Read Online Halloween Candy by Douglas Clegg - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Douglas Clegg
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it’s all about. Maybe for someone to get Heaven, someone else has to get Hell.”
“Like that woman?”
Fazzo did not say a word. He closed his eyes and began humming. 94
Startled, he opened his eyes again and said, “Kid! You got to get home now!”
“What?”
“NOW!” Fazzo shouted and smashed his fist against the glass. The guard standing in the corner behind him rushed up to him, grabbing him by the wrists. “Kid, it’s your sister it wants, not you. You got caught, but it’s your sister it wants. And there’s only one way to get into heaven! Only one way, kid! Go get her now!”
9
Paul didn’t rush home--he didn’t like giving Fazzo the benefit of the doubt. He’d be on shift in another hour, and usually he spent this time by catching a burger and a Coke before going into the station. But he drove the murky streets as the sun lowered behind the stacks of castle-like apartment buildings on Third Street. The wind brushed the sky overhead with oncoming clouds, and it looked as if it would rain in a few minutes. Trash lay in heaps around the alleys, and he saw the faces of the walking wounded along the stretch of boulevards that were 95
Sunday afternoon empty. He passed the apartments on Swan Street, doing his best not to glance up to the window on the second floor--265, its three small windows boarded up. No one would live there, not after a woman’s torso was found in the bathtub. Even squatters would stay away.
He dropped by his apartment, leaving the car to idle. He just wanted to see if she was watching her movies or reading.
He didn’t believe the old man.
Fazzo the Fucked Up.
In the living room, her books, the television on.
Soft music playing in the bathroom.
Paul knocked on the door. “Marie?”
After four knocks, he opened it. His heart beat fast, and seemed to be, not in his chest, but on the surface of his skin-- The machines were off, and she lay in the tub of pink water. On her back, her face beneath the water’s surface like a picture he’d seen once, when they’d both been children, of a mermaid in a lake. 96
Scratched crudely on the tile with the edge of the scissors she’d used to cut herself free from the flesh, the words:
I don’t believe in heaven.
10
It was only years later, when he saw the item in the papers about Fazzo the Fabulous finally getting the chair, after years of living on Death Row, that he thought about 265 again. He heard, too, that the apartments on Swan Street were being torn down within a week of Fazzo’s execution.
In his forties, Paul had led what he would’ve called a quiet life. He’d been on the force for fifteen years, and the town had not erupted in anything more than the occasional domestic battle or crack house fire. He kept Marie’s machines in his apartment, and often watched television in the living room feeling as if he were less alone.
But one evening, he went down there, down to Swan Street, down the rows of slums and squats where the city had turned off even the streetlamps.
97
Standing in front of the old apartments, he glanced at the windows of 265. The boards had come out, and the windows were empty sockets in the face of brick.
He carefully walked up the half-burnt staircase, around the rubble of bricks and pulpy cardboard, stepping over the fallen boards with the nails sticking straight up.
The apartment no longer had a door. When he went inside, the place had been stripped of all appliance.
The stink of urine and feces permeated the apartment, and he saw the residue of countless squatters who had spent nights within the walls of 265.
Graffiti covered half the wall by the bathroom--spraypainted cuss words, kid’s names, lovers’ names...
Scrawled in blue across the doorway to the bathroom, the words: THE SEVEN STARS.
The bathroom had been less worked-over. The shower curtain had been torn down, as had the medicine cabinet. But the toilet, cracked and brown, still remained, as did
“Like that woman?”
Fazzo did not say a word. He closed his eyes and began humming. 94
Startled, he opened his eyes again and said, “Kid! You got to get home now!”
“What?”
“NOW!” Fazzo shouted and smashed his fist against the glass. The guard standing in the corner behind him rushed up to him, grabbing him by the wrists. “Kid, it’s your sister it wants, not you. You got caught, but it’s your sister it wants. And there’s only one way to get into heaven! Only one way, kid! Go get her now!”
9
Paul didn’t rush home--he didn’t like giving Fazzo the benefit of the doubt. He’d be on shift in another hour, and usually he spent this time by catching a burger and a Coke before going into the station. But he drove the murky streets as the sun lowered behind the stacks of castle-like apartment buildings on Third Street. The wind brushed the sky overhead with oncoming clouds, and it looked as if it would rain in a few minutes. Trash lay in heaps around the alleys, and he saw the faces of the walking wounded along the stretch of boulevards that were 95
Sunday afternoon empty. He passed the apartments on Swan Street, doing his best not to glance up to the window on the second floor--265, its three small windows boarded up. No one would live there, not after a woman’s torso was found in the bathtub. Even squatters would stay away.
He dropped by his apartment, leaving the car to idle. He just wanted to see if she was watching her movies or reading.
He didn’t believe the old man.
Fazzo the Fucked Up.
In the living room, her books, the television on.
Soft music playing in the bathroom.
Paul knocked on the door. “Marie?”
After four knocks, he opened it. His heart beat fast, and seemed to be, not in his chest, but on the surface of his skin-- The machines were off, and she lay in the tub of pink water. On her back, her face beneath the water’s surface like a picture he’d seen once, when they’d both been children, of a mermaid in a lake. 96
Scratched crudely on the tile with the edge of the scissors she’d used to cut herself free from the flesh, the words:
I don’t believe in heaven.
10
It was only years later, when he saw the item in the papers about Fazzo the Fabulous finally getting the chair, after years of living on Death Row, that he thought about 265 again. He heard, too, that the apartments on Swan Street were being torn down within a week of Fazzo’s execution.
In his forties, Paul had led what he would’ve called a quiet life. He’d been on the force for fifteen years, and the town had not erupted in anything more than the occasional domestic battle or crack house fire. He kept Marie’s machines in his apartment, and often watched television in the living room feeling as if he were less alone.
But one evening, he went down there, down to Swan Street, down the rows of slums and squats where the city had turned off even the streetlamps.
97
Standing in front of the old apartments, he glanced at the windows of 265. The boards had come out, and the windows were empty sockets in the face of brick.
He carefully walked up the half-burnt staircase, around the rubble of bricks and pulpy cardboard, stepping over the fallen boards with the nails sticking straight up.
The apartment no longer had a door. When he went inside, the place had been stripped of all appliance.
The stink of urine and feces permeated the apartment, and he saw the residue of countless squatters who had spent nights within the walls of 265.
Graffiti covered half the wall by the bathroom--spraypainted cuss words, kid’s names, lovers’ names...
Scrawled in blue across the doorway to the bathroom, the words: THE SEVEN STARS.
The bathroom had been less worked-over. The shower curtain had been torn down, as had the medicine cabinet. But the toilet, cracked and brown, still remained, as did
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