I walked into the Westhaven Country Club and was only there for five minutes before realizing why murderers were driven to kill in places like this, and it was no more than a sense of decency that kept me from joining that class of the insane. It wasn't that I didn't desire to right the wrongs in the room. It's only that there was no other way to tumble this tower apart from bringing it to a crashing pile of putrescence, and I was not prepared to be buried under it all.
I had been removed from the marble and polish long enough to smell the stench of facade upon reentering. Hundreds of years of varnish piled layer upon layer - clear enough to remain unseen but making the room more closed in and suffocating than ever. The hard surfaces reflected the noise of voices, not allowing them to die but keeping them from escaping. And the dim light was enough to mask the wrinkles of the old and the scars of the rich.
As I turned to walk back into the foyer, I heard a voice.
"Where have you been, brother?" I hated when he called me brother. I kept my pace of retreat, but I could hear Russell's hard sole shoes reverberating through the room behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he was walking toward me with his arms outstretched - his white teeth, reflecting the little light that was in the room. He was already buzzing from the high of hobnobbing and gave my shoulder a tight squeeze. I turned around.
"Sorry I'm late." I had been sitting on the bench outside for the previous half an hour watching the people come in and wondering if I could sit with them again - Not sure if I was ready to immerse myself in the plasticity of souls fueled by green blood. I guess Russell could see it on my face.
"Oh, not this again," he said with the flail of his body that looked like an octopus that had been cut in two. His squirm stopped, and he stared at me. The noise of the room didn't allow for a dramatic silence, so he turned and walked away.
"I'm just going to go to the bathroom first," I said to the back of his head knowing that he probably couldn't hear me. I wasn't convinced that I was ready to leave, so I went to the bathroom. It wasn't the solitude I was hoping for as I could no longer ignore the attendant and pretend he wasn't human. I found the stall with a sink, walked in and locked the door behind me. I ran the cold water and looked into the mirror. For the first time in months, there was unrest behind my eyes. I splashed the cold water in my face and looked back into the mirror. The same unrest, just wet this time.
