Death Rhythm (25 page)

Finally, the three of them stood at the bottom of the three cement steps that led to the door of Hector's house. Mae started to walk up, reaching out her hand to knock, when the door flew open. Mae recoiled, backing up quickly, running into Andy who barely kept her from falling.

"Goddamn you!" Hector's voice boomed as he wheeled out onto the top step. "Goddamn you! I'm gonna kill you!" He maneuvered around the step so that the door closed behind him. He picked up a kitchen knife from his lap.

Everyone stood still as Hector teetered on the edge of the top step. Then Mae said, "Hector, put that down. You can't be serious."

"I swear, I'm gonna kill you and your nephew and your - " He noticed Edna for the first time, and his muscles went limp. "
You
," he said, his hand shaking, the knife reflecting the sun glimmering on the horizon.

"Hello, Hector," Edna said. "How are you doing? Cat got your tongue? Or is it the other way around?"

"
You
," was all Hector could manage.

Natalie's silhouette appeared behind him in the screen door. "Oh, god." She could only open the door a quarter of the way, but it was enough for her to slip out on the step next to Hector. "Dad." She noticed the kitchen knife in his lap, cradled in a limp, arthritic hand. Then she saw Edna. "Edna?" Her jaw dropped.

Mae spoke. "We've come to talk to you and Hector."

Hector let go of the kitchen knife and put his hands to his face, the knife lying on his lap.

"We've got to stop this ridiculous crap," Mae continued. "We have to stop this grudge. We have to get on with our lives."

"Go away," Natalie said. "Look what you're doing to Dad."

"I'm sorry," Mae said. "But if we come again some other time, it will be the same thing. We have to confront this thing
now
."

"Please, just go away." Natalie grabbed onto the handlebars of Hector's wheelchair. She looked at Andy, her eyes misting over. "I'm sorry, Andy."

Andy could barely look into her eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Just go away. Leave us alone."

Hector began to sob. His head jerked back from his hands in short, quick gasps.

"Please leave us alone," Natalie said. "Can't you see what you're doing to him? I'm sorry, Andy. Mae. But we can't talk now."

Edna giggled. All eyes turned on her. "Sorry," she said, putting her hand to her mouth. She bit down on her fingers, but more giggles slipped through the cracks between her knuckles. "Sorry," she said again, then burst out laughing. She threw back her head and let the laughter ring out. She grabbed onto her sides, waving at the air with both hands. "
Sorry!
" she said again. "
Sorry?
" she howled. "I'll tell you one thing," she managed to say as she tried to catch her breath. "I'm
not
sorry! How do you like that?"

Mae reached out for Edna. Edna waved her away, taking a step backward. "I'm not sorry one bit," she said, laughing, laughing, holding onto her sides. "Not one bit!"

Hector stopped sobbing and lowered his hands from his face.

"Edna," Mae said. "You shut up right now."

"Not sorry one damn bit!" Edna hollered. "Not one fucking bit!"

Andy stood slack-jawed, while Hector grasped onto the wheels of his chair. Edna continued to laugh hysterically. Hector tried to roll forward, but Natalie held on to his handlebars. "Let go," he said. "Let go, goddammit!"

"Stop," Natalie said.

Edna continued to laugh. "
Not one teeny, tiny, fucking bit!
"

Hector's face turned beet red. Every vein, every muscle stood out on his neck. He picked up the knife with his left hand and continued to work on the wheel with his right. "
Let go!
" he yelled.

"Stop this!" Mae demanded.

The world became one screaming, shouting, whirling dervish to Andy. He couldn't hear any words, just a wall of noise. Like a thousand flies buzzing in an old stone building. A high-tension wire come out from hell and plugged into his head. Natalie, Hector, and Mae moved in slow motion, and that was okay. He could stand that. But when he turned to look at his mother, she was no longer there. In her place was a monster, Big Ed, Big Fucking Ed, come back from the dead, and she was a mass of hysterical laughter in super-slow motion. Her head was tilted far back on its hinges, and her mouth was gaping open, and deep, deep in the cavern of her throat, Andy saw them, saw the millions of flies, all buzzing, all flying there.

