Berger

 

We were sitting at the kitchen table having what some people would assume to be breakfast but to us was a tense meal of whisky, cigarettes and worried glances punctuated with the occasional nibbling of toast.

“Neat whiskey at the crack of dawn?” noted Lincoln as he pointed at my glass.

“Well I usually have ice but it seems like we’re all out.”

He pressed his finger into a pile of crumbs on his plate before sucking on it.

“Berger, I hate to say it but I think you have a problem.”

“You gotta be kidding me. Out of the two of us, it’s me that has the problem.”

I held the crust of my toast like a pen and stabbed it into the plate until splinters of charcoal fell like black snow across the porcelain.

“I’m the one that has the problem.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Where the hell is Etta?” I asked, changing the subject. “How is she?”

“She’s fine,” he replied, a little too hastily. “Yeah, fine, just fine.”

“I just think it’s kinda weird that her mother commits suicide and she’s nowhere to be seen. Weird, right?”

“Right.”

He sat back in his chair and chewed on his lip. His eyes darted back and forth as though he couldn’t focus, as though he had a thousand thoughts running rampant in his mind.

“You know, I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

He stood up and tore off his bathrobe. He was naked beneath it and his crotch was perilously close to my plate. I had the sudden urge to be violently sick.

“Bosworth, what the fuck?”

“Yep, a walk,” he said.

He strode out the room, oblivious to my discomfort. When he came back a few minutes later, I was glad to see he was wearing a shirt and shorts, but when I looked down at his feet, I saw that he was wearing mismatching shoes.

“Bosworth, buddy. Lincoln. Will ya sit back down?”

His eyes were off focus again as he looked off far away to some place in his mind. I followed his gaze and saw he was staring out toward the pool.

“Please,” I insisted.

I must have looked pitiful because he took one glance at me and sat down.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked, still clueless as to how strange he was acting.

“Buddy, listen to me. I don’t mean any disrespect but… do you think you’ve maybe lost it?”

“Lost what?”

“You know…”

“No, tell me.”

It was still early but it was already hot and stifling in the kitchen. I walked over to the patio doors and yanked them open but all it did was waft in warm air so now it felt as though we were sitting in a hair dryer.

“Everything that’s happened recently,” I began. “You think it’s finally taken a toll on you? I mean it would on anyone, right? No one would come away from all of that unscathed. And then there’s Norma and… being down here and… Look. What I’m trying to say is that if you need help you only have to ask. I’m not the most sentimental type but I wouldn’t let you suffer.”

I tried my best to give him my most pleasant and comforting smile and he looked at me as though I was nuts.

“Berger, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

He laughed, a haughty laugh that made me feel like a small boy. Then he slapped a hand to his cheek and laughed harder before getting up and walking out the room.

“You think I’m the one who’s lost it. Seriously? Fucking seriously? Hilarious, Berger. You crack me up.”

I watched with a tremendous feeling of sadness welling up inside me as he walked out the house with his odd shoes, all skinny and tortured and in complete denial.

“See you later,” he said as he slammed the front door. “Take it easy.”

His footsteps crunched around the side of the house before the gate screamed as he opened it.

“Good Lord…”

I had the urge to follow him, to make sure he wouldn’t do anything crazy. There was the girl who was murdered, the girl who no doubt came into contact with Bosworth. Were there others? The look in his eye just then made me think there could be.

“Fuck.”

I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, cursed the absence of ice once again and took off to follow him. By the time I reached the main road, he was still in sight on the edge of town. I jogged to catch up, then hung back a little as he slowed down. As I watched him walk, I could see just how thin he had gotten. Did Etta know he was this unwell? And where the fuck was she anyway? I had to bury her mother and she didn’t even know. Did she even know she was dead?

Up ahead, Bosworth stopped in his tracks as though he caught the scent of something. He spun round and stared right at me and I had no choice but to walk up to him.

“What are you doing?”

“Just seeing if you’re okay?”

“I told you I’m fine! Besides, you think I’m crazy but you’re the one who’s following me.”

“Jesus, Bosworth I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m trying to stop you doing anything stupid.”

