Yours Truly by D.W. Moore

Yours Truly by D.W. Moore

It was last April, during the late winter snowstorm, when my sister Agnes called me for the first time in, well, forever. She was frantic, blubbering about a phone call she had received from some man, an older man she thought because of his raspy voice, who cursed her and threatened to kill her, and also threatened to kill her son, Timmy, who was ten. She had no idea who the man was or why he was threatening her. He didn’t demand anything, just told her in a menacing tone of voice that he was tracking her and he always knew where she was at, and where Timmy was at, and anytime he wanted to, he could just shoot her in the face, or shoot Timmy, maybe in the back and paralyze him for life. “Just think about that, you fucking bitch,” is what he hissed at her before hanging up. “I can burn your house down anytime I want. Maybe while you’re sleeping.”

Of course, I was immediately sympathetic. No one likes to get an anonymous phone call like that. But I was surprised that Agnes had called me at all. We hadn’t talked since Daddy’s funeral the previous summer, and even then she hardly gave me the time of day, being her usual high and mighty self, like she was when we growed up together. She was always the tormentor. I was the tormentee. And she got away with it because Daddy liked her better than me.

Still, she called needing help, and I certainly couldn’t refuse her now. Sisterly love, I guess you could call it. But a little short on the love.

“Could it be one of your boyfriends?” I asked her.

It was the day after she called me and we were sitting at her kitchen table, drinking coffee, her still in a bathrobe. She looked horrible, not the pretty high school girl with the drop dead figure that I remembered. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair in a mess. She needed tons of make-up and at least ten hours of sleep just to look like a normal human being again.

She looked at me like I was crazy. “I don’t date weirdoes.”

“You never know,” I said. “People can fool you.”

“Apparently.” She said that with the sarcasm she always used toward me, as though I couldn’t say anything that wasn’t stupid.

It was quiet for a while. I certainly wasn’t going to say anything more if all she could do was be a bitch. Then she said, this time without sarcasm, like maybe she was sorry she had been so mean in the first place, “I haven’t been seeing anyone.” That was quite an admission for Little Miss Perfect to make. “Except for Glen Robertson. But it’s not dating. He works with me at the Oakdale old folks home.”

“A doctor?”

“No. A nurse’s aide. Like me. We’re just friends. Nothing romantic. So far, anyway. We get together to talk about our patients. He’s very gentle. Wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

“Maybe it’s a relative of some patient,” I said.

She shrugged and shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Maybe so. There’s no way I can tell.”

“Any patients upset with you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Not even one?”

“No!” She glared at me for several seconds, then put her head down on the table. “I don’t know.”

The police told her they couldn’t do anything to protect her. Didn’t have the manpower. Besides, it could all be a hoax, they said. I wondered if maybe the police thought Agnes herself was making the whole thing up, but looking at her, that didn’t seem likely. She got the phone number off caller ID, and the police said it was a pay phone outside the Mobil Mini-Mart in gasoline alley, one of only a few pay phones left in town. So there was no way to tell who might have called. There was no video. Nothing.

“What do you expect me to do?” I said.

“Be more sympathetic, for starters! I’m your sister, for chrissakes. Plus, it’s your own nephew who’s been threatened…”

“I’m sorry!” I said, pissed off at her accusation. “Of course, I care. About you. About Timmy. But I don’t know what I can do to help.”

“Nothing! You can’t do a goddamn thing. So, thanks for nothing!”

That was the Agnes I lived with as a child. When I was eight and she was ten, Mommy left us. We didn’t know why, but later Daddy told us he forced her out of the house because she was a drug addict and he didn’t want her to hurt his little girls. About then, Agnes started tormenting me, hiding my toys and clothes and pretending she didn’t know where they were, being mean to me on the bus and making fun of me with her friends at school. She would’ve never done it if Mommy was still at home, but now she could get away with it, because Daddy let her.

