The Avenger
by Andy Echevarria © 2008
Beside me, Bubba said, “I think it's time now.”
***
On the day that was supposed to be the start of my new life, but what instead turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare, one which I've endured to this day, I checked in at 6 a.m. at the hostel whose name and address I'd found on the Internet the evening before. An attractive, blond-haired girl of about twenty greeted me at the reception desk. “Hello, are you Bennie?” she asked me, and I noticed a slight tinge of a foreign accent. I thought it was French, though I couldn't be sure.
“Yes,” I answered, putting my backpack onto the floor. “I e-mailed you three days ago and you e-mailed me back a reservation.” I took out a folded printed page from my inside coat pocket and handed it to her.
She took paper and unfolded it. After reading it she placed it on the counter. “Okay, it's all fine.”
After signing some papers she led me up to my room. It was a dorm, of course. In those days I couldn't afford much more than a dorm room in a hostel. You see, I was unemployed—had lost my $85,000-a-year-plus-generous-benefits job as network administrator for a large international company several months before, victim of “resizing,” as the bigger companies so liked to term it when they decided to let you go—so I was trying to watch out for every dollar of mine.
The room was just as described in the guidebook—five beds, a black-and-white TV, desks to each bed. For some strange reason I thought of prison. I'd never been in one, though I'd seen many films taking place in penitentiaries. There was barely enough space to move around. “So this is your economy dorm, huh?” I said, wanting to get a conversation going about anything else besides the room, since already I wanted to forget it.
Then I noticed it. The smell of dirty socks, or more precisely, wet dirty socks. I glanced around the room before my eyes fell on a duffle bag near the bed at the far corner of the room and since I saw no socks anywhere else I assumed the stench had its origin in that bag. I'd slept in enough hostels to have had my share of experiences with smelly rooms, but none compared to the stench that was coming from (presumably) dirty wet socks. I've always wondered why there are people in the world who don't lend an even minimal amount of importance to hygiene.
“Hope you like it.” She smiled.
“I do,” I lied, and I felt a slight pang of guilt for being insincere.
She handed me the key. “Checkout time's twelve tomorrow. We have breakfast from seven to eleven in the morning.”
“Thank you.” I put my backpack on the bed.
When I turned I noticed she had a frown on her face. It was as though she were aware of an impending misfortune.
I wanted to ask her the reason for her looking so sad but then didn't want to get too personal. Instead, I declared, “It's great to be in San Francisco .”
She turned and walked away.
I noticed a remote control on top of the bed beside me. I grabbed it and flicked the green button. I switched the channels for about a minute until I finally settled on one. On CNN's Larry King Live , a white-bearded man who looked to be around sixty predicted that a massive earthquake would strike New York within two years and eighty percent of the city would be under water. Larry King asked him on what basis did he believe New York would be felled by such a natural disaster. “An angel revealed to me such three nights ago,” he declared, to which King turned to the viewers and announced, “Start preparing, folks. You folks out in New York begin storing away cans of food and buy those life vests.” Then there was a pause, and then: “We'll be back after a short commercial break.”
Seconds later I heard a sound—it was of water running. I looked around until my eyes hit the bathroom door, which was locked.
Out came a man of about thirty. He was singing “God Bless America ” as he exited. He was wrapped in a towel and was shirtless.
“How are you doing?” I asked, and sat on the bed.
“Why, just mighty dandy,” was his reply. He had a high-pitched voice, the kind a midget would have. “Say, where are you from?”
I reached out my hand. “My name's Bennie and I'm from L.A. ”
He walked to me. “Ethan,” he announced. He took my hand and shook. “Though people usually just call me Eddie.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” He let go of my hand, and I noticed how tight his grip had been. He gave me a quizzical look, the kind that seemed to ask, what planet are you from? His eyes widened and then he said, “So what brings you to San Francisco ?”
“Oh, just visiting the city—I really enjoy it. Just came up from L.A. ”
“I was down in L.A. two weeks ago—creepy city.” I detected a tone of bitterness in his voice.
“I've lived there all my life—am actually considering moving.”
