Note to self: Stop wearing high school sports ring if you don’t want to look like some kind of tragic, small town figure.
Instead, I followed George through the tight little living room with it’s stiff furniture and well-oiled wood coffee table and into the kitchen – that aroma which greeted me just moments before growing more into a stench. It smelled more like someone was grilling a fat turd to me now, almost unbearable as I neared the entrance to the kitchen.
I laid eyes upon the source of the smell as soon as I walked into the kitchen.
Sticking out of the open oven which was radiating thick heat from across the room, was the lower two-thirds of a woman in a housedress – her head plunged deep into the red-hot oven. I fought back vomit and looked to George who had tears trickling down his eyes, looking like a college basketball senior on the losing end of an NCAA Tournament game, a manly cry.
“I wasn’t there for her,” the words dribbled out of George’s lips which were fat with sorrow.
“Oh fuck this.”
I swiftly whipped around to run back out the door. Halted myself before I even took another step.
Standing in the living room, directly between me and the front door was a little girl, stuffed rabbit, tucked underneath her arm, dressed in her Sunday best, pink dress and floppy hat.
She looked up at me with eyes bloodshot with childish confusion.
“What’s that smell?”
I bit down hard upon my lower lip.
“It’s okay darlin,” George hollered over at the little girl like he was a cop trying to get control of a situation. “Just stay in the living room.”
George drew his eyes over to me.
“You see why I need your help?” They won’t leave me alone. I know I didn’t do things right the first time around, but I don’t deserve this nightmare,” George explained to me.
George looked back at the corpse roasting in the open oven. Slowly wiped his palm over his mouth.
“I loved her Tombstone, but she couldn’t be helped. I tried everything with her. Counseling, facilities, long trips to the desert, Mexico, the woman was gone, but they blamed me and I ran.”
I fought back the vomit again, the fragrance rising in the room. Ignored the sounds of the girl now crying behind me. Watched George stagger over to the torso sticking out of the oven.
It was all a nightmare. It was all someone else’s nightmare. I was a bystander. An innocent one at that.
“I’m sorry bubby. The bad part’s over now,” I heard George whisper from over by the oven before he cranked the heat off.
I watched a few of his tears fall down upon the body until the body was gone and those tears fell onto the floor and the sounds of crying coming from behind me faded into the ether as well.
I spotted a 20 sitting on the kitchen table a few steps in front of me. Tossed the pizza down next to the bill, snatched up the 20 and ran for the front door with George calling out pleads I paid no mind.
I could still hear George’s wails through the wall when I ran out to my car. The smell from the kitchen clung to my the hairs in my nostrils, the back of my throat, my tongue for the next three meals.
