Martin Misunderstood (7 page)

Poor Sandy. Poor broken Sandy. Sure, she had
teased him, but that didn't mean that she
deserved to die. Even Evie had said as much.
'What a corker!' she had exclaimed when Martin
told her about the fiasco with the glued sex
instrument. (Evie had asked about the piece of
rubber that the GlooperGone had mysteriously
melted into his thumb. Even two weeks later, the
faded purple line was still there.)

The car behind him beeped its horn and
Martin pressed the accelerator, pulling away
from the scene of the crime. He still kept the
speedometer well under the limit as he drove to
Southern, mindful that An had warned him to
keep his nose clean. He thought the warning was
very kind of her, but then An seemed like a kind
person. He still could not get over the caring
look she had given him in the interrogation
room just before she'd jumped out of her chair
to get away from the splatter of vomit that
flooded the table. He hoped that she had copies
of those photos he'd ruined. She would need
them for her case.

The car behind him swerved into the oncoming
lane of traffic, horn blaring as it darted in front
of the Cadillac.

'Oh, dear,' Martin muttered, jerking the
steering wheel, trying to get out of the way. The
wheels bumped on to the shoulder of the road
and he turned sharply into the parking lot of a
strip mall, hands gripping the wheel, foot
slamming on to the brake. The car shuddered to
a stop. Martin looked up in time to see a neon
sign blinking to life in the afternoon dusk.

Madam Glitter's. If Martin were really in a
novel, this would be a prime example of
foreshadowing. Or was it aftershadowing?
Because, in fact, the thing had already happened.

The truth was that Martin had, in fact, taken
his mother to get her trowel from the Peony
Club's storage facility, which was directly across
the street from the strip mall wherein Madam
Glitter's was housed. Martin had sat in his
mother's Cadillac (she refused to be seen in the
'twat-mobile'), watching the sign glow in the
evening light. 'Stressed? Tired out? Need a lift?'
the letters had asked. 'Professional Massage at
Reasonable Prices! Walk-ins welcome!'

Martin had never had a massage, and the truth
was that ever since he'd spent three hours
scraping the last remnants of the vibrating dildo
off his desk, his back was killing him. There was
a kink in his neck and a knot just under his
shoulder blade that felt as if a hot knife was
jabbing between his ribs every time he moved his
right arm. What was massage for if not that very
thing?

He had thought about the massage the entire
drive back to the house, drowning out Evie's
complaints about 'that bitch who runs the gardening
club like she's the head Nazi at Dachau.'

This is what he imagined: an earthy young
woman with a ring in her nose and bare feet
would meet him at the front door. Maybe there
would be some nice hot tea and cookies. Chimes
would tinkle, perhaps the burbling of a small
fountain would fill the air. Was there such a thing
as a healing touch? Martin had read about a study
in one of his magazines where rabbits were being
used to test cholesterol medication. One of the
rabbit groups showed amazing results, and it was
later learned that the keeper of the group had
been stroking their backs when she fed them.
Could the same thing happen for Martin? Could
the loving strokes of another human being change
some intrinsic part of him into a happy being?

'I'll be back later,' Martin had told his mother,
pulling away from the curb in front of the house
as soon as Evie was out of the car.

'What the fuck—' she said, just before the
forward motion jerked the car door closed.

As he drove, Martin felt himself relax just
thinking about the massage. He even sped,
pushing the Cadillac five miles over the posted
speed limit. He was picturing this new, reckless
side of himself. What would Unique say
tomorrow when he managed to slip into the
conversation that he had gotten a massage?
Would he be some kind of metrosexual because
of this? Would he start using scented shaving
cream for his weekly shave? Would he get
pedicures like Unique? Ha! Wouldn't she think
that was funny? Wouldn't she be jealous!

He pulled up in front of Madam Glitter's and
parked right outside the front door. As soon as he
got out of the car, his feelings of elation started to
leave him. Heavy drapes covered the windows.
The front door had a large handicap sticker on it,
the words, 'We specialize in special needs' underneath.
Worse, there was a fast-food restaurant
next door, so that when Martin entered Madam
Glitter's, he was overwhelmed by the scent of
fried chicken.

