Angel of the Underground Read online

  “Thank you,” I reply. “The paint looks great, by the way.” He turns red while going to his room.

  I set my suitcase on the bed and retrieve my crucifix; a foot long, wooden cross that supports a silver Jesus. I kneel before a rectangular window that has no curtain, and recite three “Our Fathers” for the orphans who perished and would no longer face new experiences, no matter how uncomfortable or uncertain they might be.

  While putting away what little clothes I have in a closet with a mirrored inner door, I find a blue bikini hanging on a plastic hanger with the price tag still attached. I hold it up to myself while facing my reflection, and though I’m not sure if I could ever wear something so skimpy in front of two boys, I’m happy to have been given a welcome present. Any calm I feel is cut short when someone pounds on my door in rapid succession, causing my heart to leap into my throat. I spin around and find Jeremy showing me his middle fingers. “I heard you prissy religious freaks like Slayer,” he says. “Well, today’s your lucky day!”

  After he slams his bedroom door shut, a radio goes on full blast. What he plays sounds like an orchestration from Hell. The fury of squealing guitars and rapid drumbeats are only outmatched by a despondent singer who ultimately shouts, “GOD HATES US ALL!” I close my door, which cuts out everything but the pummeling bass.

  With nobody familiar to keep me company, and exhausted from hardly sleeping last night, I lie on the bed and try taking a nap. Between the sun reflecting off the window’s white lacquer surface, and a mind that won’t stop reminding me that the killer has not been apprehended, I can’t come close to falling under. To pass time, I read through my Bible for stories of patience, of which there are plenty. Abraham was made to wait years before God would grant him a promised child; Joseph waited a lengthy amount of time for God to make him leader of his people; and Simeon was not allowed to die until he witnessed the birth of the Messiah. By comparison, catching the murderer is something I shouldn’t expect the police to do anytime soon.

  Around six o’clock, a loud knock sounds on my door. Before I can invite anyone in, Barry opens it up and leans inside. He’s wearing black slacks, a white dress shirt, and a navy blue vest with a King Kullen name tag. In a voice loud enough to compete with Jeremy’s still-blaring music he says, “If this noise becomes a problem, you let me know!”

  As irritating as I find Jeremy’s musical taste, I don’t want to get him in trouble, so I tilt my head toward a shrugging shoulder and say, “I’ll be all right.”

  “You like pizza?”

  “I do.”

  “Then come on up. We got pepperoni!” Barry pushes himself off the door frame and excitedly hurries away. I hope for his sake he slows down before reaching the stairs, as it’s well known people his size are destined for early heart attacks.

  In the dining room, Nathan is siting at one head of the table and staring groggily at a glass of lemonade. When he notices me, he pulls out the seat closest to himself and pats the cushion. I sit next to him and ask, “How was your nap?”

  “I had the most wonderful dream,” he replies, inspecting his wrinkled hands. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I haven’t felt that young in years.” When I motion to ask what he means, Barry carries in two pizza boxes from the kitchen. Lori follows with a stack of plates and napkins. When she catches me looking at her, her lips stretch into an artificial smile and her eyes dart away.

  Barry sets the boxes down, opens the top one, and starts digging out a slice with his bare fingers. My stomach sours. Sister Alice always uses a spatula, even after she washes her hands. Barry drops the slice onto a plate and slides it down to me. I guide it to Nathan, since the patriarch deserves to eat first. Nathan leans in toward me and says, “Should the doctor ask, this never happened.” He pays me a wink, so I pay him one back.

  Barry passes another plate to me, licks sauce off two of his fingers, and pries out a slice for Lori. Her curled upper lip suggests she has no intentions of eating anything violated by her own husband’s spit. After piling up three slices on his plate, Barry sits next to me with his legs so far apart his left knee presses against my right thigh. “Mangia!” he says.

  Before anyone can take their first bite, I couple my hands in prayer, bow my head, and say aloud, “Bless us O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  I look up to six bewildered eyes. Nobody says anything, which makes me wonder if I’ve offended them by speaking of things Nathan referred to as purposeless. In the midst of their overlong silence, Nathan finally says, “Eat up,” which eases some discomfort.

