Story / It's Just a Room - Part 10

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Part 10

12:06

I remember one night when we were fourteen, Chester told me about a time he’d gone off alone, an occurrence which didn’t happen often, but often enough for it not to be a surprise to me.

Ches was on a bike ride down a path through a wooded park in our hometown. He was cruising down the dirt road doing maybe 18 miles an hour, the autumn brown creeping across the shrubbery on either side of him. The wind blew past, chilling his face, and he felt so free. He peddled faster and faster, as the earth beneath his wheels began to tilt, and the slope lowered and lowered. Suddenly he was cruising downhill, feet unable to keep up with peddles, so he locked his feet, and glided the whole way down. Chester said it was the most freeing thing he’d ever done. Just riding a bike down hill.

He later confessed to me that he does this quite frequently. The hill in question is about half a mile long, and completely straight. The dirt is level and solid on that path, so there really wasn’t any danger of hitting any rough patches or bumps.

Chester told me about one day, when he had been cruising along that path, and he noticed something odd, a small house in the woods to his left, north. He started to squeeze his breaks, and the wheels began to slip on the dirt road, and the next thing he knew, he had laid it down on top of himself. It was late in the year, and Ches was wearing jeans, but the friction cut through the denim and into his knees and left leg. His pants were a wreck, and the bikes’ frame was bent to hell. I almost killed him for that, we shared the bike, and that meant we’d both be out of transportation for while.

Ches got up, dusted himself off, and carried the wrecked bike to the side of the path. He then made the track back up the hill and into the woods to find that house. He said it almost seemed too surreal, but something drew him to it.

When Chester got to the house, he found that the front door was boarded up, as were the two front windows. The building looked old, very old, and made of the darkest, grimiest wood he had ever seen. There were cracks in every board, and as he got closer he put his eyes right up to one of the cracks. Inside, he saw the most beautiful scene, the darkness of that place, illuminated only by the slivers of light pouring in from the mid day sun. He said that as he walked around the decrepit structure, he found that there was a cellar door with only one lock on it. After a quick survey to make sure there wasn’t anyone else around, Ches grabbed a heavy log and bashed the lock with it. Of course, it didn’t budge, and it made quite a loud noise, disrupting the serene silence of the park. He waited for a few seconds, listening for anyone who may have heard the noise and come running, but he heard nothing.

He swung the log at the lock again, and again, until finally it broke, or rather, the wood the lock was holding in place broke. He moved the wreckage aside and climbed in. The basement was dark, and very damp, so he pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket, one he kept with him at all times. Years later he found a nice carabiner that he kept on his belt loop with the very same flashlight--lucky for him it had replaceable batteries.

He clicked the flashlight on and examined the dank cellar. There were rotting boxes all over the ground, filled with books and ceramic dishes, and all sorts of other oddities. He remembered that the main floor didn’t seem to have anything inside except some old dusty furniture.

Ches made his way through the abandoned house, in search of whatever teenage boys are in search of in those dark lonely places, locked away from the rest of the world. He turned over boxes, opened the various doors which led to the various hallways that he explored so vivaciously, turning up old newspapers and books that were ruined by years of rain, empty dusty bottles, non-empty dusty bottles, some old jars of what he guessed were -- at some point -- preserves.

Suddenly, there came some rustling from outside the structure, and at first Chester thought someone had heard the log crashing down onto the cellar door, but then reasoned that it must have just been a deer. He kept on rummaging through the basement hallways, it seemed almost endless to him at the time, more and more hallways twisting a turning, with old rooms, storage rooms, old bedrooms that haven’t seen a dream in probably near a century, rooms he imagined must have been washrooms or something archaic, something we wouldn’t even consider nowadays.

Chester walked into another dark room, and shown his flashlight inside, illuminating several metal hooks suspended from the ceiling.

“What the hell?” he asked, presumably to no one, as he walked further into the room. The floor was stained underneath each hook, and he gathered that someone must have used these for -- he didn’t even want to think what for.

“They’re meat hooks,” came a voice from behind him. Ches almost leapt out of his sneakers, and quickly spun around to face this new guest. It was a small voice, belonging to a small girl his own age. “They were used to store meat a long time ago. People didn’t have refrigerators back then. Sorry if I startled you.”

The girl stepped forward and Ches instinctively took a step back. She was reaching out her hand, and after a moment of consideration, he stepped forward, extended his own hand, and they shook. “Who are you?” He asked.

“I’m Elizabeth, I was walking through the park here, sketching some flowers, and I heard a loud crash so I started heading in that direction. Once I saw this place, I figured somebody had broken in, and once I saw the cellar, I was sure.”

“Why didn’t you call the cops?” He asked her, still not sure if he should trust her.

“I saw your bike, all mangled up, I couldn’t imagine any grown up cruising around on a mountain bike like that, especially a bright red Trek. They usually stick to black or silver, sometimes dark green,” She explained. Elizabeth was clutching a sketchbook in one hand, and had a small bag that Ches guessed held the rest of her supplies; pens, pencils, some erasers probably, maybe even watercolor?

“You got all that just from looking at my bike?” He asked, and she blushed a bit.

“I suppose I’m pretty observant.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m Chester by the way. Well we should probably get out of here, I didn’t think anyone else was around, but if you’re here, someone else might have heard me break in.” They made their way back to the cellar door, and he gave Elizabeth a boost to reach the top, then she turned around and grabbed his hand, hoisting him up. How was I ever going to reach the ledge alone? he thought. Maybe he figured he would take the stairs and try to get out the front door, but that would mean more smashing, and come to think of it, the door was boarded from the outside.

“I bet my dad could fix that for you,” she told Ches as they walked back to his bike. “He’s a mechanic, and he’s got a lot of tools for working with metal.”

