Midnight Transgressions

The bathroom door slammed and startled Chloe from her sleep. In the half awake, half dreaming disposition bred from sleep disruption, she bravely emerged from underneath her bed covers and confronted whatever she confidently thought lurked behind the door. Nothing there. With courage she could only find in her almost sedated state, she shrugged it off. Quickly, she returned to bed with no thought about the who’s, why’s, and what’s that usually surfaced and plagued her into fear if she were fully awake during such an incident.

Morning came, and still, she did not think about the midnight’s transgressions. Instead, it was smoke a bowl. Go for a hike. Get to work. Weird encounters like the night before had prevailed in her life since she could remember. Her mother sat with her until she fell asleep when she was in elementary school because of moments like the night before. In childhood, she saw a lady floating down the hall in the middle of the night. It traumatized her so much she started crying in the cafeteria the next day. Even in adulthood, she could remember the frantic, paralyzing terror she endured hiding under the covers in a cold sweat, waiting for the lady to pass. Yet, there were other, comforting recollections of being tucked in and patted to sleep by phantoms in her childhood home.

Ghosts seemed to follow Chloe wherever she went. From childhood to mid-twenties, the specters followed in a formless fashion, just beyond reach, but still present as a peripheral, subconscious reminder of what lies beyond accepted and formally recognized senses. That same dormant knowledge cracked opened as she sliced lemons, and her work’s chef chatted about how the ghosts residing in the restaurant left the trash cans in front of the door again.

“I mean, this is the oldest building in town. You ever been in the basement near the closed-off tunnel? It was part of the Underground Railroad,” Dave tried to convince without knowing Chloe didn’t require persuasion.

“Yea, yea, creepy,” she replied trying to focus on the knife blade slicing the lemons and relishing the feeling of control as the juice ran into the cutting board.

“I think they are just playing a joke, ya know…like, ‘Hey, we’re here.’ I know where I put those trash cans when I locked up last night.”

“Yea, I hear ya,” Chloe agreed without eye contact, closing off Dave, although all he truly wanted was to talk to her. This discussion about the ghosts where she worked and what happened the night before weighed on her, making her retreat into quiet isolation. It was the night before and the night before that, and the apartment before that. It was the eerie feeling that grew every time she not just looked at but felt the cellar door near her work station…like a child was crying with an underlying sinister motive echoing behind what was already so acutely faint. Albeit, the trailer she lived in a few years ago wasn’t so bad, she thought. It was that run-down farmhouse in which she grew up: idyllic from the outside, but terrifying. It was her whole life, she frantically concluded while any outsider would observe she was peacefully slicing lemons.

Haunted was her life. At this point, she couldn’t get away. They were where she lived and where she worked. She needed both’s stability to be the “proper adult” she desperately thought others expected of her. She hadn’t quite shaken her scandalous past three years. Much like the ghosts, her ill reputation followed and desperately vexed her.

Home and a job. The basics were there but terrified upon realizing the smoky, threatening grasp of the unknown spiritual realm, she didn’t want them. She wanted to be free of the ghosts, not of the responsibility of being a productive person. Reduced to the realization she must continue to be an adult despite these dreadful feelings, she continued to cut lemons. Each slice was cut in anguish and sheer resentment for not knowing why she was exposed to such spiritual natures as others laid blind to the workings of God, the universe, the underworld, or whatever you call it, she thought. Overhearing a conversation from a table as she worked her shift made her think more.

“Ya know, they say what you see is only 75 percent of what is going on. There is all this spiritual stuff happening you can’t see. God took away Joshua’s filter. He could see it all…all the activity.”

What is God? Who is God? She grew up Catholic, but never felt the faith others imposed on her. Chloe’s dread sunk in as her shift ended. Despite her work’s bar having an air of a constant, invisible drinker, a shift beer with Dave seemed more appealing than returning home alone to those other invisible forces.

“Maybe you should slow down,” Dave concern surfaced as Chloe’s beer turned into four.