Then a couple of years later, Mommy died, an overdose of cocaine Daddy told us. Sometime after that, Agnes took one of my dolls, Fairy-Belle, and ripped all the clothes off her and pounded her until she broke into pieces. I was at school when she did it. Daddy told her she could stay home that day because she had a cold, though I thought she must be faking, because I didn’t hear her coughing or anything. But I figured it wouldn’t do her much good. It was Daddy’s day off from the garage and she wouldn’t be able to slip out and go with her friends, or whatever else she wanted to do. So, when I got home and saw Fairy-Belle all broke up and her clothes all torn, I went crying into Daddy’s room where he was napping, and told him what Agnes did, but then Agnes started crying, saying she didn’t do it, a box accidentally fell on Fairy-Belle, and Daddy said it was okay, he’d get me a new doll, which he never did, of course. I was steamed about the whole thing, a lot at Agnes because I knew she was lying, but a whole lot at Daddy, too, because he didn’t believe me and didn’t do anything to Agnes, when I knew if I’d broken her doll he would’ve punished me something awful.

A few days later, on the weekend, Agnes took off with her friends, and when she came back, she found her pet hamster lying dead in the cage. “You killed it!” she screamed at me. “It was alive when I left!” She told Daddy and they both blamed me, though they couldn’t prove anything. But still I got beat for it. I never forgave Agnes. It was her fault and she knew it. I never forgave Daddy either. That night he came into my room all friendly like, saying everything would be okay, it hurt him as much as it hurt me. Which of course was bullshit. But I started wailing and then when he came closer I was screaming and he got angry and tried to shush me, said I’d wake up Agnes, but I didn’t stop making noise until he left. A few days later, Daddy’s mongrel mutt disappeared, but Daddy never said anything about it. Truthfully, I don’t think he gave a shit. A couple of times he looked at me funny, and I could tell he wondered if I’d anything to do with it, but I just glared back at him. I can say one thing, and that’s all I’m going to say about it – dogs can be just as stupid as people, eating things they shouldn’t.

Things changed after that. Agnes mostly ignored me. She was never nice to me, but she never hid anything of mine again, or broke anything. Daddy was always gruff with me and nice to Agnes, but that was fine with me. I didn’t want anything to do with either of them, anyway.

In her senior year, Agnes got pregnant and ran off with the math teacher, Mr. Tallman. It was the biggest scandal ever, I think, as least as far as most of the town people could remember. But then last summer, almost eleven years later, she came slinking back into town with her son Timmy, but no Mr. Tallman. I tried to get together with her, ask what had happened all those years and why she was back (I knew she had been living across the border in New Hampshire, though we never kept in touch), but she made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with me.

So, if I was surprised the first time she called, you can imagine when she called me the second time several weeks later, I was shocked. She wasn’t blubbering like earlier, but was instead all apologetic for being such a shit and begging me to come over again, because she wanted to heal the rift between us and she really needed me to help her find the creep who was calling her. “Please, Liz, please, please, please!” Naturally, being the good (and dumb) sister that I am, I went over. She had bought some Pillsbury cinnamon rolls to go with the coffee, which tasted bitter, but at least she was trying to be nice. She had on a shapeless dress and her hair was combed, pulled back into a ponytail, like she used to do in high school, though she still looked like crap, big circles under her eyes, lipstick that was the wrong color for her, eyebrows that needed plucking.

“I felt intimidated by you,” Agnes said to me once we actually got together face-to-face and got the hiyas and howareyas out of the way, explaining why she hadn’t wanted to see me when she first got back to town. “You working at the university, with a college degree, me only a high school graduate.”

That made me feel pretty good, finally her thinking good things about me, something she never did when we were growing up. She exaggerated a bit though, saying I had a college degree. I got a two-year business degree at the community college, and now worked as an administrative assistant in the Political Institute at the university.

“But you’re a nurse. You must have a degree of some sort,” I said.

She laughed, a musical laugh, very pleasant on the ears. It had been a long time since I saw her face light up like that. “I wish.” Then her face became serious, and she shook her head. “Being a nurse’s aide is grunt work. Only a high school degree required. But I’m taking courses. Someday, maybe, I’ll be a nurse. In the meantime, a mother’s got to do what a mother’s got to do.”

“What happened to Mr. Tallman? I thought he had a lot of money and you were living it up in New Hampshire.”

This time her laugh was harsh. “Hardly. We escaped to New Hampshire, because the laws in Maine make fucking a student illegal, even if she is the legal age of consent. Which I was. But he could’ve gone to jail anyway.”

