Miss You Mad: a psychological romance novel (14 page)

Shuffling his vinyl-bottomed sneakers across the worn carpet, he made his way to the bathroom and pulled the antique pen from its spot and shoved it into a pocket attached to the front of his knapsack. Then he plunked his journal in for good measure along with a ballpoint pen. He stared back at the half-open bathroom door before he left and for some reason he thought of Mother. Mother with her blue hair and softly wrinkled face. She'd tell him to flush the toilet. She'd remind him that he didn't know how long he'd be gone; perhaps a few days.

Mother would flush the toilet.

Except he couldn't imagine why as he stared down into the swirling bowl that he'd begun to cry. He turned from the sound of water swirling in the bowl back to the cracked mirror. Stress. That's where it came from. Hannah missing, Mother gone, and the voices getting louder by the minute. He stared into the eyes of his own image. Even though they were blood shot and wet, they were the only things he recognised. The rest, the strange expression, the tremor in his left cheek, the sudden pained crook to his lips. They all looked alien. It seemed the last time he'd actually seen himself, he looked different. He'd looked more like Mother. More gentle, less frantic. But perhaps age does that sort of thing to a person. Perhaps grief does. And surely, he'd done his share of grieving lately. It was all he could do to forget about it.

He squeezed his eyes shut. "You have to leave. If you want to find Hannah, you have to go."

Swallowing hard, he shuffled back out through the bathroom door, left it ajar, and made his way back across the carpet to the waiting front door. He was going. Going. Out into the street, past hundreds of people staring and grimacing, all the way across town to that security apartment. And like he'd done twice before, wait until someone got buzzed in.

He told himself he should write as he walked, push words through the funnel of his mind so that he could get through the ordeal. He imagined prose so lofty it would make even Shakespeare weep with envy. He imagined October as a vacuum clearing the stink of hundreds of people from the air. That it had a way of lifting the car exhaust up into the crisp atmosphere and stretching it over the tops of the high rise buildings, leaving the folks rushing to and fro looking like mere insects in its wake. The air felt as crisp as new lettuce, and William let the trails of ants ants push away from him, leaving a river of cement sidewalk in their wake, giving him room to walk without having to touch anyone.

It was cruel to treat anyone with such contempt. Didn't their mothers teach them anything--didn't their mothers tell them everybody was different, that differences made the world interesting, not frightening? He doubted it. Not everyone had a mother such as he did. Not everyone cared.

William tried not to pay attention to those ants and their trail on their sidewalk. He tried to find that one voice inside that rasped its message. He wanted desperately to listen to its reason. Other voices called to him, though. Quaking within, William hurried past the tall, glass encased financial buildings to the Park gate, around the duck pond and out the other end. He couldn't allow his feet to slow. The weight on his back remained steady, a constant reminder of his mission.

He didn't know exactly how long it took, but finally he stood in front of the brick building where Hannah lived. He stared at the places where fire had scorched the clay, let his eyes travel from the side to the front where security doors kept him from going inside. People, young, old, businessmen with plastic grocery bags dangling from stretched arms passed back and forth. William wondered which one, which person, would finally decide to breach that security. He decided he looked faintly intrusive standing staring at the doors. He figured sitting on the top step might be the best alternative. He'd look like he lived there. He'd look natural.

Pulling out his pen and journal, he stretched his feet down the couple of cement steps. It was half-comfortable. Perhaps it would be possible to jot down a few thoughts. Perhaps he could describe how he felt waiting for admission. Of course, dear William of old would set the stage. He'd label the characters at the top and perhaps have a narrator to set the scene. William decided his thoughts should have a narrator.

Rather like bees, they are, these workers. They hurry and hurry. They watch only the few feet in front of their path, mindless of the flowers to their left and right. They have no want of these blossoms. Yet our hero waits patiently, knowing that the sweetest fragrance is sometimes just out of reach. Stay ho, and thou shall see. Stay steady, dear watcher and know how the endless heart passes even distance.

Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--

William paused. He knew great writers kept writing even when they couldn't think of anything to say. He knew the pen should keep moving, and that even if nothing of substance moved through the ink, he should write whatever came into his mind. Sometimes, all that got written on the page was, I can't, I can't, I can't over and over again until he got tired of writing those words and his mind moved on to something else, something good. In fact, if he looked back in his journal, he'd find one whole page devoted to the same sentence. But he couldn't keep writing. William had to pause because, gratefully, someone had begun coming up the steps.

It was a gentleman. He wore dark sunglasses and carried an empty canvas bag. Without looking left or right, the man moved straight to the front door and fitted a key into the lock. Sighing as if he were tired of the air and had just decided to return to his apartment, William stood. He grasped the handle for the visitor and held it open. He even dared look the man in what he imagined were his eyes. Furrowed brows were all William could see above the glasses. At first, he didn't think the man was going to admit him. But as luck would have it, or dame fortune, he shrugged and went inside. William made a big show of pulling the door closed.

He took one look at the tiny elevator and shivered. The stairs would be a much better, much less enclosed, method. Pushing open the heavy door, William made his way up the five floors that led to Hannah's inner sanctum. His breath came in short, painful gasps by the time he turned the knob of the fifth and final floor door. He peeked around the frame and studied the hallway. No movement met his eye; he studied the other end of the hallway. Again, no movement. He felt safe enough to step onto the floral carpet.

Adjusting his knapsack, and feeling through the material to ascertain his pen and journal were still there, William padded down the right to where Hannah's door waited. He wasn't sure exactly what he would do when he got there; should he sit outside? No, too obvious. He might be seen. But what, then? He needed to see the door and anyone that went in or came out. William strained not look backward over his shoulder.

