The Bleeding Season (27 page)

Rick, still serving his prison sentence, was absent.  Bernard raised his beer to toast him, his hand clutching the can, the same hand that just months before had slaughtered two young women in New York City, hands that had stabbed and mutilated, that had held heads steady while cutting, slicing away pieces of flesh, hands that had mingled, played with the dead.

And now he was playing with us, pretending to be the same old harmless and unexceptional Bernard he’d always been, chugging a beer and contemplating his future just like the rest of us.  No longer merely a torturer or a rapist, he had by then become a killer—savage, unremorseful, performing rituals and making sacrifices to whatever dark gods he served.  Surely there was some sign, some clue we’d missed.

Even in the realm of dreams and whispers, it all seemed so absurd.    

Tommy, long dead himself by then, watched us from the top of the boulder, his hair tinted red; the blood from his cracked skull leaking faster, dribbling down the front of him in a steady, sticky stream.  His eyes shifted, gazed off toward another section of woods not so far from there, where an even younger Bernard had brutalized Julie Henderson.

Julie, all these years later, existing in that dark apartment, silver crucifixes hanging in the windows, Bibles and used syringes scattered about, the putrid stench of cooked heroin lingering in the air while she struggled so desperately to hang on to whatever slivers of sanity and well-being remained.  Working a job slinging diner food, one eye always on the door, hurrying through the neighborhood with head bowed, making drug buys in filthy alleys and on desolate street corners, waiting for the demons to come looking for her again, hoping to make it to the safety of her apartment, her sanctuary, her fortress and tomb, where Adrian waited, scratching at bruised arms.

She emerged from shadow gradually, rocking gently, her nightgown pulled up around her waist as she rode Adrian’s emaciated form.  Lying beneath her on the bed, his eyes rolled back in a heroin daze and little eruptions of intoxicated laughter escaped him between slurred words of encouragement.

As she bucked harder, increased speed and ground deeper, tears fell from her eyes like the initial slow and steady raindrops that precede a heavier storm.  She wrapped her arms around herself and twisted at the waist as if suddenly forced into an invisible straight jacket.  The tears grew worse, flooding eyes crazy and wild and stained with madness wrought by unclean spirits, eyes that had seen Hell, and not from a distance.

Teardrops became the ticks of a clock, and I knew then that the recurring dream had begun again.  I had joined Julie in the gulch between that which was real and that which was better left imagined.      

The ticking clock began to irritate me right on cue, and from my position on the bed, I heard the floor creak, felt it shift.  The headache tingled behind my eyes, same as always, but I ignored it and sat up.  I knew Bernard would be standing in the room staring at me, so I wasn’t surprised to see him there, pale and dead, smiling his sad smile.  This time, I knew why I was afraid.  I looked to the doorway.  The others would be coming for him soon.  He stepped closer, gleeful in the madness, and reached for me with dirt-caked fingers, his nails cracked and brittle and looking as if he’d been burrowing through earth and stone and scraping at casket lids for hours.  He leaned closer, touching me now, leering at me the way a butcher leers at a prize hog, rubbing my legs and squeezing my thighs, running his hands over me as I sat paralyzed.

His hand slid between my legs, stroked me roughly before cupping my scrotum.  Vomit burned the back of my throat.  He laughed soundlessly, his fingers pulling at me, prodding; his breath rancid and warm against my face.

In his free hand something flashed, reflecting what little light existed in the room.  Small razor blades moved quickly, individually between his fingers, from one to the next in rhythmic motion, turning and rolling and flipping the way a gambler manipulates a deck of cards with a single hand.

“Stop—Bernard, for God’s sake—
stop
.”

He smiled at me, his lips cracking and crumbling like all the times before, dripping blood and spittle.  The ticking of the clock became instead a steady buzzing sound.  Something moved down by his feet.  Flies.  They gathered on the walls, along the ceiling, crawled across the window casings, their number steadily growing as they converged on the room, swarming forth from unseen portals.

As they covered the room in a living blanket, Bernard opened the ragged bloody hole that had been his mouth and held it in a silent screech.  Over his shoulder shadows appeared, crossing the doorway and signaling the approach—
their
 approach.  The others.    

