The Evils That Men Do... (995 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.38 on 21 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by ChaosJester <jesterfool18.at.excite.com> (View user info) at 2007-05-07 08:20:32 EDT
Hmmmmm... These things just keep getting longer and longer. I plan on finishing this soon, but I would appreciate any constructive feedback. I realize how freakin' long this is, so I won't be hurt if nobody reviews this. I just hope some people like it. I, personally, think it's turning out to be some of my best (if darkest) stuff yet. Lemmee know what ya'll think, hey?
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Ted Williamson sat in his nearly empty 3,000-a-month apartment and thought. He reflected on how happy he had been almost three years ago, before his life had come apart at the seams. Back then, his newly founded dentistry practice had just started to make some serious money and he had been happily married. He had even started to entertain the notion that Eva and he should start a family.
One sunny, spring day, he decided to ask his wife of five years if she wanted to create a new life with him. He had gotten a dozen white tulips (her favorite) from the store after he had closed up shop for the day and had headed home with a spring in his step. He remembered how curiously the doorman had looked at him as he entered his apartment high-rise; at the time, he had thought that his happiness had simply been showing a bit more than normal. It was only much later that he realized how strange his mood had seemed, given what the doorman knew.
At any rate, he had burst into his then-luxuriously appointed home, so eager to see his love. Well, he had seen her all right. She had been sitting on their living-room couch with Jack, the successful painter who had lived in the penthouse three floors up. Ted had stopped abruptly, confused as to why Jack was in his home without his knowledge. Ted nodded to the other man.
"Afternoon, Jack."
"Afternoon, Ted."
Pleasantries done, Ted turned to Eva. "Hello, Dear. Is there something going on today that I forgot about?"
Eva refused to meet his eyes. "Uh, look Ted. I think we both know what this is about."
Ted looked confused. "Actually, no. I have no idea why you should be sitting alone with another man in our house." A moment later, icy fear began to worm its way into Ted's heart.
Seeing the look dawning over her husbands face, Eva nodded. "You get it now. Ted, I'm leaving you. I'm tired of having to watch you spend all your time at your damnable Practice. I'm tired of having to spend my days, evenings and week-ends alone. We're practically strangers living together now. You just weren't available enough for me and I'm sorry it came to this, but it's the way this has to be."
Ted stood still in shock for a few moments as his mind tried, in vain, to understand that his cozy little life was coming to an end. Jack and Eva stood up. Eva looked him in the eyes for the first time since he had entered his home. "Look, I don't want any of your money; Jack's got more than enough for the both of us. I'll send for my things in a few days. Just sign the papers when they come and we're all done. Good-bye Ted, it was fun while it lasted." With that, Eva and her new man walked out the apartment and out of Ted's life. One dozen white tulips crashed to the floor as the door closed.
A short while later, the divorce papers had been brought over by Eva's lawyer. Ted had simply been numbly going through the motions up until then; everything about his life had taken on a faintly unrealistic feel. Still, as he signed his name on the cold dotted line that marked the irrevocable breaking point of his existence, everything came into sharp focus and Ted realized that his old life was well and truly over.
He decided that he needed to try and re-make himself, beginning with his surroundings. He kept the apartment (after all, he had gotten a sweet deal when he had signed the lease and he didn't really feel like finding another place to live), but he had either sold or simply given away all the furniture within it. He hadn't had to worry much about any awkward scenes with Eva and Jack. They had married in the Bahamas one month after he had signed the divorce papers and had moved to another city halfway across the continent.
Then, something went wrong. He had planned on getting all new stuff for his place, but everything he looked at just seemed wrong. Eventually, he'd given up on buying new furniture and just made-do with the mismatched but functional bits he had picked up here and there. His apartment's furnishings now resembled something one might expect a nearly starving bohemian artist to possess, rather than a successful dentist.
Indeed, that was the only aspect of his life that had flourished in this new personal Era. When he had first become divorced, his Practice had been just barely making enough money for him to comfortably live on. Now, however, as he had nothing to do to pass the time but work, his business had flourished. As the years had passed, money had poured into his bank accounts. Since he had no desire to spend it, though, the accounts just became more and more bloated. He had more money than he knew what to do with, but it brought him no pleasure.
