Denial

Steve walked into the house and realized he couldn’t remember where he had been.

“What’s that smell?” It was Sally asking from the bathroom.

“Your upper lip?” Steve replied from the kitchen.

“You do know you’ll have to let me out of here eventually” she said quietly, almost kindly.

“There is no way you’ve earned any trust yet” Steve said as he checked the heavy lock outside the bathroom door.

“Where the fuck am I gonna go Steve?” Sally yelled. Steve then heard her sit on the toilet.

“Shut up. I’m tired of listening to you bitch.” Steve said as he kicked the bathroom door, rattling the whole house. It was then quiet.

Steve walked to the living room. What he saw was not unusual in the household, cigarette butts, empty beer cans and liquor bottles rested haphazardly about the place. Fat lazy flies clustered around a pizza box but seemed to be everywhere. The smell was indescribable. He picked pieces of broken glass from an armchair and threw them in the floor. He glanced at the television. An ax was embedded in the screen. A few days ago he had realized there was really no need for television. TVs just told you lies.

Darkness then began to fall. The only operating light bulb in the house was in the kitchen. Steve walked in and turned it on. He then took a five gallon bucket from under the sink and defecated into it. He decided it would be safer to dump the bucket into a storm drain late at night, so he replaced it after securing the lid. He microwaved four hot dog wieners, opened a small door he had made in the bathroom door and tossed two of them into the bathroom.

“Two hot dogs?” Sally asked. “Who can live on this?”

“There were only four left.” Steve said. “Live with it.”

“It’s so dark in here.” Sally said.

“Turn the fucking light on.” Steve replied.

“You know I can’t.”

“Then it sucks to be you.” Steve said as he walked back into the kitchen.

Steve then spent the next two hours reading the book of Leviticus. He realized that he was indeed among the righteous. He’d never fucked an animal or slept with his brother’s wife or robbed anyone. He honored his mother and father when they were alive and he never worked on Saturday because, recently, he hadn’t been working at all. He had two months unemployment coming to him. He thought that two months should be plenty of time.

He thought about the last two weeks of his life and how he was going to deal with this shit. He couldn’t kill Sally. He knew that was impossible. But Sally knew a secret that could end his life if anyone were to learn of it. And Sally had a big mouth, this he knew from past experience. She could change his future in an instant if she put her mind to it, and he could not allow that to happen.

Sally then began banging her head on the top of the toilet, making an ungodly amount of noise.

“Do I have to turn the hose on you again?” Steve hollered at the bathroom door.

“Let me out of here you sick little prick!” Sally screamed.

“I am not crazy.” Steve said under his breath. “I’m not.”

“Who else but a sick, crazy fuck would hold a woman against her will in a nasty bathroom for God’s sake?” Steve heard the chain she was locked to clank across floor.

“Just calm down and I’ll get you McDonald’s tomorrow.” he said, leaning his head against the bathroom door. Then it was quiet.

Sleep had eluded Steve for weeks. The best he could manage was two or three hours a night, for Sally was usually up all night stomping around rattling her chain. He had fixed up a nice bed for her in the bath tub but she rarely used it.

He sighed as he lay down on his sofa, dreading the coming day. Sally had been locked up for eight days and he knew he’d have to free her soon, or kill her, and he knew he didn’t have the stomach for either proposition, so he tried to stop thinking about it. He took a huge gulp out of his half empty whiskey bottle, then another. The liquor warmed his belly and calmed the riotous, tortured thoughts whirling around in his head. He heard a buzzing sound coming from the bathroom, which he ignored. Sleep finally took him when his bottle ran out, around four thirty AM.

While he slept he dreamed. He dreamed about the first time he had ever seen Sally, stepping out of the city pool in the small town he lived in. She was new to town and nobody knew anything about her, only that she excelled in the art of wearing a bikini. In his dream she smiled at him and that’s when he knew he couldn’t live without her. They were joined together that day and nothing would rip them apart. That he knew without question.

When he woke he decided to turn her loose, despite the secret she carried with her, but when he tried to unlock the padlock he found he couldn’t do it. Sorrow then began to swirl around him like a black cloud. He missed his wife already. How could he release the only woman he had ever loved? Why had she betrayed him so cruelly and completely? Was it because he had lost his job? Was she just tired of him? He’d never know.

Suddenly there came a tapping at the door. Steve peered through the window and his heart sank. It was Sally’s mother dressed for church. She and Sally had made plans the week before to go to church on Christmas Eve, which he suddenly realized was today. He remained still until she gave up and went away. He realized his time was short. He fought the urge to escape. He knew he couldn’t do it. For some reason unclear to him, he could not leave his house.

The police arrived near 2:30 PM. They knocked on the door and Steve heard one of them say something about a welfare check and then they broke the door down. Steve sat on the couch and began drinking from a half full bottle of whiskey as they searched the house. They searched the kitchen and found nothing. They waded through dirty clothes and searched the bedroom. Steve noticed that the window into the bathroom as well as the padlock on the bathroom door were missing an instant before one of the cops opened it. At that instant Steve yelled “STOP!”

The cops did so. One said to the other: "What the fuck was that?” The other shrugged and opened the door revealing Steve’s secret, his corpse laying in the bathtub with half his head blown off and his right hand clutching a letter from his wife. He remembered that Sally had left him two weeks ago. He realized he was as dead as a bag of rocks, and that he was definitely insane.

He wondered if there was a helpline for that.