My Closest Friends Pt 6.

After the hospital released me I entered my house to find it empty. For a few moments I wished Leah was still here. She had been my wife. We fell in love and courted for a short time and then we were married. It was shortly after the wedding that things went wrong.

I'd left for work one day after we'd been arguing about where to go for vacation. She wanted to go to the Bahamas, I wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta. Neither was willing to budge. So I go to work, different job back then. Had been a manager at a lumber yard, the yard area. You know the part of those home improvement places where you go to pick up your two by fours and plywood? That's what I was in charge of. I liked my job and the guys who worked for me respected me even if they didn't like me. I had a reputation for terminating people though. If I didn't feel you were working at the level I could see you were capable of, you were gone. That's just how it was.

Leah was a really social kind of person and though I'd suspected her of still having contact with some of her ex-boyfriends, I never had any proof she was unfaithful. We had friends, not the real friends who you call in the middle of the night needing help that actually show up, loaded gun in hand ready to help you, whatever you need, but a lot fo acquaintances. We were always having this person or that over for dinner, always being invited to barbecues. So anyways, I go to work after this argument and do my thing all day at work. Nothing really memorable about that shift and then I go home.

I walk in and don't see leah anywhere and there's no note on the dry erase board on the fridge. I go to the bedroom to change and there she is. Her head on the pillow, mouth open, looking at me. The problem with this is just this. All that's there is her head. There's blood everywhere, her eyes, vacant of life, yet so full of accusation. Staring at me, the same look she had when I'd told her that I didn't want to go to the Bahamas on her face. A look of disbelief and horror. No body, at least not in the bedroom where her head was. So I lost it right, I picked it up and cradled it and walked out the front door.

I'm going to interject here and tell you that should you ever find yourself in this situation, a loved ones head on a pillow, removed from the rest of the body, leave it there. I'll explain in a bit.

So wracked with pain and shock am I that I simply walk out into the street in front of my house. Minutes later the neighbors are there, shocked, calling the police. I remember not being able to talk. I was distraught to say the least. Next Officer so and so comes and starts asking questions. This guy has been to my house a hundred times for dinners and such, most of the cops have. They went to school with Leah. I can't answer questions, I don't know anything and I'm in the back of the police car headed to the station. When you're found with your wife's decapitated head in your hands, covered in blood the world is silent and everything changes, one minute everyone's your friend and the next, all they want to know is where the body is, and of course everyone that knows you says “He was so quiet and seemed so nice”. You're guilty before you've even been arrested.

I can't tell them where the body is, because honestly I don't know. Do I know anyone who would do this?

No

Do I have any enemies?

Not that I know of.

Is there anyone who I might have given a reason to do this?

To cut my wife's head off? Is that even a question? I asked him.

Sorry but they need to know he told me. He wanted me to think, think hard, was there anyone?

No, no I didn't think so I told him. So he asks me to stand up and I did and then he's handcuffing me and telling me that I'm now the lead suspect in my wife's murder. Neighbors heard us arguing before I left for work and now the police think I killed her.

“So where's the body?”

“I don't know.” I tell him.

“Tell me what happened?” he says.

“I told you, I came home from work and her head was there on the pillow like that, blood everywhere!” I began to cry.

“Why'd you take her head?”

“I don't know, I just picked it up. I was distressed, I didn't know what to do!”

“Why didn't you call the police?”

“I don't know.” Then he read me my rights and asked if I wanted a lawyer, I asked if I needed one and he told me it would be a good idea.

Later that night they found her body, it was at the lumber yard where I worked. There had been a message carved into her skin. “You fired me and ruined my life, now I've ruined yours.” it said. They found the guy three days later. A man named Robert Shawson, I'd fired him three weeks earlier after he'd been working at the lumber yard for eight years. His attendance was the problem and I'd talked to him about it on several occassions. He felt that by taking his income, I'd destroyed his life and wanted payback. When they found him he'd been masturbating over pictures of Leah's nude body that he'd taken after he beheaded her. I thought my bedroom preversions were bad.

