MY life is slowly being sucked out of me… bled away by my miserable existence, as if a vampire has attached itself to me. No, make that a spider. A spider's just as bad—she sits in her web, waiting for her prey, and when she captures it, she sucks the poor thing dry until there's only a husk left.
That's me… fast becoming the husk.
I study myself in the hall mirror and discover minute lines around my eyes that I know weren't there months ago. My skin looks dry… wasted. I could be ten years—fifteen years—older than I really am.
Dry… drying… dried… dust…
I take a ragged breath as I examine the handful of mail and my hands shake. I know what the official-looking envelopes contain even without tearing them open.
Past due.
Past due.
Past due.
You are X months late with payment.
We are turning your account over to collection.
We regret that you haven't contacted us…
We will be forced to…
And me with all of $38 in my checking account.
I crumple the envelopes suddenly, then carefully smooth the papers.
I don't know whether to cry or curse. I've done both in the months since Jack left.
It hasn't helped.
I've written letter after letter to my creditors explaining that I'm not trying to screw them out of payment and that I really intend to pay but that it will just have to be real slow, and the next week the dunning phone calls continue, the intimidating letters fill the mailbox. The calls are so bad now that mostly I leave the phone unplugged. That was disconnected twice in the past few months, and the electric company is threatening to shut me off.
Gritting my teeth, I toss the mail onto the hall table along with all the other unopened envelopes, including those from Jack.
I push back an errant strand and pick up the painting, my keys and purse, and slam out of the house. The glass panes in the door rattle.
I have plenty of time before I got to work, so first I'll drop the picture off to be framed. It's an oil that I was commissioned for months ago, and I finished it last week. It's not completely dry—the weather is too humid for that—but I can't wait any longer; I need the money. Time after time I'd started the painting, but it hadn't come together for the longest time. I'm not completely happy with it, but… I wish I had more time and energy for my art, but I don't; I'm lucky to get a bit done each weekend. And it's not easy being creative when you're depressed all the time.
My friends tell me to hang on, and I'm trying; I'm trying to have a positive attitude, trying to hope that things will change for the better… but it's hard… damned hard.
At the corner, I bear left. Ahead, a line of cars sits at a stop sign. There's no reason for this backup—there's not much traffic, and no pedestrians are crossing the street. I drum my fingernails on the steering wheel. I play with the electric windows, sliding first one, then the other up, then down. I adjust my seat, my rearview mirror and side mirrors, and just as I'm about to honk the horn, the convertible in front of me slides forward a few feet. I inch up, leaving my foot on the brake. A bead of sweat trickles down my back, and I lean forward to cool off. I'd turn on the air conditioning, but that overheats the engine. It's so hot these days; no rain in sight, with temperatures predicted to hover in the nineties for at least another week or so.
Suddenly something thumps me from behind, and I blink, for a moment not understanding.
Then I know: some idiot has smacked me. I leap out to inspect the damage.
The other driver, an older woman with wispy white hair, slowly emerges from her Jaguar. Her lower lip wobbles as she approaches me and she starts to cry.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hit you. I just thought you were going to move more. I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry. Really." She wrings her hands, hands dotted with age spots, hands where the veins stick out in vivid relief.
I remember the last time I saw my mother—her fingers were all gnarled, and the veins stood out so prominently; when I had taken her hand, though, it had been cold, icy cold. I feel the anger build inside, and I lash out, almost screaming. "You dumb bitch, why don't you watch what you're doing? Why don't you pay attention instead of fiddling with your radio or messing with your stupid hair? Lucky for you I don't have my baby in the car."
I march off and, now that the cars in front of me are gone, drive off. Trembling, I glance back in the mirror and see the old woman sagging against the Jag. I bite my lip. I don't know why I blew up. There really isn't any damage to my bumper, and her car had the scrapes. I felt bad seeing her cry, but somehow that had made me angrier, made me really want to lash out.
And why did I say that thing about the baby? I don't have one.
I shudder. Maybe it's the heat. The heat and humidity.
I can't park by the frame shop, so I settle for a space in front of a building down the way. The walk back is hot, the asphalt underfoot sticky; rotting fruit from a nearby tree stains the sidewalk.
The guy behind the counter barely glances at me when I enter. He's on the phone and from the way his voice is lowered, it isn't with a customer. I wait for a minute, then two, then three. Finally, when I've been there over five minutes, I clear my throat.
"I gotta go. Call me back in a minute."
I think our transaction will take longer than that, but I say nothing.
