IMOGENE
CLOSED FOR Halloween Party 7-10 PM at the you-know-where!
TORECK SAT six inches from me, knife at the ready. Pearl rushed to the table with a basket of garlic bread and said, “Here, eat.”
He tore into the bread and snapped, “Where’s that chowder?”
“Fresh clams, onion make it better,” Pearl said.
She stood stirring the onions and Newt. They sizzled in a fry pan. We exchanged glances, then watched the frying ‘clams.’ Then watched Toreck knock back more beer.
I hoped the dead Newt hadn’t lost its potency.
Toreck slammed his fists on the table and shouted, “Just bring it!”
“Okay,” she said, and brought him a bowl of steaming chowder. “Eat. Feel better.”
Toreck’s wrist snapped up, pointing the knife at Pearl’s face. “Fuck you, bitch. You don’t care how I feel.” His contemptuous eyes bore into her.
“She didn’t mean anything,” I said.
“I . . .,” Pearl stammered. “I—”
“I-I-I,” he mimicked and motioned to Pearl with his knife. “Fuckin’ sit down, gook.”
Pearl’s face creased with fear as she searched for the chair beneath her and slowly sat. Toreck’s caustic smell repulsed me. I turned away as he snorted and gulped like a pig.
He crammed a spoon of Pearl’s bedeviled stew into his mouth while we both sat riveted. Pearl’s eyes followed every bite as Toreck raised another to his mouth.
I hoped that the little lizard’s deadly revenge would be painful.
I couldn’t bear to look at Toreck so instead watched Pearl watch him. I realized that under the surface of the person she’d become since Korea was an unavenged war that raged inside her. Now she’d finally stumbled onto the opportunity to exterminate an enemy bigger than snails and spiders.
Toreck consumed several more pieces of Newt, swallowing without chewing, then slurped more beer and shoved bread into his mouth. God, the sounds he made were unbearable, but soon he grew calmer, slower.
As Pearl studied him, a shaky smile tickled her lips. He devoured all the Newt’s lethal limbs, then pushed the bowl across the table and said, “More chowder, witch woman.”
Pearl looked into the empty bowl and the tickle of joy disappeared from her face. Her eyes darkened as she reached for his dish. “Okay, more. I get more.”
His hand slammed down on her forearm. We both jumped. Then Pearl yanked her arm away and calmly stepped back. I finally looked at his face—it was the ugliest I’d ever seen in my life. But Pearl and I watched as his eyes glazed over and his face suddenly drooped, stupefied. Tula’s faithful friend was doing his job; a good warrior in his death. If my hands hadn’t been tied to the table I would have grabbed his knife and stabbed him a hundred times.
He grew visibly confused and woozy, then he quickly stood, pushing the table over on its side, which lurched me forward to my knees. He shoved away from the bench, swaying back and forth with his knife still pointed at Pearl. She stood calm as a cucumber, eyes big as quarters.
He continued to sway. “Wha—wha—” He tried to form words, but none came. He reached his hand to his swelling mouth, where drool fell from the corners and tugged at his suddenly enlarged lips. Within seconds his face looked as if he’d been attacked by a thousand swarming bees. Pearl inched away from him and toward me.
The knife slipped from his hand. Toreck dropped to his knees on the hard linoleum floor. He swelled and swayed, reached for his throat, then grabbed at his stomach; vomit flew from his mouth. And with one last choking gasp for air, he plummeted face down into his own viperous puke.
A deep gasp of breath burst into my lungs. Pearl grabbed a kitchen knife and cut the nylons to free my hands. A surge of release rushed through me. Then dread.
“Toreck,” she whispered, gradually creeping back toward his body. “You dead?”
She kicked the knife across the room, out of his reach. Then she took the broom that leaned against the wall and poked him hard. He moved. She raised the broom high above her head, ready to strike. She took another measured step, poked him again, then again. “You not dead yet?” She leaned down, checked his pulse and said, “You go to hell now.” She jabbed his body with the broomstick. “Go!”
I braced myself against the table and stood speechless, holding my ribs.
Pearl gawked at his body for a long time. He wiggled and convulsed a couple more times, then he said, “Imogene,” clear as day.
A scream boiled up inside of me and burst out, “NO!”
I grabbed the knife from her hand and lunged at him on the floor.
“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, then plunged the knife into him. I’d aimed for his heart but closed my eyes and missed—stabbed him in the shoulder. He moaned and finally fell silent.
“Oh God . . . What have I done?”
“It okay,” Pearl said. “He die slow now. That better anyway.”
“But what do we—”
“Put him in freezer,” she said.
“How—?”
“Grab foot,” she said taking Toreck’s limp hands and nodding for me to take his feet.
I snatched a bottle of Mrs. B’s rum off the shelf next to me, took a long swig, and said, “Okay,” then took hold of his feet. We yanked and tugged him down the hall to the top of the stairs, leaving a trail of blood through the hall. “Now what?”
“Throw him down stairs,” Pearl said.
“We can’t throw a man down the stairs.”
“Okay kill him,” she said, “but no to hurt him?”
“Okay,” I said, then gripped his feet with both hands and backed down the stairs. Pearl had his arms. He was limp as a noodle, but suddenly his head bobbed against the steps. As we reached the bottom, he mumbled, “Shit! What the fuck?” Then he vomited again and passed back out. Probably a concussion.
We drug him through his vomit, nodding his head on the last four steps to the bottom, where we pulled him the rest of the way to the freezer.
I took a deep breath and opened the door. I looked around the dark store and grappled for the lightswitch. As I flicked on the lights, the phone rang louder than ever before, echoing through the room like a siren.