This was a real surprise to me. It made me see Agnes in a different light, like, her as the black sheep sister, me as the good one.

“You loved him?”

“I don’t think so.” Agnes looked down, embarrassed. “I’m not sure I want to talk about it.”

“Can I ask you–why’d you come back?”

“Divorce settlement gave me this house. He never sold it, just rented it all these years. He found some other sucker to fuck, who’s younger.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

“Oh, Liz, you know why. You were always so much better than me. Smarter, prettier, tougher.”

That’s what she thought of me? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Tougher?”

“Yeah. Tougher. Didn’t you see that? Daddy was afraid of you.”

“He was afraid of me? I was scared shitless of him.”

“C’mon, Liz. After he spanked you for killing my hamster….”

“There was no proof I did anything to your hamster,” I said quickly. “And it was more than a spanking.”

She shrugged her shoulders and gave me a faint smile. “Whatever. After that happened, and then later the dog disappeared, he didn’t dare touch you again. Probably was afraid you’d kill him in his sleep.” Her laugh was short and hard.

“He didn’t touch you either after that,” I said. “In fact, I don’t think he ever beat you. He was always nice to you.”

Agnes looked at me for a long time, her jaw clenched. I could see anger in her eyes, staring at me like I was crazy or something. I wondered if maybe he had beat her, when I wasn’t around. I was about to ask her, when she suddenly smiled, a forced smile, not something that made you feel good, and said, “Yeah, well, that was a long time ago. Why don’t we talk about the creep that’s been calling me.”

& & &

The creep had called once every week for the past six weeks on her landline. He must not have known her cell phone number, she figured. When he called, it was on different days at different times, three times at night, the other three during the day when she was at work, but leaving her a message on her answering machine. That made a total of seven calls, counting the first one. Each time he’d remind her in a sing-song voice he was tracking her everywhere she went. And everywhere Timmy went. Then he’d always say something like “I can kill you, you fucking bitch, whenever I want. I can burn your house down with you in it.”

“After the second call, I sent Timmy to live with Grandma in Worcester,” Agnes said. “And in the next call, the creep said he knew where Timmy was, with Grandma, and she couldn’t protect him anymore than me.” She narrowed her eyes. “I want to kill that bastard. No one threatens my Timmy and gets away with it.”

Every time the man called, Agnes wrote down the phone number. Later, the police told her which pay phone it belonged to. The calls had always come from different locations, except for the last time, which was from the Mobil Mini-Mart again. This, she said, was the breakthrough she was looking for. When she recognized the phone number, she immediately called the police on her cell, but by the time they got there, the creep was gone.

“It took them fifteen minutes to respond,” Agnes said, shaking her head. “That’s pitiful. It’s useless.”

She figured the guy was probably going back to the pay phones he had already used, which meant she now knew where he’d be calling from. She had plotted them on a map. There weren’t many left in town, because most everybody had cell phones. But there were three at gas stations or mini-marts, and three others were near businesses downtown.

“I’ve talked with the managers at the mini-marts,” Agnes said. “Next time, I can call them directly, and they’ll go out and take a picture with their cell phones. If he’s in a car or truck, they can get his license plate.” She pointed to the map. “He used these three phones to call me at night.” One was next to the Rite-Aid Pharmacy, another next to the Bagelry, and the third outside Town & Campus. “He called when the places were closed. So, if he does that again, I don’t have anyone to call, except the police. And they’re so slow, they’ll never make it.”

She was quiet now, looking at me. After a few seconds, I said, “So. What’s your plan?”

She raised her eyebrows as though she was begging for something. “You.” It was more of a question than a statement.

“Me? I’m your plan?”

Her words came rushing out. “I know it’s a big favor, Liz. But you live right downtown. You could make it to any of these places in minutes, just walking. And if you ran…”

She was right. My apartment was in the Chiodi Complex, right in the center of town. The stores Agnes wanted me to watch fanned out from the town center, all within a quarter mile or so.

“What about Glen?” I said. “Can’t he help?”

