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 Weathered
Earl Grey

Lancelot T. M. Schaubert

    Ten days from Janett’s imprisonment, Rick dropped their daughter off at the Desonier house. Little Nell loved playing with Josh and Aubrey, especially in that ritzy neighborhood. As Rick passed the security checkpoint, he remembered the first time he called in a restraining order on his ex-wife. Five such calls surfaced before Rick gained enough visible bruises to prove his abusive wife guilty. Judges in this country show partiality, make no mistake. Regardless, ten days ago the consequences caught up with her.
    At a smooth forty-five miles per hour, Rick drove the quick six blocks. Turning up the steep driveway, he turned off the Ford Escort and jacked the parking break as high as it would go. Somewhere behind the backyard tree line an amber sun set. He walked toward the blue front door of that white townhouse his father built him. Rick learned to drive that year. Still drives that same car, in fact.
    Sticking the key in the handle, he turned the knob and pushed lightly, for the door swung open with ease, at least in Rick’s history.
    It didn’t budge.
    He pushed again, this time hard, and still the door stayed put. Pulling out his key ring once more, he inserted the key again, now into the deadbolt hoping it worked.
    It did.
    The door swung open, sighing relief as it swung. “That’s odd,” he thought. As he stepped across the threshold, a slight twinge of pain rushed into his right cheekbone and a heart race with it. “Janett’s in the asylum...” he thought, “it’s ok.”
    She really charmed the fellas in her own right. Perhaps too sexual at times, she none the less enchanted Rick, and Rick had natural resistance to enchantments. That one quality, however, could never outweigh the fights, rather, the massacres where she berated him with pots, pans, the iron, words, and anything blunt within her reach.
    Just to assure himself, he walked past the staircase, into the den, around the corner, through the living room, dining room, kitchen, on past the study, and back into the foyer among the front door. “Empty house,” he said, his two words reverberating through the stagnant air.
    Like a panting dog, Rick licked his lips thirsty for that bergamot-spiced black tea his friends mocked him for loving so much, especially Michael Desonier. Back through the study, under the archway of the dining room, and straight to the kitchen he went, grabbing a pot handle from the closest counter in a walk-by spin.
    Water in, burner on, and boiling came the message to his hands. Then, with a reach slow as a hidden thief, he opened the topmost cabinet. Earl Grey read the title in classic letters beneath the Twinnings lable. “Just like the queen drinks,” Rick thought, ripping off the packaging of four consecutive tea bags. He tossed them lackadaisically into the pot. Two landed with belays over the side, strings dangling for support, using their labels as counter-weights.
    Step by step he nudged into the living room as the fatigue set in. Today might never end, but lucky for Rick, he owned a T.V.
    Turning on the vacuum tube, he flipped through the channels two full cycles. Assured nothing interesting could come over the airwaves, he landed on local news. The sound pulsed through the house.
    “Breaking news!” came the cry of the reporter. “The Franklin Park Assylum confirmed a breakout this morning of three high-security prisoners. A guard and two inmates died in the breech. Authorities detained two of these women only house ago, yet the third remains on the loose.”
    Before the reporter had a chance to read off the name, Rick said, “Janett.”
    A blonde hair-do topped the mug on the screen “Her hair moose, that’s the smell,” he thought. “Only Janett would insist on having her hair moose in prison, and get it.” He sniffed the air, catching a tiny whiff of that smell. The same twinge of pain rushed into his right cheekbone and a heart race with it. Not only this, but the distinct sounds of stiletto heels clicking down the ancient stair filled the room. He wanted to move, wanted to run, wanted to take his daughter from the Desonier house and flee the continent, but there he sat, rooted in fear.
    “Ricky, is that you?” said she.
    Even his throat caught the proper response. He choked out a, “yeah.”
    “I’m out early, baby,” she said, turning the corner. He kept his back to her, eyes searching for a weapon, something, anything. “You didn’t write.”
    “You didn’t obey the five restraints, the seven judges, or the walls you just broke out of. I think not-writing’s a fair trade at least.” He kept his back turned. Alas, his empty mug!