"Yeah?" the clerk asks as he approaches. His tone is surly, and it's obvious he thinks a customer is interrupting his life.
"I called earlier in the week—I had a hell of a time getting through, too; the phones always busy." I glare at him, knowing now why I kept getting a busy signal. "I have this painting to frame, and the man I talked to said it would take only a few days."
"Yeah, well, Dave isn't here."
"Who's Dave?" I ask, baffled.
"He's the guy who frames. I don't know when he'll be back."
"Can you give me an estimate?"
"I don't do frames."
You don't do much, I want to point out. "Well, don't you have a chart or something?"
"Yeah."
It's such an imposition, I know, for me to expect the guy to do something.
The clerk takes the painting from me, and I slap his hand. "Don't touch the canvas. You'll wreck it."
"My hands are clean."
"It doesn't matter. You can leave marks even if you just washed your hands."
He starts to pick it up again, his fingers against the canvas, and I snatch the painting back. He grabs it, and one of his nails scrapes against pigment, leaving an inch-long scar.
All my hard work… "You idiot. Look what you've done." Tears brim my eyes as I cradle the painting. "Forget it. Just tell Dave or whoever that I'll be back in a few days. And it won't be to have my picture framed, but rather to complain about you."
"Fuck off, lady." As he starts to turn away, he's already reaching for the phone.
I slam out of the shop and return to my car. Something official-looking flaps under the windshield wiper and stare at it in disbelief. A ticket.
But why?
I glance around and for the first time see the hydrant. I groan. I hadn't even noticed it when I parked. I grab the ticket, nearly ripping it in half in the process, and thrust it inside my purse, then sit in the car and stare at the painting.
I can repair the damage; it isn't that bad, but… but it angers me. Why was he such a moron? Why wouldn't he listen to me? Why hadn't Jack listened to me? I take out my Swiss army knife and run the flat of a blade across the raised pigment to see if I can smooth it a bit. It looks worse than before. Suddenly I hate the clerk, hate what he did, hate the painting. I thrust the knife into the canvas, and smile as the canvas rips. I slash over and over, until it's practically in shreds; then I toss it into the backseat.
My hair straggles into my face, and I slap it back with both hands, unmindful of the open knife. When the point of the blade grazes my temple, I drop it, and it falls onto the floor. I lick my dry lips.
Everything these days frustrates me; little things just pile up and up and up, and bother me. Someone can say "boo" and I'll either cry or get angry. I have to get control, have to get back on even keel, except that I don't know how to do that anymore, don't know what I can do to calm things down. Once my life was so orderly; now it seems utter chaos; I'm on a constant roller coaster that mostly heads down and down and down.
It's okay… I can do the painting again. Do it better this time. I can still get paid; that's the important part.
I start the car and wince as it threatens to die—and ease out onto the clear roadway, just in time to have someone in a red import race up close to my bumper and lay on the horn. As she swings around me, a teenage girl flips me the bird.
Give me a fucking break, I think. The girl hadn't been in sight when I pulled out.
My hands are trembling, I realize, as I park in the lot at work. I retrieve the knife and close it, slip it back into my purse. As I walk into the building, a blast of air conditioning hits me. Maybe this will cool me down, I think—in more ways than one. I greet the usual people in the outer offices. Most merely nod or keep their heads down, and my skin prickles. What's wrong?
I'm barely settled at my desk when the phone rings. It's my boss wanting to see me. I glance at my watch; I'm only a minute late. That isn't so bad; we've talked about it before, and he says he doesn't mind if I'm a few minutes late here and there because he knows I will make it up at the end of the day.
I smooth down my hair, powder my nose, and then slowly walk down the hall to his office and wait outside the closed door. I try chatting with Vickie, his white-haired secretary, but the woman abruptly excuses herself for the ladies' room.
"Come on, Carol," Dick says, sticking his head out the door. His tone isn't jovial—it's polite, nothing more. I enter. The personnel manager is there as well, and several department heads.
There is no chair for me to sit in. None of others look at me.
I remain standing while Dick closes the door.
He walks around to his desk and sits down behind it. He picks up a letter opener in the shape of a small jeweled dagger. His expression is grim. "I'm sorry, Carol, but we aren't happy with the work you've been doing for us."
I blink at him. "Aren't happy? But you gave me a raise last month at my yearly review."
"I know, but there were problems then."
"Why didn't you say something? I could have tried to improve or change or something. I can still do something." I try to keep the eagerness out of my voice; I don't want to look like I'm groveling, even though I am.
