Sadie the Sadist: X-tremely Black Humor/Horror (10 page)

I turn up the volume on my iPad, so P!nk can belt her heart out through the Bluetooth speakers. I’ve been avoiding newspapers, local radio and TV, because I’m avoiding Justus. Hearing his name makes me jittery. At work, when people talk about him in the break room, I plug in my earbuds and listen to music to drown the conversation.

Two days ago, when I got home from work, a paper was plastered on my door. The super says the police were at the complex making inquiries, interviewing potential witnesses. Apparently, I’m a good candidate, since my balcony overlooks the road. They left a phone number.

I tore it up.

We don’t need cops sniffing around our life.

I mean,
my
life,

The best thing about being two people is: you always have company.

I need to get this résumé submitted ASAP. I plan to shoot off an e-mail today with the résumé attached, so HR will go over my application first thing Monday morning. I’m sick of being a Courtesy Clerk. Terri the Terrible drives me loco, ordering me to mop spills, help customers load groceries into their cars, round up carts in the rain. I do as I’m told, even smile at Terri. Pretty soon I’ll be her boss.

If she lives that long.

I have to admit, Terri has taught me some useful skills. Last week, she showed me how to use the baler to crush boxes. I looked the model up online. The baler has a platen force of 62,202 pounds (I call it the flatten force). That’s more than thirty-one tons of crushing power. (A standard ton is 2,000 pounds.) A ton is approximately how much a bale of cardboard weighs, and cardboard bales make the store a ton of money, so we crush all the boxes. The baler is huge, I need a stepladder to reach the handle. Once you push the button, the crushing starts. Cycle time is forty-eight seconds, so it will take less than a minute to make a pancake out of Terri.

We’re not supposed to climb into the baler. Too dangerous. But what if some dummy dumps something into it … like a shopping cart. (I can raise a little cart over my head. I’ve been practicing at night, at the far end of the parking lot.) Say I’m emptying the trash, when a customer sneaks past me and slips into the
employee only
back area. It happens. Then, let’s say, I notice him sneak out. I tear after him, chase him into the parking lot, but he’s too fast and I don’t catch him. At night, when there’s no moon, it’s difficult to see anything out in the parking lot, especially at the far end, so I can’t read his license plate.
Note to self: Check moon phases before taking action
. Say this occurs at 11
PM
when the store’s about to close and Terri is the only CRM around—too late for the porter, too early for the night stalkers—just me, the lowly closing Courtesy Clerk, emptying trash cans around the store, and one Checker up front at self-check. Terri would have to climb into the baler to retrieve that cart. Wouldn’t she?

And I’ll be there to push the
crush
button.

After completing my résumé, I shoot an e-mail to HR informing them that I want to apply for the Assistant Manager position.

The chili smells amazing. I give each pot a stir and taste it. Add a little salt, turn off the heat.

Finally, I can relax.

The potluck starts in two hours. After all the stress I’ve been through lately, I’m looking forward to a diversion.

I decide to wash my hair and take a long soak in the tub.

The bathwater has turned red. Body parts float around the tub. A thumb bobs past my right breast. A foot touches my big toe. A mangled tongue emerges through pink bubbles, so does a gnawed finger, a chewed up penis, and some other thing I can’t distinguish.

I wake with a start, splashing water and shivering. The bath has gone cold. I pull the drain and stand, reach for a towel. Looking down, I see a trickle of red moving along the inside of my thigh to my calf. At first I think I’m still dreaming, then the dull cramp in my gut makes me realize it’s that time of month.

I towel myself off, wipe off the blood. (I needed to do laundry anyway.) I plug the hole in the dyke with a tampon (Hahaha … I’m
not
gay), then search through the cabinet, shoving aside aspirin, sunscreen, and a small jar that contains something shriveled that I suspect is an ear. Having no idea how long the ear (or whatever) has been there or who it belonged to, I toss the jar into the wastepaper basket. Finally, I find Motrin and down three.

The bath off my bedroom has no tub, only a shower, so when I want to soak I use the bathroom off the hallway. The bathroom is smallish, no window, so it’s private. The tile is white, as are the sink and tub. Built for utility rather than luxury.

Wrapped in the damp towel, I cross the hall to my bedroom, open the sliding door leading to the balcony, and step outside. The day is warm, and late afternoon sun blazes in the clear blue sky. To the north, I see mountains, their peaks barren in late July, but come early September snow will fall above tree line. I climb onto the folding chair, wondering exactly where Justus went down. In my mind’s eye, I see him falling near the entrance to the parking lot, but I may have made that up.

I calculate the minute dimensions of the balcony, wondering if I could fit a chest freezer out here, wondering if it’s against the covenants. I could use the extra storage space for meat. I’ve learned a lot from watching
Nightmare Next Door;
for example, if you freeze a body before sawing into it you don’t have to deal with blood. Maybe I could put a freezer in the spare room.

I climb down from the chair and pass through the sliding door into my bedroom. I open the closet. All the power tools are clean and in their correct places. Despite last night’s excitement, I remembered to charge the chainsaw’s battery.

I decide to wear the red sundress I bought recently and high-heeled sandals. Decide to paint my toenails to match.

The potluck is held in the courtyard where there’s a lawn, flowers, trees, a picnic table and a playground. Lots of residents have kids. About forty people show up. Most of my neighbors look familiar, but that doesn’t mean I know them. I say hi to Lisa; she lives downstairs and reads a lot. I see her out on her little patio (downstairs they have patios instead of balconies) sitting at a tiny table, her nose stuck in a novel. Sometimes she drinks a glass of white wine, and once she invited me to share a glass. We talked about books
.
Unlike me, she prefers fiction. Other neighbors include a few people from work—two women from Bakery share an apartment across the way. And weirdo Jayne, who sits out on her balcony even when it’s snowing. A lot of college students live here too, and there’s the old lady with the cat. Which reminds me, I forgot to put the tuna out.