His cold dead eyes looked directly into mine, and his hand knifed across my lap.  I felt quick, dragging, savage pressure, then the gradual and increasingly agonizing burn razors leave in the wake of slashed flesh.

When the others came for him I was still screaming, kicking and flailing and trying to press both hands over my groin in a frenzied attempt to stop the spray of blood that even then was painting the wall.

Splashed with crimson, the glut of flies rippled and heaved like a single disturbed mass, surging higher along the wall.

Then it was all gone, and I realized I was alone.  Rick, Donald and I were on our own, alone with Bernard, alone with all he had done.    

And with all that remained.

SUMMER

CHAPTER 20

The sun was going down but still bright, still hanging on and struggling against the horizon as if it had waited for us, the shafts a beautiful collage, varied hues of orange and red cutting the sky and reflecting off the gentle waves of the Atlantic.

Rick had been released a few hours earlier, set free after serving his time.  He’d emerged from the gates, and upon seeing us, trotted down the steps the way the gangsters in old movies used to do it, sideways and graceful—like a dancer—as if to show that all was well, and the hop in his step proved it.  While he was still in good shape physically, his football-player-build had suffered somewhat.  Because he had lost a lot of weight his body looked thin and tight as opposed to thick and powerful, and it showed the most in his face, which at first glance appeared drawn.  Having been deprived of sound sleep for a long period, large dark circles had taken residence beneath both eyes, and since his time spent outside had been severely limited, his complexion was paler than it had been in the past.

He’d made it very clear in the days leading up to his release that he wanted us there to pick him up and not his family.  He’d need a few hours out before he could face them, he’d told me.  But even we were nervous, lifelong friends or not, all of us uncertain of what to say or how to say it, of what to do or how to do it.  He came to me first, and we hugged.  Despite his attempt at a composed demeanor, his body felt rigid and tense.

“How you guys been?” he said, leaving me to hug Donald, and finally Bernard, who had hung back closer to the car like a shy younger sibling.  Yet it was Bernard who had embraced him the longest that day, clinging to him until Rick finally wrestled himself free in a rather awkward and embarrassing maneuver, whispering, “It’s OK, man, it’s OK, take it easy.”

Rick looked at the sky like he’d never seen it before.  He smiled but it came off as meaningless.  Our leader had returned.  Locked away the head Sultan—our Warlord—only time would tell what had emerged in his place.  “Let’s go to the beach,” he said.

It was the first time I’d heard his voice without having a sheet of thick plastic between us in months, and it sounded rich and full, but not exactly as I’d remembered it.  Like his smile, it lacked the conviction it once had.  He’d been broken in there, and despite his best effort it showed.

“The beach,” I said.  “You got it.  Whatever you want.”

The ride there was quiet.  Initially Bernard had tried to make small talk, but no one responded, so he let it drop.  Rick sat in the front passenger seat, looking out the window but not focused on anything specific until we hit the beach parking lot.  It was early fall, the tourists had all gone home and the beach was deserted.  Before I had a chance to park he rolled the window down and drew a deep breath of ocean air.  He smiled, and this time it seemed closer to genuine, like he was working his way toward it.  “You miss the weirdest shit.  All kinds of stuff you never really think about.”

We held back, allowed Rick to take the lead and get out of the car first.  As he crossed the sand, trudging along toward the waterline, we slowly emerged from the car and trailed him, giving him a wide berth.  Once he’d reached the water he crouched down and touched it, then looked out at the waves and the sky and the slowly setting kaleidoscope sun.

After a moment we slowly converged on him and formed a half circle behind him.  The temperature was dropping, and the wind off the water was growing stronger.  No one said a word—even Bernard knew enough to keep quiet—while Rick bonded with the sand and sky and air and water and whatever else he needed to see and feel and think and know.  He ran his hands through the sand, let it fall between his fingers, then grabbed a handful and tossed it out at the water.

He turned back to us, cheeks flushed.  “So what do you guys want to do?”

“It’s your night, dude,” Bernard said.  He stepped forward and lit a cigarette.  In an attempt at cool that was even less genuine than Rick’s earlier efforts, he cupped the flame from his lighter with both hands, cocked his head and did his best James Dean.  “How about we go to Brannigan’s and get some steaks?  We can throw back a few then hit a titty-bar or something like that.”

