"Into the Ground" by Josh Dale
Excerpted from the author’s currently unpublished novel
The sun pierced my eyelids and woke me up. I was under a comfy, warm duvet. Instead of the drab and scary den I last remembered, the wall to my right was painted lavender. Instead of whips and paddles, I locked eyes with a picture of Patricia in her younger years, with an unknown man next to her. Among my shuffling, I heard the groan of her, the wriggling of her body into my own. I slid my left leg down and couldn’t feel the floor. My ass crested the edge and I fell out of the bed. The thump was loud like I was shot dead. I moaned as I hit the soft carpet. The blood was pounding into my head as I held it in my hands.
“Morning,” Patricia mumbled. “Did you get hurt?”
My mole quivered as I managed to find my shirt and pants and put them on. A quick pocket check confirmed my wallet, phone, and keys.
“I guess I’m alright,” I said, looking towards the door.
Not only was my hangover in full swing, but the shame of the night before—whatever I remembered of it—came into my head. I heard the duvet rustle and I turned to see Patricia sitting up. She was still naked, with flattened hair, and wrinkles on her forehead. Her lips were closed, but she smiled enough to produce faint dimples.
“Oops, well, hope you enjoyed yourself,” she said, pulling the duvet up over her chest.
I walked to the door, put my hand on the knob, and said, “What did we even do?” I figured now’s the time to get confirmation.
Patricia giggled. “Let’s just say we both had our turn to give and take.”
I turned around to make eye contact, shoulders slumped.
“Alright. Guess I’ll see you at Target sometime.”
“Sure, take care, P.J.,” she said, lying back down. That would be the last time I’ve seen her.
Downstairs, the lights were still on. Cold and mushy food in the kitchen along with plastic cups and beer bottles. My soiled coat was still in the exact spot on the couch, but no sign of the hat. I bet the Red Ranger took it. DDR was on the TV but muted with the title screen still going. I went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of orange juice, opening every wrong cabinet to find the ones with glasses. I contemplated just walking back to the bus stop outside of Target and going home, but then I heard a thumping down the stairs.
“Hey,” Claude said. His eyes were slits and his face blanched. He had his ninja turtle costume on again, sans handkerchief.
“Hey,” I replied, guzzling half the glass.
“Wild night.”
“You look like you just puked.” The OJ was gone just like that.
Claude came over, inspected a glass on the counter for lip marks, and poured himself some tap water.
“Where’s Allison?” I said.
“Still upstairs in one of the guest rooms,” he said, followed by steady sips. “Where were you? I remember seeing you.”
“I was around,” I said.
“You look mad,” he said, leaning into the fridge.
“I’m not mad,” I lied.
“Alright, bro,” he said casually like there wasn’t any lingering issue. Maybe if he could’ve read my mind. “I’ll go wake Allison so we can make like a tree and—”
“Leaf.” I blurted. “I know that one.”
“…and get the fuck outta here!” Claude finished with a raspy chuckle.
“Never heard that one before.”
“The boys from high school would say it all the time.”
He walked towards the stairs to retrieve her, and I looked around for some medicine to ease my headache. I wanted to rip the doors off their hinges. I felt my lips contort into a snarl, like a beaten dog ready to attack. I saw a knife with a glob on it, wondered if I could cut this likely cancerous mole off my face for good. A documentary of old surgery techniques that involved cutting limbs off and burning the ends flashed in my head. Maybe I could rekindle the Sterno. Maybe I could end it for good. Start fresh, right here and now. It would save me the money, probably. Would have to explain the giant burn that would combine my forsaken mole and yesterday’s dinner. Or maybe I could scour the makeup aisles and find something to rub on them, to match my skin. Yeah, there was always a way to hide imperfections.
“What time is it, Claude?” Allison’s voice trickled down the stairs.
“It’s almost lunch,” Claude replied.
I heard their jointed steps pitter towards me. She had her dress on again. Her face was washed and clean of all the corpse paint makeup.