He had taken to spending large amounts of time staring at the simple revolver he had purchased shortly after leaving the Army, many years before. At the time, he had wanted something to remind him that, once upon a time, he had led a life that was more exciting (if much less comfortable) than that of a simple dentist. Now though, he just felt an inescapable sense of being cut adrift in a sea of choices. He had also started to drink heavily for the first time since he had left the Service. It hadn't really been a conscious decision; he had just pulled a half-full bottle of whiskey out one day with the intention of having a small drink to ease himself to sleep. Several hours later, he had finished the bottle. The next morning he had woken up on his balcony with a splitting headache and a truly awful taste in his mouth. It was one of the loneliest mornings of his life.
Ted began frequenting seedy bars more and more when he wasn't working. He acknowledged the fact that he had become something of a 'functioning alcoholic' in that he was able to maintain a successful business during the day, but was always drunk during the evenings. He understood that he had a problem, he just didn't care. Ted's life was on a seemingly inescapable spiral towards self-destruction when something happened that changed his life forever.
Ted had just staggered out of a bar late one evening in a completely wretched part of his city when he heard a small whimper coming out of one of the numerous trash-infested alleys nearby. Ted had been just drunk enough to investigate this curious noise. Slowly, he weaved his way towards that helpless sound, which, by now, had started to become fainter. Something inside Ted realized that something bad was about to happen if he didn't start moving more efficiently, so he, somehow, managed to straighten out his meanderings and walked over to the filthy trash heap where the sounds were coming from. What he saw there caused his face, currently ruddy with booze, to pale in shock.
Nestled in the middle of half-full trash bags, rotting produce and other things best left unscrutinized lay a girl. Or rather, the broken remnants of a girl. Ted's first thought was that it was amazing that this poor, rag doll of a person was still alive with all the blood pooled around her. He noticed that her right shin seemed to be bending in a place where should only have been straight bone. Ted couldn't really see the girl's facial features through all the blood and bruises, but her gender was never in doubt, as the tattered shreds she was clutching about her had been completely ripped away from her lower torso. Black, crusted blood streaked the girls' entire body, but nowhere so much as the wasteland that her groin had become. Almost as an afterthought, Ted noticed that her left hand was swollen to almost twice its normal size and all the fingers were bent in completely unnatural ways. All in all, the scene was one straight out of hell and Ted promptly threw up several hundred dollars worth of alcohol onto the nearby alley wall.
Wiping his mouth, Ted wondered what he was going to do about this. Briefly, he considered just walking away; the broken thing before him that had once been a person was surely very nearly dead, if she hadn't already expired. Still, as far as he had sunk into depression and nihilism, he simply couldn't let this go so casually. So, with that in mind, Ted walked back into the disgusting bar and demanded that the bartender call an ambulance. Once this had been accomplished, Ted went back to the girl, only to find her conscious and raving.
Ted knelt down in the blood and filth and tried to console the tortured woman. As soon as his hand touched her shoulder, an agonized scream escaped through her split lips. Ted snatched his hand away as quick as he could, but that terrible shrieking went on and on and on. Ted had absolutely no idea what to do, so he just started murmuring quietly about whatever sprang into his mind. Later, he couldn't remember what he spoke about, but, eventually, the woman slowed her hysterical wailing and Ted's low baritone started to fill the now-quiet air.
Ted was concentrating on the woman so much that he was completely surprised by the arrival of the ambulance. As the paramedics gingerly placed her ravaged body on a stretcher and into the medical vehicle, Ted noticed that the woman's swollen, ice-blue eyes were transfixed on his face even as the doors closed. The paramedics told him the name of the hospital where they were taking her, so he immediately called a taxi and traveled there.
Once in the reception area of the hospital, Ted asked about the young woman, only to be rebuffed by the cold receptionist. Eventually, Ted had to console himself with giving his contact information to the iron-jawed lady. He also said that he would be the one to pay for her medical bills, in the hope that someone would call him for money, if nothing else. Ted waited in the reception room for a few more hours, then, disheartened, he called another taxi and went home to fall into a troubled and restless sleep.
Three days later, that same grizzled receptionist called him up and asked him to come to the hospital as soon as possible. Ted hurriedly agreed and drove down to the large medical building complex. There, Ted spoke to a tall doctor with dark circles under his eyes and too many worry lines criss-crossing his face. The tired man told Ted that the woman, whose full name was Anita Marian Blackman, had just finished undergoing four different major surgeries. Among other things, he'd had to stop several instances of internal bleeding, stitch up numerous tears along her vaginal wall and anus, as well as reset a broken hip, collar-bone, jaw and tibia. He'd also tried to repair the nerve damage that had occurred from some of the more severe physical trauma she'd endured, but he was uncertain if Anita would ever regain full feeling in her left hand. When Ted had understood the full extent of the young woman's injuries, he had been shocked that a human body could take such intense punishment and live.
