Chapter 16: Dirty Laundry at Holshue House

16. Dirty Laundry at Holshue House

After afternoon classes and before dinner, I thought that I would run upstairs, taking my math and science books to my room and retrieving Jane Eyre so I could start reading it. But in the cool concrete of the stairwell, I heard a sound, a whimper, a grunt, maybe it was two or three sounds, coming up from the basement. The ghosts would be there still, I was certain, the one still writhing in the pain of his death while the woman and the young girl watched on. But now instead of being appalled I felt sympathy, as if I could reach out with some part of me, some part of this new identity of Gesama, former spider, and tell them that I understood. Perhaps they were right now hoping that I would visit, a visit just to show that I cared about the horrendous pain that had been inflicted upon them. Fear made my legs quake as I moved silently down, one step at a time, but the need to see, to know and to reach out was greater.

Once again the steel door from the darkened bottom of the stairwell into the still darker basement stood ajar. I was able to slip in without having to move the door, and I immediately pushed back up against the rough limestone of the old wall. I hadn’t been aware of how much I must have been sweating, but suddenly my sweat was clammy cold on my body, sending a shiver that started in my shoulder and vibrated down to my ankles.

The house breathing had quieted, replaced by other breathing, rapid passionate breathing. I shifted a little deeper in and saw around the corner of a shelf the shape of two people against the wall. My eyes adjusted to the light, as my ear picked up the quiet whispers of “Yes. Yes. More.” It was Erika with her back against the wall. She had her jeans and underwear down around her left ankle while her naked right leg was wrapped around the thigh of her mysterious boyfriend. It reminded me of the move that I seen done in an Argentine tango, but instead of a quick movement she was using the leg to pull him into her. He was in her, thrusting hard, pushing her against the wall. She was lost in orgasm.

Of course I had never seen people having sex and I stood there transfixed. I could smell their body odors and hear the sounds not only of their breathy whispers, but also of body parts sliding in and out. Gradually my breathing became synched with Erika’s and her lover, with the house, gasping, hard, as if I were experiencing the copulation, the thrusting. The house seemed to breath with us – one organism.

Then my eyes were drawn off to the side, to the ghost-man I had seen the day before, the one who had been lying in the pool of his own blood, urine and vomit. The look of agony still tore across his face, but I realized something else – he was watching them. He could see them. That meant he could see me as well. A shiver ran all the way through my body, and as if in response the man, black and muscular, turned and looked right at me. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and bulging.

And it was also obvious that Erika and the mystery boyfriend did not see the ghost, for they were only a few feet away from where he sat on the floor, watching. Surely they would not be so comfortable as to do it if they knew they were being watched so intently. For some reason I had been granted the ability to see these ghosts when others could not, and that made me even more uncomfortable.

The whole scene was simply too bizarre. I froze, shaking all over, breathing with the house, with Erika and her lover. The grunting of the mystery boyfriend’s climax pulled me out of it. Erika climaxed with whimpers into the knuckles of her left hand, tears running down her cheeks. And, knowing that soon they would see me, I pulled together the will to move and slipped back out the door and up the stairs to the hallway outside the cafeteria, where I slid down along the wall and sat on a bench with my face buried in my knees.

After a forever that was probably only five or ten minutes I felt someone standing over me. I looked up to see Rebecca, and I instantly remembered making her cry in group that morning. “I’m sorry,” I said to her, my own tears threatening to come.

“That you’re sitting here, and missing supper?” she asked cautiously. She hadn’t really spoken to me when we were introduced at breakfast, but her conversation with the others had been all girl-glib and casual. Now her voice was quieter.

“No. For making you cry this morning. I was the one who wrote that thing that you read, and … and I feel bad that I made you feel bad.”

She smiled a little, “But the thing is, you told the truth. I am shit. We all are. That’s how we ended up in this place. I don’t want to be shit, but it’s what it is really. I don’t believe all that ‘I’m wonderful’ crap.”

I thought for a second, “Maybe Judy is trying to get us to believe it by saying it out loud to each other. Saying is becoming, or something like that.”

“I don’t think it works that way. Maybe it’s better that we know we’re both shit. We can share our shittiness.”

I laughed a little.

“Anyway, you okay? I’m not very good at helping anyone with anything, but I can get someone or something for you.”

I shook my head. She had broken the horrible spell of the basement. “I just need to sit here for a few minutes. I’ll be okay.”

The door of the stairwell opened and Erika came out, her clothing reassembled, but her hair was a mess. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, to think about what she had just done, but luckily she seemed intent on ignoring me and took Rebecca by the arm and waltzed her back towards the cafeteria, saying that they had to find Lindsey. I dropped my face back to my knees. I was still shaking. More time, more clattering of dishes in the cafeteria.

“I brought you a sandwich.” It was Phyla’s voice. She stood there holding a sandwich crudely wrapped with waxed paper and a banana. “They’re nearly done serving supper and you should eat.”