“He lives too far out of town. Besides, I think he’s too freaked out about this. The creep actually mentioned Glen’s name in the second call, saying my ‘lover’ couldn’t protect me. Glen about crapped in his pants when I told him.”

“Your ‘lover’? I thought you guys weren’t doing it.”

“We’re not,” Agnes said. “And I don’t think we ever will. He’s such a wuss.” She put her hands together, like she was praying. “Say you’ll do it, Liz. I know it could be dangerous. But you’re the toughest person I know, man or woman.”

I knew she was trying to manipulate me, but I must admit, it worked. My older sister actually begging me to help her! Who wudda thought?

It was a few nights later, after a microwave dinner of hamburger and frozen fries, when I headed down to Libby’s Bar. Naturally, I had my cell with me and was thinking of Agnes’s caller, and what an amazing coincidence it would seem to others if this was the night he would call from the Town and Campus pay phone, which was right on my way. Just as these thoughts flitted through my mind, I felt my cell vibrating. Agnes’ cell phone. “He’s at T & C,” Agnes whispered. “He’s on my landline now.” Right on time, I thought. I couldn’t have been more than half a soccer field away from the phone, which was in a metal case attached to the brick wall outside the door. I crossed over to the store side of the street, which was pretty well lit, and I could see in the distance a tall figure hunched over the phone, while several college students walked by, talking and laughing, paying no attention to him. I ran to get closer and began taking pictures with my cell. I waited until he hung up, then started taking them again when he left the phone and got into a dark pick-up truck parked in the street and drove toward me. I got a picture of his license plate and one of him in the driver’s seat.

He was looking directly at me.

Well, the shit hit the fan when the cops found out who the perp was–Ronald Rogers, Professor and Director of the Political Institute, where I worked. Of course, I knew who he was and told Agnes right away, when I gave her my cell with the pictures to give to the police. She was suspicious at first, thinking I must’ve been involved in some way, but I told her I had no idea. I didn’t work for him directly. He had a personal administrative assistant, an older woman who’d been there since God created woman. And everybody knew he was a lech, though he was married to his third wife, with two grown kids, one by each of his exes. I told Agnes I just ignored him when he made suggestive comments, though I knew I could’ve charged him with sexual harassment. But I wasn’t that stupid. I needed the job.

Agnes looked at me like she didn’t quite believe what I told her, thinking maybe there was something else going on. “You’re not lying to me, are you?” she said, but her voice was more like she was surprised, not really believing I would be part of such a horrible crime.

“What are you talking about?” I said, raising my voice, which sounded a bit false, even to me. “Who took the pictures? Who just gave you the evidence to get him?”

She backed off right away, apologizing for doubting me again. To protect me from publicity, she didn’t mention to the police that she had a sister who worked at the Institute, which I thought was a classy thing to do. Tallman’s her last name, Nylund’s mine, so the cops didn’t make the connection. Instead, the papers announced the shocking news not just that it was the highly renowned professor who was the stalker, but that he had no connection to the woman he terrorized. It was the biggest scandal since Agnes ran off with her math teacher, though I was surprised when the papers didn’t pick that up again. They were more interested in the disgraced professor.

Agnes insisted on attending the trial, which occurred very quickly. It was the first time she’d actually seen Ronald Rogers, whose defense attorney made it clear before the court appearance that the professor was going to plead guilty. The perp was blaming his “irrational” behavior on alcoholism combined with prescription drugs, which supposedly made him super-horny and all superior-feeling and arrogant, though he still hadn’t explained why he’d picked on Agnes. And I didn’t think he ever would, if he knew what was good for him. It was much better the court considered him an alcoholic than what he really was.

& & &

Agnes and I stood in the observer section behind the prosecutor and watched as the cops brought Rogers in to join his attorney at the defense table. Rogers looked around, and when he saw me, he glared, looking as mean as Agnes said he sounded. I smiled inside myself, knowing he couldn’t admit that I had put him up to it, after he had fucked me and I had slapped his bony ass, him really liking to be spanked, not something he could ever get from his wife, he said, and so every time we got together, I really laid it on him. Not that he needed much persuasion to go after Agnes. He loved it being the anonymous stalker, and I loved it getting back at her for treating me like shit at Daddy’s funeral, and all those years before. But it got boring after a few times, so I was glad when Agnes found a way to catch the creep. And especially glad that I could shove it in his face, this asshole who loved to hurt women.

