Unhinged

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Ernie would be pleased. I had worked all day getting the place ready for his return home from work. I had started by shoving the furniture, rugs, and boxes to alternating sides of the big room that was our new home and cleaning the hardwood floors until they gleamed. I had spackled holes in the wall, smoothing them with sandpaper, and when they were dry, touching them up with white paint. I had cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom until they sparkled.

And then I had set to work unpacking boxes, arranging furniture, laying our odd assortment of rugs (everything from braids to faded and worn Orientals to bold contemporary patterns that somehow all seemed to work together). Finally, I hung our meager collection of art, mostly framed posters from Ikea and photos of Ernie and me on our travels (Bermuda, London, Madrid, Niagara Falls) in just the right places.

By the time late afternoon arrived, with its long shadows and dusky rose light, and I turned on some table lamps, the place truly looked like home. Satisfied, I poured myself a glass of Syrah Ernie I had opened the night before and collapsed into the overstuffed couch we had covered with a dark blue velvet blanket. I sighed with contentment.

Ernie would be home soon enough from his job downtown, where he worked as a tech guy for a professional association, keeping their computer system updated and running. He was a practical guy, unlike me. It was part of the reason we got along so well—we complemented each other.

I, on the other hand, was a “creative type” or at least that’s how Ernie referred to me. Yet my Chicago Art Institute education in visual arts was currently being wasted in yet another dead-end job at a silk screening company that did custom designed T-shirts. I made the princely sum of fifteen dollars an hour. But at least the place was generous with time off, which is what allowed me to stay home that week and make our new place a perfect little nest.

As soon as I finished my wine, I’d start on a special homecoming dinner, simple but elegant—some grilled salmon atop a bed of linguine tossed with basil, capers, and lemon—and that laid over a bed of fresh arugula. Ernie and I might have been poor, but we ate well. I would put on some mood-setting music, I was thinking Oscar Peterson, and looked forward to truly christening the new place in style.

I was glad the previous tenants had left behind that privacy screen, which was mobile and would shut out prying eyes from travelers on the el. No telling what Ernie and I would get up to behind that screen!

I had just let my head loll back on the couch, the delicious blackberry aftertaste of the wine in my mouth, when my momentary peace was broken by a knock on the door. I sat up straighter, pinching my arm to make sure I was truly awake, and wandered over to the door, half expecting it to open of its own accord and some phantom little man to enter.

But the knock sounded again as I neared the door, and I realized whoever was on the other side had the good manners to wait until I invited him or her inside. I glanced through the peephole and a distorted woman’s face leered back at me—the nose seemed absurdly long and almost canine, the eyes tiny and porcine.

“Just a sec.” I opened the door a crack and was relieved to see the woman on the other side was not nearly as monstrous as the peephole made her out to be. She was a little older than I was; I would put her at approaching forty, with a broad, kind face, warm green eyes, and a riot of curly red hair that looked absolutely untamable. A big multicolored caftan hid her large frame. She looked funny—and I mean that in a good way.

“So you’re home?” Her voice carried with it a bit of a Bronx accent.

“Yeah. Did you always have a flair for the obvious?” I laughed to let her know I wasn’t being mean.

“I always had a flair for baking, dumb ass.” She rolled her eyes and grinned at me. “I’m Paula Prentiss, your new neighbor.” She shifted the tea-towel-covered dish she was holding to her left hand, so she could extend her right.

We shook.

“You know, like the actress?”

I shook my head.

“Paula Prentiss?”

I shook my head again.

She waved me away. “Ah! You’re too young. Anyway I brought you and your man some of my special apple raisin cinnamon muffins.” She held the plate out to me and I took it. “People don’t welcome their neighbors enough in this world, so I try to do my part, you know?” She c****d her head, waiting, I suppose, for me to agree.

“That’s really nice of you.” I stepped back and held the door open wider. “Do you want to come in? I just opened a bottle of red wine.”

She pinched my cheek and waltzed right in, a cloud of something that smelled like patchouli trailing her. “A boy after my own heart. I’m gonna like you.”

She made herself at home on the couch and looked around. “Nice. Looks about a 110 percent better than how the last guys who lived here had it.” She snorted. “They were pigs.” She thought for a moment. “But lovable piggies.”

