Posted by splay on October 23, 1999 at 05:43:06:
Second Chance
Everybody knew about the girl in 47D. She wasn't really a girl, though-about 24, and built like the dancer she was. Her face was so sweet and pretty, though, that we called her the girl in 47D anyway. She was kind of small, too.
Me and the other maintenance men never said one word to her unless we had work to do in her apartment, and even then it was "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am." It was probably better not to get tangled up with a tenant, especially an exotic dancer. Girls like that are trouble.
Anyway, one day I let myself into her apartment after lunch to finish a job I'd started the week before fixing the folding door on her bedroom closet. The parts had come in, so there I was inside the closet finishing up the floor plate, and I started thinking about her. I sat down on the closet floor and leaned back against the wall for a little while with the accordion door pulled almost to, and I guess I was tired, and the beer I had at lunch, and the darkness and quiet in there with all those coats and dresses to muffle the sound and the nice smell of her... well, I guess I fell asleep.
I was jarred awake by the sound of her front door slamming. She stormed into the bedroom cursing under her breath and tore off the sweatsuit she always wore home from a gig and threw it on the bed. Underneath she was wearing her costume, a sort of French maid getup in black velvet and white lace. Her feet were bare because she always left her shoes on the mat outside. Her long black hair was pinned up, and she still had on her stage makeup with the white skin and the red lips and the false eyelashes on her green eyes. She couldn't see me in the dark corner of the closet because it was so bright in the room from the sun on the closed blinds. I didn't dare move, because I wasn't scheduled to be there that day, and I would have lost my job if anybody found out I was entering apartments on my own, especially hers. She looked very angry and sad at the same time, and she stood there with her hands on her hips fuming for a minute, glaring at the floor off to one side. Then she whirled on one foot and left the room. I could hear her rummaging and banging things in the kitchen. Maybe I can slip out now while she's busy in the kitchen, I thought, and I was just thinking about getting to my feet when she came back with something silvery in her hand.
I froze and watched her then. She strode to the corner of the room and got an old chair, one of those cane chairs you see with the criss-crossed woven wicker stuff for a seat. She brought it over in the middle of the room and slammed it down, then she climbed up and stood on it, reaching up to take down the swag lamp she had hanging there. She couldn't quite reach the heavy ornamental hook in the ceiling, so she took hold of the chain it hung by and yanked at it in fury until a link stretched out and it came off the hook, then she flung the lamp against the far wall. Now I saw what she had in her hand. It looked like a dog's leash, made of the same kind of smooth chain they use for a choke collar--not a big, heavy one like for a boxer and not a skinny little cat leash, either. It was for a smallish dog. She had chopped the leather handgrip off it in the kitchen, and the clasp at the other end was missing, so it had a small steel ring at both ends.
I couldn't believe what she did next. She held one of the rings and let the chain snake down through it, making a loop in one end. She put this loop over her head and pulled it snug around her neck, then she reached up with the other end and tried to put the ring on the hook in the ceiling. She was just a tiny bit too short first try, so she impatiently readjusted the noose as high around her neck as it would go and held it tight while she strained on tiptoe with the ring in her fingertips, and she just managed to slip it over the hook. There was some slack when she was done, somehow, and she could stand on the chair without choking herself too much. Her anger seemed to have faded a bit now that she was ready, and she tried to look determined as she bent her knees a little with her hands flared out at her sides as if to keep her balance, and the chain noose took up until I could see she was straining. She inched her feet toward the front edge of the chair and stopped there for a full minute with the chain pulling at her neck and her eyes squeezed shut like when you aren't sure you want to jump in a cold pool. Then she stood up abruptly and stepped back and began to cry with her face in her hands.
She cried for a little while, then she looked down at herself, sniffling and wiping her tears away. She plucked at the bra of her costume and snapped the waistband of the tiny skirt and gave a grim little sobbing laugh. She heaved a long, shuddering sigh, then she looked up along the chain around her neck to the ring on its hook at the ceiling, and stood on tiptoe to take it down. She couldn't quite reach it, and she was still fiddling with it and tottering a little when her feet broke through the wicker seat.
She dropped only a few inches before the chain around her neck snapped straight, with a thump that shook the room and a quick ratcheting noise as the choke chain tightened hard and then stopped buried in the flesh of her neck with the steel ring almost in front. Her hands got to the chain just as it hanged her, and she gripped it and pulled like she was trying to climb it, but her hands were slipping on the smooth chromed steel, and she couldn't reach the hook at all now. That was a shame, because she looked strong enough to pull herself up otherwise. Her ankles had gotten caught in the wicker when she tried to get her feet back up on the chair, and she actually picked the chair up with her foot before kicking it free. Lucky for her, it landed on its side right under her, but she couldn't see it there, because the way she was hanging she couldn't look down at all. She felt around frantically with her toes, though, and found it right away, but it was a lot shorter now, on its side, and it only took a little of her weight as she got the balls of her feet on it. It all happened so quickly I didn't have time to think.