And in the space of seconds, seeming to Andy like years, he lunged at Edna, at Big Ed.

Hector, meanwhile, slashed at Natalie's hands with the kitchen knife, and she pulled away from the wheelchair in reflex.

Mae stood wide-eyed, not knowing where to turn. She tried watching Hector and Natalie, and at the same time, Edna and Andy. She brought her hands up to her ears, screaming, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" She turned in circles, not knowing which direction to face, when to stop.

Andy lunged at Edna's throat, his hand reaching out, clasping at her neck, tying to stop that buzz, those flies. Edna stepped quickly to the side, and Andy stumbled forward, tripping over his own feet, falling face forward onto the grass.

Mae continued to turn in circles. "Stopitstopitstopit!" she yelled, and suddenly it was easier, so much easier, to lock it away, just lock it all away.

Hector shot forward over the first step, one hand raised in the air holding the kitchen knife. His wheelchair flew towards Mae, and Hector slashed at her, but the momentum didn't carry him far enough to reach, and the knife slashed inches in front of Mae's face. Mae didn't seem to notice. Hector's wheelchair somersaulted, throwing Hector, trapping him beneath.

Edna looked down at Andy, saw him lying there, and continued to laugh. She turned and saw Natalie run down the steps toward an entangled mass of body and wheelchair lying at Mae's feet. A pool of blood formed beneath Hector's crumpled body.

Andy slowly got up, taking years, it seemed, pushing himself up from the grass, rising to his feet, and lunging for his mother, for Big Ed, once again.

Natalie reached under Hector, pulling his body up with one hand, and pulling the knife from his chest with the other.

"Lock it away lock it away lock it away," Mae said out loud, but she didn't hear herself anymore, couldn't hear anything except the beat of her own heart pumping through her veins.

Natalie looked at the knife, Hector's blood dripping from it, and wiped it on her shirt. She ran toward Edna, the knife rising slowly in her hand.

This time, Andy made contact with his mother's throat, clasping his fingers tightly. Her laughter continued in short quick bursts, as Natalie flailed at her with the kitchen knife. Edna grabbed Natalie's wrist before the knife made contact with her, and turned the knife around as Andy continued to choke her. The knife plunged into Natalie. She let out a sharp cry, a look of surprise on her face.

Andy continued to choke Big Ed.

Big Ed continued to laugh.

She pulled the knife from Natalie and Natalie fell to the ground.

Mae turned in circles.
"Lock it away, lock it away."

Edna's laughter faded as she slowly turned the knife around again, this time toward Andy, her only son, her honey bun, her baby doll, once and for all.

"Andeeeee," she croaked, spittle flowing onto Andy's hands, which tightened around her throat. "Andeeeee, you motherfucker, let go of me. This is your mother speaking to you, baby." She slashed at her son's fingers, cutting into his left hand. Andy didn't let go.

"Andeeeee," she said, barely able to get the words out now. "My baby. My baby," she said, and slashed violently at his fingers again.

This time, Andy jerked his hand away, and the knife went into her own throat, into Big Ed's throat, and she dropped the knife, a jet of blood shooting from her neck. Andy let go of her and watched her fall slowly to the ground, clutching her throat, scratching at her throat, trying to push the blood back into her neck.

Edna slowly died while Mae slowly stopped ranting and circling, while Andy dropped over Natalie, holding her lifeless body.

Mae dropped to the ground and sat cross-legged on the grass.

Andy picked up Natalie, lifted her from the ground, and slung her over his shoulder.

Mae found her voice. "Wait, Andy. Don't. Put her down."

It was too late. Andy carried Natalie across the field of dead weeds and grass and propped her up in the passenger seat of his car. He walked to the other side and got in, turned on the motor and drove away. Mae sat and watched his taillights dissipate as the sun disappeared.

FORTY-THREE

Andy drove slowly with Natalie propped up in the passenger seat, her lifeless eyes reflecting the dashboard. Andy turned down the dirt road by Mae's property. He drove slowly, too slow to kick up any dirt, his eyes fixed on the beam of the headlights. He turned right, through heavy wrought iron gates, into the cemetery. He parked next to the stone building and got out of the car. He walked to the passenger side and lifted Natalie out. Propped her against a headstone.

