Page 42 - WTP VOl. XI #1

The Stranger Inside (continued from preceding page)
“I would remember. If I had told you.”
“You’ve just forgot. All that weed an’ booze an’ shit.” “I don’t think so.”
“Well hey man, somebody told me!”
Mitch recalled an image from something he had read in school: you were in the doorway of a familiar room when lightning flashed, revealing that the floor was gone and you were standing at the edge of a bottom- less pit.
“Sorry, bro,” the man said, although Mitch thought he detected something like delight in his voice. “But hey, you two didn’t start in together ’til college, right?”
“Junior year.”
“There it is. So you prob’ly wasn’t her first, any more’n she was yours. Somebody from before musta told me.”
Mitch again thought he heard something from the bedroom, louder now.
“Sorry, compadre. Me and my big mouth. Sure didn’t come here to cause no trouble between you an’ the missus. You can take that to the bank. Speakin’ of which—”
Mitch stood up. “You’d better go,” he said, and the malice in his voice surprised him.
“But we still got business,” the man said. “You ain’t said if you’ll accept my offer.”
“Offer?”
“Mitch, what have we been talkin’ ’bout, amigo? You got the opportunity to lend me your Ram and five, maybe ten grand, make a shitload of money.”
“Now?” Mitch said, striding to the front door and put- ting his hand on the doorknob. “Why would I trust you to use anything of mine?”
“You already have, man!” “Shut up!”
“But it’s true! I was a stranger an’ you let me in! I was hungry an’ you gave me food! We’ve broke bread to- gether, the little woman’s—we share things, man! We complete each other, yin and yang! We’re family!”
“What are you talking about?”
“More than you realize, brother,” the man said, step- ping toward Mitch. “Maybe I din’t come here just for wheels and money. Maybe I come for payback.”
“Payback? What are you talking—“
“Already said I left somethin’ behind last time— somethin’ precious. Maybe I come back to do some- thin’ about that. Stake my claim.”
“GET OUT!!” a voice shouted.
Mitch turned and saw Becca standing in the bedroom doorway. Her hair was wild from the bed and she was still pulling on rumpled clothes, her nightgown in a heap behind her.
“You got no claim to anything here, you got that?” she shouted.
Mitch had never heard his wife sound this way. He barely recognized her.
“Evening, Becca,” the man said. His voice was now soft and soothing, completely different from before, like a face after a mask is removed. “Lovely to see you again, too. Too long since—”
“No more bullshit!” she yelled. “I called 911, reported an intruder, they’re sending a squad car. You better get out now, you stupid fucker!”
The man turned to Mitch, smiling affably. “She always this neighborly?”
“Just leave!” Mitch said. He could feel the adrenaline surging through him, seeking an outlet. He hadn’t felt this way since the time—the other time?—he had thrown Billy out.
“She used to give a much warmer welcome,” the man said. “Why, she even—”
“Leave!” Mitch shouted. “This is crazy! Who do you think you are?”
“Who do you think I am, Mitch?” the man said. “Or is it whom? No. Who.”
“What?” Mitch asked.
The man laughed. “You really don’t have a clue, do you? Nobody really knows, but you don’t even know that you don’t know.”
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