Half Lives

***Mickey did not need to walk far to see the damage.  In the clear starlight his eyes were able to collect he could see that the rear passenger window was reduced to bits of glittering pellets, yawning at him like a black eye socket on a bone white shard of skull.  There were no footprints in the freshly fallen powder for him to trace.  He walked no further.  The window was not difficult for him to repair.  In fact the entire thing would be as easy as signing the paperwork and passing the bill receipts to the reimbursement clerks.  “Kids just don’t know the value of respect,” he sighed.  “Probably threw a frozen one from the street,” he hugged his arms about his stomach as he hustled his way the few feet back to his porch and began to stomp the excess snow from his thick boots.  Grasping the door knob, puzzlement descended on his eyes.  The door was locked.  “Anita,” he grumbled then chuckled, “what are you worried about.”  He fished the spare door key from beneath the floor mat and let himself in.***




The fine varnished breakfront cabinet stood palatial at the edge of red and burgundy paisley rug.  The rug was not an authentic oriental import and the glass faced cabinet was not an heirloom full of fine crystal, but Mickey would have said anything to pick up Anita and as the bulbs of their wine goblets kissed each other with a light clink neither one could care less.  The dining room was a decently appointed affair and authentic or not they both joked and mused openly about passing them on to their children.  “Give anything enough time and it’ll be authentic,” Mickey quipped.

“I still don’t think the polo grounds in Connecticut ever became a reality,” Anita added, a half chewed mouthful of pasta pressed to one side so she could sip down some more red one.  She favored the tartness with the mellow braised beef Mickey spent most of their Saturday afternoon preparing between their movie sessions in their living room beside the healthy warmth of the main fireplace.  “Honestly, I think that at that particular barbecue you definitely had me once I saw your movie collection,” she smiled.  Her smile had the neatness and succulence of a fresh fruit sliced into quarters and a single slide laid against her almond skin and green tinged grey eyes.  Eye candy was how her face was often described, but to Mickey she was as delightful as a full course desert in the French quarter uptown.

“You know, you were the first person to ever remark on them.  I practically forgot they were there,” he said, sampling his own goblet before taking a draught from the mug of poured Irish beer.  He wasn’t directly Irish and his stony cheeks and chin and deep brown hair made it all the more obvious.  His mother’s father was an immigrant who married locally while he was still working in the shipyards in Maine, but his influence left enough of an imprint on her to compel her to pass on the heritage.  If only she could have known how frustrating answering heritage questions could be for a 31 year old man with a name Irish enough to beg every passing acquaintance to take a stab.  “I was laying it on thick from the minute I saw you,” he grinned, “but I would have been an idiot not to at least attempt to hold the sun.”

“We worked in the same office, Mickey,” she bubbled, “you could’ve talked to me anytime you wanted to,” Anita had to make a real effort not to eat faster than he did.  She loved pasta and loved his command of grills and smokers and the tastes he could tease out of anything that once had a pulse.  The braised beef was an experience that filled her nostrils and made her spine tingle with every bite and she happily wiggled her toes against the sumptuous threads of the carpet beneath the dining room table.  Her eyes practically twinkled as she did her best to shoot sparks of a thank you over the candelabra and the place setting at the center of the table.

Mickey fired a devilish wink back at her, his thin lips curling into a half smile as he ate.  “Hey, don’t give me that.  I watched you shoot down Rick, Mullins, and Big Donny like a sniper in a perfect hide,” he sipped a little more, “what chance could I have possibly had outside of getting you over to my place by offering to host the company barbecue?”

“And boast about your prize horses.”

“And boast about my prize winning horses brought over from Spain on a private plane.”

“How did I ever fall for that,” she rolled her eyes playfully, poking her Merlot tinted tongue out in feigned disgust.  Mickey reach his gold watch adorned wrist toward the center of the table and briefly lifted the 12 year old bottle before setting it down again with a smile.  “Now I remember,” she laughed.

“The question is,” he dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his handkerchief, “how did I ever fall for this,” he held the back of his hand up for her inspection, the unsullied and still fresh gold of his wedding band glinting.