“Hey, P.J.,” she said. “What did you end up doing the rest of the night?”
“Not much, played around with the game before passing out,” I lied, again.
“Oh, alright,” she said, blandly. “Hey, where are the cups? I’m parched.”
Claude handed her the one he used, promising he didn’t backwash. Allison looked around the room, debated taking a cold chicken wing with an outstretched hand, but pulled back. I snagged the wing instead, taking a large bite and ripping the globby sauce and sinews apart.
“See I knew you were mad about something, dude. What happened? You can tell us. We are friends, right?”
“I said there’s nothing wrong,” I said, sliding the glass into the metal sink. I let it go early. The glass thudded hard at the bottom but didn’t shatter.
“Maybe you’re just hangry?” Claude teased her. “I could go for something at 7-11.”
“Hell yeah,” she said.
“Make sure you got everything and, like, pee or whatever,” Claude said to us, heading towards the door.
I followed him, feeling like a lion stalking a gazelle.
“P.J.,” Allison said. She was pointing at my coat. “Aren’t you going to take the coat?”
I shook my head, putting on my shoes. Claude and I were hunched over like demented ostriches.
“Nah, I only got it for tonight,” I said.
She shrugged as she put on her sneakers, too. I was the last one out and didn’t even bother to lock the door. Like Allison surmised beforehand, this neighborhood was safe. Outside, the sun that scoured my eyelids did the same on my arms and neck. Allison elected to take the back of Claude’s SUV so she could lie down. Claude kept the radio low for Allison’s sake and blasted the heat, despite the dashboard thermometer saying it was 50 degrees. The first thing we heard was a Black Friday commercial from Target as we left. He and Allison giggled, while I just kept my thousand-yard stare at all the homogenized homes, at Target in the distance, at trees lining the freeway. It wasn’t until we came to a halt at 7-11 did I even budge.
“Were you guys at a party or something?” the young clerk said to us as we filed in. I didn’t answer, but Claude spoke a few words, making the guy laugh. I just went right to the snacks, prying a bag of chips and a beef jerky strip from the pegs. The coolers had the big Arizona tea cans, too. By the time I circled back to the front, Claude and Allison were getting nachos.
“See I was a ninja turtle,” Claude said, touching his back. “But lost my shell!”
“It’s hard to describe what I was, but it was totally goth,” Allison followed.
“My sounds like one great time. You’re a nice couple from the looks of you,” the guy said, buzzing their items in.
They walked out holding nachos together like they were one of those couples in our circular. Allison bumped Claude at the door, nearly spilling them all over. I watched them enter the SUV as if they were on a date. She sat up front now.
“You with them?” the guy said, devoid of jest.
I had a $5 out in preparation. “Yeah.”
“Where’s your costume?”
“I was Blackbeard the Pimp,” I said with any sort of confidence I could muster.
The clerk gave me a once over, handed me my change, and picked up his smartphone. Guess I should’ve kept my sex-stained coat after all. When I got back to the vehicle, I barely got my second foot in before Claude backed out of the stall.
“Nachos smell good,” I said, trying to reinsert my presence.
“I heard once that 7-11 cheese and sides are the freshest from 11 AM-1 PM. Seems that way now,” Allison said. She followed that up with a shovel of chips, going ah, ah, ah, as the heat burned her tongue. Wonder if she liked the sensation of being burnt.
We drove in silence, replenishing our bodies and letting the sunshine on our dehydrated skin. We arrived back at the lot. An ample amount of shoppers crowded the lot.
“Oh, I’m over there, I think,” Allison said.
Claude drove up to her SUV. She clicked her fob and the lights flashed. Claude leaned over to her, whispered something, and concluded with a peck on the lips. I yanked a chunk of the beef jerky off with my teeth. I let it linger in my mouth as she got out.
“See ya, P.J. I work on Tuesday night,” Allison said.
“Ok, I’ll see—” was all I could say before the door slammed.
