Even Pointier

Here we are, all being even pointier:

The Point (Chapter 5 Excerpt)

Carl sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Adrienne took tiny careful bites of one of the chocolate chip cookies on the plate before her. Each bite was followed by a small sip of the ice cold milk, "I always wished I could have milk and cookies in bed when I was a kid. My parents, they. . . well, it never happened."

     "I used to give milk and cookies to my daughter every Sunday night after prayers. She'd giggle and laugh and ask me if angels got milk and cookies in bed on Sundays after prayers. Up until she was twelve. . . it was the same chocolate chip cookies and glass of whole milk."

     "How did you answer her question?" Adrienne bit into another cookie.

     "I told her that I didn't know about the angels in heaven, but my angel here on Earth did." Carl put his hand over his eyes for a moment and then looked at her with tiny pools of tears stagnant in his lower eyelids waiting for him to blink so they could escape. It was the first time Adrienne saw pain coming from the man with so much light.

     "Carl, you've given me so much - not the least of which is your ear. If there's anything you want to talk about, I'm here for you - as much as you want me to be." Adrienne put a hand on Carl's shoulder and rubbed it.

     "Thank you, but my pain is old, it's yours that's fresh and needs the most nursing." Carl rose from the bed, "I won't keep you, goodnight."

     Adrienne spent the rest of the night wondering about the memorial service to come and wishing that Dan was there. They were his friends too and despite whatever he felt about her or she felt about him, he should know that his friends were brutally murdered. She had no way to contact him, she didn't even know if he was still alive. Her theories as to what exactly happened to him ranged from the theatrical to the utterly ridiculous. Sometimes she thought that maybe someone told him of her many secrets stemming from past relationships. She often thought that maybe he was in fact gay, and couldn't bring himself to be with her, but lately she thought maybe that man, the monster, maybe he tracked him down and it was Dan that was the first to be violated with that razor. The only thing she knew for sure was there were now three men that would live in her mind’s eye forever and could not be blotted out by selective memory. One monster stalking her dreams, one lost lover haunting her heart, and one beacon of hope nurturing her soul.

     The sleep that came was riddled with faces and screaming, she awoke both angry and frustrated to another perfect summer day feeling just as tired as before her nights’ sleep. She would need to turn to the sleeping pills again, but this time she would get her own prescription. She climbed out of the bed and into the shower down the hall, she didn't know how he managed to do it every morning, but Carl was up before her once again. Not only was he up, but it smelled like he was cooking French toast. She resigned herself to gaining a few pounds while she was sheltered by him.

     She got dressed and went downstairs to consume, "Good morning." She smiled and rubbed her belly, she wondered if all of her smiles to come would be hiding this pain.

     "Good morning, your eyes seem to open as soon as food hits a frying pan." They shared a sweet laugh. Breakfast was French toast, fruit salad and grapefruit juice. She filled up on the delicious body fuel and they sat afterwards content and ready to face the day while sipping a freshly brewed cup of coffee each, "I'd like to go to a doctor here to get a prescription for something to help me sleep. Who's the doctor?"

     "Well the only one is Bob Mueller, who's also the coroner. Might have time to go before the service." They cleaned up their breakfast dishes and set out on their journey to Main Street. Arriving at the grey 2 story structure was surreal for Adrienne, there were people walking the town and driving about who seemed to be prepared for the memorial service that she was forbidden from attending.

     The metal door to the place clanged and scraped as it opened, leading to a long hall with a room marked 'morgue' at the end of it. "Does everyone come to the morgue for a doctor’s visit?"

     "No. . ." He didn't want to finish that sentence because it ended with '. . .when he's busy you do.' and they both knew what he was busy with. It would be just one more thing on this miserable day.

     "Mornin' folks." Coroner Mueller was in the process of cleaning off his dissection table.

     "Good morning." Adrienne stepped forward towards the table on which the cold mutilated bodies of her friends once laid.

     "What can I do ya for?" Bob Mueller looked up at Adrienne and Carl, "Oh, how ya doin' there Carl?" As the words came out he realized that if Carl were here then his companion must be the only living survivor of the mess he had the unfortunate task of helping to clean up.