He strokes the letter opener now, and I hope he cuts himself, hope he drips blood all over his precious month-end reports. "I'm sorry, Carol, but we're just not satisfied with your performance. Over the past year you haven't shown the growth we expected; you're not as aggressive as we anticipated. And there's the little matter of the personal problems, too. That's taken away from your job, and impacted your performance here."
Impacted? My problems—the "little matter" of Jack has torn my life apart. Not "impacted." Why can't he even speak proper English? When it all began, Dick brought me into his office and told me how sorry he was, and how they all understood, and they would understand if I needed a day or two off here and there, etc. He had been so warm, so friendly… so two-faced.
"… and so we're going to have to let you go."
"Let me go?" Somehow the words don't make sense to me. I realize I've missed other things he said, but it doesn't matter. Just the last words did.
I lick my lips, feel how dry they were, how dry my throat is.
Dry… drying…
Dick clears his throat. "Al will take you back to your office, where you can clean out your desk, and he'll escort you from the building."
"That's it? I don't get a warning? I don't get put on probation? You're firing me just like that? Without any warning whatsoever? You said before that you all understood about what was going on, you said that you'd cut me some slack, you said—"
"Carol, I said that for some time we haven't been—"
"I know what you said, Dick, but why didn't you let me know this before so I could have tried to work harder? Why did you just wait to spring this on me? Why?"
He starts to speak again, and I know what he'll say. We haven't been happy for some time, we haven't this, we haven't that—everything he spewed out just moments before he'll parrot over and over, as if he were nothing more than a tape loop.
"You'll have to surrender your key."
I want to grab the little dagger letter opener and plunge it into his heart. If he has one. I would love that, seeing the surprise in his eyes as he tries to wiggle away from me… only I wouldn't let him. I'd twist the dagger in his chest and twist and twist and twist, and the blood would spurt all over me, and I Wouldn't be so dry-anymore.
He sits there watching me.
They are all waiting for my reaction, waiting for me to cry, to beg for my job back. The hell with that. I won't give them the satisfaction of me crying. Not that I feel like it; I don't think I have any tears left.
Numbly I yank my key chain out, and unhook my office key and fling it at him; it hits him squarely in the chest. My lips curl into a faint smile. My fingers shake so badly I can't get the other keys back on the chain, so I just thrust them into my purse.
I whirl and leave his office, brush past Vickie, who has returned, and half walk, half stumble to my office.
I know my face is red, can feel the heat of it, and I glance wildly around for a carton to put my things in. Vaguely I'm aware of Al lurking in the doorway. Probably wants to make sure I don't steal my desk or chair. Absurd! I've been a trusted employee, and now this… humiliation… this indignity.
Moments later Nora from accounting comes in, all apologetic and more than a little embarrassed, with a computer paper carton. She murmurs that she's sorry, slaps the container on my desk, then ducks out.
I jerk open my desk drawers, sweep the contents into the box. Silently I dare Al to challenge me on any of the contents. I pick up my coffee mug and toss it with the other stuff, then set my purse on top of everything. I pick up the carton and brush past him.
"I'm sorry—" Al begins.
"Yeah, I just bet you are."
I walk through the building, aware that everyone is watching me now, aware that Al is trailing after me. What are they afraid I'll do? Destroy something along the way? Duck into someone's office and hide?
This is ridiculous.
But it is a ridiculous place, always has been.
He opens the door for me and I go out without thanking him, and walk stiffly to the car. I open the trunk and drop the box back there. Slam the trunk lid down. Open it again to retrieve my purse, then slam it. I get in my car and sit there, and stare at the building.
I can see some faces at windows here and there, and I wonder if Dick is watching. Good ol' Dick. Dick the Prick, we all used to call him behind his back. How much of that, I wonder now, got back to him? If I don't leave after a while, will he call the police and accuse me of trespassing? The thought is almost funny. One part of me wants to stay there and find out just what he'll do.
Another part of me wants to start up the car, press the gas pedal down hard, and just gun that sucker into the front of the building. I smile, envisioning the buildings glass front shattering into millions of shards as the car smashes through it, imagine the satisfying crunch I'd make as I hit the receptionist's desk, imagine all the whirling papers and alarmed voices and fragments of glass and wood everywhere.
Fragments. Like my life. Everything is in pieces.
I can feel the tears now, feel their warmth creeping down my cheeks, and I pound the steering wheel with a clenched fist over and over until I know my hand is bruised.