So there she was, half hanging by her neck, standing on her toes two feet off the floor on a wobbly, tipped-over chair. I thought she might be able to get herself down, so I waited. At least she could breathe a little now, and she did, panting in fear, in through her nose and out through sputtering lips. She tried to look around the best she could with the chain tight around her neck holding her head back at an angle, but no matter how far she rolled her eyes, she couldn't see much, and she couldn't see anything that would help her. This made her even more afraid, and she began to whimper. She hadn't let go of the chain, and she stood there holding on to it for dear life, strangling and crying for a minute, every now and then quickly taking a new, higher grip on the ramrod-straight chain that wouldn't let her neck go.
She finally calmed down a little and stood there just breathing raspily for a few seconds. Then she tried getting a good grip on the chain with one hand and reaching up with the other to see if she could get it off the hook in the ceiling, but her fingernails only just clicked at the ring. She tried a little lunge while flicking at it. This threw her off balance, and she desperately grabbed the chain again with both hands as she swung in a tight circle, knees bent a little, with the balls of her feet still on the fallen chair. The choke chain gave a few "thunks" as it notched tighter, and when she got herself together again it thunked back to where it had been, almost. It looked tighter now than before, and she let go with one hand and felt all around her neck, picking at the noose with her fingernails, craning her neck and moving her head trying to loosen it a little if she could. No good. She wobbled and quickly clutched the chain again. Her face was looking purplish-red through her makeup by this time, and her deep, slow breathing was making a husky, throaty noise. She tried to yell "Help me," but it only came out a hoarse whisper. She started to panic again now, because her legs were trembling from standing on her toes for so long and she was probably starting to feel strangled. Her arms were getting shaky, too, but she knew she had to give her calf muscles a rest soon, so she let go with both hands and dropped her arms to her sides, shaking her hands to get some blood back into them, even though when she did this the chair wobbled and she had to use the chain around her neck to keep her balance. When her arms felt good enough, she grabbed the chain again, took a deep breath and held on with all her might while she slowly adjusted her feet a little at a time, the noose notching tighter by several links while she was doing this, until she was standing with her arches on the rim of the chair seat.
It seemed like she couldn't breathe at all standing that way, but she wanted to rest her legs as much as she could, so she stayed there awhile, letting the choke chain strangle her, jerking a little sometimes when she had to fight the urge to get back on her toes and stop hanging herself. Soon her grip on the chain began to loosen, and her hands slid gradually down until her fingers were only draped over the stiff chain where it had her at the throat under her jawline. She was making a strangled, animal moaning sound, and her tongue was lolling way out and sliding from one side of her mouth to the other like she was trying to lick her own neck. Then her fingers spread out, and she stroked at her throat. She seemed to be lovingly touching her neck where the chain was tight around it, and she almost looked like she was smiling. I thought she was going to be all right.
Suddenly she went rigid. She grabbed the chain again and fought to get back on tiptoe, but she missed her footing, making the chair roll. Her feet slipped off, and she was hanging by the neck again, but this time she was so panicky that she kicked the chair away. Now she knew she was a goner, and the knowledge seemed to focus her mind. She stopped kicking and hung there stiffly, slowly revolving, holding on to the hard chain, with her neck stretched and her back arched and her legs straight and spread. Her toes were pointed. She had ahold of the chain the other way this time, thumbs toward her, and her fists had slid down right up against her throat. She was pulling hard with her hands, but they weren't so much lifting her weight, they were snugging the chain on her neck even more like the knot on a hangman's noose. From time to time she would lurch a little. She was drooling. This all didn't last too long because the chain was strangling her fast now that she was really hanging for good, and instinct took over. She let go with her hands, letting the noose have all her weight, and flung her arms wide, feeling around for something to grab onto and working her legs like she was riding a tricycle. Then she tried again to get her fingers under the chain buried in her neck, kicking and wriggling like a fish on a line, spinning like a ballerina.
I had decided by this time that things had gone too far, and if she saw me now I'd wind up talking to the police, so I waited for her to pass out. She started slowing down; she seemed tired. Her hands left her throat and began to wander and gesture emptily. Her thrashing had left her swinging a little as she slowly spun first one way, then the other, like she was searching for something. I could hear the gritty sound of the steel ring grating against the hook. She gently laid her fingers on the taut chain that was hanging her, and she dreamily let her fingernails click down the links, seeming to be feeling for the vibration in the steel that she could no doubt feel all through her body right down to her toes--she quivered with each click. Her eyes were wide open and half-crossed and her tongue was clenched in her teeth, sort of blue. She drew her knees up and pressed her arms to her chest with her fingers splayed out oddly, then she kicked hard straight down once with her heels, trying to lighten the weight on the noose if only for a fraction of a second, I guess. The chain notched another link tighter on her neck when she kicked, and her eyes grew wider. She kicked like that several times, at first more frenzied, and then sort of absent-mindedly, the chain thunking tighter and tighter each time, until on the last feeble kick her arms suddenly dropped limp to her sides and she hung there unconscious. The circle of chain around her neck had become incredibly small. There was just a glint of silver to be seen in the deep furrow around her stretched-out neck as she hung there relaxed now, thoroughly strangled, staring up at nothing. Hot urine ran down her legs all over her feet and spattered on the floor.
She never found out how she survived. That big hook screwed into the ceiling joist should never have pulled out under her slight weight, and the fall should have left her damaged somehow. It must have seemed like a miracle to her. I didn't see her again for a few weeks, then I spotted her early one morning getting into her car, dressed nice like for work and looking happier than I ever had seen her. I guess she got whatever it was out of her system.