Chapter 313: Cheli X—Release
“Chel, come on you can talk to me, were you drinking or something? Did Tracee bring up a sore subject?”
Really, Chris wanted to nip Malts’ head off again for not leaving him the hell alone, but he knew his friend didn’t deserve that so he just settled for a heavy sigh and a glare. Maltby didn’t shrink from him; he just nodded and grinned tightly. “You’re gonna haveta talk about it to someone, Chel, you know?”
“I wasn’t drinking,” Chelios replied, “And Tracee didn’t bring up anything, she was asleep actually.”
Maltby’s eyes widened in that deer in headlights way Chris knew he would use. “What happened? You attacked her in her sleep? Oh oh! Did someone break into the house, you were framed? Oh shit and now your family is all alone and everything! Cheli you gotta get back there…”
“Calm it Nancy Drew,” Chris snapped. “No one broke into the house.” He pressed his fingers over the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Yes he still remembered the dream clearly. Strangely, there had been no images in it; there had been only tastes, and touch and sounds. Loud sounds, pleasurable to hear her in so much agony, Christ he thought all of this had ended the moment he had gotten rid of that poisoned bracelet. But, no, the dream had returned, more strongly than ever, he could still see the line of blood on her wrist, a quick flick, and it was naked.
“Cheli what happened?” Maltby asked and this time with no pleading, no plaintiveness no curiosity, only a deep mannish concern under lied his voice. “You have to tell me, you have to or it’s just gonna stick inside you and get old and distorted before you even try releasing it. I’m here for ya buddy, come on, release.”
Chelios sighed. He looked at the cuts on his hands and he held them up for Maltby. Tracee’s nails had done this, left fresh welts to add to the network of faded scars on his arms. “Tracee did this, hm, look at it.”
Kirk’s lips twisted and he wrinkled his nose. “Shit Cheli…”
“If she hadn’t done this, if she hadn’t smashed a vase over my fucking head and woken me up, I would have strangled the life out of her. I would have killed her. You should have seen her throat, Malts. It’s gonna look worse in the morning, she could barely even speak to me I hurt her so bad.”
Not my fault! None of it. I tried to do my part; I tried to give the goddman thing back to her. I tried to release it, I tried to let go. She wouldn’t have it, that whore wouldn’t have it. Why should I and my family have to suffer for something she can’t just get over?
Kirk slowly shook his head. “Chris I just don’t understand.”
Chris sighed. “Neither do I Malts, I mean I really tried to get a hold of this and I thought things were better. Things have been fine for a month or so, almost a month, I don’t know. I tried to fix it, that’s the point.”
Maltby frowned. “And the endpoint is you trying to murder your wife?”
“I wasn’t trying to murder her!” Chris yelled. “Dammit call Tracee up in the morning and she’ll tell you the same thing, she knows I love her.” He groaned. “She knows I wouldn’t consciously hurt her.”
Soft flesh under his hands, in his fists, smashing and crushing, and the woman he loved. He thought of the diamonds on her throat and how overcome she had been at the mere sight of them and wearing them. She had worn them and fucked them, things had been good. Healing could start with those diamonds and then in an instant, he had crushed it with his bare hands.
Malts narrowed his eyes. “So I’m supposed to believe that someone hypnotized you into terrorizing her? Chris that won’t hold up in any court, I don’t care what your name is.”
“Kirk I was sleeping okay, and I had a nightmare, one that’s been plaguing me for a year now, and when I have it I act out what’s going on, I can’t control it and I don’t know when it’s going to happen, OKAY? Tracee knows this; she wouldn’t think that I was purposely trying to get rid of her, why would I want to?” Christ, Chris thought, it sounds even worse spoken out loud. Nightmares made me do it? Shit.
“Ooo,” Maltby said with his boyish wide eyed gaze returned. “Well that changes everything, nightmares…”
Chelios rolled his eyes, “You don’t need to patronize me. Now where am I gonna sleep?”
“I’m not patronizing you,” Maltby replied. He grabbed onto Chris’s arm and he followed him. “You can sleep on my bed; I don’t care, unless you mind having a bedmate.”
At that point, Chris really didn’t care where he slept as long as he did. He knew the morning would be the harbinger of annoying phone calls, legal work, family matters, and explanations and he wanted at least a few hours of sleep before that. He sat at the edge of Kirk’s bed and kicked off his shoes and then yanked off his shirt, throwing both of them into a corner of the room. He yawned. The mattress bucked as Kirk tossed himself on it.
“You know,” Kirk said with a yawn, “Nightmares that intense come from subconscious warnings and guilts. Your brain is trying to tell you something that you’re just not facing up to. Something is really knocking around inside of there, Chris. You might want to take a good long look at whatever it is.”
Chris felt his stomach jolt angrily and he glared at Kirk. What would you know you damn pansy? He thought. What would you know about the things I have to keep inside of me, do you really want to hear about the shit I’ve seen…. And done? “I’m not in the mood to hear some pop psychology bull shit you heard off Oprah.”
Maltby half grinned. “It’s common sense Cheli, if you repress your pain it’s just not good. You need to release the shit you’ve got in there, because Cheli sooner or later, the things you try to hide grow bigger and come back to bite you… or in this case, Tracee. Now she don’t deserve that Chel, you know?”
“Yeah,” Chelios grumbled. “I know.”
