Periphery, page 6
“Just a few cuts and bruises.” He probed the back of his head. A lump was forming, but he found no blood. His exposed arms and neck had taken the worst of it. “I’ll be fine.”
The woman appeared unconvinced. Her hand kept reaching and pulling back from his arm as if she were trying to gauge the temperature of a stovetop burner.
“You should get yourself checked out. Some of these cuts might need stitches.”
Andrew looked past her toward the park and saw nothing but trees and playground equipment.
“It’s okay,” he said, fishing his keys from his pocket. “I’m a paramedic.”
The glow from the tiny kitchenette’s overhead lamp cast a cone of watery illumination across the table. Except for the slivers of late afternoon sun filtering through the closed vertical blinds, it was the only light in the room.
He’d been living at the motel for eight weeks and even the meager glow from the lamp’s single, sixty-watt bulb revealed too much. The dingy walls of the kitchenette, its battered microwave and Seventies-era, avocado-green stove filled him with a quivering despair. The yellowed linoleum floor reminded him of deodorant stains on the armpits of an old tee-shirt, and the veneer on the particleboard cabinets had bubbled in places, giving the doors a blistered appearance. The overall effect was one of squalor held feebly at bay, something that had appealed to Andrew in the first days of his self-banishment. Because when you were falling, there was something bleakly satisfying in falling as far as possible. Anything less would seem incomplete.
And this was certainly the sort of rock a father would crawl under after failing his child so monumentally. This was the hollow a firefighter would hole up in after disgracing his badge, his brothers, his station. For a week, he had wallowed in his threadbare incarceration, relished it, and then even that masochistic satisfaction faded under the realization the motel was nothing more than a stage for his indulgent self-pity.
On the table in front of Andrew was the empty tea bottle from the duffel bag. The Scotch was gone. So was every other drop of booze in the place, the gin and the Jack, the Smirnoff, even the mini-bottles of tequila and rum, emptied into the toilet bowl and flushed in a cocktail swirl. Maybe somewhere beneath the streets of Tampa, the sewer rats were getting stewed.
How could you? Grace had demanded. How could you? If only she’d slapped him. Then maybe he would have snapped out of it, found the words to explain some small piece of what had happened, at least enough to deflect the worst of her anger and disappointment. Instead, he had stood there offering implausible explanations and half-truths (quarter-truths? one-eight-truths?) while she checked Anna for injuries.
“It was only a game,” his daughter said, looking from one parent to the other in a tick-tock of deepening confusion. “We were playing the princess who got scooped up by a dragon. It’s not Daddy’s fault he fell.”
“Did you bump anything when you hit the ground, honey? Your head or your shoulder?” His wife’s hands probed Anna’s head and neck.
“I landed on Daddy. I didn’t get hurt. Not one bit. The other man ran away. I think he pushed Daddy.”
Grace sat back on her haunches and turned to him.
“A jogger. I guess that’s who she means. He ran past us as I fell.”
It might have ended there, his abrasions and Anna’s lack of injury enough to provoke at least a pang of sympathy. And tripping over a curb, falling into a hedge, those things did occasionally happen, even when sober. But then her eyes had fallen to the duffel bag at his feet, and as if drawn by some whispered clue she had snatched it up and unzipped the top.
The reek of alcohol sprang at them like something out of a jack-in-the-box. The bottle must have cracked in the fall.
“Anna,” Grace said in a flat, uncompromising tone. “Go to your room, please.”
“But I want a glass of chocolate milk.”
“Now.” He and Grace stood in silence as their daughter’s footsteps retreated down the hall and her bedroom door clicked shut.
“How could you?” His wife hissed. “After everything you’ve already put her through. How could you?”
“Grace.” But what explanation could he possibly have offered? It was at the bottom of the bag? I forgot it was there? I never touched it? It was all too preposterous. And so, he said the only thing he could think of. He told her he was sorry.