It took me about four years to even be able to date again and that went poorly, in a town this small, you don't ever escape the stigma of being the guy who was in the street holding his wife's dismembered head, or as the courtroom pictures labeled it, People's Exhibit A. Once you die, you're reduced to nothing more than an object

So here I was alone at home, Jordy nowhere around, Helen, I wasn't sure where she was, if she was even here and Hank had left a note saying to call and let him know if he wanted company. This was rare, no one to be home, to be alone, by myself. My head was throbbing and I wanted to lie down. The Doctor had told me that I needed someone to keep an eye on me and wake me every hour for the next day or so when I slept. The swelling of the brain could cause increased intra-cranial pressure, leading to a bleed and I could die in my sleep. I'll never be that lucky.

I picked up my cell and called Lynda, she was a friend from work, she'd been there a few months longer than I and was a friend. She agreed to come over and hang out and keep an eye on me while I slept. She was a good friend and pretty, we flirted endlessly but I knew I was forever trapped in the friendship zone. She'd told me once after I asked her out that she didn't think of me like that, I was more of a brother to her than her own brother. Women say these things to let you off gently, they don't know it makes you want to slap them. After I called her, Helen emerged from the bedroom. Dressed in her long black nightgown, or maybe it was just a slip? Either way it looked sexy on her.

“Having company?” she inquired.

“Yeah, I need someone dependable to keep an eye on me, concussion.” I told, pointing to my head.

“I could keep an eye on you, I usually watch you sleep anyways.”

“I need someone to wake me every hour, you'll just let me sleep.”

“I would wake you.”

“Thanks, but I have someone coming.”

“Fine, I'm leaving then, if you don't want my help, then fuck you!” she was clearly upset as she turned to leave the room. I could hear her banging around in the next room as she gathered some stuff and left. She didn't usually get so angry with me, normally she was cool, even and level headed. For whatever reason today she was none of those.

I had just started cleaning the blood in the bathroom when I heard Lynda knocking on the door. I answered it and greeted her. She had a small gift bag with cookies and candies in it for me, a get well soon gift and a backpack with her. We sat and talked for a couple of hours and then ordered pizza. She asked how I felt and what had happened. I told her about the conversation with Hank, whom she'd never met and wondered where Jordy was. She'd wanted to meet him after hearing about him at work, she thought he'd be fun to hang out with while I was asleep. Being tired and concussed I went off to bed and each time she came to wake me I wondered if I was dreaming. Was she really there? Or was I just imagining it? For once I didn't dream, which was nice.

Morning came and when I saw her in my kitchen wearing only a wife beater and her underwear making breakfast, I lost my breath. I never thought I'd see her this way and she was stunning. Her legs, shapely, her breasts, beautiful and big and the sunlight dancing across her face was made even more beautiful for its lack of make-up. I stood there, mouth open and she noticed me, and the embarrassing erection which accompanies men after waking up in the morning. “Put that thing away, before you poke someone's eye out!” she said playfully.

“You really are so beautiful.” I didn't mean to say it, it just came out, embarrassment over putting your foot in your mouth, plus embarassment over your engorged member equals please let me crawl under a rock and die now.

“You must have hit your head harder than you told me.” she quipped.

“Um, I …...sorry.” was all I could manage.

“So, easy or Hard?” she asked, grinning.

“Huh?”

“Your eggs, over easy, or fried Hard?” she asked emphasizing the word.

“Either, or. I'll be back, I'm going to put something less embarrassing on.” I told her. To which she giggled. She was flirting with me, it was enough to drive a man crazy. I was stuck in the friend zone with her yet she continued to torment me. Not in a malicious way mind you, it's just how she is.

When I returned from the bedroom, wearing jeans this time, she too had put on a pair of jogging pants and the food was on the table. “Hope I didn't disappoint you, just didn't want all the blood to rush down south and cause you to have a headache, speaking of which, how do you feel?” she never stopped flirting.

“I have a headache and the stitches are itchy"

“We'll clean them after we eat. ….Um, who's Helen?” she asked.

“A friend, why?”

“One of the times I woke you up, you said 'Not now Helen'” she told me.

“She's just an old friend, haven't seen her in a while.” I lied. The look on her face told me that she didn't believe me.

“What's twelve forty? Your ATM pin?”

“Talking in my sleep?”