The doctor went on to tell Ted that the hospital had identified Anita based on her fingerprints. According to the limited records the hospital had gotten from Anita's small hometown about 70 miles East, she had turned 18 four months previously and both her parents were deceased from an automobile accident that had occurred one year ago. There had been no other mention of any other next of kin, so the hospital officials had had no other choice but to contact Ted. In short, Anita seemed to be alone in the world and the hospital was hoping that Ted could take her off of their hands (once he'd paid the bill, of course).
Ted hadn't been concerned about the cost; as large as it was, it barely put a dent into the funds he had accumulated. What he was really concerned about was whether or not the wounded woman would trust him enough to want to be placed under his care. The doctor had been very clear that Anita would require many months of rehabilitative physical therapy before she would be even partly recovered. It was also entirely possible that Anita would never completely recuperate from her injuries. The doctor had simply shaken his head and mentioned that he would pray for her.
So, once Ted had signed over the appropriate funds covering Anita's current care, he had entered into the room where she was being kept for observation. Ted's first thought upon entering the room was that the broken body he had found in the alley had been replaced by a mummy. Almost every square inch of Anita had been swathed in bandages. The only thing Ted could see clearly were her eyes. They were just as vivid a blue as he remembered and, at present, they were turned towards Ted in a slightly vague, but nonetheless piercing stare. Ted was once more amazed that this fragile person, who had to be three-quarters out of her mind with pain-killers, was able to penetrate his soul with a mere glance.
Ted walked over to Anita's still form and sat in a nearby chair, her eyes following him all the while. Remembering her earlier reaction to being touched, Ted stayed well away from Anita's body as he spoke to her.
"I know that your name is Anita, and I've been told that you don't have anyone to go to." Anita's azure eyes slowly blinked at him as he continued. "I know that you have no reason to trust me, but I want you to know that I'd like to help you. If you'll allow it, I would like to have you stay with me while you get better." Ted noticed that Anita's eyes grew wide for a moment and she started to whimper quietly. He backed away quickly. "If you don't want to come with me, that's fine. Still, I'd like to visit you here every once in a while, if that's not too much to ask."
Anita closed her eyes for so long that Ted thought that she had fallen asleep. Right as he was about to leave, she opened her eyes and nodded, weakly, before closing lowering her eyelids again and falling into unconsciousness. Ted left then with a small smile on his lips, feeling like he had something to look forward to for the first time in years.
In the days and weeks that followed, Ted spent most of his free time with Anita. While she lay in her bed quietly, he would read her articles from the local newspaper, or from a book he had brought in from the Hospital Library. Often enough, he just talked to her, telling her about his life. He spoke about his Dentistry Practice, his failed marriage, his old hopes and dreams. Sometimes he told her some of the funnier stories from when he was in the Service. Occasionally though, he just sat next to her in silence, grateful just to have another human being near him.
Time passed and Anita's wounds healed enough for most of the bandages to come off. Her jaw was finally freed of the wire that had constricted it for so long, but she never spoke, even after the doctor said that it shouldn't hurt any more. Ted didn't really care though; aside from noticing that she grew prettier and prettier as her bruises and cuts faded, he just kept up his one-sided conversations with her. One day, Ted walked into Anita's room to find her sitting up in bed. Ted guessed that the nurses had given her a makeover, because she looked great. Her long, night-black hair had been brushed so much that it shone as it framed her heart-shaped face. Ted also noticed that she'd even had a bit of make-up on. The minimalist amount of eye-liner accentuated her slightly slanted eyes and the faintest tinge of rouge on her cheeks served to emphasize her faintly regal-looking cheekbones. Ted was pretty sure that Anita had had some Eastern Asian genetic material floating about in her, perhaps as far removed as a grand-parent.
Anita looked like she wanted to say something, so Ted sat in his customary chair and waited patiently. Anita started to speak, then quietly coughed and cleared her throat. "Do...Do you still want me to come stay with you?" Her voice was a bit higher and breathier than Ted had expected.
Ted slowly nodded. "If you want, you may stay with me as long as you wish."
Anita nodded. "Then, I would like to leave this place as soon as possible. I want to see something besides these hospital walls." She added quietly.