  Barry folds his slice down the middle and bites off half. He chews like the Brahman bull I once saw eating hay at the Bald Hill Fair. I pick up my slice and nibble on the tip. I have a knack for getting sauce on my shirts, and don’t want to look like a slob during our first gathering. Luckily, Barry starts talking to me, which takes away the pressure from having to eat. “The nun mentioned you two are baseball fans,” he says.

  “We sure are,” I reply.

  “If you play your cards right, I’ll let you watch the game with me after dinner.”

  “That sounds great. They’re playing the Marlins and their ace is starting.”

  Barry laughs so hard he has to spit out a soggy wad of dough to catch his breath. Lori looks away in disgust. “Why in the world would I want to watch those losers? Around here, young lady, we follow the Yankees.”

  I swallow hard to keep the pizza bite from running back up my throat. Sister Alice and I have spent the bulk of the past three summers watching baseball, but our favorite team is the Mets. She made it perfectly clear that the Yankees organization is in league with Lucifer to have been permitted so much steroid and salary abuse throughout the past few decades. “Actually, I’m feeling a bit run down. I’d like to call Sister Alice, and then see about going to bed.”

  Lori snickers. Barry turns red while his head descends into his chins. I’ve obviously hurt his feelings for refusing his invitation in front of others, but I feel worse realizing the Mets pregame show is about to begin. Sister Alice and I would be putting the kids in their pajamas and reading them their bedtime stories. Afterward, we’d make popcorn and chocolate milk and settle in just in time for the first pitch.

  When dinner comes to a close, I excuse myself into the kitchen and call the group home from a wall phone near the fridge. It’s been too long since I’ve heard Sister Alice’s voice, but I’ll have to wait longer as I’m met with our answering machine. I’d like to think she’s watching the Mets with the volume too high, but I’m afraid she’s sitting by herself after another joyless day, wondering what she did wrong, and how all this could have happened when her pieties should have kept the devil out of our sanctuary. To hopefully lessen her pains, I leave a quick message letting her know I’m doing okay and I’m thinking about her.

  I head downstairs with the intention of sleeping out the rest of the day, even though it’s barely nine o’clock, but I haven’t been alone in darkness since the children were taken. Sister Alice let us bunk in her room at night, and visiting patrons from our church community were always around during the day. With nobody here to distract me from the pain, I cry harder than I have since the first child was claimed. When a gentle knock sounds on my door, I wipe away tears and tell whomever it is to come in. The door opens a crack, letting in a beam of hallway light. “Were you sleeping?” Dennis asks.

  “Not even close,” I reply.

  “Do you like horror movies?”

  “Does Casper count?”

  “If you’re in Huggies. I’m putting one on for you if you’re up for it.” In need of a diversion, and eager to make friends of strangers, I swing my feet off the bed, hop up, and follow Dennis to his room. I abruptly stop in his doorway when noticing his decorations with quiet repulsion. The walls are cloaked with posters and magazine pages of horror movie villains and victims. Toys of madmen and monsters stand on anything with a flat s
urface. Five shelving units hold dozens of movies, all of which have titles that insinuate death and torment. Plus, there’s no place for me to sit. Jeremy has the bed, Dennis claims a soft computer chair, and the floor is covered with dirty clothes.

  Jeremy, outstretching his arms and legs to take up every inch of the mattress, says to me, “Take your holy ass to the carpet!” Dennis moves aside a pile of clothes with his foot, revealing a circular patch of carpeting.

  I sit on my knees and say, “What are we watching?”

  “Considering what you’ve been through,” Dennis replies, “I’ll start you off with something tame.” He hands me the DVD box for Child’s Play 2, where a living doll is holding a gigantic pair of scissors over the spring neck of a frightened jack-in-the-box. Though I’m in no mood to view anything immoral, I don’t want to turn him down and appear as though I don’t appreciate his offer, so I prepare myself for another new experience and sit Indian style against the foot of the bed.