“Did you drive our daughter home drunk?”
“No, of course not. God, I would never do that. I saved her today.”
“Saved her from what?” she demanded, springing to her feet.
Andrew stared back.
“From what?”
“From anything bad that could have happened to her,” he managed at last. “From anything that would do her harm.”
Grace shoved the duffel bag into his chest. “That would be you, Andy. You’re what she needs to be saved from.”
“I’m sorry,” he told her again. “I screwed up, okay. I’m still a work in progress. It’s been a hell of a year. I’ve got a lot to recover from.”
“All your wounds are self-inflicted. It was your decision to move out.”
“After you made it clear you didn’t trust me with Anna anymore.”
His wife’s mouth tightened, but she did not lower her eyes.
“It’s not even that.” Andrew knew he was only making things worse, but he was powerless to stop. “What happened to Anna was inexcusable. Is inexcusable. You’re right to be skeptical about me. I’d be skeptical about me too. What bothers me is that you never once talked to me about any of this. Not once. You shut me out and had Max do all the talking for you. He knew our marriage was dangling by a thread before I did.”
“That’s not what I intended. I was afraid of how you’d react.” Her tone was calm now, reasonable in the manner of an adult explaining to a raging preschooler why ice cream was not a viable choice for breakfast.
“What did you think I’d do, Grace?”
“I don’t know, Andy. That’s the point. I never know with you anymore.”
In the dank kitchenette, Andrew placed the cracked tea bottle on its side and gave it a spin. “She wouldn’t have me back now if I begged her.”
He gathered up the empties and carefully positioned each in the trash, as if the small clink of glass might wake someone sleeping in the next room. Every part of him ached. His head throbbed. His shoulders and arms stung, the back of his legs felt hot, as if sunburned. He still hadn’t cleaned up.
Andrew crossed the darkened main room and flicked on the bathroom light. The face that squinted back at him from the mirror appeared bloated, the skin under the eyes dark and puffy, the cheeks heavy, jowly even. Not an old face, not yet, but certainly one in decline, softened by punches self-inflicted or otherwise.
As he leaned over the sink cupping water over his head, Andrew noticed once again the warm ache across the back of his legs. He’d been feeling it on-and-off since the park, a minor discomfort he hadn’t had the time or inclination to investigate. Running a hand down the back of his jeans, he found a horizontal rip just above the inside knee. Above both knees, actually. He twisted and tentatively probed the gaps, wincing as his fingers discovered the wounds beneath. When he dropped his pants, Andrew found the back of his calves caked in dried blood from two shallow but precise gashes across the tendons of his thighs.
“They go for the hamstrings,” he muttered, reaching for the damp washcloth hanging over the shower curtain. Before he could grab the bar of soap his cell began to ring. He had intentionally left it behind that morning, not wanting to provide Grace the opportunity to continually check up on him throughout the afternoon. The phone’s display showed an unfamiliar number. Normally, he would let it go to voicemail, but he was still feeling masochistic. Ending the day listening to a sales pitch for timeshares would be the perfect capper for the evening.
“Hello?”
“Is this Andrew Tate?” a female voice asked.
“Yes.” Timeshares, or maybe life insurance. You always think you have enough, but what would your family do if you were suddenly unable to support them? His chest heaved with silent laughter. Celebrate! That’s what they’d do.
“You’re a hard man to get a hold of, Mr. Tate. We’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“I bet.” Andrew swept a pile of clothes off the bed and rolled onto his back. He intended to play this out as long as he could before telling the bitch to go fuck herself.
“My name is Dr. Cho. I’m an infirmary physician at the Orient Road Jail.”
Andrew pushed himself up on one elbow. “You’re who?”
“My name is Dr. Cho. I’m calling on behalf of your father, John Tate.”
“My father? My father’s in jail?” Andrew swung his legs over the bed and sat up.
“Yes, and he needs to see you as soon as possible. Can you be here tomorrow morning at nine?”
