Angel of the Underground Read online

He takes my left hand and holds it in his lap. My fingertips immediately prune from his hot, sweaty palm. “Don’t take offense, honey. She doesn’t like anybody. Or anything. And I mean anything.” He laughs and moves my hand further up his thigh, which is closer than I’d like for it to travel. I whip my hand away and place it between my knees.

  “Something the matter?” he asks.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not big on people touching me.”

  “But you’ll lie in bed with Dennis.”

  “That’s different. He doesn’t grope.”

  “Oh, really? I grope?” He looks straight at me awaiting a response, but I don’t know how to explain myself without offending him. My slight physical contact with Dennis seems perfectly natural and a result of the friendship between us. Barry’s touches are uninvited intrusions. Having waited too long for an answer, Barry tries to readjust himself so that his back is to me, but the seat is too small and he barely budges. “I try so hard to please you, Robin, but I can’t seem to do anything right.”

  “I appreciate the gestures, sir.”

  “Sir.” Barry folds his short arms over his gut. “She’ll go to a game I drive her to, as long as I don’t lay a fat finger on her.” His face reddens and his bottom eyelids moisten. He looks legitimately hurt, but I can’t tell if it’s a ruse to get me to beg for forgiveness. With the way things are going in my life, I can only assume his motives are for the worse, so I remain quiet.

  Barry doesn’t speak to me on the ride home (after a grueling Mets loss) to keep up with the silent treatment he managed during the game. I think he’s coming around when he stops off at a convenience store, but he leaves with only one bagged ice cream cone that he eats in six bites. When we arrive back at the house, I thank him for the game, but he heads straight inside without looking back.

  On the way to my room, I pause as I hear another bizarre recitation coming from beyond Jeremy’s door. In a baritone voice he chants, “The dripping of the nectar from my eager cleft!”

  Though lights are on in Dennis’s room, I don’t want to ruin his evening by releasing my frustrations on him, so I plunge onto my bed and wring my pillow to will away the anger brought upon by Barry, and the way the Mets game ended. Seconds later, Dennis knocks on my door frame and says, “I watched the highlights on the news. The Mets got screwed on that call.”

  “I could tell he was safe from four hundred feet away,” I say. “That was bullshit.”

  Dennis backs into the door, eyes aghast. “If that was your first curse, I’m flattered, but it’s just a game—”

  “That I’d like to forget about.” I roll onto my stomach and stuff my head in my pillow. Dennis lies on his stomach beside me and makes sure our arms touch.

  “This can’t be about a blind ump and a faulty replay system. What did Barry do?”

  I turn sideways to grab at him while deepening my voice in imitation to say, “My wife won’t play with me anymore.”

  Dennis sits up, holds my hands still, and looks at me with humorless concern. “He touched you?”

  I maneuver to sit Indian style. “Nothing explicit. I think he’s just . . . needy.”

  “Maybe the pervert should focus on his wife and keep his needy hands off you!” Dennis squeezes his right hand into a fist and looks around as though he has to punch something to quell his anger. Instead, he unties the lace on my left sneaker.

  “Is that why Lori is mean to me? Because I’m the center of his attention?”

  He hisses while bearing his bottom teeth, which stretches his lip and causes the scab to break and bleed. He jumps up, checks the hallway, closes the door tight, sits close to me, and whispers, “I don’t think they’d want you to know this.” I wipe away the blood on his chin with my thumb, carefully, so I don’t cause him pain. His eyes shift to my shoe and he begins tying up the lace. “I looked them up when they took me in and found a few articles online. About five years ago, Lori and Barry had a four-month-old daughter who died from crib death.” My right hand lands over my crucifix charm while my lower guts churn. “If that wasn’t enough, it happened the night before she was supposed to be baptized.”

  “Baptized? Here?”

  “From what I’ve picked up on, Lori was raised Catholic. She married into a family who haven’t been fans of the church for a long time. Once her daughter died she turned her back on religion too. I’m surprised they took you in, considering where you come from.”

  “But why do Barry and Lori hate each other?”

