​
​
​
Alarm Clock
"Try not to look so morose,” Dr. Wilbur said.
“Your diet’s not bad, but you simply must quit drinking alcohol and begin exercising.”
Dr. Wilbur wasn’t telling Frances anything she didn’t already know.
The doctor sighed. “Your alanine liver test is way out of range,” he said. “I mean it is high,” his eyebrows went all the way up to emphasize high, “but not high enough to indicate cirrhosis. We’ll run more tests, but as of this test it looks more like fatty liver territory.”
Frances was quiet.
“You’re on the border, Frances. If you stop drinking now, your liver should repair itself. But there comes a point—and soon—when it cannot be repaired. Liver failure means getting on the waiting list for a transplant. I’ll say it again: you must quit drinking.”
Frances remained quiet.
Dr. Wilbur continued his sermon. “Now, alcohol use disorder is a fairly common thing. Especially with all the doom and gloom in the news. People use it to escape. Many habitual drinkers damage their organs and don’t even know until it’s too late. I’ve seen it all before, sad to say. The hole you’re in only gets deeper until you stop digging.”
“Okay,” Frances said, looking at her sneakers. New Balance. The right one looked as though the laces might be about to come untied.
“Truth is,” her doctor seemed to be enjoying this, “how many homeless outside do you suppose are pushing a shopping cart up and down 2nd Avenue and begging for change to buy their next bottle of rotgut whiskey? While still telling themselves it’s just a phase?”
“Okay,” Frances said again, her voice low, “I hear you.”
“Swap out your evening drinks for some lemon water or cranberry juice. Try going for a morning walk.”
“Okay,” Frances said again, as though evening drinks alone were the extent of it. She wanted out of Dr. Wilbur’s tiny office. The fluorescents were too bright.
“I’ve ordered another round of blood work a month out,” Dr. Wilbur said, heading for the door of the little room. He turned and offered Frances a professional smile. “In the meantime, call the office if the pains in your side get worse, okay?”
“Okay,” Frances repeated.
Outside, the September sun was even brighter than the fluorescents.
Frances had left her Solara in the parking garage. She made her way down the sidewalk slowly, thinking of her poor abused liver. Her fatty liver. Not yet scarred with cirrhosis, only fatty… surely, it could handle one more drink? Two, tops? It was, after all, Friday afternoon.
The walk back to the parking garage took her past Jerry’s Sports Bar and a thick aroma of fried food and barbecue. A glance through the front windows revealed two giant flat screens mounted up high in the dimly lit bar, the same baseball game displayed on both screens. Before she could look away… Row after row of endless bottles lined the back of the bar.
She wanted to swing the doors open, step inside the mingling food smells and escape the sunlight. She wanted her own little table with a bowl of ice cubes, coasters waiting for that glass o’ buzz almost as much as she was, bowl of pretzels or cashews and an approaching waiter, “What’ll you have today, ma’am?”
She wanted it more than she had words to express.
Frances picked up her pace and continued down the sidewalk.
She happened to glance into the alleyway behind Jerry’s. A row a tattered tents lined the exterior wall of the sports bar. The tents filled the alley all the way down to the dumpsters. Too many tents to count—an ugly collage of various faded colors. Clotheslines draped with filthy rags. Puddles of piss on the asphalt. The sound of someone vomiting in one of the tents. A sewage stench mixing with that of fried food.
Dr. Wilbur’s words echoed in her mind: How many homeless pushing shopping carts up and down 2nd Ave, begging for change to buy rotgut whiskey… rotgut whiskey… rotgut…
And that was her moment. Her feet stopped moving. On the heels of the lecture from her doctor, the sight of the tent-choked alleyway was too much. It was a sign.
Frances made the decision.
She would use the drinking money in her purse to buy vegetables instead. Some god almighty blueberries. Avocados. A goddamn yoga mat. Hell, she would start exercising today.
Her feet found their rhythm again, and she hurried away from the alley.
When Frances came to the parking garage she realized she wasn’t in a rush. She opted for a brisk lap around the parking structure. She had earmarked three twenties as tonight’s drinking money, and if she had to fork over a little extra for parking, so be it.
Ten minutes later, she opted for a second lap. As she walked she made a mental list of simple exercise gear to start shopping for. Dumbells. Stationary bike. Sports bras.
It occurred to her how similar linguistically “sports bra” was to “sports bar”. That made her think of those rows of bottles. Her new motivation had been the sight of Tent Alley, and so she thrust the thought away.
On her third lap she began another mental shopping list. This one, all things kitchen and healthy cooking. Steamer. Slow cooker. Tuppeware containers for leftovers. New blender (her current one had begun emitting a burnt-motor smell from too many late night margaritas… chopping ice cubes was hard work for most blenders).
It was on her fourth lap when she happened to spot a sign on the other side of E Street:
JUDY'S ANTIQUES
Thinking tea kettles and cast iron skillets, Frances jogged across E Street. Huffing and puffing, sweat shining on her brow, Frances swung open the glass door and entered the antique shop.
***
Thirty minutes later she emerged from Judy’s Antiques with a smile. Not only had she found a shiny copper tea kettle, but a set of vintage wooden spice containers, ceramic pestle and mortar for grinding herbs, and a retro alarm clock.
