Chapter 2

Sandra didn’t know a lot about Rex. At four in the morning, Rex found himself awake and dragged a giant chair to the front of his little window. He hoisted himself up into the seat, sat up straight, and waited. He saw different things through the window; cars going by, a neighborhood cat. At 7 AM the first ray of daylight stretched over the hills and came in through Rex’s window, shining high at first and then moving gradually down to illuminate the boy’s face.

He did not move at all for at least eight hours. At one point in time Sandra entered the room and left a bowl of cold cereal on the floor next to the boy and his chair. Not seeming to register this, his eyes remained blank, his mouth slack and unmoving. His face remained fixed toward the window. She paused in his room long enough to light up a cigarette, then went back to watching TV in the other room.

Around noon, Rex turned on the TV that was set up in his own room. He found the cartoons and tilted his head to one side. As he sat there, his eyes open but empty, he dreamed.

A few hours later, a knock at the door startled Rex out of his daydreaming. This was evident by a slight widening of his eyes, and the tilting of his head to the other side. The knocking was a bit timid; his mother danced lightly down the hall, singing a tune as she went to answer the door.

Rex thought about the knock on the door and his mother singing. From somewhere in his cloudy mind, a memory resurfaced. The lightness in his mother’s voice, it was the same; and she sang that way at no other time. It was happening again. Alarm showing only in his eyes, he slid down from the chair and hurried to the closet, sliding the door shut behind him.

Sandra reached the living room and put her cherry mouth close to the door. “Who is it?” she called playfully.

“Iiiiiiit’s Johnny!” came the equally playful response.

Sandra swished open the door, presenting herself grandly to the man on the other side; he was short and fat, but had a sweet face and wore a nice suit.

“Ready to meet Mr. Happy?” she asked.

Johnny’s face fell. “Ready to meet… who?”

Her red-tipped claws grabbed a handful of his shirt, and yanked the man inside.

She led him down the dim hallway to the bathroom, and held the door open in invitation. Peeking in, Johnny saw the dark room lined with green candles, and steam rising from the water in the tub. There was an incense stick burning on the sink, and next to it a long hunting knife that mirrored the wall of candles.

“Oh, this is nice,” he said.

“Disrobe,” she commanded.

“Do you need the money first, or…?”

“Your clothes. Do it,” she said, her voice low but soft.

So Johnny began pulling and tugging his coat and shirt off of his fat body; when his undershirt landed too close to the array of candles, Sandra scolded him.

“Well, sorry. Wasn’t expecting candles and all this,” he said, scooping the clothes into a neat pile.

Sandra’s face softened. “You should have expected more out of me, baby.”

She stood up close to him and put her arms about his shoulders. He tried to kiss her, but her hard glare stopped him.

“Look at me,” she said breathily. He looked lightly at her body but held his gaze when their eyes met. He was more looking for permission to touch her than admiring her face.

Now she cupped his face in her hands. “Tell me you love me.”

“Wow,” he said. “I’m starting to not be comfortable with this anymore.”

“Say it or I won’t fuck you, asshole!”

Lulled by the promise of pleasure, he grabbed her by the waist and said as convincingly as he could, “Ok. I love you, Sandra.”

With a tear running down her cheek, Sandra threw her head back and cackled out a long, crying laugh. Johnny watched her in confusion as he waited for her to stop. At last she calmed down.

“Ok, Johnny. Get in the tub.”

When Johnny turned toward the tub, something black and snake-like was swaying in the water. Something at the end of it opened up like a mouth and hissed at him, causing slime to ooze out.

“What the fuck?”

Sandra snatched the hunting knife, and sank it into his back.

In the darkness of his closet, Rex covered his ears against the agonized screams of the unlucky man.

As Johnny turned to face her, she slashed at him and pushed him back into the tub, sending a tidal wave over half the candles. Digging her stiletto heel into his chest, she held him down as he thrashed and howled. The bath water turned crimson and splashed the walls, splattering Sandra’s face with red.

After a while he heard his mother close and lock the bathroom door, and Rex crept out into the hallway. Someone was still dying in the bathroom, though not as loudly now; then he looked in the other direction, and saw that the front door stood ajar.

From the bathroom door to the front door he turned his head. His feet and hands twitched involuntarily. A wind blew in, ruffling his hair as it did, and pushed the door open even wider.

His heart pounding with a sweet kind of feeling, Rex ran to the front door and looked out. Hot sunshine tingled all over his face; he tried to look at the sun, even knowing it wasn’t good for his eyes. Out in the street, he saw children his own age playing a game with a ball. One of them, a brown boy with mischievous eyes, noticed him immediately and waved.

“Hey over there! Who are you? You want to play with us?”

Rex stared, dumbfounded.

“Hey, kid!” yelled another boy.

“Hey, I’ve never seen him before,” said another.

They all began shouting and waving at him.

Rex’s lips were like a statue’s. He watched the boys as they waved and shouted, and the boys made sense; but something did not. They called to him so insistently, and looked at him in such a weird way; his dad looked at him that way sometimes. I think they want you to respond, he thought to himself. At that moment, Rex realized that he could not. A panic flooded his mind, overriding the joy he had only just tasted.

“Hey kid.” The brown boy was trotting up the walkway now. “Are you deaf? It’s ok if you’re deaf. You wanna play with us?”

Rex stared at the boy in horror, then slammed the door shut.