  “He wanted another kid, but she didn’t. She agreed to sign adoption papers, which is how me and Jeremy got here, but I think it was just to keep him off her back about having their own. Four years have gone by and she’s barely spoken to me. Neither has Barry, for that matter. Not that I mind. This place beats an orphanage. Lights out at nine o’clock, Dennis! No horror movies in the rec room, Dennis!”

  “How did you end up . . . alone?” This is a long overdue question, but not one I would ask if I didn’t think Dennis confided in me enough to answer.

  “My parents died in a car crash. I survived in the backseat. I have no other family, so that was that.”

  “And Jeremy?”

  “His parents left him in the woods with a sign that read EAT ME.”

  I laugh so abruptly I accidentally spit on his forearm. He wipes it off on my sheets without making it an issue. “I actually don’t know his story. I asked once, but he doesn’t speak unless he’s ranting. How’d you end up with Sister Alice?”

  I pull off my left sneaker, because Dennis tied it too tight, then kick off the other. “One of my mother’s boyfriends thought it would be fun to take my virginity, but he was drunk enough that I was able to fight him off. He still beat me up so badly that the school nurse found blood in my ears the next day. I could have lied about what happened to protect Mom, but I’d had enough of living in random places, eating scraps for dinner, and having her men look at me like I’m a toy. The nurse called CPS, and the next day I was in the group home.”

  “I’m sorry for why you ended up here, but I’m glad I got to know you. There’s never been anyone to talk to. The video store clerk is the closest I have to a friend.” He looks away with sadness, maybe realizing I’ll have to leave once the killer is apprehended. There’s nothing I can say to console him, because if that’s what he’s thinking, he’s right. “I rented you a present. I’m not sure what it’s about. I picked it out because of the title. Come look.”

  He kisses me on the cheek, which feels surprisingly natural, and stands with my hand in his.

  We go to his room, where he digs through a bag of video rentals and hands me one that looks far from comforting. The cover presents a knife wedged into the bleeding torso of a baby doll. The title, however, reads Alice Sweet Alice. I agree to watch as long as Jeremy doesn’t decide to join us, and we hear him leave while Dennis is loading the movie. My bizarre night is suddenly looking brighter.

  Alice Sweet Alice centers on a troubled brat named, no big surprise, Alice, who’s the main suspect in the death of her sister, Karen. Karen is murdered in church moments before her first holy communion. Strangely, neither the sight of Karen’s smoldering corpse, nor a bloody stairway stabbing, nor the plummeting demise of a generally kind character discourage me from watching. After witnessing Sister Alice in her final condition, nothing fabricated on film will ever upset me again.

  When the movie ends, I swing my feet off the bed and stretch as hard as I can. Having sat in a car for nearly two hours round trip, and in the Citi Field seat for three, my back muscles have stiffened and ache. “Will you be up for a while if I can’t fall asleep?” I ask.

  “If I’m out just wake me up,” he replies.

  I blow him a quick kiss that he catches and slaps on his cheek.

  Alone in bed, shrouded by darkness, I focus on the positive aspects of the Mets game (mainly that I went at all), and this quality time with Dennis. My mind, however, keeps returning to Sister Alice, and the wonder of how I’
ll manage to get through her wake tomorrow afternoon without completely breaking down. I can’t stop picturing her corpse, nor my travels through the group home basement.

  In the comfort of my imagination, I allow myself to enter the cellar again, where I’m drawn to the crackling under the stairs. Rather than focus on finding the staircase itself, I inch closer to the origin of the sounds; the mannequin in the habit. The nearer I get, the more I’m able to pick up noises I didn’t pay attention to last night, notably the frenetic breathing of someone trying to contain their laughter. When I reach the open partition, my eyes focus deep into the nun’s murky headdress. Within the hood I discover Jeremy’s vile grin.

  I sit up abruptly and try to convince myself I’m only seeing what my mind fears—even though Jeremy could be the perpetrator, with his relentless anger, his satanic leanings, and his cruelty toward his adoptive family. I’ve only known him for a few days, but have seen more hostility in him than any of the bullies in school I’ve known for years. To set my mind at ease, there’s only one thing I can do. I have to search Jeremy’s room.