“That,” she dabbed her fine lips likewise, “is for me to know and for you to find out.  Maybe I’ll refresh your memory a little later,” she placed her elbows on the table, leaning forward so slightly, but enough to allow a hint of bare skin to snatch Mickey’s attention beneath the neckline of her V cut sweater.  He wasn’t absolutely positive, but the mere suggestion that she was not wearing a bra beneath the green cotton was enough to begin to tantalize his imagination.  Anita let a few loches of her straightened black hair fall in front of her face before brushing them back.  Mickey, didn’t realize it, but his mouth was hanging like a loose kitchen drawer.  “Right now,” she straightened and took up her fork once more, “I’m going to finish eating,” her cheeks glowed.  Getting a rise out of Mickey was no easy task, but watching him completely go blank was one of the highest compliments she was ever paid.  If his glacial face went blank it meant that behind his raised eyebrows he was practically tumbling head before feet into her breast from all the way across the table.

“Yeah,” Mickey regained consciousness, “this pasta is pretty great.”  The living room phone rang.  They both chewed through it, enjoying the meal far too much to interrupt the moment.  The home office phone rang out its harsher tone from several rooms away.  “I’ll be right back,” he stood brusquely and left his chair un-tucked.  His half mast erection threatened to un-tuck itself just as carelessly.

“Oh my God,” Anita cupped her napkin to her mouth, unable to hide her own embarrassed grin.

“What is it?” he paused mid stride.

“Nothing,” she shook her head, still smiling, “nothing.  Just wanted to say the meat is pretty good too.”  He frowned a minute, the joke flying directly over his head, before continuing on his way.

The squelching burble of Mickey’s office phone did not cease.  When he was on the finance committee before he made board member he kept an answering machine.  Since landing the board appointment he spent the majority of his time at 450 Spellman Center and he finally had enough weight behind him to simply refuse to take business home if he so chose.  The home office was convenient when he did not feel like taking the commute or if he wanted to take time off, but stay in the loop and those two reasons were the only two reasons he could abide converting one of the rooms in his home to an office space.

“This had better be important,” he thought as he grasped the arch of the phone receiver and lifted it from its cradle.  “You got me,” he barked, “this had better be important.”  The weekend’s were usually transaction free, but occasionally a conflict on Friday night between receivables and payables lead to messes that were not resolved until the following Saturday afternoon.  Messes that required the highest clearance, his clearance, before the figures could be adjusted and reported to risk assessors and international watch dog firms to stay ahead of the curve come Monday.  “Hello?”  There was no answer from the earpiece.  He hung up, not caring to ask twice.

Mickey’s mind ran down the short list of people who would have his private office number.  His phone was an old style phone Anita bought him as an atmospheric bit of functioning history.  He quietly cussed its lack of modern features and his own notions of style as he walked around his large desk in chopping steps and began to rifle through the top drawer for his cellular.  The phone crackled to life once more.

“Everything okay back there,” Anita shouted to him.

“Fine!” he shouted back.  “Hello?” he barked again.  The heavy hiss of a bowl of rice spilling to concrete answered him followed by the cackle of his car alarm.  He slammed the phone down and trotted to the front door.

“What’s going on,” Anita asked walking down the hallway to meet him.

“Nothing.  Probably pranksters,” he slipped his feet into his bulky gray winter boots and threw his black scarf loosely around his neck before grabbing the small walkway shovel  “Dial up the police, would you?”  It was not the first time teens vandalized the gated homes on the street during the winter.  Leaving children at home was not uncommon in the neighborhood during winter months and the community had its own hired security team to make rounds and handle simple things like vandalism.  “I think they broke the window on the truck.  I’m just going to check to make sure they’re not still out there,” his brow was knit into a brick front of focus that at once enticed and wilted Anita.

“Be careful,” she offered, trotting her bare feet into the living room to pick up the chordless phone.  He fished in his pocket for his alarm fob and depressed the middle button to silence the wailing sport utility vehicle.

The darkness of Winter was deep.  The night air was dimensionless before his eyes as they strained to adjust to the starlight.  He waded through the calf deep snow beyond the small area he shoveled earlier in the day, thankful the snowfall did not get carried away, but frustrated nonetheless.  He would have to take care of it by Monday.  Knowing Anita, he turned back to the front porch.  “Close the door, would you.  I don’t want you catching a cold,” he smiled before turning back to his task.  Anita, phone in hand, closed the door, gently closing herself off from the crisping of the snow beneath his searching steps.

