.

“Do you speak English?” I asked. “I have to take you inside, okay? It’s cold out here. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.
My name is Charlie, me llamo es, Charlie, okay. Can you understand me?” I eased her into the house, into the living room where I gently laid her on the sofa.

“Dusty, go to your room,” I told him. He simply shrugged his shoulders and marched back up the stairs thinking nothing of it.

She might’ve broken her ankle
, I thought, briefly examining it. Her foot swelled into an ugly red balloon, and she winced and cried out in pain at the slightest movement.

“I’m sorry the place is a mess,” I said returning from the kitchen with ice in a dishtowel, swiping my pity party leftovers from the coffee table and onto the floor—a dirty magazine, bong, and the perfect empty beer can pyramid I built the night before. 

“This should help bring the swelling down,” I said, resting her foot on a pile of cushions. I found myself trying to ignore the curvy nude body parts that showed through her rags.

Jesus, man. Really?
I’ve been alone way too long now.

She was prettier when the fear began to fade from her eyes, and it wasn’t just because she was partially nude and squirming in pain on my couch.

 I couldn’t ignore the beauty behind the busted lip and blackened blue eyes when she looked at me like a wounded creature expressing her hazy gratitude.

I melted.

This  was  some sick fantasy playing out before my eyes. The Hero saves the damsel in distress, and she offers herself to him in return
. I couldn’t ignore feeling somewhat aroused and yet disappointed with myself.

Jane had calmed and attempted to speak. Her voice was soft, but faltered.

She couldn’t recall anything before just standing there in the street, as if she just had woken from a spell. Possibly memories too frightening to want to remember or volunteer, I suppose.

“What… happened?” she asked, trying to regain focus.

“You’re asking me?” I smiled.

“I…I don’t know. Where am I?”

“You’re safe now. Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of you—we’ll take care of you,” I promised as Dusty greeted her with a teddy bear he found in Kate’s room.

“It’s okay. Go ahead. Take it,” I assured her to, and she did—hesitantly.

I didn’t want to pry more than I should—she made me nervous.

“You can stay the night, if you want, and we’ll try getting you home in the morning,” I said, but she was already drifting, whispering something that sounded like “that’s good, butter,” with the bear comfortably clenched in her arms.

“That’s good butter?”

The sun had set, and that was my cue to batten down the hatches. I’d become paralyzed at the thought of the Deviants making their rounds, and I wanted to run to my tub and hide, but didn’t.

Tonight, they didn’t come—no monsters, no voices, or any helicopters flying over the house—only Jane remained.

THE COLD SNAP

Thursday, January 2
^nd
, 2014

6:48 a.m.

It’s another day, the sun is rising over Queens, and Jane Doe is getting cleaned up in the kitchen.
Time to start on breakfast.

It didn’t look like much, but SPAM and potato chips had become the staple breakfast for us in the household. I’m beginning to think the dog eats better than we do. Cooper gets the Sirloin Steak in a can courtesy of Alpo, and we have potato chips.

What’s good for the dog couldn’t be that bad for us, right? No one had to know.

Jane hobbled around, pale and looking like she could use extra meat on her bones. Even so, she was a knockout and more so in my overgrown Jets jersey and sweat pants. A woman in sweats is sometimes sexy and godammit, I love the Jets.

I am so disappointed in myself.

The way her reddish hair fell over her eyes every time she tucked it back behind her ears and smiled, eased my concern that she was a lunatic.

I watched her every move, trying to find the crack in the glass, but she was so soft and almost perfect.

What’s her story, Charlie? Detox? The crazy house? Attempted suicide? Homicide?

I knew it was only a matter of time before the reality came crawling back in and she started falling apart again, so I didn’t bring it up—still, she made me nervous.

She must’ve clipped the bracelet when I wasn’t looking because it was absent from her wrist. She knows I know now. What was she trying to hide?

I told her Dusty was my son and his mother recently passed away from an illness. Which is why he was the way he was—difficult, doesn’t talk, and urinates on my furniture.

I also had an innocent habit of changing the subject whenever she’d inquire about the iron bars on my windows or the dead bolts on the doors or why Dusty was wearing girl’s clothing and his room was pink.

Fat flurries of snow hurried past the living room windows. It was the first snowfall this year, and I proposed we migrate to the porch to sit among the debris from the house with a juice box for Dusty and spiked coffee for ourselves. My guest has cut into my drinking time, and it was way past happy hour.

I kept my eyes peeled but good ol’ Cooper can sense the Deviants’ presence minutes before they can be seen.

Dogs are good like that. I wish I were as vigilant—or sober.

The pinwheel I stole from the Sweeney yard kept Dusty occupied most of the time on the porch.

He can sit, hypnotized by the wheel for hours and didn’t like me much when I pried it from his fingers when it was time to get him cleaned up and ready for bed.

“I should get going,” Jane said as the day dimmed, rising from the lawn chair carefully balancing on one foot without falling over.