“And why would I do that?”

The heat was blistering, the sun shining into my eyes. I drank my water in one gulp then hurled the empty bottle against a nearby tree which was as parched as I was. There were no leaves, just the dried out bark of the trunk.

“Stop.Following. Me.”

“Fine, fuck, Jesus. Just don’t want you wandering off and doing something nuts.”

“Nuts? Like what exactly?”

I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to set a bomb off but I had to. If I didn’t say anything it would play on my mind until it drove me crazy.

“You happen to know a girl named Lol?” I asked.

“Lol?”

His eyes widened. I could visibly see his pupils dilate as he licked his lips.

“Lol…” he repeated.

I noticed his hands begin to shake and hid them behind his back.

“I did indeed meet a Lol,” he said.

He was shaking all over now, his eyes wide and manic.

“What about her?”

He shuffled from foot to foot. A car honked as it passed us by and he flinched as though he’d been slapped. Before, he may have been crazy but he was never like this. Now his nerves were frazzled and he was on edge looking around him all the time as though he was waiting to be attacked. I wondered if he’d come across some meth out here in the desert. I wouldn’t blame him. It may have been relaxing out here but it was boring and a man like him could get anything he wanted. It wouldn’t be unusual for a man like him to turn to hard substances for comfort.

“What about her? She’d fucking dead, Bosworth. Slashed to fuck.Sliced up. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

He squinted and looked up to the sun.

“I know that she’s dead,” he said. “I saw her.”

“When?”

“After she died.”

“After?”

He nodded.

“After,” he whispered in a daze. “She had skin like fish scales…”

Okay he’s lost it, I thought.

“Right, well. I’m outta here. Just… Just… try and be fucking normal.”

I walked away with a thundering headache. It was the biggest mistake of my life leaving Miranda and coming back here. As I reached the main road, I turned back around and saw Bosworth was still staring at me. Despite the sun, it made me shiver.

As I hurried back to the house, I wondered if there was a chance Miranda would take me back. I’d fucked up real bad but maybe I could prove that our relationship wasn’t beyond repair.

Once inside the coolness of the main hall, I looked for the landline phone, something I hadn’t used in years. Who the hell even knows what a landline looks like anymore? I found it on a table by the stairs covered in dust. Punching in Miranda’s number, I listened to the phone ring feeling like my heart was beating in my throat.

“Hello?” she answered, confused no doubt at the foreign number.

“Miranda!”

“Franklin.”

She said nothing else. Just hung on the line in silence.

“Miranda?”

In the background, I could hear the kids playing along with the sound of the television, but it didn’t sound like there were kids cartoons playing like there normally was. Instead, there were the subtle and low cadences of a European sounding drama complete with the occasional violin. I listened harder and could hear her whispering to someone. Then I heard another voice. A man’s voice.

“It’s Franklin,” she whispered.

“Just hang up,” said the man.

“I can’t.”

“Hang up,” he repeated.

“Miranda? Are you there?”

There was silence for a second. I listened to the sounds of the television and wondered when she started watching shows with subtitles.

“This isn’t a good time,” she said and before I could say another word, she hung up.

I was left staring at the wall feeling as though I’d been hollowed out. The overriding feeling in my body was ‘what now?’

I sure as shit wasn’t staying in this madhouse but I couldn’t return to Normont with my tail between my legs. There was only one person left who could give me the advice I needed but since I’d arrived I hadn’t caught a glimpse of her, hadn’t even caught the smell of her perfume in the air or heard the delicate musical sound of her laugh.

“Etta!”

I shouted up the stairs in the hope she’d emerge from one of the bedrooms looking as glamorous as always. Her face would be bare and makeup free but it would be perfect and she’d be wearing a floaty summer dress that made her look like a Greek goddess. For a moment I waited hoping to hear her footsteps down the hall but they never came.

“Etta!”

There was just silence. Bosworth insisted she was here in the house but I could sense from the overwhelming silence that I was here alone. As I gathered my thoughts, I remembered what Bosworth said.

“She’s doing some work in the lab?”

