A Taste

Scene 1

“Em, we need to talk this out,” Wally said to the bathroom door. “Look, I’m sorry, babe. Now come on out of there. Please?”

The words were slathered with sincerity, but he knew that his wife was scared, hurt...deserving. Hopefully the sentiment he packed with those words wasn’t lost in transit. Behind him, a memento of her distress innocently watched the scene play out from atop the kitchen counter. Wally caught the meat tenderizer’s glimmer from the corner of his eye. Its square jaw of jagged teeth seemed to smile at him as if harboring some delicious secret.

The scene of the crime was just to its right, a small window that overlooked the sink. Wally tried to picture his neighbor peeking in through the glass; but only the kitchen’s reflection stared back. All traces of what lurked in the night had been chased away by the bright fluorescents.

Wally stretched the stiffness from his arms, unable to remember why they were so damn sore. “Emily,” he repeated, his head still turned towards the one-way mirror, his eyes still hunting for a glimpse of the outside. “I’ll talk to Arthur tomorrow and set his ass straight. I promise.”

Still nothing, not the slightest bit of life stirred from behind the cream-colored door. Anger warmed his insides--not the kind that would turn to a gentle, rolling boil after an hour. This was the flash-fire kind, the kind that always came at the heels of being ignored.

BWHAM!

The thud of his palms rattled the door, but the door didn’t give. Neither did Emily. There was no click of the lock, no sign of his black-haired beauty of a wife, though at the moment a better ‘B’ word was bubbling to the surface of his mind.

“Fine! Sit in there all damn night for all I care,” he barked with the thickest twang he could muster. The south-speak hinted that his words had teeth. “I know what you’re thinking, and I ain’t gonna do it. I ain’t calling the god-damned cops!

”Call the police,” he dismissively mumbled to himself. Though Emily hadn’t told him outright, Wally knew that’s what she wanted. She just didn’t see things the way he did. Sure, bringing in the blue would get the job done. Harmless, gawky, man-boy Arthur would get the hint and stop peeping at Emily. The problem was that it would also set the neighbors’ gums flapping about how Wally was away from home too much and how Wally wasn’t able to take care of business by himself. He’d be the laugh of the goddamn town for weeks.

Nobody will laugh anymore, not after this.

Wally’s eyes wandered back to the counter, to the tenderizer. It shined like a specter waiting to be discovered all over again but bared its teeth as if to warn those that may get too close. Emily must have left it in plain sight, just for Arthur. Its view from the window was perfect should he decide to make a second appearance.

The clock ticked away from above the stove, and Wally sighed at its news, half past eight. They’d been in the kitchen since he got home, before the sun went down.

“I’ll be in the living room,” he yelled. “When you snap out of it, come get me and we’ll talk.”

Still nothing. Emily was really on her A-game tonight.

“Bah,” he spat, growing sick of the one-sided argument. Her last words to him were so distant that he couldn’t recall them anymore. All he could remember was that they stank of Arthur.

The stereo wasn’t on when Wally got home; he was almost sure of it. Music quietly breathed over him like a fine rain as he made his way through the dining room: ‘You think you do, but you don’t know me. No, you don’t know the one who dreams of you at night.’

As Wally stopped to listen, he noticed the darkness that had swelled around him, a far cry from the sunset that poured through the house when he first stepped off his big rig. All but the kitchen had succumbed to the deadness of night, and its light barely reached him now.

The big-band song continued to drift in, to ride on waves of vivid sound through the darkness. Mixed with the night, the unholy concoction was unsettling. His thoughts went to an even darker place, a place where he wasn’t alone, a room. The shades were drawn; the lights were off. An unkempt bed sat wedged in the corner. Sitting on its edge, atop a twisted mound of sheets was Arthur. His stringy black hair bounced about as he frantically penned a sonnet sinister enough to send nightmares running for cover. Wally couldn’t make out the words, but he felt them. They made him shiver.

”Damn that woman,” Wally mumbled, shaking off the thoughts, shaking off Arthur. As much as he hated to admit it, Emily’s skittish brain was contagious and the music made it worse. That music—

He tilted an anxious ear in its direction. The music was gone!

Oh, it’s there. No one else can hear your insides screaming like you can.

“C’mon, keep it together,” he muttered. “She’s got you in her funk. Arthur’s an asshole, but he’s harmless.”

For a brief moment, he put himself in Emily’s size-sevens. What was it like to be alone in this house night after night with only the dog to keep her company? Hell, he’d been scared shitless from what—two minutes in the dark? Maybe he was a little too rough on her.

He reached the dining room’s edge and looked into the foyer, a room that should have been as black as the rest. What he saw clenched his throat, leaving him unable to breath. The front door was ajar. Sharp, yellow light from the street pierced through the breach and projected a crooked smile upon the laminate floor.