“Do you find her to be pretty? Our little Stella?”
I didn’t say anything. My eyes fell to the stack of comics on the bench.
The woman went on. “You will never have her, you know. As much as you may one day desire her, she will never be yours. Does that bother you?”
“I…I don’t like girls. Not like that.”
“No? Ah, but you will. Someday, I believe, you will. Someday you will want her so desperately you would step in front of a racing car just for the chance to touch her, to feel her warmth near your body, to know her kiss. Our Stella.”
“I just want to talk to her, that’s all.”
Ms. Oliver snorted, lost in her own words. “I bet you go home after these visits and pull your pecker out of your pants and touch yourself in the most obscene of ways just thinking about her—the smell of her hair, that smooth skin of hers. Have you ever even seen a naked girl before? I imagine not. Not at your age. You probably think about it, though, the filthiest of thoughts floating through that head of yours. You’re no better than other boys, all of you are the same. None of you are good enough for our Stella, and it sickens me to think she would even speak to you, let alone…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head. She turned and stared at me, those dark gray eyes boring into me, burning with a hatred so fierce I could taste it on the air. “She will be your everything. Every breath of air you tug from the world will belong to her, everything you do will be for her, and you will mean absolutely nothing to her in return. You will be something she scrapes off her shoe and leaves on the side of the road for the vultures to tear and eat and shit back out. You are, and always shall be, discarded waste—building blocks the universe should have used to make something better, an afterthought.”
She stood then, again smoothing out the long, white coat, and without another word, she climbed back into the SUV followed by the others. I watched as they drove away, the stillness and quiet of the cemetery suffocating.
2
Preacher stepped into the apartment and pressed both hands to the door, closing it with a gentle click. He knew nobody was home, he was certain of that, but he didn’t want to alert the neighbors of his presence any more than he would have wanted to startle the homeowner had they been drowsing in bed or watching television rather than visiting the rotting corpses of two long-lost relatives in the cemetery behind the apartment building.
Neighbors in buildings like this tended to stick together. They got themselves caught up in the business of those living around them just a little too often for Preacher’s taste. He could never live in a place like this, and he didn’t understand why anyone else would make the conscious choice to do so.
The place was a box.
The place was a box stacked on top of other boxes, next to more boxes, and under even more. This wasn’t a home, this was a cell. This was the kind of place society put you.
Josephine Gargery didn’t make a lot of money. He had reviewed her last three tax returns before coming here. As a waitress, she earned $2.01 per hour plus tips, the average tip being 10 to 15 percent. Preacher, of course, tipped 20 percent whether service was good or not and always treated his waitstaff with the utmost respect. Not because he felt they had a hard job or deserved more than the norm from him because he could sometimes be difficult, but because they handled his food and often did so outside his viewing area. He would never consider treating someone poorly, then sending them back to the kitchen to fetch his meal. They might spit in it, or worse. He once heard of a cook running a chicken sandwich through the dishwater when he heard the recipient was a former high school teacher who gave him a C minus in history class three years earlier. Imagine what that same person might do if he or she had a sudden dislike for a regular patron simply because that patron was rude or tipped poorly on a previous visit?
Preacher always tipped 20 percent, and he had done so when he ate breakfast at Krendal’s Diner this morning. Based on the income stated on Josephine Gargery’s tax returns, her regular patrons did not. She earned $7,840 last year. That amounted to $150.77 per week—only a few dollars above the national poverty level of $7,240 per year. Considering she had the boy, a dependent, Ms. Gargery wasn’t doing well. This became abundantly clear as Preacher turned and surveyed the apartment.
The small space reeked of cigarette smoke, even with the two living room windows open and a light breeze lofting in. Smoky grime stained the walls. He could only imagine how the filth of it infiltrated the furniture, the bedsheets, the clothing. He wore thick leather gloves. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, touch anything with bare hands.
Preacher did not smoke, nor did he tolerate anyone in his presence to do so. Such a filthy, wasteful habit.
Standing with his back to the door of the apartment, the small kitchen was on his left. The appliances appeared to be about a decade old, the corners and crevices lined with rust. The refrigerator contained nothing but condiments, some prepackaged sliced American cheese, and a quarter gallon of milk that smelled just this side of funky.
A narrow hallway led to the living room in front of him, and two doors lined the wall on his right, most likely the bedrooms. He saw nothing of interest in the kitchen, not even a single note affixed to the refrigerator door—the room looked rarely used, so he went on to the living room. A dining table sat tucked into the corner on the left, littered with stacks of both opened and unopened mail. Preacher took up the nearest pile and studied the labels: bills and Publisher’s Clearing House. The bills were unopened, the Publisher’s Clearing House envelope was not only open but the application had been completed and stuffed into the return envelope, ready to be mailed. Although completed in the name of Josephine Gargery, the handwriting was that of a child, no doubt belonging to the boy.
Preacher returned the mail to the table, careful to place everything back exactly as he found it, and studied the living room. A recliner and couch both faced a small twelve-inch television. A coffee table stood at the center of this little triangle. He expected it to be thick with dust, but he found the table to be clean, same with the top of the television. The grime of the space seemed to start and end with the cigarette smoke. Someone took the time to clean the apartment on a regular basis, and he found this surprising. Most likely, this was the boy again. He knew the aunt worked long hours and was rarely here, probably just long enough to sleep, shower, and return to work. The boy fended for himself. How that woman managed to smoke enough to create this cleanliness problem was perplexing. Preacher imagined her chain-smoking just to keep up with it. He knew the boy didn’t smoke, not yet anyway. They had been watching him closely, and someone would have made note of such appalling activity. A sniff of both the couch and the recliner confirmed she sat in the recliner as she smoked. Oddly, he found no ashtrays. The window nearest the chair had no screen. He supposed she could dispose of her ashes through that opening, but that seemed unlikely.
The door to the first of two small bedrooms stood adjacent to the living room, clearly the boy’s room—posters of superheroes and pages torn from comic books covered the walls. On the dresser he found stacks of books, classics such as Treasure Island and Lord of the Flies as well as nearly a dozen volumes of Hardy Boy mysteries. Comic books sat beside those, all stacked in neat piles. Within the drawers he found nothing but clothing, all folded and organized by type. The socks were paired off and rolled together in careful balls. He expected to find something hidden within the clothing, contraband of some sort, but there was none. Nothing under the bed, either, not even a dust bunny.