Something relaxed in me, even though I wasn’t sure if I would be able to tell her what I had seen. I even smiled, “How did you know I was here?”

“Michele told me. She saw you sitting here and went back in to tell me.”

“Does she know?” I looked left and right down the hallway. “About us?”

“Probably not, but maybe. She wouldn’t mind, even if she does figure it out.” It seemed strange that Phyla could be so relaxed talking about our secret little passion.

“I don’t think she likes me. Michele.”

Phyla shrugged. “You’re white. And you talk to Erica and her friends. I just think that she doesn’t know what to think of you yet. And maybe she doesn’t have the room inside herself to care. She’s got her own baggage to deal with. But at least she cared enough to tell me you were out here. Here. Take this.” She thrust the sandwich and the banana at me again, and when I took them she slid down the wall beside and sat.

The banana was too phallic. It made me remember what I had witnessed less than a half hour before. What had it felt like – having someone up inside you? Was his stuff up inside her now, gradually leaking out, or had they been smart enough to use a condom? Then I started peeling the banana. I was too hungry to not eat it.

“You really should change your shirt, you know,” was the next thing Phyla said to me.

I glanced down at the shoulder of my shirt and saw that it, and the back were streaked in black dirt from where I had had my back against the wall. On the front, under the hooves of the unicorn, were finger streaks where I had wiped my hands on the front of my shirt at the same time. “All my other clothes are dirty too,” I managed to say through a mouthful of sandwich. It was shredded chicken with some mayo and mustard and a tomato. Maybe the reason that it tasted like the most wonderful sandwich ever was knowing that Phyla had made it for me.

“Do you know how to do laundry?” she asked next.

“Mm-mm,” I answered affirmatively. “Ma mama toke me,” I mumbled with my mouth still full.

“Then let’s do laundry.”

I had never really thought of laundry as being a fun activity, but now I was smiling at the prospect of doing it with Phya exciting.

When I had finished the banana and the sandwich Phyla stood up and pulled me to my feet. She was quite strong for someone who stood half a head shorter than me. We ran up to my room and I threw all the dirty clothes from my floor into the soft laundry basket they had provided for each of us. Phyla watched, and we stole little kisses as we giggled about my laundry. At one point she held a pair of my dirty underwear up to her face as if she was trying to smell them which made me blush big time. I threw a pair of jeans at her to get her to quit, and then I started laughing so hard that I had to fall down on the bed.

Down in the laundry room there was more silliness, but of course there wasn’t much privacy. Grace, the quiet Asian-American girl was in and out doing her laundry, but leaving it unattended. Phyla ran down the hall to some supply closet that she knew about and got me some hangers to hang up some of my stuff, my  nicer shirts and the yellow dress. In between, from time to time, she would look out the door and then stick her head out in the hallway to be sure that no one was coming before sneaking over and giving me a quick kiss on the lips.

I wanted to tell her about what I had seen in the basement, about Erika having sex with the mysterious boyfriend whom I never saw anywhere except the basement. And I wanted to tell her about the ghosts, including the man who had been so horribly flogged and gutted, and about the house breathing, always alive. But I also didn’t want to tell her because it was so refreshing to not to think about that stuff – to just be happy doing laundry with a girlfriend, a real girlfriend.

She called me Gesama, but it felt right coming from her lips, and we didn’t have the privacy for some deep long talk about our past together, something that I now kind of sensed, but didn’t really remember.

It was nearly lights out when we got to my door, with Phyla carrying the basket with my underwear and jeans and me holding the plastic hangers with the dress, blouses and t-shirts. At my door she surreptitiously glanced at the camera overhead and then quickly kissed me on the lips before whispering in my ear, “Window tonight. Your show.” A second later she was in her room, and I hauled the laundry into mine.

I only had a couple of minutes before lights out, so I threw all the laundry onto the bed and proceeded to strip down to get into my clean pink pajamas. I could see in the window reflection that Phyla had already turned off her light. I knew that she would be watching me – maybe she had watched me before I even knew about the window trick, but I didn’t want to think about that now. I pulled off the filthy pink unicorn shirt and threw it on the floor, and then turned around slowly to allow myself to be looked at. I dropped the jeans and did a turn again, now wearing just my underwear. I was beginning to blush, or to get excited about this. I took off the bra and then looked down at myself. I really was embarrassed about the way my stomach stuck out, the smallness of my breasts, about everything about my body, but I was going to see this through. I quickly pulled off my underpants and did a quicker turn. Finally I threw up my arms and separated my legs standing full spread-eagle while I counted to seven. I had meant to count to ten, but lost my nerve. I dove for the light switch and pulled on my pajamas.

I slipped through the dark back to the window and heard Phyla whisper, “Thank you.”

Of course I had to figure out how to hang my clothes in the dark and the stuff in the basket I just left there, shoving it out of the way as I lay on the bed. I was smiling. And for those few hours of the night I slept more peacefully than at any time since I had come out from under the microwave.