How long had he been sitting here in the dark, pitch dark. Chris could barely come to terms with the fact that he was hiding, and scared. Scared of what? Laughable, that he hid like scared pussy cat because of what, a boy, and a girl. She was barely out of high school and now she had scared him. No he wouldn’t admit to being scared of them. Christ, his hand hurt, he could feel something cutting into the palm, and his knuckles ached from keeping them clenched so tightly.
French. Footsteps. With rhythmical, metallic, stomps a group of men walked by the door, some were laughing and talking in French, a few were talking in English. They had not been unfazed by what had just happened, they had just been interested, annoyed, irritated, not amused, although the end result amused them to no end. Worse than veteran’s, a veterans veteran. Chris hid from them, they scared him, they were the reason not the boy and not the girl.
Chris swallowed. The smell had returned a deep rotten egg like smell that made him think of the color green, a vapid green, a mist that he couldn’t see sliding up his nostrils and into his brain. He closed his eyes. They were talking outside of the room now; they were standing there, discussing what to do with the scared man inside. They debated over whether he really was scared or if he was just drunk. The smell became stronger. Veteran’s veterans, that’s what they were, you just didn’t cross them.
He squeezed more tightly onto the object cutting into his palm. They wanted this. They were talking about it, worth a lot of money. And what would they do with the money, another asked, they didn’t need it. What if he wouldn’t let go of it? Well we could cut off his hands, like cutting off the finger of a woman who will not relinquish her ring; it could be that easy yes? No, they decided against that, it was too much trouble.
They laughed and passed on by and the smell left with them. Chris sighed and wiped at the sweat dripping from his brow with his forearm. The salt from his body transferred onto the skin of his arm and made Chris all the more aware of the wounds he carried. The sting reminded him, and he pressed his wounded arms against the soaked, cold front of his shirt. No sweat there, just water.
After another long period of time had passed, Chris finally decided that they were gone and he could safely get away. He crawled out from underneath the desk and he walked slowly to the door, even the act of unlocking it, the click seemed to ricochet in his ears and brain, calling them back. Chris stood there with his knees trembling; nothing came, so he slowly opened the door. The hallway empty, no sounds, no smells.
He breathed out and then he lifted his hand and opened it. The jewels and gold glinted at him, the blood had begun to dry on it, and he shoved the damn thing into his pocket. Worth a lot of money then, but what did he need with more money? Well, everyone could use money, but the bitch would probably complain about it, he would have to give it back sooner or later.
He needed a drink. More than a drink. He needed a bottle; he needed to be shit faced. He swallowed. The beer, the whiskey, all of it was back there, he would have to go back. How badly did he want it? Dry throat… dry tongue… he wanted it bad.
Chris stopped dead in his tracks once he looked into the locker room. The sheer scope of what had just happened in here had not hit him until right now. What the fuck? He hadn’t done any of this, they hadn’t done this, and there is no way they would have done this, who the hell did this! His eyes went straight to the black scrawls all over the walls, crudely drawn pictures of people screwing and curse words. Some of them were dripping down the wall in black lines because of water splashed there.
And the water soaked everything. One bucket couldn’t hold this much fucking water! He looked down at his arms, the blood dripped from the cuts again and he pulled his sleeves down over them. He didn’t want to look at this anymore.
I had to do it.
“You were just following orders.”
Chris screamed, as much on a thin wire his nerves were. He fell into the locker room and stumbled to the wet floor on his ass. Larry Robinson stood in the doorway, his eyes looked black, his mouth down turned under his mustache. “Yeah that’s right Big Bird. I had to do it.”
Larry squatted in the doorway and wrinkled his nose. “Piss everywhere, what the hell were you guys pissing in here, the stink is everywhere.”
Chris frowned and as a matter of fact he knew a few of the guys had pissed. The funnier part was when some of them had done it out of fear. He hadn’t however. “Sure.”
“Then get up you filthy animal, why are you sitting in it?”
Chris scrambled to his feet, coming face to face with Larry. “Don’t you even try to judge me,” he snarled. “You didn’t even have the balls to be here tonight.”
Larry grimaced. “No one told me about tonight, and from the smell of things, with good reason. Lucien called me and Corson’s almost out of his mind. He wanted me to see if anyone was still left here before someone calls the cops.”
Chris thought of Corson, sobbing and pulling at his hair, screaming at Penney who had an inhuman twist to his mouth, he had never seen him like that, a man possessed. Come on French pussy pussy say it in English! “What’s wrong with Corson?”
“Shayne showed up at Lucien’s house about half hour ago looking for Patrick, do you know where he is? Our Roy Boy?”
“No,” Chris replied.
Larry narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, he was crying and drunk and wanting to see Pat. He said all of you guys were here earlier tonight something like that. I guess that part’s true. He won’t say exactly what’s going on, so I’m going to ask you, what’s going on.”
Chris scowled. “The Captain was here too, Larry, and he told me to keep my mouth shut so if you wanna know anything you’re gonna have to ask him.”
Larry nodded. “Fine. I went over to Penney’s house first; I thought maybe Pat was over there.”
“Yeah? And was he?”
Larry sighed. “Penney had left the door open and I found Steve inside.”
Chris shrugged. “So?”
“So,” Larry continued. “I found him in his bathroom drowning his cat.”