She had bought the alarm clock almost as an afterthought, thinking it would be handy for timing recipes and exercises… and for getting up extra early. It was a bright sparkly silver and had a round face. On the top of the clock perched a row of what had once been seven spade-shaped appendages, like sun rays. Rise and shine and all that. The one on the far right was broken off, making the clock a knock off. Frances had bought it for a only a buck.
Once back home Frances put her purchases on the kitchen counter. She inserted a fresh 9-volt battery into the alarm clock and immediately heard a faint ticking sound. She set the time by the oven clock, debating how early she’d get up in the morning to begin her new healthy lifestyle.
She made her way to the bedroom, setting the alarm for 5am. Tomorrow was Saturday, and if she went around much of the day a little sleepy, a little sore, she’d just have to endure it.
Frances had one more little chore to take care of before bed.
Feeling a little absurd, she poured alcohol down the kitchen sink. An unopened fifth of Jameson. Two bottles of Merlot. A liter of Crown. A handle of Sky.
As she listened to the gurgle and splash of liquid running from bottle to drain, she thought, there goes $25, there goes $15, there goes another $25.
She emptied bottles until there was no alcohol left in her house. When she was done, her kitchen garbage bin would’ve made a fine photo ad for a recycling center. Lots of glass bottles.
She put on a nightgown, clicked off the ceiling light and got into bed.
Laying there and looking up into the dark she replayed events of the day. The bad news at the doctor. The wave of revolt she’d felt gazing into Tent Alley. Walking laps around the parking garage. That had winded her, but hadn’t it also felt good to work up a sweat?
She thought so.
Now here she was, beginning a new chapter.
Frances closed her eyes, feeling good.
***
At 4:59 the next morning, the house was pitch black and as silent as the moon.
If you were to glide soundlessly through her house at that minute, you’d be able to see very little. You might just make out her bedroom curtains in the faintest orange glow of a distant street light. Her house had that delicate pre-dawn PAUSE of a home waiting for the sun, waiting for its inhabitant to wake.
Frances hadn’t awoken once during the night.
At 5am a ghostly white light clicked on, illuminating the face of Frances’s new alarm clock.
A low droning sound began deep within its old gears, like a turntable struggling up to 33 rpm. It sped up, and within seconds the little clock was emitting a most disturbing, out-of-tune non-melody. If there was any semblance of musical intonation to that sound, it was of no pitch structure known to man.
It was melodic insanity.
There was a small click, and the sound looped back to the beginning, like a scratched record, and started again. It was during the second loop when Frances’s eyelids opened.
But they only opened halfway.
There was no life in those eyes.
Slowly she sat up, the top sheet rolling lazily off her chest. She got to her feet and made her way mechanically around the bed to the night stand.
CLICK - the demonic loop with its alien undertones began yet again.
Her left arm extended, the hand wrapping around one of the spades atop the alarm clock. The hand squeezed. Blood immediately ran down her hand and dripped to the floor. Her hand jerked, and the spade snapped free of the clock.
A minute later, a woman in a nightgown holding something in her bloody left hand exited the house.
She strode like a sleepwalker, eyes at half-mast, down the street and into the early morning dark.
***
Detective Norton was so burned out he often felt like a robot stuck in a loop circuit.
They’d been at the woman’s house all night.
Toxicology reports would undoubtedly come back and validate what Norton already knew. Another booze-fueled killing spree. This shit wasn’t rocket science. The woman’s kitchen garbage was, after all, loaded to the brim with a variety of empty bottles.
It was Norton’s job to nail down a motive, only here was the other thing he already knew: the booze-soaked mind often had no motive. Booze made people go as crazy as meth. Only meth also made them paranoid enough to still be cautious. Booze made caution fly right out the window.
No one knew these things as well as a cop.
She’d no doubt been so drunk she hadn’t felt the spike from her bedside clock slice her hand open. Out the door, half mile up the street to the 7/11. That’s where the massacre had happened. Five dead, including the clerk. Six if you counted the murdering drunk.
The murder weapon had been no gun, no machete, but a small spike from the bedside clock. After stabbing everyone in the store, she’d planted the spike into her own neck.
For detective Norton, that was the only interesting thing about it—the murder weapon. There were plenty of knives in the woman’s kitchen.
Now, looking at the drops of dried blood in the carpet beside her bed, he reminded himself: booze made people crazy.
Norton sat down on the woman’s bed. He was tired. Two more years and he could retire.
He listened to the sounds of the other detectives in the kitchen. They were dusting for fingerprints. They were taking samples for forensics. They were having the same conversations over and over.
Norton’s eye caught the sight of the clock with it’s missing spikes. The far left one, gone. Far right one, gone. Five remaining spikes sticking up like electrocuted hair.
He had time to wonder, what had happened with the other missing spike?
But that was when 4:59 turned into 5:00.
For a brief moment Detective Norton heard a sound come from the clock… a horrible sound, a DREADFUL sound. A sound no living being on the planet had ever heard.
Norton’s eyes glazed.
The eyelids drooped.
There was no life in those eyes.
Slowly he stood. His right arm extended, his hand wrapping around one of the spades atop the alarm clock. The hand squeezed. Blood ran down his hand and dripped to the floor. His hand jerked, and the spade snapped free of the clock.
CLICK - the demonic loop with its alien undertones began again.
A man with a bloody right hand strode like a sleepwalker down the hallway and into the kitchen.
​