Someone was following him. He sensed it. That someone wanted to make him pay for what he'd done. He'd avoided punishment for years, but now it was time for retribution.

The tiny hairs below his hairline rose.

His quiet padding turned to frantic steps. Hannah's door with its tiny round window into her world stood just in front of him. He wanted to knock. He wanted, no, needed, to get in there. Away from this empty stretch of hall. He needed sanctuary. He felt vulnerable, open, here in this hall. But he couldn't. He knew he couldn't. He had come to watch and wait. And he needed to find a safe place to do that. A staccato voice, one he hadn't heard in many months, opened its mouth.

Maybe nowhere is safe.

William bit down hard on his tongue.

The voice screamed and quieted.

A woman in a kerchief opened her door and told him to shut the hell up.

He cringed and started to apologize, but a large thumping noise sounded from inside Hannah's apartment. Sweet Jesus, she was home.

William could hardly stand his excitement. He stood as still as a mouse under inspection of a hawk's eye. He didn't dare move. Seconds, moments went by. Other sounds came from behind the door. Then, suddenly, it opened. It opened, and there stood the sunglasses gentleman. On closer look, William could see he had puppet lips, barely there. He held a garbage bag in one hand, and the doorknob in the other. He stared out into the hall, and into William's face.

"What the hell?" He stepped out and pulled the door closed. "You don't live here."

William backed away. The man advanced.

"Figured you'd curl up in some corner, did you? Maybe root through the garbage room. Damn homeless. Get out, before I call the manager." The man brandished the garbage bag as if it were a club.

A flood of voices swarmed around William. Some howled, some whispered. Then one, with a raspy, guttural curse, took the lead.

Get your pen out, William. I think this cocksucker needs a lesson in manners.

"No, I can't."

Sunglasses man moved his puppet lips. "Oh yes you can. You can get out as easily as you got in."

Come on, William. Take out that pen of yours and scratch and scratch into that yuppie face until it bleeds into a nice little puddle we can splash in.

William gasped. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and backed away. The man didn't know about his mission. He thought William was homeless. Just looking for a warm place to sleep.

"I can't hurt him. It wouldn't be right."

Sunglasses man moved into the hallway for each step William took backwards. "Hurt who?"

Step by step, William made his way back to the stairwell door. Sunglasses man advanced until William realised he had to leave the building.

And he'd been so close.

He waited for what seemed hours outside Hannah's apartment building. Time crawled more slowly then he had ever remembered it doing. He decided to pull out his journal and continue writing. But he knew he had to do so out of sight, just in case Puppet Lips saw him again. It was a shame he'd been caught; he didn't know how much the man knew, and couldn't risk Hannah finding out, so he sat on the asphalt sidewalk next to the steps rather than on them, leaning against the side railing with his knees bent and feet planted.

Pen poised, his eyes scanning the crowds of people rushing back and forth, he tried to find one word to begin the rush. Usually any word would do, but for some reason, he needed a particular one. He waited, knowing that eventually something would come. And come it did. It crept along on the coattails of a well-worn pink, terrycloth housecoat.

Mother. The word called for his attention. He discovered he'd actually written it across the middle of his journal page. Just seeing it made him imagine her. It brought everything rushing back into reality. Her long sickness, the yellowed skin, the way she'd wept each night as his father left and William had to sit with her because he couldn't bear for her to suffer alone. He couldn't bear for her to suffer at all.

In the early days, she had supported his desire to write. Father had never done that. He'd argued and argued and argued with mother, saying he should go to University. University was the place for someone with such a high IQ.

His eyes burned just thinking about it. He didn't want to go there. He didn't want to remember. He thought briefly of the money mother had doled out to him regularly every month. She wanted to be certain he could pay for the apartment he'd moved into. Writing is a solitary profession, he needed to be alone. And he'd managed it for so many years, finding jobs at first on Elance.com, then later through querying magazines and submitting sidebars until he'd been given bigger jobs. Then they peppered in because he gave the editors what they wanted. He delivered fast. His work was pristine.

But the freelance work was soul-crunching. He really wanted to write fiction and poetry. He longed to write that one novel that would even the literary snobs would love. He needed it so badly. Especially when he read the novels that were getting all the press and all the money: Sparkling vampires and virgins with a penchant for S&M. He could write better.

So he quit the freelance even though he still owed his mother a generous sum. She said it was alright. She'd look after him while he found his niche. She believed in him. But he couldn't do that. He just couldn't. It was too great a sacrifice to expect from her. Pornography was way more lucrative and far less guilt-instilling. He could make his living with very little effort and save the money she worked so hard for. He'd collected the money so she wouldn't be suspicious, planning to pass that small fortune back to her when he amassed an ever greater fortune all at once and tell her to go buy something wonderful. Something frivolous. She'd never had frivolous. She deserved it.

You
waited too long
, the voice said.

Yes. He had and now the guilt came with a vengeance because the money could have gone to better treatment, taken her out of the city to Cuba where they were trying new things for the disease treatment. He might have saved her. Ophelia Stark might still live.

The door scraped open above him. He peeked up through the bars of stair railings to see his quarry exiting the building. He carried that same canvas bag, except it looked full. Stuffed with what soft material that actually looked like clothing, it found its place resting over one arm. William hoisted himself to his feet, and adjusted the straps of the knapsack so it sat fairly comfortably between his shoulder blades. Then, waiting just so long that there was at least ten people difference between them, William began pacing in front of the building. Until someone came around to open the building door.