Mickey did not need to walk far to see the damage.  In the clear starlight his eyes were able to collect he could see that the rear passenger window was reduced to bits of glittering pellets, yawning at him like a black eye socket on a bone white shard of skull.  There were no footprints in the freshly fallen powder for him to trace.  He walked no further.  The window was not difficult for him to repair.  In fact the entire thing would be as easy as signing the paperwork and passing the bill receipts to the reimbursement clerks.  “Kids just don’t know the value of respect,” he sighed.  “Probably threw a frozen one from the street,” he hugged his arms about his stomach as he hustled his way the few feet back to his porch and began to stomp the excess snow from his thick boots.  Grasping the door knob, puzzlement descended on his eyes.  The door was locked.  “Anita,” he grumbled then chuckled, “what are you worried about.”  He fished the spare door key from beneath the floor mat and let himself in.

“I didn’t see anyone out there, but it looks like it was neighborhood kids out for some Winter fun.  They broke the window,” he popped his feet from one boot and then the other as he spoke, “I’ll have it fixed first thing Monday.  I’ll probably have to have the seat in the back reupholstered.  It’s really no big deal though.  I just wish I’d caught them in the act this time,” he was grumpy, but it was nothing a little red wine couldn’t fix.

His smile evaporated like water droplets against the surface of a red hot coal as he turned the corner and entered the decently appointed dining room.  Overhead, the chandelier was dimmed, but at the center of the table the candelabra still burned.  Anita was in his seat and the chordless stood, unused, next to the 12 year old Merlot and beef and pasta dishes.  “What is,” his voice drifted then returned at half its strength, “what is going on?”  She sat bold upright, the tip of his white handkerchief protruding from her mouth, her eyes racing over every detail of his face and pleading forgiveness, and miracles, and vengeance, and rescue all at once as tears poured unceasing.  Her throat burned with swollen hatred and rage at her own manipulated frame.  He did not need to look to know that her hands were tied.

Every molecule of air left his lungs as he realized with the ferocious shock of one hundred thousand volts of electricity touched to his chest that behind her another person stood.  As his eyes fought for focus in the dim light, the foreign body, the intruder, seemed to precipitate out of thin air into the space behind her chair like a shadow raining from an extinguished light bulb.  He fought to resolve the details of his face, but his head was swimming for its life in a diving pool filled to the brim with crude oil.  “Sit down,” the intruder’s voice rasped.  The command was almost welcome as he fought hard to grasp at anything more than the four walls surrounding him.  His legs dutifully buckled and he sat, drained, eyes wide.

“You should know,” the voice came again, clearer,”I’m not here to rob you,” the black garbed man extended his arm over the table, an aluminium bat grasped in a black gloved hand, “and I’m not here to rob you,” a leather gloved hand reached up from behind Anita’s seat back and pat her head.  She yanked her face as far from the hand as she could, rocking her chair defiantly.  Her efforts nearly capsized the thing, but the swift and sure grip of the black garbed man saved her further humiliation.  “Take it easy.  I’m actually not here for you at all.” The words were a simple reminder, but bore the blades edge of a warning against further restlessness.  Releasing the top of the seat back the man adjusted his black ski mask.  Beneath the ski mask he wore white hose, obstructing his face from distant or camera lensed viewers.

“Don’t threaten her,” Mickey stood up slowly, growing more sure of the strength in his frame as he realized all the burglar had was a bat.  Working his hands into fists he knew there was a reason he kept up with the gym.  “Punks like you don’t scare me,” he blurted.

“Sit down.”  Mickey turned his chin up and began to walk from behind Anita’s end of the medium sized table.  The man flicked his wrist, shattering two of the four doors in the breakfront.  Anita cringed and twisted away as best she could, the handkerchief in her mouth barely muffling her scream.  Mickey jumped backward covering his face with his forearm though none of the glass flew more than a yard.  “Sit down.”  Mickey complied.  “The duct tape in front of you: use it.  Around your waist and the chair fifteen times, and then your right hand to the table leg fifteen times.”  Anita closed her eyes, her chin dropping to her chest and her sobs wracking her shoulders.  For the first time since entering the room he looked at Anita’s end of the table and beside her plate of food was a thick and brand new roll of gray industrial tape.  He followed his instructions.

“Now when I ask for your free hand you will give it to me and I will tape it to your chair.  Give me your free hand or I will take your bound hand,” the intruder knocked the end of the bat on the table with three tooth jarring bangs.  The black garbed man left Anita’s bound body and proceeded to secure Mickey’s free hand.  His eye’s burned with unshed tears of frustration. 

