The Rocky Road Pact

Chapter 26: Somebody's Watching Me

Explaining things was easy. Sort of.

"I'm sorry, Mr. McNeil. I've been getting crank calls all night." A pause.

"Oh, I see. The wife was worried about the kids when she couldn't get through. Did you blow the whistle in his ear?" A well-known, tried and true remedy for pesky phone assholes. I got the idea myself from my aunt who did the same thing while she was babysitting me when I was a kid.

"Yep," I said with pride.

"Good. Don't be scared, Cassie. It's just some little cheese-dick," he slurred his words a bit. "Sit tight, we'll be home in 20 mins. The wife has a headache." 

Cheese-dick. That was a new one.

I did what I was told, and sat tight, whatever that meant. I checked on the kids again and put the blankets back on Katie; they slid to the floor when she kicked them off in her sleep.

To my relief, the McNeils did arrive in less than 20 minutes, but the relief was short lived. Mr. McNeil was plastered. 

"I'm sorry, Cassie. Dean had one too many," Mrs. McNeil said, shooting her husband a death glare as she fished a twenty out of her purse. "We'll have to call you a cab to get home. We're lucky we survived the trip from the dance without getting wrapped around a pole."

"I'm fine," Mr. McNeil yelled from the living room, where he was stretched out on the couch. "Fit as a fiddle."

"I'll never get a cab at this hour on a Friday night," I muttered, more to myself. I had a very bad feeling I was going to be walking home. All by myself. In the creepy, dark night.

"Well, you'll have to walk home dear. You're just around the corner. It'll be fine," she said. I went to protest, but she was already escorting me out the door, no doubt exhausted from her husband's antics that evening.

Why did people get married again? Why did I want that once?

"Goodnight Cassie. And thanks a million," she said, closing the door. I was out on the step, the money in my hand, just me and the crickets. 

I did live just around the corner and my town was a safe place, generally. Safe in the sense that no one was going to break into your house and steal stuff, or murder you. Everybody knew everybody, if that happened, chances were you knew the guy — it was Johnny from down the road, Karen's son, or the guy who worked at the convenience store, or your cousin. Random crime was very rare. On the other had, if someone had a beef with you, there was a good chance of you getting your clock cleaned.

And I had two people after me — Tommy's insane girlfriend and the cheese-dick on the phone. Maybe they were related; she put someone she knew up to it. 

A light summer wind stirred the trees. It was a warm night, but I was cold; shivering all over as if if it was the middle of February. The events of the night spooked me and I couldn't get home fast enough, seeing dark shadows behind every lamp post and bush. Waiting for the grim reaper to jump out at me from every corner, or worse — a homicidal girlfriend scared you were out to take her man. Growing up in my town, they were a far worse threat than any maniac movie slasher. 

Two cop cars sped by me then, lights flashing. They scared the bejesus out of me. Something's going on in town, I thought. You never see two. A third went by a few moments later and I started to worry. Maybe there was a homicidal maniac prowling around town. That was when I booked it.

My speed-walking turned to running. I could see the light over the door of my house in the distance. I jumped a bush in the neighbour's yard and called upon my track and field experience to moderate my breathing while I ran like a bat out of hell. 

Finally, I was home. I burst through the door, scaring the shit out of my mother.

"Christ in a sidecar! What are you doing, Cassie?" she said, clutching her chest.

For a God-fearing seaside town where most folks were in church on Sunday, it never failed to amaze me how inventive they were at taking the Lord's name in vain. Startle someone a bit, or say something that shocked them, and you're liable to hear Jumping Jesus, Christ on a cracker, Christ in a sidecar, the ever-popular Jesus H. Christ (I wondered what his middle name would be — Henry?), Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and on and on. It didn't strike me as blasphemous; just that sometimes you had to look to the heavens and call upon the saints to bear witness to  this ridiculous life on earth.  'Do you believe this shit?' is what we're saying. Most of us in town had  Irish Catholic roots, I think it came from there.

The funniest I'd ever heard was "Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey. Can we move it along?" That one came from Father Jake one Sunday morning when people weren't exiting the church service fast enough and he wanted to go play poker on the Northside.

But even my mother couldn't put me in a bad mood. I was home, and not murdered. I went up to bed, realizing I'd made double what I thought tonight because the McNeils felt bad about not driving me home. I snapped on the light in my room and put the twenty in my jewellery box. Grabbing some pyjamas, I went into my bathroom and took a hot shower, tucking my hair into a shower cap. Washing my hair was an ordeal; it was so long and thick, it took forever to dry and if I went to bed with it wet, I woke up looking like a tumbleweed. 

The shower revitalized me and warmed me up. Fresh and clean in my jammies, I tucked into bed and snapped on Friday NIght Videos. There were new videos tonight from some of my favourites — the Eurythmics, ZZ Top and Madonna.

The room was hot, so I flipped the covers off and let one leg dangle over the bed, swinging it as I watched TV. Safe in my bed, I wondered why I got so freaked out babysitting. The crank caller was probably Moose and those idiots, they were somewhere laughing it up at this moment. I made a mental note to punch Moose in the head the next time I saw him.

My eyes fluttered closed and the sound of the TV faded into the distance when I felt the cold hand reach out from under the bed and grab my foot.