I was getting ready to ask her about them, but she blurted out, “I hope you’re not gonna keep a girl waiting for that wine.”

“Right away.” I poured her a glass, topped my own off, and sat down beside her on the couch.

“Thanks.” She took a swallow like the wine was water and burped behind a manicured hand. “Good stuff.” She turned to me. “So what’s your name? What’s your story?”

“I’m Rick D’Angelo. I just moved over here—all the way from Eastwood, a vast journey of about two miles. I’m a graphic designer.”

She looked around the place again. “I can tell you got an artistic eye. I should have you take a look at my place, see if there’s anything I can do to make it look classier. On the cheap, of course. I don’t make a fortune working the cosmetics counter at Nordstrom on Michigan Avenue, you know.”

I wanted to laugh out loud at this woman, not in a way that would ridicule her, but just to let her know I appreciated her effusive warmth and humor.

“You live in the building.”

“Just down the hall. I’m your next-door neighbor. You ever need a cup of sugar, you know where to come.”

“Thanks.”

“Not my place. I just used the last of the sugar to bake those muffins. There’s a 7-Eleven down the block.”

I took a sip of my wine and got back to the question I’d wanted to ask. “So, you knew the guys who lived here before?”

“Oh yeah. Tommy and Karl.” She took a sip of her wine. “They were gay boys just like I’m assuming you and—what’s his name—are. Correct me if I got the wrong idea, but you just don’t see too many straight guys living in a studio together with one bed.” She snickered.

“His name is Ernie. And yes, we’re a couple.”

“A couple of what?”

I rolled my eyes, and Paula put a placating hand on my thigh. I noticed she had bright red nails so long they curved at the tip. “Sorry, hon, I meant no offense. If it weren’t for gay guys, I’d have no friends at all!” She laughed.

“So what were these gay guys—Tommy and Karl—like? Why’d they move?”

Paula’s face grew dark, and her eyes took on a faraway cast. She drained her wine glass, and I thought I was pretty safe in assuming she was doing so to buy herself some time. It was obvious I had touched a nerve.

“What?”

She held out the glass. “A smidge more?”

“Sure.” I poured her some more wine and sat back down.

Paula shrugged. “I don’t know. They were nice enough when they moved in a couple years ago. But then they got involved with some bad stuff.” She took another long swallow of wine. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

I didn’t feel I knew Paula well enough to press her. But I wanted to. Her evasiveness had my curiosity up. Bad stuff? What could that be?

* * * *

Ernie came home late. The poor guy was tired, so I tried not to get too bent out of shape when he failed to notice all the work I’d done that day or appreciate the fine dinner I’d prepared. When Ernie gets tired, it affects his mood—so we spent a quiet first night in our new home, watching the first season of Mad Men on DVD.

It wasn’t until we were in bed and I had swallowed Ernie’s load (hey, I am nothing if not selfless and giving), that I remembered to mention our new neighbor. I told him all about Paula as Ernie’s breathing deepened.

“She’s kind of like Ruth Gordon in Rosemary’s Baby? You know who I mean? The busybody? What’s her name? Minnie?”

But Ernie had already drifted off. I turned to my side, sorry to have lost him for another day and a little sad that he wasn’t really present for our evening together anyway. Why did work have to intrude so much on our real life?

Because you need to eat, sweetheart, that’s why. I swore I could hear Paula answer my thoughts, right in my own head. Good Lord!

I snuggled down beneath the comforter and closed my eyes. Maybe tomorrow I could take back the chipped Fiestaware plate she had brought the muffins on and get her to talk about the “gay boys” who had preceded the current ones. Paula did not strike me as reticent. Sooner or later, she’d have to spill; even from my limited knowledge of her, I doubt that she could help herself.

It was the middle of the night when something caused me to jerk awake. I immediately looked to the window, expecting to see another el train screeching by, but the tracks, at this late hour, were deserted.

In fact, the whole apartment was dead still. When you live in the middle of a big city like Chicago, the hum of noise—voices, cars, trains, buses—fade into the background. If they didn’t, I suppose we’d all go crazy.

That’s why it was so unnerving that at this very moment I could have heard the proverbial pin drop. It was that quiet. I looked over at Ernie, who, if he wasn’t snoring, was at least breathing loud enough for me to hear.