“What’s this all about? Why is he in jail?”
“I’d rather not say over the phone. Can you be here tomorrow or not?”
Andrew stirred the air with his free hand. “Why not? I’ve got nothing better to do on my day off. Might as well visit my old man in the clink.”
“Good. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”
She hung up before he could offer a parting quip. Andrew tossed the phone onto the pile of dirty clothes and flopped back across the mattress. Not a sales pitch for life insurance, but as shitting endings go, discovering your estranged father was in jail was none too shabby. All he needed now was the motel to catch fire.
Andrew ran his tongue over dry lips and wished he’d kept just one of the mini bottles. Plunging toward rock bottom was apparently thirsty work.
Five
The jail’s visiting room was packed. He had to wait forty minutes before John Tate’s name was announced and his father was ushered to a chair behind the transparent acrylic divider. Andrew began speaking before the other had brought the phone halfway to his ear.
“Why are you in here, Dad? What the hell is going on?”
“Are you and Anna alright?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. Why?”
“I had reason to believe you were in danger. I tried to reach you all day yesterday. Grace told me you and your daughter were spending the afternoon at the park. She gave me your cell number, but you never answered.”
Something Grace had failed to mention.
“You knew I was in danger? From the creatures? Your creatures?”
“They’re not my creatures.”
Andrew slowly raised an index finger at his father. “Did you send that homeless guy to check up on us? Calls himself Little Billy?”
“I know him as William Phipps. Yes, I asked him to try and track you down.”
A pulse of anger flared and died, replaced by an image of Anna screaming at his feet as he swung a branch at the first of an endless onslaught of attackers.
“I guess I should thank you, then. He probably saved our lives.” The muscles of his father’s face betrayed the struggle between keeping silent and asking the next obvious question and Andrew allowed the conflict to continue for a second or two before ending it with a huff of tired resignation. “Yeah, Dad. I can see them.”
“Shit.”
“Shit indeed.”
“How many were there?”
Andrew shook his head. “Not sure. More than a few. Seemed like the whole park was infested. Dad…” He cleared his throat, slid his chair up until his knees struck the wall and pressed his upraised forearm against the divider. “Dad, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I doubted you all these years. You were right. There are monsters out there hiding in the light. What the hell is going on?”
John Tate inhaled deeply and rubbed the side of his face. “I can’t go into the details now. It would take all afternoon.”
“Can you at least tell me why you’re in jail?”
“Someone at the storage facility found out I was storing three hundred pounds of black powder in one of their units and called the cops.”
Andrew stared back through the pane, waiting for more. His father had aged considerably in the two years since their last face-to-face. In the orange Hillsborough County Correctional Facility scrubs he looked gaunt, jaundiced, his cheeks and eyes sunken as if his features were sinking into a void that had opened beneath the bones of his face. His shoulder-length hair, faded to the color of yellowed teeth, was brushed straight back, emphasizing the changes. Only his irises were the same, two brilliant green chips shining with malarial intensity. The overall impression was not, however, one of sickness or defeat but rather a hot, radiating defiance, the righteous resolve of a defrocked street preacher determined to reclaim his flock.
“Why would you keep three hundred pounds of black powder in a storage unit?”
“I didn’t want it in my apartment.”
Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know what I mean.”
“I was going to blow something up.”
“Of course you were. Do I want to know?”
“No, but I guess that doesn’t matter anymore. I heard what you did by the way,” his father added after a moment of silence. “The other day with the hostage thing. They’re calling you a hero.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“Find that hard to believe.”
When Andrew said nothing, his father edged forward until his forehead was nearly touching the divider. “How’d Comanche know you were my son?”
“Apparently, we look a lot alike.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Never thought about it before. What are these homeless guys to you, Dad? The ones you’re paying to be lookouts? Canaries in the coal mine? Expendables?”
