How long he is trapped there he cannot say—one hour, two? Only now does he remember leaving his watch on the nightstand in the bedroom. Eventually the woman will find it and pawn it to buy more drugs and liquor. He raps politely on the door, tries to reason with her, attempts to convince her that in time she will see him not as a monster but as an angel in disguise and that this experience may prove to be the defining moment in her life, the long awaited and yearned for epiphany that will liberate her from all her pain and suffering. For years to come, as she drinks coffee in the church basement with the rest of the recovering addicts, she will, in a voice that is small and docile and trembling with guilt and self-reproach, vow before God never again to touch booze or men. He tells her these things, but she does not answer, and De Vere understands that there are many steps to take before his transfiguration from sinner to saint.
At some point he hears her leave the apartment and hurry down the steps and, for a little while at least, he believes he is alone. Then he hears the strumming of the toy guitar and the little girl singing a plaintive melody in a foreign tongue. A prodigy, he thinks, until he realizes that she is repeating the same incomprehensible words and playing the same three chords over and over again. A ferocious heat seeps in under the crack near the floor, turning the bathroom into a sweltering blast furnace. The walls begin to converge, constricting his arms and legs, making it increasingly difficult for him to move, to breathe, to think clearly. He grows agitated, begs the girl to release him, to call the police, but no matter how hard he kicks and pounds and throws his body against the door, he knows the little girl will not come to his aid. She has been intentionally left behind to torment him.
As the day wears on, De Vere shudders uncontrollably and then starts to scream. Somewhere far away he hears the bells of the Jesuit school begin to toll, and above their awful cacophony he can make out the sound of distant voices, like the buzzing of wasps after their hive has been smashed to bits—agitated, frenzied, joyfully descending on their enemies with the promise of swift and pitiless annihilation. The voices grow louder, more senseless and savage, the boom and bellow of a mob that obeys no law save that of its own implacable desire for justice, retribution, blood.
From the stairwell the woman shouts, "The sonofabitch is up here! This way, men, this way!"
She leads them in a relentless march that ends just outside the bathroom. A hush falls over the deranged delegation. The ritual of death requires order, a long taunting silence. Someone knocks gently, almost playfully, not with bare knuckles but with the claws of a hammer, the rough edge of a galvanized pipe. De Vere tries to steady himself. He looks in the mirror, checks his hair, straightens his collar, adjusts his cuffs, then he slumps down on the toilet and leans forward to study the door. In the interlocking spirals of wood grain, he sees a map of Paris with its labyrinthine streets and stately boulevards. He yearns to taste the bittersweet absinthe one final time and to listen to the tender laughter of the French whores as they sit in the café near the square.
As the lock clicks and the door bursts open, Edward de Vere marvels at how fate sweeps so many people up like the unstoppable wave of a tsunami, how it hurtles them toward a wall where they are crushed and impaled by still further people. Life uses us as battering rams, one person against another, and few if any ever escape the catastrophe.
Kevin Keating's essays and fiction have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Slow Trains, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Subtle Tea, Cerebration, Fiction Warehouse, The Plum Ruby Review, Ascent Aspirations, Double Dare Press, and Tattoo Highway. He currently teaches English at Baldwin-Wallace College near Cleveland, Ohio.