Children run around the picnic table where we’ve set our offerings: casseroles, green salad and macaroni, a chocolate cake, two apple pies, guacamole, and of course my chili. Other kids hang upside down on the jungle gym, swing on swings, shoot down the slide. Watching them, I feel more normal than I have for weeks, until a thought flashes through my brain:
tender meat
.

Sometimes I disgust myself.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m sane.

Speaking of tender meat, my chili is a hit. All my neighbors want the recipe.

A man I’ve never seen before is working on his third bowl. My gaze keeps drifting back to him, not because he’s devouring my chili, but because there’s a calmness about him that I find attractive, an air of intelligence. He’s older than me, graying at the temples, but in great shape. I can tell he works out.

He catches me staring, and our eyes meet.

Blinded by his smile, I blurt, “Hi, I’m Sadie.”

“Marcus.”

He extends his hand and we shake.

“You new here, Marcus?”

“Yeah. We moved in a few weeks ago.”

We
moved in.
Bummer.
Of course, a guy like him is married. Not that a wedding ring has ever stopped me. But I don’t see one on his finger. No jewelry, except a small medallion strung on a gold chain around his neck.

He notices my gaze.

“Saint Christopher,” he says. “Patron Saint of Travelers.”

I lean closer to examine the medallion.

“You religious?”

“Not really. My grandma gave me the medal, and I never take it off. She raised me.”

“Still alive?”

“Grandy passed on a while back.” He takes another bite of chili. “You try this? I swear, it’s as good as hers.”

“Thanks.”

He pauses mid-bite.

“You make this chili, Sadie?”

“Yeah.”

His smile widens to a grin, but before he can take another bite, a little girl runs up to him and grabs his hand.

“Daddy, push me.”

Marcus gives me his bowl of chili as his daughter drags him toward the swings.

Just my luck. Not only married, but a father.

An ache runs through me, not cramps, something deeper. Using the spoon Marcus used, I take a bite of chili and find the spicy meat difficult to swallow. Feeling woozy, I set the bowl on the picnic table, my gaze fixed on Marcus and his daughter.

The little girl pumps her legs, giggling as Marcus draws back the swing.

“Higher, Daddy.”

He pushes her, and she leans backward, dark curls dangling in the dirt as her feet stretch toward the crabapple tree. When the toes of her pink sneakers touch a branch, she shrieks with delight.

My chest constricts, collapsing into a void that used to hold my heart. If you used a stethoscope, you might hear the steady pump of a working organ, but it’s merely mechanical.

“Higher.”

I strain to breathe, forcing air into my lungs, my vision going bonkers like a light show. Next thing I know, I’m lying on the grass.

The sun makes me squint.

“You all right?”

The super’s face hovers over me.

“Sadie?”

The super crouches next to me, offers me a plastic cup. I take a sip. It’s water. I wish it was vodka. Marcus stands beside her.

“Sadie,” he says. “I’m a doctor. May I take your pulse?”

I look into his face, tan and rugged, like he spends a lot of time outdoors, his features boldly sculpted—a high forehead and a pronounced nose.

“Take anything you want.”

“Good to see you’ve retained your sense of humor.” He places his fingers on my wrist, and an electric charge pulses through body. “How are you feeling?”

Petrified.

His dark eyes peer into mine—probing, searching.

I try to stand.

“Sit. Drink some water.”

“I couldn’t catch my breath.”

“You may be dehydrated. It’s hot today.”

He’s hot.

“So it wasn’t a heart attack?”

He shakes his head. “I doubt it, but we can have you tested to be certain. Do you suffer from anxiety, Sadie?”

I like the way he says my name. I detect a bit of a foreign accent. Everyone is crowding around us now—the girls from Bakery, Lisa, little children and their parents, the guy who’s always smoking in the parking lot. Even weird Jayne is watching me.

“Stand back,” the doctor says, like we’re in a movie. Then he asks the super, “Where does she live?”

She tells him.

“Do you think you can stand, Sadie?”

He helps me to my feet, and I lean against his chest, breathing in his scent, feeling the warmth of his body, my mouth watering as I imagine how he’d taste with a sprinkling of smoked paprika and garlic.

I push that thought out of my mind, tell myself that I am sick, sick, sick. Not because I had a heart attack, or whatever, but because I have these appetites.

“Can you walk? Or should I carry you upstairs?”

“Carry me.”

Good news: his wife is dead.

According to the super, who heard the story from Lisa, she died about a year ago.

His name is Marcus Archuleta, and I absolutely cannot kill him. I made myself promise. Not only because he’s been kind to me, but because he’s a single parent. His daughter’s name is Carmela. I call her Caramel. She’s seven. I know what it’s like to lose a mother, and I won’t make her lose her father too. He seems like a good one.

Marcus isn’t a
real
doctor. He’s a psychiatrist.

After my anxiety attack, he put me to bed and wrote me a prescription for this stuff called Xanax. He even picked it up at the supermarket pharmacy. Then he stayed with me until I fell asleep. I hope he didn’t notice the ceiling in the living room. If he mentions the stain, I’ll tell him I’ve been experimenting with paint samples, or that a bottle of ketchup exploded, or that the stupid college kid would not shut up. Kidding—I won’t tell him about the kid. Anyway, I slept all night, and the next morning I felt a lot better, except my stomach was as bloated as a watermelon due to my period. Or maybe the bloating was a result of eating chili. Anyway, I took a Xanax and some Motrin, then called in sick. Did you know masturbation is a great release for cramps? I keep several vibrators in the top drawer of my bedside table for medicinal purposes.