“That would be great, it just sucks that we’ll have to walk there,” He said as he picked up his bike and propped it up on the back wheel, straightened it out, and rolled it along.

Elizabeth stuck around, she would come over to hang out every once in a while, sometimes one of us would go over to her place (turned out she lived just a few miles away). For the next few years, we were pretty good friends. She thought she could tell Chester and I apart, but it’s the little things, and we were really good at hiding those little things, or taking on each others’ mannerisms. Years of practice will do that to you, you know. But she was there, for many years, and she was always our closest friend. Elizabeth shared things with me, with Ches, that I’d be willing to bet no other soul knows. Things from deep within.

One evening, in May of 2006, she had driven over to my house unexpectedly. I was the only one home which was probably good, because if my dad had seen her like that, tears streaming down her face, reeking of cigarettes at 16 years old, and limping slightly the way she did that night, I don’t even know what he would have done. Probably would have called her dad, which is exactly the opposite of what she needed…

She showed up at my door a couple of minutes later, tears, limp, reeking of smoke, the whole shebang. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close, “What’s wrong? Lizzy, talk to me.” I said, calmly as I could.

“I don’t know, I got a call from my dad and something seemed wrong. I couldn’t tell you what it was, it just seemed wrong, all wrong,” She began to tell me about what had just happened at home. Her father, Thomas Callahan, had called while she was alone, asking if her mother was home yet. There was something in his voice that set her off, something that sounded angry and trying to remain composed. For some reason, she felt like things were about to go downhill very fast in her family. She needed to get out of there as fast as she could, but as she was pulling out of the driveway, her father was coming in and saw her leaving.

“Where you going?” he asked, shirt unbuttoned and tie undone.

“Out for coffee with my friend Denise,” she lied. He told her not to lie to him, and then he dragged her back inside to give her a few rounds with the switch. She was tattered, broken, and alone. I hugged her then. There was something about the sincerity in her eyes, the way she told me that it was all wrong, it just made me believe her I guess. Who knows, right?

I let her head upstairs, take a shower and clean herself up, and when my dad got home I explained the situation, fudged a few details to get him on our side, and we started working through the problem together.

The core issue at hand was that Elizabeth didn’t feel safe at home, and she wanted--needed--somewhere to go. She felt that if she stayed there, she would get hurt, or her mother would get hurt. It’s one of those feelings that’s hard to express to someone else; the pleading urgency gnawing away inside your head telling you it’s all wrong, was it?

I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know anything anymore. But she was our friend, our best friend. I did the only thing I could think to do at the time, I called my other best friend. The other person who had been with Chester and I for a good portion of our grade school careers, Tycho Green.

“Yeah?” His voice came through after a few rings.

“Tycho. Hey man, it’s Chuck,” I said back.

“Yeah I know, what’s up?” His phone had caller ID, which was pretty new back then. “I’m with my girlfriend, is it important?”

I looked at Elizabeth, who was now dry except for her long hair which became wavy after a shower. “Yeah man, it’s important.”

Tycho showed up in about a half hour, after dropping his girl off back at her place. My dad said it would be best to get the police involved, but Elizabeth was pretty sure that if we did that it would just piss of Thomas even more. With Tycho’s help we devised a plan to record evidence of his abusive behavior and set a trap for her father.

My dad gave us the name and number of the family lawyer, and we contacted him the next day. He told us that a recording would be admissible in court if at least one party was aware that the “conversation” was being recorded. I bought a small tape recorder and gave it to Elizabeth. I told her to turn it on before she faced her dad for the next few days. It didn’t take long before she gave him too much lip and he decided to smack her around.

By the way, “too much lip” was her asking if he could let go of her arm. It’s remarkable how clear a slap will register on a tape recorder inside a purse.

Domestic abuse, assaulting a minor, and as the case grew, adultery. It turned out good old Tommy boy had been seeing some floozy grocery store clerk half his age for almost a year and a half. It ripped Elizabeth’s family apart, but her mother was able to file for divorce and split. Tommy stayed in the house, Elizabeth and her mom moved out and found an apartment not too far from school.

Thomas Callahan never got to see his kid again, and Lizzy was happy with that.

14:28

I can hear the sound of crashing waves. It’s very quiet, and very peaceful, but it is definitely there. At first I thought it was coming from outside the room, and then I slowly raised my hand to my ears, and with the whole world muffled, I could still hear the sound of the crashing waves. Put your ear up to this shell, you can hear the ocean.

The crashing has replaced the buzzing it seems, and for that I suppose I’m pretty glad. Imagine being stuck in a room with one of those big industrial fluorescent light bulbs, and it’s just on the verge of burning out. It’s pleading for a little more power, a little more life, but eventually it will crash to the ground, and the light will go out. Then the waves will begin.

It wasn’t loud at first, and to be honest now that it is loud I don’t mind all that much. It’s peaceful, like I said, very peaceful. It almost sounds like I’m at the beach, or on a coast. Back on the cold coast of Massachusetts? Finally on the golden coast of Californ-I-A? Maybe I’m not on a coast, for all I know I’m landlocked in some flat frozen tundra like Moorhead, Minnesota…

No, I’m still in this room and there’s still nothing outside. Nothing but some strange ancient darkness, a horrendous beast in and of itself, piercing the empty spaces of this massive labyrinth; and to think I’m the one with the only light. Ha, maybe there are other people. Maybe there are other rooms, and other poor souls all trapped inside, looking for some mythical key. Is that what I am? A monkey scouring the shredded newspaper and wood chips for the shiny silver key to his cage?

God I hope not, I’d rather believe I’m the only one going through this hell. Maybe there is no maze of hallways, but there has to be something on the other side of that door, and I haven’t the slightest on what that might be.

14:49

I knocked on the door.