What lab? I thought. Was it like the one he had back home that was carved into the mountain and filled with bodies? I shuddered at the thought. As I made my way to the entrance to the basement, I remembered hearing Bosworth make constant trips up and down the stairs last night with buckets of ice. What the hell would he need all that for?

There were only two things people like him needed ice for, drinks and bodies.

“No…”

An image flashed in my mind but I hoped to God it couldn’t be true. I ran down the stairs, feeling dizzy as I wound my way round and round until I reached the heavy door with the ancient lock. Rattling the handle, I wasn’t surprised to see it was locked but I was infuriated and spurred on by my anger, I began throwing myself at the door. I hurled myself at it until I felt my shoulder was on the brink of dislocating. When the pain got too bad, I began to kick at the lock. It may have been sturdy but the wood was old and it splintered beneath my boot. The door fell open, hanging off its hinges like a drunk man clinging to a lamppost. The smell hit me immediately. I knew what it was, knew that my fears were confirmed.

The cold air of the room was a welcome change from the heat upstairs but I didn’t want to know why he had to keep the place at such a frigid temperature. In the center of the room lay a chamber like a metal coffin. Only Bosworth could own something so clinical and morbid, only he would even know what to do with such a thing.

I edged toward it until I could see the ice cubes resting along the top. Desperately, I tried to convince myself that I was over reacting, that there was nothing to worry about. I tried to tell myself that I’d stick my hand into the ice and pull out a bottle of champagne but as I got closer and caught the smell again, I just knew what was hidden beneath.

Pulling a few ice cubes out the way, I peered down into the chamber and saw something white. I touched my finger to it and felt the silkiness of a bed sheet. There was something soft beneath it. Touching it some more, my fingers grazed something hard like bone. I yanked my hand back, afraid to feel anymore.

Then I saw the red stains and noticed the small patch at the side of the coffin where the sheet had come loose. Kneeling down to get a better look, I saw the pearly white and blue skin of a feminine hand.

“Etta?”

Enraged, I scooped the ice out the coffin handful by handful until the cubes were smashing on the floor and melting at my feet.

“Etta!”

At last I could see the shape of her body beneath the sheet and touch her hair that was flowing out onto the ice.

“Please… don’t tell me…”

I ripped the sheet off her body and saw her fully in death. I saw how half of her face was no longer there and how her skull had protruded through her cheek. The bones were shattered and burst through her face like shrapnel.

For a second I stood in disbelief. Then I vomited onto the icy floor. I couldn’t look at her a moment longer. This wasn’t the Etta I knew. This wasn’t the girl I ever wanted to see. My feet slipped on the ice as I ran but somehow, I made it to the stairs, dizzy and disorientated.

All I wanted was to be outside where it was warm, where the sun shone, where things were alive. Why did everyone and everything have to die? Why were people dying all around us?

Bosworth was the grim reaper, he was the Devil, he was some sort of god that could take away life and everyone just loved him, called him a genius, an innovator.

I grabbed my car keys off the kitchen table and ran to my car. There was just this desperate need inside me to be somewhere where things lived and thrived. Another day here and I’d be dead too or worse, I could kill. I could be like Bosworth. The thought terrified me and I stepped on the gas.

The tires kicked up dust and gravel as I sped toward San Lucrezia. Beyond it, the highway was waiting for me. It would take me somewhere safe, somewhere green.

The houses were a blur as I passed. An old woman shouted and waved her walking stick at me as I swerved around her. In the distance I could see the heat haze drift up from the tarmac of the highway, it called to me like the sea does to a sailor. Any second now I’d be out on the open road and I’d be free.

As I reached the junction, something small and black came into view, a suitcase. For a second I thought it had been abandoned. Then I saw a figure crouched beneath the shade of a nearby tree. She stuck her thumb out as I approached and as she stepped into the sun, I could see it was the woman from the bar,Lol’s mother.

I screeched to a halt and she ran alongside the car with her suitcase. Thrusting the passenger door open, I gestured for her to get in.

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere,” came her terse reply. “Where are you going?”

“Same place as you.”