I brush at the tears, and through their haze I see someone coming out into the parking lot. Sending the Gestapo, I tell myself, and back jerkily out of the parking space. I won't give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I blot at my tears with a tissue, wipe the sweat off my face and grimace.
Whoever it was goes back inside. No one watches now.
They're spiders, all of them. They've sucked me dry and thrown me out, just as they will with everyone else inside that building.
I slam on the brakes, take out the army knife, and run back to Dick's parking spot. I unfold the biggest blade and stab one of the tires. Nothing happens. I try again and glance nervously at the door. I don't have much time before someone comes out. The tire will take forever. I stand up and glance inside the Continental, then smile. I open the door and run my hand across the fine leather seat. Then I bring the knife down and slit the seat open in one long, very satisfying tear.
I walk back to my car.
I pause at the driveway, wondering where to go. Home? To do what? Just sit and stare out the window and think about how miserable my life is and how I hate everything and everyone at the moment?
No.
Or I can just drive around. And maybe that will calm me a bit.
I switch on the radio, and frown at the music under the crackling. Yeah, that needs fixing, too.
I wheel onto the roadway, nearly sideswiping an A&P semi. I don't care. Let 'em wipe me out. It'll be less expensive that way, I think bitterly.
No husband.
No job.
No money.
And just how the hell am I supposed to pay my mortgage? How am I supposed to pay for groceries? At least the old sedan is paid for; that's something they can't repossess for nonpayment. At least I don't think so.
I drive blindly, not knowing where I'm going, not caring. I head out to the A&P shopping center and circle the parking lot, wondering if I should go into one of the stores just to be doing something, but all those things to be bought there will just remind me of how little money I have.
I head downtown then and creep past the video store and the pizzeria and the new Chinese restaurant. I haven't been out to eat in months—too expensive. And I'd always loved eating at the Chinese place.
Then I am past the frame place once more. I pull into a parking lot and stare across at the liquor store. I could buy something. Some wine. A wine cooler. A six-pack of beer. Something. I don't care to drink, though, and that angers me. I would like to get lost in an alcoholic haze right about now.
Maybe getting fired isn't such a bad thing, though. Maybe that will give me a chance to concentrate on my art. I'll have more time for painting; I can put up some of my business cards on bulletin boards around town. I'll call some of my old contacts, see if they need some artwork done for ads or whatever. There are ways… things to do. It isn't hopeless yet. I can't give up. Not yet. The husk still has some life in it.
I decide to leave, and wait while the vehicle in front of me sits at the stop sign. Another one, I think, and bite down on my lip.
The woman has a fancy new silver van filled with high school-aged kids. The woman, who keeps twisting around to make some point in her conversation, seems to have forgotten that she's blocking a driveway. Or perhaps she just doesn't care. I wait, and just as I'm about to honk my horn, the woman hops out of the van and, looking around to make sure no one sees, slips a flattened aluminum can under one of the landscaped shrubs. Then she climbs back into her van and turns right.
What the hell is that? I wonder. She can't keep a squished can in her precious van? Her brand-new van that cost nearly thirty grand, and which probably has a working radio and doesn't overheat when the air conditioning is on.
I bite harder on my lip, and the wound bleeds more.
I swing into the road, following the van, which swings left onto Ryerson. I turn left.
The van stops at the traffic light. I stop.
The van drives down Ryerson for a mile or so, and I trail behind, sometimes discreetly, sometimes not. I don't care if the woman sees me, if the woman knows I'm following her. I don't care. That fucking woman has tons of money and has nothing better to do with her life than to ferry kids back and forth, and I'm very sure she doesn't have to worry about phones being disconnected, and not having a job or money to pay her mortgage or buy groceries or do anything decent in her life, and I am fucking well sure that this woman never felt a creative urge in her body in all her vapid suburban life and that she can't tell an oil from a watercolor, and what the hell is she doing with such a nice, fine life when she doesn't deserve it?
The van is out on Main Street, now, and I follow. The woman stops at Maple, and one of the kids jumps out and waves. The other driver honks. I honk. The van starts up again and then stops half a block down. Another kid leaps out.
What? The kid can't even walk a few houses down? I ask myself incredulously, oblivious to the blood that runs down my chin from my lip.
The woman stops next at the Quik Check and runs inside, leaving the van idling. I park a row behind and watch. Moments later the driver returns, a small bag in her hands. She glances at my car, then away.