Eddie did something totally unexpected. He dropped his towel. I saw his naked body—but only for a second if not less, thank God—since I started turning away the moment I saw it start to drop.
He took the remote from on top of the bed and turned the TV on.
“So you're heading out later on tonight?” I asked, hoping to engage him in further conversation, not knowing whether I'd want to accompany him to a public place.
“Actually I'm going to the Arts Museum later on,” he said, channel surfing. “I was there a week ago and was struck by this one painting; it was of a house in the middle of the forest by the lake. The colors were so vivid it all seemed so real.” He then raised his head slightly and appeared to sniff the air as sometimes some blind people appear to do. “Is that Jack smoking again?” He shook his head. “Wait ‘till I go there later on. He's in room seven.”
***
“So what did you do after you strangled her?”
He rose on the bed. He seemed to ponder the question for a moment. “Well, I buried the body in a hole I'd dug the night before.”
“Does that make what you did right?” I suddenly felt myself half psychiatrist, half philosopher.
He nodded. “What I did was wrong.” He paused. “But you see, she deserved it. She really did.”
I didn't know what to say at that point. I just nodded and said, “I see.”
“She was cheating on me. Can you believe that?” His expression instantly darkened. “I was a nice guy to her. I showed her love, and the whole time she was seeing another man.” Then his eyes widened and he smiled. “But I got the last laugh, and being dead, she surely can't laugh anymore.” I thought I heard him chuckle lightly, though I couldn't be sure. “And for that I am happy.”
Then I suddenly remembered Aunt Jenny, my mom's sister.
“Were you ever concerned about getting caught by the authorities?”
Memories of Aunt Jenny flooded my mind: She was the one who'd taken care of me and my two brothers after Mom and Dad had gotten divorced, and she went to South Carolina to “just get away from it all for a while.” The one who went missing soon after her thirtieth birthday and who also hasn't been found to this day.
I was about to ask if he knew who Jenny McCrae was but then decided to continue listening to him, not wanting to let him know that perhaps his victim and my aunt were related.
“Not at all,” he replied at once. “I buried her body…it's probably just bones by now.”
“They would still be able to identify her, though,” I said.
“So what?” He sighed. “She's dead, and that's all that matters to me.”
“And how long ago did you do this?” I asked, putting the last piece of clothing into the drawer. I didn't turn, for I was beginning to get disgusted by this man. I hadn't met a crazier man in years.
“That was in 1997.”
Aunt Jenny was the closest relative to me besides my mother. She was the only one to ever take me on a vacation during my childhood. We spent ten days in Egypt , touring a land that for much of my childhood I'd dreamed of visiting. Whenever I needed an extra couple hundred dollars while in college she never told me no. And she was there, along with Mom and Dad, when I graduated from college. All of my other aunts were bitches, I could tell you. So her disappearing put a hole in my heart which hasn't healed even to this day. She looked like my mom even more than my mother's very own sister. Sometimes the resemblance was creepy—the deep green eyes, the oval face, and olive skin tone. She even had a birthmark on the back of her hand—a one-inch round mark right in the middle. Once I put their hands together and photographed them for a contest in high school and won second place. I called the photo “Twin Sisters.” So it is quite understandable why the love for my aunt was so deep.
Suddenly I remembered that she'd been reported missing in 1997.
***
Now, here in the present, I sit on my bed, pondering that fateful autumn night of seven years ago. I know that in a few moments the tray door will slide open, and in will come a plate with macaroni and cheese (I know this because I've smelled it all day), with mashed potatoes and a piece of bread. The State's too cheap or just doesn't care.
To Bubba's question, I reply, “Yeah, just give me a second, will you.”
I lift my head from The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I say nothing while heading towards him, book in hand. Someday I'll carve a knife out of a toothbrush and surprise him, plunging it deep within his stomach. And when the guards come after me, I'll sink it deep within them, too. They're just as callous as Bubba. I've suffered much of this cold-heartedness for too long—for the past seven years, to be exact, and with at least another eighteen to go; I don't think I can take it any longer.