His father’s gaze never wavered, but his free hand curled into a fist. “I never taught them how to see the damn things. All I did was ask them to report anything out of the ordinary.”
“The thing Comanche pointed out next to that dumpster was definitely that.”
“How long have you been seeing them?”
The crowded visiting room was getting warmer by the minute. Andrew wiped his sweating face with the back of a sleeve. “That was the first time. Comanche said you called it a quintaloch.”
His father slammed his fist against the phone shelf. “A word. It was just a word! Never a description.”
“Does a quintaloch look like a kind of mutant centipede?”
His father’s eyes closed, head listing toward his left shoulder.
“I’ll take that as a yes. So somehow, he managed to associate the name with the creature. Thing is, Dad, I’ve been seeing flashes of things out of the corner of my eye for almost two years. Two years! If what you’ve always told me is true, then Anna and Grace are going to be in danger every time I’m with them from now on. Is that true? Am I toxic to them?”
“I’m afraid your wife and daughter are in danger for bigger reasons than that. We all are. Something’s coming, Andy. Something very, very bad.”
“What? More of those things in the park? More of what was next to the dumpster?”
“Worse.”
“Dad, I don’t know if I can bail you out of here, not if they’ve charged you with some sort of terrorist-related act like bomb making.”
“I didn’t ask you here to bail me out.”
“Then why? To make sure Anna and I were okay?” Andrew swallowed, fighting an abrupt wave of nausea. A soft buzz began to fizz at the bottom of his mind. “I’m sorry. What was that?”
His father was speaking, but the words bounced off the divider and tumbled back at him. Andrew became aware of the woman sitting two chairs to his right. She’d been having her own phone conversation with a bearded man Andrew had briefly noted for the cobra tattoo coiling around his neck and over his bald head to sink its fangs into the flesh of his forehead. Her voice had risen to a sharp bark, a single word repeated over and over: “Dennis? Dennis? Dennis!”
Andrew turned as a uniformed officer began to make his way across the room.
“Dennis, you’re scarin’ me now. You doing drugs in here, too? Say something.”
The officer angled his way to her chair and asked if there was a problem.
“Hell yes, there’s a problem. My boy’s having some sort of seizure. He’s gone all white and won’t answer me. Dennis. You see? He’s just sitting there staring off. Oh, god. Now what?”
The man she called Dennis had dropped the phone to raise both hands to the side of his head, his eyes wide in terror or pain, his lips pulled back in a rictus that bared a mouthful of ruined teeth. Andrew pivoted to survey the room. Three or four others had assumed identical poses. It was as if somewhere an excruciating alarm was sounding, one only a select few could hear.
“Who’s that?” a man behind him cried. “Who’s that? Who’s that? Oh, no, no, no. Goddamn you. Goddamn you!”
The man tilted his head and slapped the side of his face hard, as if trying to dislodge water from the opposite ear. A thump drew Andrew’s attention back to the tattooed inmate, but it wasn’t until Dennis drew his head back and slammed it against the divider once more that he understood what had produced the dull boom. The man's mother, her hands now clamped across her mouth, watched as a third blow crumpled his nose, spraying blood across the pane. Three officers swarmed him, one as pale as the inmate.
“What’s this?” Andrew asked, although he knew. The static from the hole in his mind had condensed into the faint echoes of an ancient, guttural, jabbering language.
The voices had returned.
His father waited until Andrew turned back toward him to say, “It’s getting worse.” He touched the divider with an index finger. “Now listen closely. If you want to be able to protect your family, there’s something you need to do.”
“Something legal?”
His father’s smile was sharp as a scythe. “Perfectly.”
Andrew stood at the edge of a weed-choked lot, empty except for a billboard promising a Mediterranean-style duplex “Coming Soon!” The letters had faded from what might have been a vibrant turquoise to the color of an old bruise, the sign’s wooden scaffolding weathered gray and tangled in dead vines. “Soon” was apparently a relative term.
