The Ram (12 page)

“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.”

She knows there is a word for the sacrifice of a ram: criobolium. Except in her mind this term doesn’t apply to sacrifices made to the god Yahweh. It refers to the act of spilling sheep’s blood in devotion to other gods, many of them lost to modern man.

Peach imagines how Abraham’s hands must have tussled with the strong, ribbed prongs of the ram. He surely came away bloodied from the work. She feels this is only right; when a blood offering is made, your own blood is spilt as well.

The ram, the blood, the fire. Three important things. It’s a good story. Simple, but engaging. And the son makes it out alive in the end. Whether it was Isaac or Ishmael up for slaughter doesn’t matter much. Abraham was just being a good shepherd. He was just asking for sacrifice.

Friday, the 3
^rd
of April, 2015

33 Riley

The bottle of Jameson is empty, the cap spinning between Riley’s fingers. Homebound and alone, he can do little more than stew in thoughts of past mistakes and future
goals.
He can see Nell dancing in front of him wearing a purple bikini. Her skin has a shimmer to it, flecks of glitter reflecting the blue and pink accent lights which line the ceiling over the place she writhes and gyrates. She’s a beacon, a flickering flame Riley looks to capture and turn into a raging fire.

He licks the rim of the whiskey bottle. The stripper isn’t even that pretty. He’s not really into redheads and fake boobs and he wonders what she looks like in direct sunlight, in khakis and a modest top, sans makeup. Riley would find her unremarkable, her beauty too dependent on the scalpel and low-lighting and his frequent inebriation.

But it isn’t her looks ultimately keeping her at the forefront of his brain. It’s her low social status which attracts him. Because as down as Riley feels, he figures he’s not as bad off as a woman having to sell the movements of her body for cash. If he claims Nell in bed, he reasserts his primacy, status and worth in life. Getting Nell on her back and under him is the first step to Riley reestablishing himself as a winner.

“I had a little accident,” Riley says to the empty bottle. He’s practicing for when he has to tell the two people he chose not to call the other night about his missing toes. “And let’s just say I won’t be wearing peep toe pumps anytime soon. Shit, how the hell do I know what a peep toe is anyway?”

Walker comes in the front door. Riley decided it would be best to pre-funk before going out on the town with his friend. Walker’s wearing a fuchsia dress shirt and trousers that hug his muscular body. His friend had given up on asking Riley to go to the gym with him; Riley hated lifting though Walker was addicted to it. Riley only ever wanted to run. Walker’s face is newly tanned and his brown hair is carefully styled, a sweeping part gelled over his left eye. He takes a look at Riley on the leather couch and shakes his head.

“I thought you were on the phone, Rye. But you’re just talking to yourself.”

“I am a man of talents. And this whiskey bottle can attest to that,” Riley says and hands the bottle to Walker, holding it tight at the long neck.

“I’ll trade you,” Walker says, takes the glass bottle and exchanges it for a single piece of mail. “It’s got a tread mark on it from my shoe. But that’s what happens when mailmen leave letters where people walk.”

Riley’s eyes get bigger and he knows it’s another piece of mail from the stranger before seeing a bit of writing or a wax seal. “Seriously? Another one.”

“More mail? Yep, I get it at my house six times a week, too,” Walker says and plops down on a La-Z-Boy recliner in the corner of the room. It was one of the pieces of furniture Riley kept after cleaning out his parents’ house. After the crash.

“Nah,” Riley says and runs his hands over the familiar writing and the dark, blobby wax. “This is different.”

He pries open the side of the tan envelope and produces the third card from the mysterious sender. It has a picture of a white daylily on the front and the word
Rejoice
is typed in pink font. The message inside is printed in black ink:
May the risen Lord cleanse you of all your sins this Easter. Blessings for a year of new beginnings and resurrected hope.

And under this message is the same slanted printing he’s seen on the other two cards. This message is less cryptic and more commanding:

Brunch is so gauche and bourgeois. These days, everyone is having breakfast at a decent hour. How about you have an Easter breakfast downtown this Sunday? Try a restaurant in the Basque block, but don’t show up too late. If you do, you’ll regret it!

