TheRapist (17 page)

Devon awoke abruptly to the muffled sound of her silent scream. Sweat had formed in a pool upon her chest and she clutched at her face, her shoulders, her lank hair that was dripping on her forehead.

This was not who she was! Not what she wanted! She had chosen her path long ago. She did not want to be with a woman. She needed men. Men. Only men. She had spent too many years finding who she was to go back. Hadn’t she? Hadn’t she?!

*

Edie and The Others

Four aged men sat in a worn, weathered clutch in the corner of the lounge. They were a variety of the same age. Creased faces, folded skin, eyes lost somewhere in the back of their brains. They did the same thing every day, sitting in a musty huddle, drinking tepid tea, slouched in their chairs, their
bones too old and weak to hold them up for very long. One of them, the one with the filthy yellow shirt, had a European accent. Austrian perhaps? German? Edie had always thought he was an escaped Nazi. His name was Heini and he had an evil laugh. She thought that was a bit of a giveaway. Edie disliked being in the same room as him, he made her nervous. Bernie sat beside him. He never spoke. Just listening and licking his lips. His mouth was always dry and he licked it with his thick, furry tongue all day long, but his lips never stayed wet for more th
an a moment, remaining crusty, l
ike his brain. Like the solid remains of too many dinners gone awry, dripping onto his shirt, hardening there, until being washed away months later. Harold was the whisperer. His white head was bent over his concave chest, his hair grew in withered clumps in a circle around his head and tufts of grey hair stuck straight out of his ears, bolting defiantly at
a ninety degree angle
to his body. Harold rarely showed his face, always sitting with his back to the room and when he turned around to shuffle out, he covered his face with a washed out, tattered blue handkerchief. Gus was the youngest.
I
n his mid eighties, he had been wearing the same pink shirt since he had arrived seven years ago. The attendants had it washed once a month and although the pink was faded and the cuffs threadbare, Gus refused to wear anything else, his screams vibrating all the way to the front gate if anyone dared to suggest an alternative form of attire. Every day was the same. Heini would pull a little black book with its worn cover and yellowing pages from his trouser pocket and read Mae West quotes aloud, whilst Bernie, Harold and Gus would laugh obligingly at every one, never seeming to tire of hearing the same thing day after week after month after year. Their laughter was fresh every day, that being the only thing about them that was fresh. Perhaps, deep in the recesses of their tired minds, they really believed they had life in their peckers. Had the ability to get it up and get it on, like they had when they had been young and handsome and unafraid. When women had craved them and they felt as if they ruled the world. They had loved good women and lived through wars. Fought for their country, for the rights of their fellow countrymen. The Constitution had been written with men like them in mind. Now, these four strong, vibrant men had been reduced to a foggy huddle.

Edie tried to force herself into her daydream, slipping eagerly away from the mundane present, back to her glorious past.

Edie & Mary

It was late in the day after a sticky, humid afternoon and the lounge’s usual sickly smell hung in the air. Beside the slightly open window, Edie sat in her favorite chair, the aged leather burgundy one with the thick, wide arms, the one that gave her a view of the gardens. The grass was overgrown and yellowing, having been bathed in a heavily heated blanket through the summer, as pink and purple flowers still nudged their way through the undergrowth seeking the sunshine. Georgia and Alabama had been particularly generous that summer, having clogged the northern parts of Florida with their relentlessly steamy cast offs, as Edie searched the skies through the heated haze, looking for clues, for anything that would give her a sign from John.

Heini, Bernie, Harold and Gus were still in one corner, having interrupted her thoughts all afternoon and now Walt and Oscar had come in, after their treatment, scratching at each other, pulling on their few tufts of hair while Fay looked on crying and whining and stamping her feet. A usual scenario, but a disturbing one nonetheless for those who hadn’t
yet
witnessed it.

‘Get away, get away!’ squealed Walt, as Oscar tried tearing at his arms with thin, weakened ones of his own. Oscar kept picking at him, probing, until Walt slapped him back, right across his florid cheek.

‘Oweee!’ shrieked Oscar, promptly bursting into tears. Fay spat at both of them and shuffled off to sit on the edge of the beige tiled, non-working fireplace. As she sat there she kept on spitting into her hand and wiping it down the front of her pajamas. Spit and wipe. Spit and wipe. The caretakers ignored her, knowing that if they wiped it up she would only do it more. Heini, Bernie, Harold and Gus had all slumped into sleep, as they did about this time every day. Bernie’s mouth remained dry as he soundlessly slept. Heini dribbled as he muttered in his sleep, one eye twitching crazily. Edie knew, she just knew that he was reliving his time in the camps and that one day he would say something in his sleep that would give him away. How she waited for that day, when they would haul that Nazi away and throw away the key. Gus lay in a shriveled heap, his face buried silently in his chest.

Edie’s thoughts traveled crazily away from her mind, as she clutched and grabbed at them, trying desperately to make them stay.
This time it worked and she was back in her past!