  At the beginning of Child’s Play 2, a boy named Andy is taken in by a couple that cares for foster kids. Not long in, Chucky, a three-foot doll possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, hunts Andy down for whatever they squabbled over in the first film. Unfortunately, nobody believes that a doll could cause so many problems, so Andy is left to fend for himself. I feel relief that my first day in a new home is going better than Andy’s.

  Though I’m not accustomed to R-rated movies, Child’s Play 2 does offer warnings of violent mayhem, mainly through changes in music, which allow me to cover my eyes. Between the slits in my fingers I catch glimpses of an electrocution, a suffocation, and Chucky beating a school teacher to death with a yardstick. I make a sign of the cross after each murder, even though I can easily tell each death is staged. People don’t get blown through windows because of small doses of electricity, a doll could never muster enough strength to suffocate anyone with a plastic bag, and no yardstick I ever held could pulverize a human without breaking.

  Dennis and Jeremy don’t seem to care about the implausibilities. They laugh during the murders and find amusement in watching people die. Jeremy, taking disrespect of the victims further, taunts the characters in their agony. He even cries out in rage during the finale, when Andy gets the best of Chucky by blowing him up.

  When the film ends, I sit up on my knees, which brings relief to my stinging feet, and lean sideways against the bed. “That wasn’t exactly scary,” I say.

  “The first one was,” Dennis replies, “but there’s only so much tension you can wring out of plastic.”

  “Are there others? Seems a stretch to think Chucky could come back without a head.”

  “Only one way to find out. Are you up for Part Three?” Though watching humans die before their time doesn’t thrill me, I’d rather deal with a killer doll than the cold darkness of my unfamiliar room.

  When the boys call it a night, I have no choice but to go to bed and face my feelings alone. Whenever thoughts of death creep into my mind, I overshadow them with lighter memories of the deceased, such as the time Brian yelled at a chair because he dropped his toy when bumping into it; or the time Kim came home from preschool covered in paint because she preferred her shirt to canvas; or the time Chris insisted on dressing himself and came out of his room with his bumblebee underwear outside his pants. I can’t say these thoughts make me happy, but they somehow lessen the horror of their deaths and allow exhaustion to catch up to me.

  CHAPTER III

  I awaken in the morning to pulsating heat against my back. I half-expect to find my roommate, Amanda, sleeping beside me, but the snoring sounds are too deep for a three-year-old. I look over my shoulder and find a bald, blemished scalp. I slither onto the floor, land hard on my right hip, and stare at Nathan with wide eyes. Still sound asleep, he rolls over facing me. His lips are stuck to his dry teeth, which makes him look like a skeleton veiled in tight skin.

  A frantic voice sounds upstairs. I crawl to the hallway for a listen and hear Lori say, “Dad! Enough of this shit! Where are you?” I hurry up to the dining room, where Lori stops short and looks me over as though I’m interrupting her for no good reason. “Can I help you with something?”

  “He’s in my room,” I reply.

  “Isn’t that nice? We’ve been going crazy up here while you two are having a fucking tea party?”

  Before I can explain what’s actually happening, she brushes past me and heads to the basement. I follow her with the hope that finding Nathan asleep will lead to an apology for chastising me with profanity, but when she sees Nathan she simply mutters, “Tell Barry to come in. He’s out back.”

  Sure enough, Barry is leaning inside the aluminum shed. When he retracts himself and notices me he offers a quizzical gaze.

  “He’s downstairs,” I say, “in my bed.”

  Barry places his hands on my shoulders and says, “You’ll have to forgive him. He’s not all there in the head and tends to forget where he is.” He leads me to the garage with a hand on my back. “I wouldn’t worry. He’s far from a threat.”

  I give Barry the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t say a word. I don’t know about Nathan’s health conditions, and can’t feel too upset since he didn’t do anything but sleep. Sister Alice says life is full of unplanned discomforts, so I forgive him as I expect Sister Alice would.

  When Barry heads downstairs to gather his father, I find something of interest in a lidless kitchen garbage pail. Beneath a wet coffee filter is the latest Newsday. On the cover is a photo of Detective Morris, the policeman who spoke to me when I found Bryan’s savaged body. While Nathan is taken upstairs, I slip the paper under my shirt and take it down to my room.