Claude put the remaining nachos on the passenger seat, leaving them to cool into rock-hard ambergris. He sat there, looking forward, music and car still running on. He watched Allison leave and then turned around.
“So, like, what’cha wanna do?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Thought you had work today?”
“Nah, I requested off. When I party, I party,” he said, flexing his right arm.
“That’s wonderful,” I said, unbuckling.
“Whoa, why are you leaving? Don’t you want a ride home? I got you.”
“Oh, cool, thanks.”
“Here, come up. I don’t want these nachos anymore.”
I crawled over the center console and kicked the nachos. I said, “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” to mask my intention. Claude seemed a bit frustrated but dismissed it, handing me some napkins for me to scoop the cheese off the carpet. I did, and once we made it out of the lot, I chucked the wad out the window. I directed him down a road I saw while on the bus. It was yet another new, swanky neighborhood that was being built on the outskirts of town. Their plywood skeletons were dotted by construction workers in neon sweatshirts. Black shingles were being carried up on ladders, hurled over their shoulders. Some of the livable homes had some decorations for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“Those guys must be strong,” I said.
“It’s like people want to rush right to the day the fat man slides down our chimneys,” Claude said.
“Here, make a left outta here, then my street is, like, four miles down.”
Claude decided to pull a Barry and gas it down the freshly paved road. A few kids close to the road leaped into the grass.
“Dude, what the fuck?” I yelled.
Claude peeled around the corner, disregarding traffic. A slow-moving van that was pulling into the complex beeped.
“Ok, so you’re mad at me for that but not for whatever the hell,” he yelled back.
“What’re you talking about?” I said, holding the handle on the roof.
“You’ve been weird as shit since we woke up.”
“I was drugged, what do you want me to say?”
“Oh, I remember now,” Claude said. I saw the rounded top of the bus in the distance. “You walked in on me and Allison fucking and now you’re mad.”
“Oh, give me a break,” I said, trying to act tough. I was still holding the handle.
“I mean, if you’re mad at me for stealing your crush, I understand. But don’t be a little pussy about it.”
The bus came closer into view, letting people go in and out of my stop. Claude turned his head back towards the road, then slammed the brakes. The SUV slid diagonally a bit, coming to a stop a mere twenty feet or so from the bus that just began moving again. A person who just got off flipped us off. It was the long-nailed, Dracula man, still in costume.
“Oh, fuck off, you weird-ass count,” Claude yelled at the guy until he was out of sight. He then turned to me. “I thought we were friends,” Claude said.
I got out after a brief, minuscule, “Bye.” It was like a mouse squeak of a reply. Claude spun his tires, jettisoning forward and crossing double yellow to pass the bus. I sighed so hard my shoulders lurched up and down. Once my breathing stabilized, I saw the Dracula man on the other side of the street, looking right at me.
“So, this is where you delinquents live?”
I wanted to yell back at the crazed man, but I turned and powerwalked back to my place. It wasn’t until I shut and locked the door did I think about the veiled threat if it even was one. But I felt safer behind my locked door. I went to the kitchen for something to drink and there was some Chinese take-out in the trash, reeking of Szechuan. I grabbed one of three water bottles, downed the remains, then lobbed it into a trash can. A dirty glass pipe rested right on top of the takeout container. Right above me, hanging on the freezer with a bare magnet, was a note.
YO MAN COOL IF SUM1 MOVES IN? TALK 2NIGHT IF UR AROUND.
I had no more brainpower to even process the paraphernalia. I sat on the rounded-out couch and turned on a basketball game. Left it on mute. My eyes grew heavy after the first quarter and were out like a light.
Josh Dale is a Master's graduate from Saint Joseph's University. His work has been published in Drunk Monkeys, Breadcrumbs Mag, Maudlin House, Rejection Letters, The Daily Drunk, and more. If you see him hiking in Pennsylvania, approach as you would any small woodland creature and offer some trail mix. He does well with cats.
joshdale.co and on Twitter & Instagram @jdalewrites.