Back
at a dance, dressed in lavender silk chiffon with ribbons in her hair, a band playing sweet melodies, only this time there was another girl there and she looked just like her! She was dressed differently, not from that beautiful bygone era,
but she was calling to her. Who was she? She didn’t know her name, she wasn’t calling her Edie, it was something else, a name that sounded familiar, maybe it was someone she knew in the past?
Edie’s thoughts began to dissipate once again and soon she would be jolted back to the present and the heartache of the home. Her memories were fading fast, her lavender dress disintegrating and the music dying away, but that girl was still there, calling to her, calling that familiar name.
Edie fought to keep her eyes tightly shut, remain in the past, seduced by a memory, but her eyes slowly, reluctantly opened and she was there, in front of her, the girl from the dream. Who was she, this stranger, interrupting her thoughts? She knelt down beside Edie’s chair, murmuring the name that began to sound more familiar to Edie. The girl had eyes the color of sweet violets in the rain and her lips trembled as Mary placed her hand on Edie’s and whispered the name again.

‘Mama. Oh Mama, I’m
home
.

*

Mr. Birdman

He had been found in a pale, deathly heap outside the school, his stiff, thin body slumped beside the tree. He must have been there all night they said. Dead.  All night. From a heart attack it seemed. His shoulder was bruised, probably from the fall against the tree. His right hip too. Dead and alone. All night long. Would anybody miss him? Why would anybody miss him? He had spent his life tormenting kids. Teaching them history, filling their minds with stories of Vikings and warriors, of Henry VIII and his band of merry wives. Torture at The Tower. Princes locked away. Recounting beheading. Slashed bodies. Disease that stole lives. Bubonic plague. The Fire of London. Filling their heads with torrid tales of the past, then raping their minds as he terrified them with what would be done to them if they told a soul. Never tell a single soul what he did to them. Unlike the historical tyrants, Birdman would never leave a telltale sign. Mr. Birdman. Beady Birdman. Evil. Despised. Dead.

They carried him away and from the windows of the school, pupils watched, swallowing hard, their apples of Adam bulging through their throats as they realized they would never have to succumb to anything vile ever again. They were free. Their bodies and their minds would now be left in peace to grow and flourish naturally. And one day, these kids would find love on their own and want to love another person with their bodies and their minds. Chosen by them, for reasons that were pure and right.

Birdman had been clipped, leaving them
free to fly.

*

Adrian

‘Hi baby, you OK, I miss you?’ Adrian smiled into the cell phone as he stood on the edge of a pavement in West Hollywood on a sunshine smiley, picture perfect afternoon.

Jezzy heart began to pound, the way it always did when she thought about him or heard his bewitching voice. What was that? Love? Or fear? She wasn’t scared of him hurting her. Just of what he could do to her mind. What he had already done.

‘When will you be back?’ Shit! What a stupid, needy thing to say. What was wrong with her? She was lying on the sofa, having demolished a huge take away tub of daal and aloo gobi, she had a Kit-Kat and a Coke ready to accompany her through a Sky-Plus version of Marty and she was longing to wallow in the safe simplicity of Ernest Borgnine’s
genius portrayal
of a gentle butcher.

‘I’m leaving this weekend, be back on Sunday,’ smiled Adrian into the phone, knowing the effect he had on Jezzy and longing to be back in her arms, where it was safe. Where he was safe. From himself.

Jezzy was glad he was coming back soon. At least she might get a better idea of how she felt if she could see him. Feel him.

‘I can’t wait Adrian,’ she said softly, not knowing whether she meant it as needing him or
as
a catalyst for breaking up.

‘Neither can I baby.’ He was watching a boy at the crosswalk, he was around eighteen with hairless shiny limbs, a tight ass and glossy peroxide hair that fell across one eye. They smiled slyly at each other and the boy entered the Boy Bar, wiggling his butt in Adrian’s direction. Sweat formed across his forehead. Effects of the sun? Or his innermost desires?

Without an inkling of what was going on six thousand miles away, Jezzy was innocently thinking that maybe Adrian was the real thing, but didn’t want to share the positivity of this feeling with him. Not yet. Not until she felt completely sure, all of the time.

‘I’ll jump on the Heathrow Express to Paddington and be with you in time for a late breakfast,’ Adrian said, breaking into her thoughts and disbanding with his own.

‘I’ll make you something nice, I’ll get croissants from Euphorium and salami and smelly cheese!’

Adrian laughed heartily and sucked on his top lip. Was he getting a kick out of Jezzy or just from the feeling that maybe she could save him from himself? He knew he loved her, that he should love her, but was that enough?

‘Really Ade, I want to see you so much.’

‘I know baby, me too. See you Sunday.’

Jezzy hit the red button on her phone and the play button on her remote. As she entered the black and white butcher’s shop where Marty worked, she had an eerie sensation that her life was beginning to end.
 
*

Adrian

Adrian smiled to himself, the translucent rays of the early afternoon Californian sun casting flecks of light in the darkening gloom behind his eyes, then turned and walked down a side alleyway between the Boy Bar and a bicycle shop. He leaned up against the wall between two large recycle bins and wanked up against the one just for plastic.

*

Jezzy & Frankie

Early evening on a Thursday and the park was bright and swarming with tourists. You could tell they were tourists by the way they were dressed, with cameras slung across shoulders hunched from trailing the sights all day and the permanent quizzical, astonished looks upon their faces. Londoners looked down, tourists looked up. Accents and languages were never a giveaway, as very few people living in London were actually English. It used to amaze both girls, when they first came to live in the capital, how few English
accents
there were in relation to how many people lived here. London was a great city. Ancient and new, bold and beautiful, anachronistic and hi-tech. All things, all at once, all of the time. Jezzy always thought London to be a stubborn city, likening it to a zaftig lady with a brazen personality. London was like a woman with PMS, thundery one moment, sunny and serene the next. That’s how it was now, like the latter, on this hot, succulent evening.