But Ernie wasn’t there.

Now, our new place was just one big room so I sat up in bed, looked toward our couch, no Ernie, our kitchen, no Ernie, and I finally directed my gaze to the bathroom, where the door stood open wide on utter darkness.

“Ernie?” I called, but no response came back. I slid my legs off the edge of the bed. Along with the silence, the cold was unnerving. The apartment was heated by steam radiators, the old Chicago reliable, and they had been clanking and clattering as we both drifted off to sleep. I shivered and noticed my breath came out in a puff of steam. I would have to call the landlord first thing.

But where was Ernie? I stood and found the clothes I had worn before bed. The sweats and sweatshirt lay on a chair. I slid into them and pulled some warm socks on my feet.

Just in case my lying eyes had deceived me, I made a quick tour of the studio. No, Ernie had not secreted himself behind the screen, nor was he under the bed, nor hiding behind the partially open bathroom door. He was not availing himself of a middle of the night shower in the dark.

I moved to our front door, peeking through the peephole to view only darkness. I opened the door and peered out into the gloom of the short hallway. The bare lightbulb, in a fixture on the wall, flickered off and on.

And everything was silent.

One gets used to hearing the el trains as they rumble by when one lives practically on top of the tracks, and almost stops hearing them.

Until the trains aren’t there anymore.

I thought I had been awake long enough for at least one train to have gone by, but there was nothing.

I closed the door and leaned against it, frowning. Where was Ernie?

In all our years together, I never had to worry about him cheating or doing anything on the sly. Had he gotten up when he thought I was asleep and headed out for some late-night revelry? The idea was so absurd it almost made me laugh.

Almost.

I had taken only a step or two back toward the center of the room when I noticed him sitting on the couch.

Not Ernie.

The little guy. Even though he was turned away from me, I could tell it was him from his small frame and his nearly skeletal form. He had a cell phone to his ear and appeared to be hunched in to himself.

He was talking rapidly, and as I moved closer, I started to pick up on what he said.

“You gotta help me out here, man.”

I stood still, right behind the couch, listening. I really think that I could have sat down on the couch right next to him and he wouldn’t have noticed.

“No, no, I can come to you. I don’t care…I’ll take even a little bit.” He laughed, and his voice was reedy, kind of raspy. It had a manic energy belied by his small and ill-nourished frame. I could see him c**k his head as he listened. “Come on, dude, I really need a taste. Just something to tide me over. I got the money.”

The hands gripping my shoulders made me scream. “Rick?” Ernie’s deep voice startled me. I whirled on him and could only imagine how wide my eyes must have been.

“Where were you?”

“Huh?” Ernie rubbed at his eyes, obviously still half asleep. His body looked sleek in the darkness, clad only in a pair of pinstriped boxers.

Even as I said it, reality began to trickle in. “Where were you? I looked all over.” Suddenly, I had an urge to cry. Was I going crazy?

As I suspected he would, Ernie turned his head lazily toward the bed and nodded. “I was right there. Asleep. Where else would I be?”

I pulled him close, burying my face in his warm, smooth chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. I breathed in his essence, what I called his man funk and that, with his thumping heart, comforted me.

He patted my head. “What happened? I woke up and you were just standing by the couch, staring.”

I pulled away from Ernie and looked back to our couch to find—no surprise—it was empty. No short men on cell phones. Just to reassure myself, I directed my gaze toward the front door, where the chain lock was still in place. My midnight visitor had not let himself out when I wasn’t looking.

Ernie ran his hands through my hair. “You were sleepwalking.”

“I guess.”

“Come back to bed?” Ernie took my hand and led me the short distance across the room, back to the comfort of our flannel sheets and down comforter. He kissed me deeply. “Good night, honey. Try to get some rest.”

He turned on his side, away from me, and in minutes, I could hear his deep, regular breathing indicating that he had returned to sleep. I envied him. I pulled the comforter up to my ears and tried to get comfortable, but sleep eluded me until grayish light washed our apartment with dull color, gradually defining the shapes in our home.

All night, I couldn’t get over the sensation that even though I couldn’t see him, the little man was still in the room, watching me.