“What is it that you want,” Mickey asked as the tape bellowed its unique groan, winding round and round his wrist and the chair leg.  “Whatever you want, just take it and don’t hurt us.  We haven’t seen your face.  We won’t even call the police.”  The tape made several more circuits before the man tore it free from his handiwork with a powerful jerk.

“What I want is you.  Not your money.  Not your house,” the man stood up beside his chair, “lean your head back.”

“What?”

“Your head.  Lean it backwards toward me.”  Mickey complied, his welling eyes shedding tears that ran backward and down into his ears.  The man planted the fresh end of the roll of gray tap squarely on his forehead and proceeded to wrap it around every square inch of his face, covering his eyes first.

“What do you want with me,” Mickey shouted, chest beginning to heave under the strain of the raging war between calm and all out panic.  “What are you doing,” his voice cracked mid sentence but fought its way back to his bass before cracking again, “what are you doing!”  Anita could see that his thin white sweatshirt was nearly soaked through with perspiration.  She squirmed and attempted to avert her eyes, but looking away was nearly as unbearable as the sight unfolding before her.  “Jesus christ, what are you doing!”  The tape made several rounds before silencing him, leaving only a slit for him to breath through his nose.  He tore the roll free and let it drop to the carpet before sitting, statuesque, on the table’s edge and examining his work.  He pat the shining gray surface, content with its coverage.

“I worked for you, Mickey.  I gave it everything.  Everyday.”  Mickey’s head cocked to one side before shaking vigorously.  His words came as muffled grunts through his nostrils.  “Not uptown.  Back before you sold us out.  Yes, you remember.”  Mickey’s head still shook, but it was not clear whether it was a yes or no or if Mickey could hear the intruder at all.  The man turned briefly to Anita.  Her eyes were closed.  “Your wife isn’t watching.  I think she thinks something ugly is going to happen.”  He rose to his feet.  “You lied to me, Mickey.  You lied to all of us.  Did you have to sleep with my wife too?”  The intruder could hear Anita beginning to rock her chair again.

Bat in hand he took up a position behind Mickey’s chair.  Mickey’s entire body seemed to rock with every breath.  “You did didn’t you.  Rachelle had nothing to do with the you or me or the buyout, but you never let anything you want go, do you?  The rest of the world be damned, Mr. Mickey gets what he wants.”  Anita could not see his eyes clearly, but she could feel him gazing at her.  She tried her hardest not to fix on him, but her eyes rose to meet the blank white spaces where his eyes should have been.  He leaned over Mickey’s reduced body and retrieved the butter dish.  With a gloved hand he held the stick and tossed the dish, then began to slather it on the long cylinder of the bat’s body.  He began to walk toward the side of the table and with each step she could feel her stomach tighten and threaten to force what parts of the meal she managed to eat out of her body through her nose.  “Miss,” the man assured her, “this isn’t for you,” he tossed the remainder of the stick into the shattered face of the cabinet.  Anita eyes blinked at a frenetic pace, visions of the next thirty seconds of her life flashing in down every avenue only to find horrors waiting at each turn.

“I’m doing you a favor,” he spoke to her and pat Mickey’s lolling duct taped head,”now this won’t tear and it keeps the walls clean.”  He shifted his right foot backward as a brace, cocked his shoulder in kind and then uncoiled a swing hard enough to make the still air whistle.  The body of the aluminium rod caught edge of the seat back and spun the chair from beneath Mickey’s body like a bowling pin as he ripped free of gravity like a mannequin in a car accident.

His body spilled to the ground and the intruder raised the bat over his head before lowering it.  The thing was finished.  With care he picked Anita’s napkin from the table and wiped the slick bat dry before crossing to the opposite end of the table.  “Whoever you are,” he lifted the chordless and pressed nine, then one, then one again, “I’m sorry you were here tonight.  I’ve dialed the police.”  The intruder placed the phone on the floor three yards from her.  “All you have to do is press ‘send’, but I intend to be far away when you do.”  Anita’s tear streaked face and eyes dilated and bloodshot with adrenalin did their best to rip into his heart and soul with no visible effect.  “This is beyond what you know of him,” he left the space of the dinning room door, “your ignorance,” he called, his voice growing distant, “is a blessing I and others will covet until the days we die,” the front door slammed shut and Anita, alone, turned her every energy toward steeling her mind and gathering her heart.