     "I'm doin' fine, Bob. This is Ms. Tell, she's the one that could use your help."

     "If you don't mind, I'd like a prescription for something to help me sleep."

     "I should think so! It was a mess folks, a real mess." Coroner Mueller put his cleaver and bone saw in a drawer by a locker in the corner of the room. He reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a prescription pad. After a few utilitarian strokes of the pen he tore off the sheet and handed it to Adrienne, "Ambien CR, the drug store may not have any - lot of people complaining of sleepless nights lately - if not there's a substitution on there."

     Adrienne wanted to remain indifferent to the thoughtless comments of the coroner but inside she was a boiling pot of rage. If Dan were here, he'd ask her why, and she really didn't have an answer beyond the fact that she didn't like this husky middle-aged man commenting on her experience. She just wanted the fucking prescription and to be done with it. Before her mouth could form those words she realized that in her daze Carl had led her out of the room and down the hall to the exit.

     "He means well, but his mouth doesn't know any better." They rode back to Carl's house with enough time for him to change and leave for the Foster's memorial service.

     The service was held in a small church on the west side of the island. By the time Carl pulled up there was nowhere to park in the small lot adjacent to the tiny church. He pulled onto the grassy lane separating the church's drive from the main road. Walking to the church he met up with Chief Wallace, his wife and the Newman’s who owned the main market for the island, "Good noon to ya Patricia, Sam. Good noon Frank, Betsy." They all replied in kind, but otherwise they were silent.

     The tiny church had no air conditioning and was packed like a tin of sardines, but there was no sign of complaint. Instead, Carl believed the low buzz to be the reminiscing of people paying tribute to friends.

     Up in front were the Andersons and Fosters, "I can't believe this is happening. . ." Mrs. Anderson trailed off into a private thought. Her husband grabbed her hand.

     "At least that fuckin bitch isn't here." Jason's brother huffed into his mother's face and kissed her cheek.

     "That woman was a friend, to both of them, and this is still a service to honor your brother and his wife, please don't disrespect that . . . ." Mrs. Foster's gaze was steady and tempered with the sadness that had overgrown in her heart.

     "That bi. . . okay mom, okay." Tom faced forward once again in the pew.

     "There, but before the grace of God go I." Mr. Foster stared out past the plaque memorializing his son and into an expanse of cloudy memories.

     "Do you remember the wedding?" Mrs. Fosters face gleamed with a dewy nostalgic smile, "He was so nervous."

     "That's because he didn't know. . .he didn't know if he was man enough to give her everything she needed, but I knew he was. I told him that. I knew my boy wasn't a boy anymore, but a man - and a good one at that." Mr. Foster spoke, still traveling back and forth through time in his mind's eye.

     "Lynnie was nervous too. She wanted everything to be perfect, she was marrying her prince charming. She sat in the suite with her dress on looking in the mirror and asking me how her hair looked and her makeup and her dress and her teeth and her toes!" Mrs. Anderson let out a loud laugh, "and in the end it was all so beautiful. . ."

     "When J asked me to be his best man, I was thinking about saying no. I didn't want to screw up, but before I could open my mouth he said, 'Bro, you can do this. Do you know why? 'cause you've always been my best man and today, me asking you to stand up with me - it's just my way of saying thanks.' and he didn't say it, but I knew it, my big brother loved me." Tom began sobbing uncontrollably and reached for the comforting arms of his mother.

     Other conversations were taking place as the families of the slain couple remembered.

     "Did you hear?"

     "Did I hear what?"

     "About what they liked to do?"

     "No. What did they like to do?"

     "Well, you know Grant's Lodge. . ."

     "No. . ." a hushed gasp escaped.

     Down and across a young couple exchanged looks coated in flushed cheeks as they thought about a night they shared with the Fosters. Two years ago they met on their way out of Grant's, "Hey, you guys, you guys were pretty good." Jason looked up at the young man. "Thanks, I didn't think they let minors in this place." Jason grabbed Lynn by the back of the neck as she attempted to walk off to the car alone.

Tomorrow, Fuel Me. . .