“Dude, I’m good. I just don’t feel like going home. We should go to Ted’s. They’re open ’til two tonight,” she suggested in a procrastinating hope that maybe she wouldn’t have to go to her home that night…perhaps she could go home with Dave.

Ted’s was the perfect place for Chloe to escape her ghosts and relapse into her past self of irresponsibility, freedom, and substance abuse. As she walked into the seedy bar, mostly everybody greeted her and asked where she had been. She alluded these questions with smiling, hugging, and introducing Dave. Some time passed with shots and the usual vulgarities that inhabit a small town’s sports bar at 12 a.m. on a Wednesday. Dave’s concern for Chloe increased as her eyes became half-open and her speech became slow but louder. One thing that did perk her up was a handsome tattooed man who walked in and quickly made his way to the bathroom before reemerging into the bar looking lit up.

“Yo, Dan,” she called him over once he was in closer proximity to her.

“Hey, girl, where you been?”

“Eh, around. What you getting into tonight?” she replied turning her back to Dave and unknowingly sparking jealousy in him.

“Just coming in here to see who’s out. Why? You wanna come over for old times’ sake?” Dan confidently asked with a grin, already knowing what the answer would be.

“Yea, let’s go. Do you have any… What Dave?” Chloe couldn’t finish her sentence because Dave firmly grabbed her arm.

Dave took her slightly to the side so Dan couldn’t hear and carefully whispered loudly over the pounding music, “Chloe, you are trashed. As your friend, I cannot let you go with this guy. You’re barely alive right now.”

“Well, then, can I go home with you?” she replied.

“No, I’m a gentleman. I’m walking you home,” Dave’s voice of reason somehow made it through the thickness of Chloe’s drunken state. This condition, though, momentarily made her forget what she feared at home.

It was a 20-minute walk to Chloe’s apartment. Half-way there was Dave’splace. She assured him she would be okay getting the rest of the way home herself, “There’s no boogie man out here. C’mon, this ain’t a ghetto. Where in this cow town is there a ghetto? The most ghetto it gets is at Ted’s, and we were already there.”

Dave didn’t feel like arguing with Chloe. He didn’t like where their night together had gone. Disappointment and booze drained him. He said goodnight and sulked to his front door.

Chloe continued home solo, staggering, and numb. She walked up to her apartment building’s steps and searched her purse for her keys. A downpour of rain instantaneously crashed down like a curtain of water and segmented the porch she stood on and the lawn.

“Somebody’s looking out for me,” she slurred out loud to herself with a laugh. She continued into her apartment. Crashed out on her unmade bed, she texted Dave in her last effort to stay awake, “I’m sorry.” As her already vague consciousness faded into sleep, she heard a woman’s voice in the same room singing a comforting, unknown lullaby of old origin.

Although this song did not faze her while she fell asleep, Chloe woke up the next morning startled and confused. “It never ends,” she thought. She angrily undressed and went over the events of the night before. The shower knob screeched with her frantic turn of the wrist. The water felt good on her. She envisioned washing away her shame about her behavior. She hoped Dave wasn’t mad at her. She hoped the lady singing wasn’t real.

Feeling refreshed and calm from her unhurried daily shower, she went to her bathroom mirror. Every day she wiped off the steam so she could see herself as she brushed her teeth. It was a pointless habit, but she enjoyed looking at herself. Chloe froze, could barely breathe, much less wipe off the mirror. A heart that resembled the drawing skills of a child was already traced in the mirror. Creeped out beyond her own comprehension, a small voice in her head, the only thing that made sense said, “Pray.”

Without reflection on what that meant, Chloe went to her bedside and got on her knees. Humbled in her towel and damp hair, she prayed out loud, “God, I am sorry for losing You all these years. I accept Jesus as my Savior.” She wept for a moment. Somewhere from her childhood memories filled with ghosts and forced religion, The Lord’s Prayer found its way out of her lips to God’s ears.