  With all the courage I can muster, I tiptoe out of bed and open my door for a peek into the hall. Jeremy’s bedroom door is closed and his lights are off. I creep nearer, wondering if I should ask Dennis to keep a lookout for me, but he could be asleep and I don’t want to involve him in what could be my own delusions.

  After jiggling Jeremy’s doorknob, and hearing no response at all, I open the door a crack. I slowly reach inside, turn on a light, and exhale through puckered lips when finding the room empty. The decorations, however, tighten my stomach.

  Jeremy’s bedroom is covered with posters of the bands whose wild, angry music pulsates all day through the walls. Their logos are of satanic carvings, revolting creatures, and a blasphemous red idol. A skull I hope is plastic rests atop his dresser amid melted black candles, a silver chalice, and a bronze bell. A small gold tray holds long strands of hair that he must have extracted from my comb. The Satanic Bible rests near these implements of evil, which is opened to a ritual called “Invocation of Lust.” My rattling fingers suggest I should leave, but I feel I’m getting closer to singling out something important.

  When I open Jeremy’s closet door I’m taken aback by a strong smell. Atop of pile of pornographic magazines is an open cigar box that holds dried green leaves that look like spices, and hand rolled cigarettes that look like thick, white worms. Black shirts are lined up on the hangers. I kneel to move aside a cardboard box from the back corner, to see if can find a nun’s habit, clothes that smell of gasoline, or tools that could extract eyes. While digging about, a shadow emerges behind me.

  “Looking for something?” Jeremy says. An icy chill whips up my spine and locks me in place. I try to think of an excuse as to why I’m rummaging through his belongings, but I can barely breathe, let alone invent a believable lie. Before I can consider how to get away from him, he pins me between his calves at my waist and unzips his pants. “Bathe in the nectar of your new god, bitch.”

  A warm surge of urine is unleashed upon the back of my head. Jeremy pivots from side to side to douse my ears. Streams run into and burn my eyes. He squeezes his legs tighter while forcing a heavy gush between my shoulder blades. I don’t think he’ll ever stop, but he’s suddenly jerked away.

  I look back, allowing pooled liquid to empty from my left ear, and watch Dennis lift Jeremy sideways and slam him to the floor. Dennis never utters a word, but the creases in his face suggest total fury as he relentlessly punches Jeremy in the head and chest. Jeremy squirms and howls, but can provide no defense to a beating he so richly deserves.

  I work up the strength to stand on wobbly legs and rush into the bathroom. I pry off my saturated shirt and drop it into the sink where it lands with a splat. I strip naked, hop into the shower, and spin the hot valve four rotations. I tinker with the cold valve just enough so I won’t sear off my skin.

  After close to an hour of washing and rewashing my hair, I peek into the hall for Jeremy, hurry into my room to change into spare pajamas, peek into the hall for Jeremy, and head into Dennis’s room. He’s laying on top of the bedding, staring at the ceiling. I lie down beside him, but neither of us speak. I move his arm around me and rest my head on his chest to listen to his heart.

  Sometime after midnight, I’m awakened by heavy breathing. I open my eyes to a looming silhouette, and grip the sheets in fear of Jeremy’s reprisal, but it’s Barry who grabs my arm and yanks me off the bed. He lifts me onto his shoulder, carries me to my room, drops me down on my mattress and says, “Sleep in your own goddamned room!” He slams my door shut and lumbers away.

  Somewhere within the darkness, perhaps from my closet, underneath my bed, or outside my window, I hear laughter. I can’t help but feel the taunt is coming from God.

  CHAPTER VII

  Grumbling voices in the hallway awaken me. At first I put my pillow over my head so I can continue sleeping, but when recalling the beating Jeremy received, I sit up to listen. “The way you and Robin act around each other is disgusting,” Barry is saying, “and look what it led to! Jeremy can’t even open his eyes!”

  “Did he tell you what he did to her?” Dennis asks.

  “What was she doing in his room?”

  Jeremy, through undoubtedly swollen lips, chimes in with, “Shuh a crothe uh huh ath!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Barry continues, “he can’t even speak English. I don’t want to see either of your faces for the rest of my day off! In your rooms! Now!”