Ted grinned. "Not a problem. I had my spare bedroom renovated almost as soon as I started coming to visit you. We can leave as soon as the doctor says it's safe."
"Well, then," The young woman said. "We can leave today. Doctor Larson told me that I was finally well enough to leave this morning." Anita smiled for the first time that Ted could remember. Almost as soon as it had begun, Anita covered her mouth with her right hand. Ted realized that he was going to need to get her some replacements for the three teeth she had lost.
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Two months later, Ted reflected on how much his life had improved. Anita had seemed to flourish in his apartment, practically from the moment she'd stepped a hesitant foot over the threshold. He had spared no expense in outfitting the spare bedroom with the proper equipment to make her feel as comfortable as possible. He had also hired a full-time physical therapist to help her regain the use of her body. It was very hard for him to watch Anita struggle though her sessions. He ached in sympathy every time she yelped in pain whenever Martha (the therapist) massaged and worked her left hand. Still, all that pain had borne fruit; Anita was now walking on her own (albeit with a cane) and was now able to hold things in her left had without dropping them. Ted was so proud of her.
For her part, Anita had taken one look at Ted's furniture and declared that Something Must Be Done. Ted brought her several tome-like catalogues to order out of and then promptly put it out of his mind. Eventually, Ted noticed that Anita had placed numerous orders for things, but he preferred to keep whatever it was she had requested a surprise.
One day, Anita had called him to request that he delay coming home until the evening. She refused to give any details about why she wanted this; only saying that she was preparing a surprise. Ted didn't press her too hard for answers as he was happy to indulge her. When he got home that night, his apartment had been transformed. Everywhere he looked, his home had been redecorated with furniture that was both tasteful and simple. Ted also noticed that Anita had had that place painted. The color schemes she had selected were primarily cool blues and greens, but warmer colors occasionally highlighted and brightened the atmosphere. All in all, Ted was thrilled with the changes and told Anita so. Ted was pleased to see her blush for the first time.
Several weeks later, Ted came home to see Anita sitting on the living room couch. For a moment, a reflexive chill shook Ted, then he drew himself up and walked over to the young woman. He saw that she was holding something in her left had. Anita had yet to speak to him, so Ted sat on the couch next to her and waited. Presently, Anita looked into Ted's eyes and opened her hand. She was holding Ted's old dog-tags.
"You were a soldier once?" She said this so expressionlessly, that Ted had no idea what she was thinking.
"Yes. Many years ago."
Anita nodded and was silent for a moment before she asked, "Did you ever kill anyone?"
Ted's eyes became unfocused as old memories of sand and sun resurfaced for the first time in years. "Once," he said finally.
Tears glittered in Anita's eyes and she asked, "Tell me about it?"
Ted nodded once. "Years back, when we were still in Iraq, my unit was deployed to one of the bad places. One of the places where soldiers usually every couple of days. I was a Dental Assistant; we had no business going out on patrols, but the infantrymen assigned to protect our Forward Operating Base had been hit pretty hard recently and volunteers were asked for to strengthen the patrols.
'I trained up with the other infantrymen for a week or so, then started going out on regular patrols. Sometimes we had someone take a pot-shot at us. We had a couple roadside bombs go off a few times, but nothing really big. At least until June 20. That day started out like any other; we loaded up in our armored vehicles and pulled out of our FOB just after dawn. Everything was quiet, but it was still early. We had finished about half of our patrol when our front and rear vehicles were disabled by large detonations. The soldiers beside me had been through this more times than they liked to count, but I was so scared. The insurgents fired rockets and small arms at our vehicles, but they didn't get lucky enough to hurt any of us. The M240 machine-gunner on top of my vehicle opened up and turned the surrounding buildings to Swiss cheese. Then, he stopped firing and fell to the bottom of our vehicle. Someone had managed to hit him in the throat. Before I knew it, I was up in his place, firing at anything that moved.
'I don't know how long I was firing up there. They tell me that I nailed six guys on the rooftops. I don't know about that. The only person I remember actually shooting was this one boy firing from a window. I remember thinking that he couldn't be older than 16 or 17 before I trained my sights on him. I watched his head explode like a confetti egg and his body dropped out of the building. Soon after that, the insurgents fled and we radioed in for assistance in getting our dead and wounded to safety"
Ted stopped there, just like he had stopped every time he told that story. This time though, for whatever reason, he kept on speaking. Anita listened quietly as he spoke about things he had never voiced before, to anyone.