'You want a massage?' the woman behind the
desk demanded. She was large, possibly one of
the largest people he had ever seen (and that was
saying a lot – there were some beefy women on
Evie's side of the family).

'I was . . . uh . . .' Martin felt his feet start to
move backward.

'Fifty dollars. I don't take credit cards.' The
woman nodded toward a closed door. 'Go in
there, take off your clothes and I'll be there in a
second.'

Martin stood where he was, frozen in place.

'Move,' she barked, so Martin did.

The chicken smell was even more overpowering
in the small massage room. There was
a table in the center with a single hand towel at
the place where Martin supposed his lower half
would rest. He unclipped his tie and hung it on a
hook jutting out of the wall. His hands shook as
he unbuttoned his dress shirt, and he felt silly for
it, because, after all, this was a therapeutic
massage, not a
date
, for goodness' sake.

Still, how long had it been since he had been
naked in front of a woman? He tried to think
back. There had been a girl in high school, a
sweet young lady who wore a back brace to
correct her scoliosis. Wendy. Martin smiled at
the thought of her, the way her curved spine had
felt against his palm. If only she hadn't
transferred to a magnet school for smart kids in
Atlanta. Then there was Marcia, the woman who
worked at the convenience store down the street
from Martin's house. That had been something
of a misunderstanding, though. Unfortunately,
Martin had not realized until he was fully naked
that Marcia was, in fact, still fully clothed and
walking out the door.

The door opened and he grabbed the towel,
covering his nakedness.

'I gotta make this fast,' the woman said,
picking up his pants off the floor. She pulled out
his wallet as she talked. 'My kid's got the 'flu. I
thought he was lying to get out of school, but his
sister called and said he has a fever.'

Martin watched her count out fifty dollars and
return the wallet to his pants. 'I'm sorry to hear
that.'

She reached her hand into an open tub of
lotion. 'Lie back on the table.'

Martin got on the table, trying to keep the
hand towel over his intimate areas.

'You got kids?' she asked, rubbing the lotion
into her hands.

Martin's mouth opened to answer just as her
hand went under the towel and her fingers
wrapped around his member. 'Good Lord!' he
yelped.

'Sorry my hands are cold.' She was staring at
the wall, a bored look in her eyes as her shoulder
jerked back and forth with her hand. 'I tell you
what, sometimes I wonder if the government's
telling us the truth.'

'Huh-huh.' Martin was panting so hard he
could barely speak.

'I mean, lookit this 'flu thing that's going
around.' Jerk, jerk, jerk. 'Everybody I know who
gets it, they're, like, laid up for a week, then they
get a little better, but two months later, they're
still feeling rundown.'

Martin gripped the sides of the table, trying
not to fall off.

'Can you really trust the CDC? Aren't they
supposed to be tracking this shit?'

'Huh-huh-huh . . .'

'And the FDA – one minute they're telling us
drugs are safe, the next minute they're taking
them off the shelves.'

'Oh-oh-oh . . .'

'It's like we can't trust a thing they tell us
anymore.'

Martin closed his eyes, trying to block out the
sight of the fat on the back of Madam Glitter's
arm swaying as her hand moved. He squeezed his
eyes shut even tighter, trying to think about
Angelina Jolie, Rebecca Romijn . . . it wasn't
until his mind conjured the image of Diane
Sawyer in a lilac cashmere sweater that he felt
himself starting to let go.

It was the dulcet tones of Diane he heard
instead of Madam Glitter's harsh voice when she
asked, 'You want me to squeeze your balls?'

'Gah! Gah! Gah!' He came like an oscillating
lawn sprinkler with a kink in the hose.

Madam Glitter wiped her hands on the towel.
'Sorry to rush you, but I need to get back to my
kid.'

Martin stared up at the ceiling, still panting.
There was a brown water stain directly over the
table. How had he not noticed that before?

She patted his thigh. 'Come on, sport. Up you
go.'

Martin struggled to sit up. The vinyl squeaked
as he moved. He was sweating. His chest was still
heaving.