Love,

Hamal

Riley keeps his eyes on the card but motions to Walker to stand up. “Go into the kitchen and get the two cards next to my phone charger.”

His friend doesn’t protest. Walker slips off the chair and retrieves the first two cards. Riley hands him the one he’s just opened. Walker reads them all, pokes at the wax seals and rubs his eyes. “Who the hell is Hamal?”

“No idea,” Riley says and puts out his hand for the messages. “That card you brought to the hospital was the first one. Then the second came on April Fool’s Day. And this one came today. I feel so loved.”

“I’d take this shit seriously, Rye. This person sounds like a nutcase. Have you reported it?”

Riley laughs and sets the cards down on a glass coffee table with brass legs. “Report it? What, like tell the mailman and have him defend my honor? I’m guessing some of the guys I work with are messing with me. If I’m not there to poke fun at during regular work hours, they need something to do when they aren’t in the shop or on the sales floor. I’m just surprised one of them knows how to write.”

“You’re hard to talk to when you get snarky,” Walker says. “You’re not going downtown on Easter. I don’t know what the hell that’s about, but it can’t be good.”

“Maybe I should go,” Riley presses Walker. “You can come, too. We can investigate. Hamal might have something exciting planned. And what the hell else am I doing, besides trying to have sex with the stripper?”

Walker paces the room and wears a line into the plush carpeting with his dress shoes. “You’re responsible for your own life, brother. You choose shit goals if you want. But forget Easter. Now get dressed in something other than sweats. If you want to bag the dancer, you’ve got to look proper.”

Riley stands and stretches. He puts a slight amount of weight on his left heel and he’s surprised when it doesn’t collapse into pulsations of agony.

“I’ll get my sexy shirt out. The one with the embroidery on the back of a saber tooth tiger skull.”

“I thought you wanted to get laid,” Walker teases and walks over to where the cards lay on the table. He points down at them with a stiff finger. “I don’t know who Hamal is or what he’s playing at, but you need to be careful with these assholes. First it’s letters and then he’ll be skinning your cat.”

“I don’t have a cat,” Riley smirks.

“Laugh it up,” Walker says and picks up a coffee table book. It’s a heavy tome of vibrant pictures of Pacific Ocean islands. He places it over the three cards, hiding them completely. “All the world is a joke, right, Rye?”

“I’ll be damned if it isn’t,” says Riley.

34 Peach

The older woman’s voice comes across the line, raspy from all her smoking but nasal because of the way she holds her nose aloft and pinched while addressing Peach. Although this time the woman in her early sixties sounds even more plugged up than usual.

“Another bout of bronchitis, Patti?” Peach asks the woman on the other end of the phone. It’s her own way of playing at concern for the woman. There is no sickness in her other than her smoker’s lungs and blackened heart. Peach wanders around her bedroom looking for a wayward earring. It’s a black freshwater pearl and she’s determined to find it and wear it out tonight.

Her phone beeps once and she tells the woman to hold on. She pulls the phone away and can see Linx is calling; the picture on the screen is a close up of his delicate face with patchy, black hair at his jawline. She’d taken the picture to prove to him he couldn’t pull off a beard. Peach presses
decline
and goes back to her conversation.

“Sorry,” she says and begins to explain but the woman cuts her off.

“More important than me? I don’t want to be a bother to you, Peach.”

“No, it was just Linx. I wasn’t going to answer it. So, are you sick?”

The woman with the harsh voice coughs once and Peach knows it’s more a forced display to curry sympathy than anything else. “I just don’t know if Boise’s warm enough for me yet.”

“Then maybe you should stay in Orlando another month,” Peach suggests. She looks under a magazine on her nightstand and digs around in a wooden box on her dresser carved with the image of two doves with their beaks holding on to one olive branch. No luck.

“You don’t want me to come home?”

“I didn’t say that, Patti. I think you should stay somewhere warm if you’re ill.”

The woman in Florida coughs again and then pauses. Peach is used to her lengthy silences. Peach believes Patti must think they lend a kind of gravitas or severity to a conversation. Peach finds the habit controlling, annoying and it tries her patience for Patti’s antics.