"The thing is," Ted continued, "I enjoyed killing that boy. Something in me felt so alive knowing that he was dead and I was not. That night, I lay in my bunk and thought about killing. Some of my fellow volunteers were pretty shaken up about the whole thing, but I discovered that I exulted in the chaos and cacophony of battle. Not only that, but I wanted to do it again.
'So I kept volunteering to go out on patrols, every time they asked. I even asked to relieve some of the infantrymen when they got too caught up in battle fatigue. The other Dental Assistant in my unit thought I was stone-cold crazy, but I didn't care. I just wanted to feel that alive again. Unfortunately, I was never afforded the opportunity to fight like that again. The skirmished were either over too quickly or only consisted of a bomb or two. I never got to kill again and a part of me is so disappointed, even today." Ted was quiet for a long time. "Does that make any sense?"
Anita looked at him again with those big, blue eyes of hers. Ted noticed that they seemed to burn with a quiet intensity that bordered on madness. Her voice seemed etched with acid as she spoke. "Ted," she murmured, "teach me how to kill."
After a moment, the graying soldier slowly nodded. "Tomorrow, we start."
User Reviews
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-05-10 08:52:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
huh...
You could have something there, although I still think that you might be reading a bit too much into my story as far as my attitude toward women goes.
...
What can I say, I was trying to pack a lot of stuff into a few short pages. Hopefully, you liked the second part better.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-05-10 05:57:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I understood that you wanted to give him space in his life to take on a damaged 18 year old. But my point is, the wife saying "so-and-so's got enough money for both of us" means that she has no plans to work for her own money, which automatically places her in a submissive role in the relationship (I'm gonna get stay-at-home wives backs up with that one). Like is not necessarily the same as respect.
No, it's not inconceivable that she would have wanted to do something for her benefactor, but my feeling is that it would have started small, eg. cooking breakfast, doing the shopping, anything that felt useful but wasn't too tasking or intimate. Renovating someone's home says a huge amount about how close you feel to that person, it implies an intimacy that you didn't quite establish in the story prior.
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-05-09 16:48:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Hmmmm...
I actually like women very much.
With the whole wife bit, I was sort of just trying to give Ted a reason for being lost and vulnerable.
The apartment renovation is supposed to have taken place several months after her attack. Remember, Ted's been there for her almost this entire time. I figured that it wasn't entirely inconcievable that she would want to do something for her benefactor.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-05-09 14:22:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
"Look, I don't want any of your money; Jack's got more than enough for the both of us..."
____
This is presumably indicative of your not particularly pleasant view on women. If she'd been mercenary, she'd have fought him for his money. If she wasn't mercenary, she wouldn't have phrased it like this.
Your dialogue still needs work.
A lot of detail, but almost no feelings in this story. It seems strange to me that a young girl would go from being brutalised to within an inch of her life to renovating a man's apartment within a few weeks. Even if she, as you implied at the end, was using her need for revenge to contain her feelings, that shit shines through.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-05-08 17:16:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-05-08 16:52:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
CRACK-A-FART!
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2007-05-08 12:18:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great
Submitted by moneyshotforyou (user info) at 2007-05-08 08:55:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I will be looking for the rest of this.
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2007-05-08 08:00:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice...
Submitted by kuroneko_sama (user info) at 2007-05-08 04:21:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
auto "disown" +2
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2007-05-08 03:00:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That made a pretty good read. Are you going to continue this? I certainly want to see where this goes.
Submitted by nyxmar (user info) at 2007-05-07 20:20:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2007-05-07 17:54:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
not bad
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2007-05-07 16:49:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
people don't talk like that
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2007-05-07 16:33:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I clicked because I read the title as "The Elvis than men do" and expected a series of bad EP impersonators, which would have been -2'd. Thanks for not being that post. That said, I read all of this I could keep with, and found it enjoyable.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2007-05-07 14:41:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Kaelic (user info) at 2007-05-07 14:18:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Just to let you know, I NEVER take the time to read a long story. It's almost impossible for me to focus --- something about this was different. I read it, and I liked it a lot. Also cool was that the first day he ever killed someone was also my birthday.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-05-07 13:59:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
baldy fight!
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2007-05-07 13:44:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Not long enough for my liking.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2007-05-07 13:34:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2007-05-07 09:31:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You stayed up all weekend typing, then cut and pasted it in didnt you?
I liked it.