The last thing she had said to him as she
rushed him out the door was, 'You really should
have that mole looked at.'

And this was what Martin was supposed to tell
Anther, that he had been getting his member
massaged while Sandy was being killed? What
kind of alibi was that? What kind of person paid
for sex? He would rather be convicted as a
murderer than have his mother find out what he
had done. Did she have any inkling as to where
Martin had really been? Evie was in bed when he
returned from the massage parlor. Fortunately,
Dancing With the Stars
was on his TiVo season
pass manager. He had watched Mr T doing the
rumba with Joan Crawford and thought,
Is this
what my life has come to? I actually paid a
mother of two for sex?
Or was it really sex? Did
a handjob count as intercourse? Martin assumed
you had to enter someone – or was that a different
'inter' that they were talking about? Internal? He
scowled. That didn't sound sexy at all.

Martin put the Cadillac into reverse and drove
away from the scene of his real crime. The
parking gate was up at Southern Toilet Supply,
which was a direct violation of company rules.
Of course, Martin didn't belong to the company
anymore, so he shouldn't have given a fig. The
problem was that he did give a fig. Anyone could
break into this place. Maybe these new people
who hadn't had to pick 2300 from the machinery
didn't appreciate what mayhem vandals could
bring to a place like this, but Martin knew first
hand.

He pulled the Cadillac into its usual space,
surprised to see that the only other car in the lot
belonged to Unique. She certainly wasn't one to
work extra hours, but maybe her conscience had
won her over. Martin had every intention of
completing his receivables from the workday he
had missed. He may have been fired, but that was
certainly no reason to shirk his responsibilities.

Martin took out his keys as he approached the
entrance, but found that the door was already
unlocked. He didn't bother to turn on the lights
as he made his way to the office. There was no
point, really. He knew everything from memory
– the way the machinery was positioned, the way
the shelving was stacked. For half of his life, this
had been Martin's home, the place where he had
felt valuable, needed. And now it was all gone –
lost like a sock in the dryer, never to be seen
again.

'Whatchu doin' here, Fool?' Unique's hands
moved quickly as she shoved office supplies into
her purse.

'I've been fired.'

'Uh-huh,' she mumbled, cramming her stapler
into a side pocket. 'Norton said he was looking
for a reason to get rid of you.'

'Get rid of me?' Martin echoed. That couldn't
be right. Norton Shaw had given him an
'adequate' on his yearly review. You didn't call
someone adequate if you were trying to get rid of
them.

'Whatchu doin' outta jail anyway?' she asked.
'I thought you'd be in the electric chair by now.'

'It's lethal injection,' Martin corrected. 'Are
you stealing office supplies?'

'Getting out while the getting's good,' she told
him, trying to jam a ream of paper into her bag.
'Unique can read the writing on the wall.'

Martin cringed. She only ever spoke of herself
in the third person when she felt threatened. He
could still remember the first time he'd heard her
do it. Martin had suggested that it was only fair
that she clean the women's room as he was
expected to clean up after the men. 'Unique don't
clean toilets!' she had screeched.

He tried, 'Unique—'

'I don't need no trouble with the po-lice,' she
told him. 'No way is Unique sticking around with
the po-lice asking questions.'

'What kinds of questions?'

'I might have bought some clothes at the mall
that one time that I didn't exactly pay for.'

Martin was outraged. 'You
stole
?'

She indicated her bright purple silk pantsuit.
'You think I can dress like this on what y'all pay
me?'

Actually, he did.

'I got a look to uphold,' she told him, pushing
Martin out of the way as she walked around to
his desk. 'You don't go messing with a lady's
wardrobe.'

Perhaps it was because of his own recent
brush with the law, but Martin felt his outrage
quickly turn into fascination. He had worked
with this woman for three years without
knowing that she was an actual thief. 'Did you
get caught?'

'There might be a warrant out there somewhere.
You know how it is.'

Had she winked at him? Martin thought she
had. 'Yes,' he said. 'Having spent some time in
jail myself, I understand.'

She looked at him, her lips pursed. Was that
respect in her eyes?