“Somebody get between the defendant and the victim!” That was the judge, a woman with large glasses, who looked like her eyes were bugging out of her head, seeing the creep glaring at me and thinking he was glaring at Agnes standing next to me. Agnes hadn’t even noticed, because she was watching the judge, but when she heard what the judge said, Agnes whipped her head to look at Rogers and then to me, then back to Rogers and to me again. She must’ve known his evil stare was meant for me, but she couldn’t know the real reason, and I was cool, passed it off like it was because I took the pictures. “He knows I turned him in,” I said. “What a scumbag.”

& & &

It is now almost three weeks since the trial. Timmy is back home with Agnes and making up his schoolwork, so he can finish up the fifth grade with his classmates. Agnes called a couple days ago, apologizing for being out of contact, but saying it was because of helping Timmy adjust and her trying to catch up with her own work, and asking if she could come over tonight so we could celebrate our victory together. I am thinking she’s probably learned her lesson about treating me so bad all those years, and if she ever does it again, I’ll find some other way to punish her. But tonight, we’ll be happy, together. Like sisters should be.

She is right on time, 7:30 like she said, bringing some pizza and beer. After she lays everything down on the kitchen counter, we hug real tight, finally letting go, laughing at each other, maybe a little embarrassed because we haven’t done it for so long, maybe never. We toast our beers while the pizza is warming up, Agnes asking me about my job and how I got the apartment, taking a real interest in me. Then I ask her about coming back and seeing Daddy again, how it was. Her face darkens, which surprises me.

“It wasn’t good,” Agnes says. “He was just as mean as ever.”

“Mean? To you?”

“To me and Timmy.”

“To Timmy? What’d he do?”

Agnes looks at me for a long time, then says, “Let’s eat the pizza and drink our beers. Then I’ll tell you.”

She serves the pizza and pours me another beer, and we eat for a while watching TV, a rerun of Two and a Half Men, the Charlie Sheen character mostly playing his lecherous self, from what I read, reminding me of Professor Rogers, always telling off-color jokes, and I wonder if Charlie Sheen likes to be spanked. His ass looks firm. I’d love to smack it a few times. There are back-to-back episodes, so we watch for another half hour, drinking and laughing, and pretty soon I’m beginning to feel the beer, my eyes starting to droop.

Agnes turns off the TV and says, “You want to know about Daddy?”

I’m not so excited about it now, feeling tired, but I say, “Sure,” and lean back against the sofa, letting my eyes close.

“He came over to my house while I was at work and Timmy was home. He tried to get Timmy naked and fondle him. When Timmy refused, Daddy threatened to kill him, and to kill me, if Timmy told anyone.”

That makes my eyes open, though I still feel groggy. I can’t believe what she’s saying. Finally, I say, “I didn’t know Daddy was gay.”

Agnes slaps me in the face, hard. I try to sit up, but I can’t. “Why’d you do that?”

Agnes ignores my question. “It took me a while to figure it out,” she says. “How the creep knew about Glen and me, and that Timmy was hiding with Grandma. It had to be you who told him. How convenient that you just happened to be at T & C when he called. You used him, and then fucked him over.”

I try to get up, but I’m feeling heavy. It’s like in a dream, when you can’t move, only this is real.

“Relax,” Agnes says. “The benzodiazepine will put you to sleep shortly. It’ll wear off after only a few hours. It does with the old folks, anyway. The coroner won’t be able to detect it tomorrow morning, or afternoon, or whenever they find you, if there’s an autopsy.”

“An autop…what? Did somebody die?”

“Not yet,” Agnes says. She pries my eyelids open, and I see a hypodermic needle in front of my nose. “The manual says 300 ml of air in the bloodstream can be fatal. This has 500 ml.” She lets my eyelids close. “But don’t worry. It’ll be painless. A heart attack in your sleep.”

I know I should get up, but I can’t move. I feel Agnes lean against me, her breath on my ear.

“As I told Daddy the night he died–nobody threatens my Timmy and gets away with it.”

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright D.W. Moore 2024