And the sounds still echoed here, absorbed into the earth, the sky, the gravestones, the stone building. Absorbed for years, and finally wrung out into Andy's ears, the years coming back, screaming at his skull, his brain, a thousand flies, buzzing, droning inside his head forever.

Andy knelt in front of Natalie and stared into her eyes. The glare of the headlights reflected off of them, and Andy thought he could still see a hint of blue. In this darkness, in this death, a faint glimmer of blue.

He picked Natalie up, wrapped his arms around her, dragged her in front of the headlights of the car. They washed a swath of gravestones and trees in their converging cones of light. They washed over Andy as he held Natalie, bathing them both in an imagined warmth.

Andy began to dance, a slow dance, tears popping from his eyes, glistening in the light beam, disappearing as they dropped. He held Natalie close to him. Swaying back and forth, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, leading Natalie to the music of the wind, of the whispering clouds above. The couple cast shadows on the trees beyond, two marionettes turning round and round, swaying back and forth. Andy danced a slow dance with Natalie until he shuddered uncontrollably. The sobs came in spasms, and he let Natalie down as gently as he could, resting her against her mother's gravestone.

He looked through his tear filled eyes, looked up at the thickening clouds, the thickening darkness, and let out one long, terrible howl. It started from deep inside his gut and traveled through his entire body before it raged out into the open night air. Then there was only the wind.

And that glint of steel, reflecting the moonlight, taunting him, tainting him, beckoning him to touch it. It called out, its voice rising above the hum of the flies, above the years gone by, called out to Andy to take it in hand, caress it, feel it. And he knew what it was.

He knew what it was.

Finally.

A drum. Evelyn's drum. Sitting in the corner of the empty mausoleum, its sides being eaten by rust.

Andy looked at the shadows surrounding him. Opaque. Still. The night silent except for the drone and rumble he heard, no -
felt
. Felt from deep within the earth.

A rumbling.

It was the movement of the flies. It was the movement of the soil, the dirt, being transformed, processed, recycled. It was the cat in the corner of his mind, still present, swinging headless from that branch.

It was Natalie, her shadow splayed on the trees. Andy thought he could see a rope stretched taught around the shadow Natalie's neck. It strained against the bark, swinging, cutting a groove into the wood, rumbling, the strands, the fibers of the rope, catching onto the bark like gears in a machine, making it vibrate, making it hum, sending shivers through the trunk into the ground.

Making it rumble.

Andy entered the stone building through the window opening above the door held shut with rust. He entered carefully, avoiding the glass that had penetrated his hands only a few days before. How long ago? Days seemed like minutes seemed like hours seemed like years.

He crawled through the window hole and stepped down onto a crumbling brick floor. Glass crunched under his shoes. Everything was dark except for a slice of building illuminated by light from the moon, which came and went as clouds played in front of it. Andy stared down at the drum. Its edge caught a sliver of moonlight and reflected it into his eyes. Its glare bathed his retinas in a soft, hypnotic glow. He reached out mesmerized and touched it -

Cold - so cold.

Andy's breath frozen. Rising in a mist.

He reached out and touched the cold rusting sides of the drum. He traced his hands along the cylindrical shape. He felt the harness and picked it up. The harness had been eaten away by time, but it held together. Andy put the harness over his shoulder. The drum hung suspended over his belly.

Sticks.

On the crumbling brick floor. Sticks.

Pointed at his feet in an arrow.

He picked them up. Their hardness felt good in his hands. The splinters didn't matter. Splinters were only skin deep. It was their solidity that mattered, and they were solid enough to hold, to enclose his fists around and squeeze.

So natural.

So balanced.

So good.

Andy hit the head of the drum, expecting it to break, to crumble into dust.

It didn't. It was still intact.

The impact of the stick on the drum felt like an explosion as the sound violently reverberated off the stone walls of the mausoleum. The flies fell silent. Silent, as if they were never there.

He hit the drum again, this time with the other hand. It felt good. The noise took hold of his eardrums and shook them.

He hit the drum again. A large splinter lodged itself under the nail of his index finger. He didn't feel it. He only felt that solidity, that
firmness
.

He hit the drum again.