“Pretty much, the last time I woke you, you said, 'It's twelve forty dammit!', so what's twelve forty?”

“Muzzle velocity of a .357 magnum, with hydra-shock ammo.” I informed.

“Why would you memorize that?”

“Dunno” I said between bites of sausage and eggs.

“Oh, how long do you need me here, I only brought enough clothes for three days?” she asked.

“Just two days, after tomorrow I should be okay on my own.”

“Ok, do you mind if I take a shower, I was going to earlier, but I didn't want to wake you before it was time.”

“I need to finish cleaning up the blood in there where I hit my head first.” I said. “I did that for you while you were asleep. Looked like you killed some....”She trailed off, embarrassment flooding her face.

“Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.” she added quickly.

“It's okay, I know you didn't mean anything by it.” I cut her off. “Don't worry about it.” I said.

“Go take your shower, I need to call work and let them know I won't be in.” I told her. She smiled, and got up from the table, stooping to kiss me on the cheek as she walked away.

I called my job to tell them I wouldn't be in, of course there was protest on their end. “Can't you just come in and do what you can?” they asked and I told them no, I couldn't and wouldn't. I heard Lynda singing in the shower and imagined her in there nude, the water cascading down her body, crossing over her breasts and her long hair plastered to her back. I wanted to be in there with her, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. After she'd emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around her head in that way that women seem to instinctually know how to do, we sat and talked until it was time for her to get some sleep so she could go to work that night.

Shortly after she'd gone Jordy came home. He was dirty, not his usual dirty, but really dirty, as though he'd been digging a hole somewhere. “Where've you been?” I asked

“Who was here?” was his way to reply, looking confused.

“Lynda, why? And why are you so dirty?”

“Diggin.

” “For?”

“You won't buy me any clay, read on the internet that around here the majority of the soil contains clay, so I thought I'd dig some up.” he explained.

“Not in the yard?” I accused.

“No, two doors down, that house that's for sale, where the Nieblers used to live, before....” he trailed.

“Why there?”

“No one lives there, no one will complain.”

“And if someone asks if I've seen anyone digging holes over there?”

“Hogs, dogs or armadillos?”

“No, don't go over there again. We're not in Texas.” I told him.

“Then buy me some clay.”

“Ok fine.”

How's your head, more messed up than usual?” he asked as I lit a cigarette.

“Oh lord Jesus Christ in Heaven sitting on Mary's throne when he has his own! When will you stop that?” He bitched.

“My head's fine, and I'll quit when I quit.” I responded.

“So, Lynda, the one you work with?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“You don't need her, you got Helen, besides with her you're in...” he pauses going into a dramatic pantomime of falling through an invisible portal or vortex before finishing “The friendship zooooone!” he laughs.

“She's only here because I need to be woken up every hour when I'm sleeping because of the head injury, and thank you for cleaning up the blood while I was gone. Why do I let you stay here again?” I asked.

“So you have someone to listen to your bullshit.”

“My bullshit?”

“Your words, not mine.”

“When did I? Never-mind.” I say, Jordy has an almost eidetic memory. He never seems to forget anything I say to him, in a way it's kind of flattering, having someone pay that much attention to you, in another way, kind of sad that he has nothing better in his life than me. Even though I know that we're nothing more than the experiences we have with others, I don't always like that fact.

“You see, to you it's important, feelings, thoughts, ideas, to others it's bullshit. It's, 'this is how I feel', but when it's someone else, It's 'I'm always listening to his bullshit' you know.”

“I suppose”

“Of course I'm right, just like I was right about that other thing that time.” he says, referring to the fact that he's certain he was, at some point in time right about something.

“I listen to your bullshit, you listen to my bullshit, and in the end we're both so full of shit that....Dammit! I lost my train of thought.” he says.

I don't say anything as I snub out my cigarette. Jordy heads into the kitchen, asking if I want a sandwich as he goes, I ask him to bring me a slice of pizza, leave it cold I tell him. Minutes later he returns, no pizza, just his sandwich. “Where's my pizza?” I ask. “In the fridge still.” “You couldn't bring it to me?” “Nope, I'm tired of your bullshit!” he says with a laugh.

Click here for Pt 7