  Dennis and Jeremy exchange heated words before each of their doors bangs shut. Barry’s footsteps land in front of my room. I pull the covers to my chin in case he decides to come in, but he ultimately walks away.

  I remain in bed until my stomach calms, and decide to go upstairs to apologize to Barry for the rift I’ve created between him and his adoptive sons. I need him to drive me to Sister Alice’s wake today, and don’t want his bad mood to prevent me from attending.

  I stand before Barry’s den for a few moments, building up the courage to knock, but hesitate when I hear a voice from the room across the hall. Lori is speaking in such a joyful tone that I feel the need to inspect what she’s saying and, more importantly, who she’s saying it to. The door to what appears a master bedroom is half-open, allowing me a view of the rocking chair she’s sitting in. Her back is facing me, but I can tell she’s reading from a sizable picture book.

  “Presently along came a wolf,” Lori says. “He knocked on the door and said, ‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in!’ To which the pig answered—”

  A child’s nasally voice replies, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!” Hearing delight in Lori’s presence wrenches me upright. I haven’t a clue whose child is meeting her favor, since visitors never stop by, and she doesn’t appear to have any friends. She either babysits, has another child I wasn’t told about, or has taken up kidnapping.

  “The wolf then answered to that, ‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!’ So he huffed and he puffed and he blew his house in, and ate up the little pig.” Lori leans forward and rustles up the bed sheets while growling like a wolf. The child I can’t see playfully shrieks. Lori sits back, but keeps the chair from rocking by grounding her toes. “The second little pig met a man with a bundle of furze and said—”

  “What’s furze?” the child wonders.

  “Sticks. The pig met the man with sticks and said, ‘Please, man, give me those sticks to build a house,’ which the man did, and the pig built his house.” I inch into the room far enough to glance over Lori’s shoulder. Under the sheets of a twin bed, of which there are two separated by a night stand, is a lump too small to be a child old enough to speak. “Then along came the wolf who said, ‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in.’”

  I know better than to press my luck with someone as snippy as Lori, but too many awful things are happening to children and I can’t ignore something this strange. I open the door a few mo
re inches for a clearer look at the bed. When my eyes meet her listener, a porcelain doll with vibrant green eyes, I suck in a sharp breath. Lori jumps out of the chair, making it rock full tilt, and claps the book to her chest. “What are you doing in here?” she snaps.

  “I’m looking for Barry,” I reply.

  “He’s in his den, oblivious to the real world! Where else would he be? In here is where we deal with matters of life and death!” Tears brew in her frenzied eyes, so I back into the hallway until I bump into a cushion that smells like nachos.

  Barry takes me by the wrist, pulls me into his room, and closes the door. He drops into his recliner, mutes the volume of a sports talk show, and says to me, “Don’t worry about Lori. Frankly, she’s out of her mind and I’m tired of dealing with her.” I sit at the edge of the folding chair, slightly eased by his awareness of her. “And don’t think I’m going to come down on you for breaking rules I never set, but I’m officially forbidding you from spending time in Dennis’s room with no supervision. You’re both of that age where boys and girls get into . . . filth. I can’t allow it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “but I don’t always feel safe by myself.”

  Barry shifts toward me and puts his hands on my knees. “You can come to me for that kind of comfort, honey. Nobody can protect you the way I can. I have proof.”

  He jerks himself out of the chair and goes into a closet that’s packed with oversized Yankees shirts and sweaters. He retrieves a long case from the floor that resembles a keyboard cover. Barry flips open the long lid and lifts out an instrument that renders a completely different tune: a black shotgun. I lean back against the chair as far as I can without pressing myself through the breach.

  Barry smirks proudly and says, “If you ever run into trouble, and I’m not here, this is what you do.” He removes a shell from within the case and slides it into a metal trap on the underside of the gun. After pumping the handle with significant force, he aims the barrel at the door. “Presto! Just like that you’re ready to defend yourself. You just have to make sure this little doohickey isn’t red or you won’t be shooting anyone.” He’s referring to the safety catch near the trigger guard. “Remember, I’m only showing you this as a last resort. I don’t want to find you up here playing with it.”