“Or,” she mutters, “come back to Boise. But I’ve got to go now. I’m going out in a few minutes.”

“Do you have a date with a boy?”

“Not with a boy,” Peach says and instantly regrets her word choice. “I mean, I’m just taking myself out tonight.”

Peach flips over a bracelet sitting by the wooden box and the missing earring is no longer hidden underneath. She moves the phone to her other ear and pierces the sterling silver into the cavity in her earlobe.

“Just don’t dress like a whore,” Patti snips. “You dress like a whore and you’re asking for trouble from men. And then it’s no one’s fault but yours.”

And it’s this nugget of wisdom which finally taxes Peach’s patience. She lets Patti say demeaning things to her, make demands on her time and manipulate her with passive aggressive grandstanding. And while she won’t tell the sixty-three year old woman off, Peach knows if she really does want to change her identity and control her life, she’ll have to make some changes with Patti.

“I need to go. Let me know what you decide to do with your flight back to town. Bye, Patti.”

The older woman harrumphs loudly on the other end of the phone. “What was that?”

“Bye, mother,” Peach says and waits for the woman to say farewell. But Patti hangs up on her without a word.

She puts the phone on her dresser and walks to her closet. She’s wearing a bright red set of matching underwear made out of delicate lace. Moving the tops and dresses around in her closet, she spies the dark green duffel in the back of the closet. Finally she decides on a button-down top in red gingham and a pencil skirt that sits high on her waist and emphasizes her curves. She pulls on the shirt and buttons it all the way to her collarbone. Then she unbuttons it to the place where her bra peeks over the checked fabric, her cleavage pointing to the bloodstone pendant around her neck. Every time she dresses, she’s becoming more comfortable with showing skin.

The black pearl she shoved through her ear causes her flesh to pulse on her earlobe. She knows the flesh reddens there and an itch flares.

“Irritations,” she says while pulling out the earring and making for her bathroom and some antibiotic ointment. “The black pearls of my life.”

35 Riley

He holds up the two dollar bill. He gets them special, just for his trips to Blaze Lounge. Riley thinks they’re a classier way of tipping a stripper. Nell’s gyrations are worth more than a dollar to him. A crisp two dollar is only right. And not just one. He has three in his hand and he’s belly up to the stage on his crutches, waving the odd bills at the redhead.

She ignores him completely and moves to another area of the platform.

Walker slaps Riley on the back. “Well, if she won’t take your money she’s not likely to take your dick.”

Riley jams the bills into his pocket, forgoing his wallet. He’ll try again when he can get another drink in him. He might just scale the stage and force the money in the spandex boy shorts with red, sparkly trim.

“I’m not drunk enough,” Riley says and scans the room for a table. His foot hurts despite his new habit of combining his OxyContin and whiskey. He needs to take a seat for a bit and use his head more than his finances to get Nell’s attention.

At the bar sits Sev, a cheap Bic ballpoint pen hanging from his mouth and a row of napkins in front of his pint of porter. Riley decides he needs more alcohol and a visit with the overprotective boyfriend whom he plans on cuckolding.

Walker looks over at the bar as well. Riley watches his friend’s eyes. Walker seems to sense his intentions and acts to defuse a potential brawl. “No way you’re going up there. Find us a place to sit.”

As he moves away, Riley wishes Walker didn’t know him so well. He feels like he can’t surprise anyone anymore. That he’s too staid and predictable. He looks around the room again. Blaze Lounge is packed. A group of men play darts in a far corner and every table is occupied with at least one man leering at the girls on stage or receiving his own dance up close and personal.

Then he sees her. There’s a woman in the back of the room. She’s alone, her body squared to the stage. The colored lights aren’t angled to hit that portion of the bar so she’s nothing more than a shadow to Riley. But there are two empty seats at her table. And if he can’t get lucky with Nell, he might score with the only female patron of the strip club.

He moves slowly to the table, tucking his crutches in tight as he shimmies around chairs and laughing, drunken pairs and trios of men. He decides the kind of woman who comes to Blaze Lounge is likely the kind who would give him a blowjob in the bathroom or at least show him her tits. And they would be without pasties. Riley begins to like his odds.