The bitch knows, I think, and I smile.
The van starts out again, and I follow. The other woman drives out to the streets by the country club, and I cruise behind her. She's been driving all over town, I realize, up one street and down another. Like an insect trying to find its way off a web.
I smile.
I'm not the husk, not the hapless prey in the web, I realize. I am the spider. I'm not waiting to get zapped by some human arachnid—I'm the eight-legged terror that glides along the silken strands of the web to rid it of these flies, these worthless things that clutter the world. Yeah, that's it.
What a predator I am. I am hunting prey… weak suburban prey. I grin into the rearview mirror at myself and am surprised to see the trickle of blood. I lick it away and concentrate on driving. I am very meticulous about putting my turn signal on far enough in advance and not tailgating. I don't want to be stopped by a cop. But I wonder what it would be like to nudge the van a little, just a little, just knock it a few inches forward, or maybe a foot, or maybe just slam full speed into the back and—
I want to see the terror in my prey's eyes.
The woman stops at another house, this one a really fancy one, and I wonder if it's hers. No. She pulls away again. The "fly" seems to be going a little faster than earlier. Is she a little anxious? Good. Let her wonder what's going on. Let her worry like I always have to worry.
I glance at my watch and see I've been following the woman for over an hour now. My grin broadens.
I am hunting this woman, hunting down this moronic creature who has all the time in the world and doesn't know what it is like to paint an exquisite landscape, who doesn't know what it is to have her beloved husband leave her for some two-bit woman in his office, who isn't drying up before her time, who doesn't know anything about living.
Living. Yeah, this is real living.
I am smiling so widely now that it feels like my face is about to crack open. I lick my dry lips, wipe the sweat off my forehead.
I wish I had a gun. A nice handgun that I could take out of the glove box. I can smell the oil on it, feel its cold, metallic hardness. I would stroke the barrel, check the chamber, and then I'd raise it up to the windshield, and I'd imagine what would happen when I pull the trigger—
… the shattering of the glass… the sound of the bullet as it rips through the metal… the impact of the slug as it tears into the woman… the woman's scream… the blood and…
… the blood…
… all that blood from hapless victims to be sucked out of them…
… blood…
I taste something coppery on my lips—blood, I realize—and I blink. I glance at the van, then at the clock on the dashboard. Another hour has elapsed, and I have no idea where I've been or even how I've been driving. I don't remember a single thing. Nothing since I thought about the gun.
I wipe the sweat on my chin and my hand comes away red.
We are back on Maple, I see. I frown. Is it even the same van? Isn't that woman's van silver? This is blue-gray. Not the same. Or is it? Maybe it's a trick of the light. Maybe the van really is more blue than I thought earlier?
Maybe.
Or maybe this is a different van altogether.
And how long have I been following this one? How long have I thought it was the same van?
Hours.
Hours gone, hours out of my life.
I have wasted hours of my day.
Tears burn in my eyes, and I swallow heavily.
What's wrong with me? I thought I was coping well enough, and here I've gone and done this… stupid thing. I brush the tears away and back the car away from the van. I have to go home. I am falling apart, and I am scared.
At the stop sign I wait for the street to clear. I glance briefly in my rearview mirror as a red import pulls up behind me. Finally, it is clear, and I turn into the lane.
I don't want to think anymore about spiders and webs and prey.
I'll go home and take a bath—no, a shower; that's more invigorating—and I'll even wash my hair, and I'll dress in fresh clothes, and then I'll sit down at the dining room table with a pencil and pad of paper and list my options. I can apply for unemployment, get food stamps, ask my mom for money, sign up for one of those classes they always have for women left in the lurch—well, there are a lot of things I can do rather than wallow in self-pity.
I turn off Maple onto Main, the red car still behind me. It drives neither too fast nor too slow, and the driver seems to be watching me intently.
I swing onto Ryerson; the import follows. I go out to the A&P parking lot. The red car remains behind.
I force myself not to look in the mirror, not to think about the other car, and head back home.
But as I roll into my driveway, I glance back in the mirror. The red car still shadows me and is now slowing down.
I get out of my car, and just as I step into the house, I hear the click of a car door.
Jack had a gun, but he took it with him. It doesn't matter. There are other things around the house… my lair… a knife, a hammer, what's the difference—I know how to use them all.
The doorbell rings.
I stand in the hallway, not moving.
It rings again, and someone knocks.
Patience.
The door is unlocked. Sooner or later she'll try it.
Come into my parlor…