Cabin Affairs: Revisited

Step 1. Blueprints

Step 1. Blueprints

Playlist: “Hell’s Coming With Me” by Poor Mans Poison

I should’ve heard from him months ago. Even that thought is a strange one for me. I’m not the type of person who gets worried about people. f**k, I don’t get worried much about anything. I keep myself numb. 

I have since I was a kid and watched my mother get murdered on the street for not handing over her pocket book. The druggy with the gun ran without ever noticing the little whelp that was me crying in a pool of blood. We lived in the forgotten part of the bad neighborhood, so suffice to say that I sat on the street for hours before anyone found us. Eventually, I realized how beautiful that color of red was as it coated and congealed on my hands. That’s the warmth I choose to bathe in now. I’ve been on my own since that day, and worry just never seemed like a valuable use of time.

But there’s something about him. 

We were supposed to spend the holidays in a bed somewhere together like we have done nearly every year for the past five years. No matter what else is happening in our lives, we make a long weekend out of f*****g our way through Christmas so we can avoid the drudgery of it all. The lights, the presents, the traditions, the warm and fuzzy concept of peace on Earth can all go straight down the toilet like the giant piece of s**t it is. 

Instead of Santa entering my chimney, he plays a stranger breaking in and enters me forcibly again and again. We take turns tying each other up and taking out all our frustrations from months past with each other. Our only rules are no blood and no choking. Not that we wouldn’t enjoy breaking those rules, but given our predispositions, those things are just too easy to get out of hand. 

We aren’t in the business of peace on Earth anyway. If there’s peace on Earth, then I’m out of a job. The numbness makes this the only job I’m suited for, too. If I’m not killing with a purpose, I fear I might just be killing. Nah, it’s not quite a fear, but it’s an acknowledgement that my numbness might take me too far from what is termed humanity. So, I am the job.

Of course, he quit the job nearly a year ago. He made his money and decided he wanted out. I thought it was out of character, but we don’t judge each other - much. He said something to another colleague of ours about finding a good woman to enjoy the spoils of war. I would’ve felt that sting like a slap in the face if it weren’t for my shield of numbness. He’s an asshole. But for brief moments when I’m a woman, he is my asshole. 

So, when I didn’t hear from him at Christmas as anticipated, I got agitated. When I reached out after the New Year, but received no replies, then I got angry. How dare he ghost me like I’m nothing. No one could understand him better than I could. If he found a woman to settle down with, then it was only a matter of time before he broke her. No woman is strong enough to withstand his brand of ego and temper. Except me. Only fire can play with fire.

Another month of no response and I decided to take what I wanted. I took an absence from the job, which was no difficulty since I am an independent contractor. Then, I started tracking down his whereabouts.

I expected to find him playing house. Every time I thought of making him watch me bleed his new little plaything dry, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. He’d try to kill me for it - if he wasn’t sick of her yet. Whatever. I’m strong and fast. He’d do some damage, but never truly hurt me. It’d be a fun new edge to our games, though. I bet he’ll even thank me for it in the long run. We don’t need some fairy tale happy ending, but he is my long run.

When I find him, that is. What I didn’t expect was the trail to grow cold. That son of b***h seemed to truly not want to be found. Even from me! 

We had always left a clue for each other on our well-being States’ side. A coded method of contact was kept in a safety deposit box in a po-dunk town in West Virginia, which only we knew about. That is our insurance policy. Two people with no one need a plan B. 

His code was wrong. That code he left, a series of magazine clippings like usual, led out to an address that didn’t exist. I played around with different ciphers and digits, calculating one up or down, thinking maybe he had finally slipped up for the first time since I’d known him. Nothing.

He is a calculated man. I only met him five years ago through the job, yet that was my first and lasting impression. The second was wondering how hard I could ride him. Turns out, I haven’t found that threshold yet.

That first meeting was right after he got out of the Air Force. He was part of an elite Warrior force, one that remains clouded in mystery. He was trained in everything covert and lethal. He had no connections beyond that group of Warriors, which he called brothers, until me. Being the asshole that he is, it’s not likely he develops lasting bonds with anyone else. Not even those so-called brothers.

So, I am the only one who would come looking for that contact information. The only one he’d trust with his insurance policy. That thought resonated with me for a few days. No one would ever know that I would come looking for him. No one would expect me. 

That leaves only two possibilities here. Either he is wrong, which is grotesquely unlikely. Or I am. I will not allow the latter.

I will find him. If it ends with ripping out another’s throat to teach him a lesson for lying to me, all the better. If it means he learns his lesson with a pound of his own flesh, so be it. If someone has thought they could keep me from finding him though… I hope there is a God because hell is descending upon them. 

I buy a bus ticket back to West Virginia from Grand Central Station. It’s busy this time of day, and they stink of… people… it churns my stomach. Oh, well. Time to start fresh with new insight. 

I take a seat next to an old lady who smells like piss, and I smile at her. No one would ever suspect such a sweet piece of ass like me to carry the number of skeletons in my closet that I do, or for those bones to be so immaculately cleaned. So, the woman smiles back at me, teetering on her wooden bench from frailty. I have the grace of good genes and look younger than I am, so she’s probably thinking I resemble her granddaughter or some s**t. That’s fine. She just better not try to talk to me. 

I take out an emery board from my average-looking purse. The black leather brand-less thing is as forgettable as every other thing that I weave into each part of myself. Habits of the job. Always be someone who is easily erased. I am a skilled eraser on all counts. I smile inwardly at my justified level of pride. 

If anyone truly knew me, they might suspect this nail file to be a sharp, metal thing. A weapon of dual purpose perhaps. A ridiculous notion. I need no such props to aid me. I grin wider as I stare down at the flimsy, brown stick of sandpaper. My fingerprints need no further sanding today. Instead, as I wait for my train, I start to file my nails to points, as the devil would file down his horns. 

I will find you, Dante. I am the devil that you forgot. And all will pay for knocking at the wall of my numb.