  The main article clarifies what I already know. The police department has yet to disclose any clues or leads that might tie the murders to a suspect. Detective Morris is under public scrutiny for his inability to set anyone at ease. Answering “no comment” to almost every question is angering the already frightened community. Sales of guns, home security systems, and guard dogs have spiked over the past few weeks. Citizens are begging for a new detective to take on the case, as they find Morris wholly incompetent.

  I think they’re too hard on him. When we met he appeared concerned for my well-being; he told me I had witnessed a scene more brutal than any he’s ever encountered before. At one point he excused himself to the bathroom, where he must have cried since he came out with swollen, bloodshot eyes. He promised me he’d catch the killer by any means necessary, but those means are eluding him.

  After flipping through the rest of the paper, which ends with the Mets’ three game losing streak, I call the group home and hang up on a busy signal. I head out back to see what the boys are up to and find Dennis in the pool. As I approach, Jeremy rises from the depths and blows water from his nose. He then says to me: “Why the long face, slut? Couldn’t get the geezer off?” He laughs hard, but the sound doesn’t relate to humor. My eyes start to burn as tears fill the ducts. Crying, even in the most minimal sense, often feeds the wretchedness of people like Jeremy, so I look into a sandy foot bath near the pool and try not to blink.

  Dennis bobs closer to me and leans his arms against the aluminum ledge. “Ignore him,” he says, “no one else thinks it’s funny. Nathan has issues.” I look at him with appreciation just as Jeremy slides an arm’s length of cold water at me. My breath is immediately seized. Jeremy laughs so hard he begins to choke. Undeserving of such treatment, I return downstairs, drop face first into my pillow, and don’t expect to hear from anyone until dinner.

  At half past two, a light knock sounds on my door, to which I reply, “Come in.”

  Dennis enters and closes the door behind himself, probably so he can be heard over Jeremy’s heavy metal. “I’m heading out for a bit,” he says. “Jeremy will probably blast music the rest of the day. The pool is all yours.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “A place you’re not allowed to go to. We were told not to bring you anywhere.”
/>   “I’m not a prisoner. And I can’t sit still without thinking horrible thoughts about those kids. I need to get out of here.” I look directly into his forlorn hazel eyes and clasp my hands. “Please?”

  Dennis bites his upper lip while bouncing his head from side to side, then says in surrender, “It’s only two miles away. If we hurry we can make it back before anyone knows you left.”

  I stand up and put on my Keds.

  Though Jeremy is screaming along to his music, Dennis says he has a sense for knowing when something fun is happening without him, so we creep up to the garage and quietly wheel out the two bicycles. “You can take mine,” Dennis says, “I’ll use his.”

  Their bikes are nearly identical, and only slightly different than the one I grew up with. The top crossbar doesn’t dip and the brakes aren’t pedal operated, but I’m sure I’ll adapt. I’m getting used to adapting.

  Dennis initially rides hard and puts twenty yards between us, but when we reach a safe distance from the house he slows down so I can catch up. When side-by-side I ask, “Where are we going?”

  “To the greatest place in creation,” he replies.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Can I ask you something personal first?”

  “Let me guess, how did I become an orphan?”

  “I was wondering about something darker. You come from a place named after a priest where kids were killed, yet I saw you sign the cross three times last night. I’m not sure I’d still worship the one who let that happen.”

  “God didn’t kill anyone.”

  “He also didn’t catch anyone.”

  I don’t know how to respond because his point has been bothering me too. That vulnerable children were murdered is troubling enough, but that the murderer continues to roam free doesn’t seem fair. Changing the subject I ask, “Where are you taking me?”

  “My sanctuary.” He gives me a wink and peddles faster. I keep pace, but allow him to take the lead when we reach a busy highway with a narrow sidewalk. Dennis leads me to an area where two lanes become four, the traffic lights multiply, and the speed limit increases. Sister Alice would forbid me to go anywhere near such a dangerous area, but I feel safe with Dennis. He seems to have made the trip many times before, and never does anything rash like cross a street without looking both ways, or ride through lanes that have green lights.