“What? Don’t go. I mean, going where?” I said, almost feeling relieved she’d soon be gone.

I also realized I’d be alone again and the mystery girl would be back out there with the wolves. It gets dark early these days. The sun sets by 5 p.m., and then the guests arrive.

“I think I have to go back to the hospital,” she answered, searching for a reason the way someone would look around the room for misplaced keys.

“Why the hospital? Are you okay? Is it your foot?” I asked.

‘‘No, I’m okay. I want to get my stuff. I should go back,” she said, but there isn’t a reason good enough for anyone to go anywhere around here if they didn’t have to.

I helped her back into her seat, “No, you can’t. I mean, it’s dangerous out there.

Dangerous because it’s a long walk to the hospital, and you should rest your foot. It’s getting late, and we can always get your stuff, tomorrow, in the morning.”

“Tomorrow, are you sure?” she asked, looking hopeful.

“Promise, maybe, I don’t know—whatever.”

The night came and went without a hitch. Jane slept 16 hours, and she never mentioned the hospital again.

TOUGH LOVE

Saturday, January 4
^th
, 2014

My mother passed away from ovarian cancer in the summer of ’93, and I will never forget how hot it was that afternoon, 97 degrees in the shade, to be exact. My father was too stubborn and cheap to buy an air conditioner.

His theory was if we left the front and back windows of the house open, we had cross ventilation and that should’ve been good enough for us. The same went for the Buick.

With forty-plus friends and relatives crammed in together, the three fans propped in the living room pushed and recycled hot air, creating a circulating wall of body odor, cheap perfume, scotch, vermouth, and cigarette smoke throughout the house.

The only time you get the Dudley family under the same roof with each other was when there was a new member of the family or one less.

We’d spend our time exchanging awkward small talk and making empty promises of “catching up.”

At Dudley family gatherings, the women would congregate in the kitchen to prepare the food and trade the latest gossip on their degenerate husbands.

The men would go hide in the garage to drink, talk sports, and complain about how much they hated their wives and kids until the novelty wore off. Then they started turning on each other.

At least the women had the decency to do it behind each other’s backs and didn’t wreck our patio set.

You can count the seconds to when the men started beating their chests and started slinging shit at each other.

Someone would storm out of the house in a drunken stupor with family in tow, ranting and raving about kicking someone’s ass and hauling off in their automobile.

The arguments were always about money, because my uncles were compulsive gamblers and frauds. It seemed like the rare occasions they did come around, it was to mooch and fleece my dad of his savings.

The biggest problem with my uncles was that they suffered from memory loss whenever my father would bring it up.

“Hey! Fuck you, pal!”

“No, fuck you!”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“I’ll kick your fuckin’ ass!”

“I’m getting the fuck outta here”

“Good, then get da fuck out, ya bum!”

“Where’re my keys, goddammit?”

“Woman! Kids! Get in da fuckin’ car! We’re leaving!”

My father’s side of the family couldn’t care less about my mother, and to them, a memorial meant a free lunch and a doggy bag. My uncles were alcoholics and chauvinistic slobs. My aunts were emotionally battered and repressed Suzy homemakers, while my cousins followed by example down the same greasy Dudley slope.

The last thing I needed was to hear about someone’s carrot cake recipe or the size of some new intern’s tits at my uncle’s jack-off job.

This wasn’t a social call. Fuck your cheap condolences and shallow tears, assholes. 

I learned how to play their games, as I got older, managing to detect those who were full of shit or genuine like Tommy Maroni—he was my father’s wingman at Clinkers—the neighborhood watering hole.

He stopped by the house after my mother’s funeral but didn’t stay very long. He never did when the cave dwellers were around making asses out of themselves. He was an honest man and never minced words with anyone.

“Your mutha, she was a bewtiful woman. Its’a shame, ya know, God bless her soul. May she rest in peace. Call me if you need anything,” Tommy offered after prayer and left.

I accused my mother of being many things: frigid, indifferent, and detached. I accused her countless times of not giving a shit about us and not standing up to my father who would go ballistic and beat us.

Nothing was ever good enough for my father. My mother’s cooking could’ve been better, grades could’ve been better, the way my brother and I did anything could’ve been better. The way we spoke to him could’ve been better because as long as we lived under his roof, things always needed to be “BETTER.”

I still didn’t know what “better” meant in his eyes, and now I wonder how he felt about the empty seat at the dinner table because my mother didn’t get “better.”

I don’t know how many nights I stood awake wondering why my father couldn’t die instead. He was the bad one—he was the monster.

Anger is a funny emotion.

I had to bury my mother and pack her personal belongings into boxes and into the attic on the day of the service…at my father’s request.

My father didn’t curb his behavior one bit after my mother died. He mourned by hitting twice as hard and drinking more. My brother Stewart cried himself to sleep almost every night after the funeral service, and my father made no effort to comfort him.