Bernard had begun to prematurely bald his senior year of high school, and since Rick had gone, Bernard had taken to wearing a rather silly looking wig that would eventually become one of his defining characteristics.  Between that and his thick glasses, Donald often joked that he looked like he was wearing a bad disguise, but it apparently made Bernard feel better about himself.

“Check this guy out,” Rick said, doing his best to appear amused.  He had clearly been shocked by Bernard’s appearance, but never said a word about it.  “You a big titty-bar guy now, Bernard?”

Bernard grinned.  “A lot’s changed.”

“Yes,” Donald said quickly, “Bernard’s become a wild stud while you were away.
King of the Titty Bars
is what we call him now.  It beats
Moronic Dipshit
 and looks better on a t-shirt.”

“At least I like titties,” Bernard said, laughing now too.

“Yes, but do titties like you?”  Donald plucked the cigarette from Bernard’s lips, took a drag then stuffed it back into his mouth.  “
That
 is the question.”

“You know better than to ever get into it with Donny.”  Rick put an arm around Bernard, looked at me and winked as they headed back toward the car.  “Sorry that whole thing with the Marines didn’t work out.”

“Fucking training platform,” Bernard grunted.  “I was kicking ass and taking names until I fell off that goddamn thing.  Wrecked my knee.  It’s better now though.”

“Still, that took a lot of balls, joining up like that.  I’m proud of you, man.”

Bernard looked back at Donald and me and beamed.

“Like a kid with a cookie,” I mumbled.

“True,” Donald agreed.  “But which one’s the cookie?”

As we followed behind them I heard Bernard say, “I told you, Rick, a lot’s changed.”

And while I had no idea just how right he was, things
had
changed for each of us in our own way.  Tommy was a few years dead, Rick was already fighting to find an old self he’d never quite fully recover, Donald had begun to lose the battle against depression and the alcoholism that accompanied it, I was within months of being engaged to Toni—so certain marrying her would somehow salvage us both, make us complete—and Bernard…Bernard, like Tommy, while not yet buried, was already a couple years dead too, slowly rotting from the inside out.  Only no one knew it.  Or maybe no one wanted to know it.  No one wanted to know anything.  Not about Bernard, not even about ourselves.

Later that same night, while Donald and Bernard walked along the beach, Rick and I managed a quiet moment.  We had taken up position at a small gazebo set back from the tall grass and overlooking the sand and ocean.  After sitting quietly for several minutes, listening to the waves and the wind, I finally said, “It’s getting cold.”

“Yeah, I like it though.”  Sensing my discomfort he said, “Alan, it is what is.  We just got to keep moving.  Like sharks, right?  We stop, we die.”

“I just want to be sure you’re OK.  I mean
really
 OK.”

“Eventually we’ll all be OK.”

So many years later, we were still waiting.

*   *   *

A pounding on the front door brought me back.  I hadn’t really been sleeping, but wasn’t totally awake either, so it took me a few seconds to realize I was on the floor, next to the couch, having apparently rolled off at some point during the night.  Bright sunshine powered through the windows.  I was stiff and sore, my muscles and joints ached and my head was throbbing.  I struggled to my knees, and using the edge of the couch for leverage, hoisted myself to my feet.  The knocking on the door resumed, harder this time.  “Yeah, I’m coming,” I called.  “Hold on, for Christ’s sake.”  I rubbed my eyes, stretched, and staggered to the door.

I found Rick and Donald standing there when I pulled it open, along with a blinding shaft of sunshine that felt like it had gone directly through my skull.  I vaguely remembered making plans with them, telling them to be here because I had wanted to pursue the Chris Bentley angle.  But I’d had so much to drink I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been passed out, or what day it was.  The inside of my mouth felt like it had been lined with cotton.  “What are you guys doing here so early?”

“We called four times and never got an answer,” Donald scolded.  “It’s almost three o’clock in the afternoon.”

I shielded my eyes and squinted at my watch.  He was right.  “Shouldn’t you be at work then, Donald?”