    “‘Course it’s not! We both know you were just playin’ hard to get.”
    “No, I was playing witness protection agency.” In a flash, he wheeled around throwing the mug right at her face. She ducked. Running into the kitchen he hoped to grab something substantial.
    “Let’s talk this out, baby! I need you!” She chased after him.
    “You need help!” he cried. By the time he grabbed the handle on the knife drawer, she grabbed the handle on the tea pot.
    Had he not fell into that brush fire back in the nineties, he wouldn’t have known how hard to flinch. Flinching well didn’t matter. A gallon of boiling water seared his every inch. He bellowed in pain.
    “Now let’s talk,” she replied. “Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you write?”
    He groaned.
    “What?”
    No response. Richard Kellogg sat slouching against a column of metal cabinet handles. It might have been uncomfortable, but comfort doesn’t matter in the world of second-degree burns.
    “Sweetheart, lemme help you.” She grabbed a hold of his heels and started dragging him toward the basement stairs. Several corners and furniture legs hit his head as they went on some pre-determined route below this hardwood floor.
    When they arrived at the stairs, she pushed and he rolled. And swerved. And bounced. And slid down the rest of the way. The carpet on the steps cushioned the ride, but ‘pleasant’ does not fit what happened. She locked the door behind herself, and walked down an intentional step-by-step until she reached his tangled limbs.
    By this time, Rick rediscovered his mouth muscles. They seemed to be the only thing working. “Kill me. Just leave Nell alone.”
    She stood over him. “Baby, I don’t wanna kill you – I miss you too much for that. I’ve missed you at night.”
    “You can’t have me. We’re done.” He pushed a bit with his hands. Something failed. One of the wrists sprained in the fall, he knew not which.
    “I’ll have you here,” she said, fire in her eyes. Rick tried to get up, she pushed him down with her heel, kicked him in the head, and went straight to the big red toolbox in the corner of the half-done basement. Grabbing duct tape and zip ties, she walked back over to her ex. “Come here.” He jerked his hand away, and pushed again to get up, this time getting to his knee. She backhanded him, hard. He spit out blood, feeling real pain to match the phantoms from earlier.
    In a tug, she had him over to the mini-bar. One tie around one limb, another on another, and the duct tape for the rest. Now he lay sprawled, helpless as a man before the woman of his faded childhood dreams. There she stood, pleased with all she had accomplished.
    “Do you love me?” she asked.
    “Can you love?” he replied.
    “Yes. I’ll love you a long time.” She kicked off her heels, and straddled him as if to break a mustang. He squirmed to no avail. He kicked fruitlessly. Finally, he just focused all his thoughts on the most reviling, unattractive things he could.
    His body didn’t respond. It knew its old partner, and she knew it. By the time she started removing her clothes, he started to cry. Then he wept.
    A knock came to the door. “Hullo?” came the burly sound of Mike Desonier. “Anyone down there?”
    She started yanking at his pants. Drawing breath in with all his might, as if to catch it blowing away, he yelled, “I’m here! She’s here, Mike! Help me! God in Heaven, help!”
    Mikael pounded on the door. Janett didn’t listen. She got his pants down to his ankles where they caught on his shoes. Swearing under her breath, she ripped off both shoes, the pants, and went for his boxers.
    With a crash, light poured out from upstairs. “HOLY –” yelled Mikael as he ran down the stairs, Nell right after him.
    “What is it, Mr. Desonier?” Little Nell asked.
    He decided in a moment for his friend over his friend’s daughter. Jumping Janett, he didn’t stop to untie Rick. They sprawled across the floor, and she head butted him. Adrenaline surging, he reeled back and punched her in the throat. She grasped both hands around her own neck, and her face started turning blue.
    “Mike, get Nell outta here!” Rick screamed.
    Mike ran to the girl whose eyes darted from her half-naked, tied-up father over to her unclothed, choking mother, and back again. She locked into that endless loop of eye-oscillation as Michael ran her up the stairs over his shoulder.
    Within the hour the cops were there, pulling out the nearly-dead ex-wife of Richard Kellogg.
    Within the hour, Richard Kellogg tried pulling out the images from his daughter’s mind.



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