chapter 131

word count: 1675

the dim light that seeped in around the edges of the tightly drawn shade made trudy wonder if it was morning or evening.. she had lost all concept of time,, and in the sparsely furnished room  in which she found herself there was definitely no clock.. in fact,, she didn’t see a single electrical appliance.. even the lamp was an old hurricane lamp,, the kind her grandmother had had back in the day in her ornately furnished ‘parlor’.. 

well if there was one thing trudy knew for sure,, whatever that was they had her drinking last night had really kicked her ass.. she made a mental note to try and make off with some if at all possible when she left outta this place.. a couple of sips,, and blotto!!! that kind of thing could come in handy for a girl about town like trudy.. 

“oh shit!” she said aloud,, but not so loud that the nuns might hear her,, as she reflected on the reason she was there in the first place.. here she was,, supposed to be ‘reformed’,, and then she goes and jumps in the first car with the first guy that she came across!!!

“and how'd that work out for ya??” she asked herself as she snuggled back into the soft feather bed and pulled the down comforter over her head..

“uuuggghhh!!” she moaned.. it was all too much to wrap her mind around right this minute.. who was that guy?? was he like some serial killer or did he have it out for her in particular?? how could he?? she had never laid eyes on him before,, well as far as she could remember anyway.. however,, if the truth be told there were more than a few faces she had failed to be able to remember over the course of the last few years.. 

trudy reconsidered her commitment to changing her ways.. on one hand had she stuck with her new found ideals,, she would have never gotten into that car.. but on the other hand,, nothing like that had ever happened to her before.. sure there was a long list of guys she wished she had never hopped into bed with,, but had this thing worked out the way she had originally planned,, she doubted the guy that ended up taking more than a couple of shots at her would have been one of them..

tall, good looking,, built like a brick shit house,, and that hair.. that thick black italian kinda hair,, all neatly slicked back like it was.. she kind of trembled just thinking about him.. 

“what the fuck is wrong with me??” she asked herself, not really expecting a reply..  

“that asshole tried to kill me!! and i’m here wondering what it would have been like to be trapped beneath that chiseled frame, staring into those beautiful black almond eyes.. there is something really fucking wrong with me!!” she admitted to herself, as she nestled down deeper in the folds of the soft feather bed.. 

in the distance she heard the ringing of what sounded like a small bell,, followed by the hum of what could easily be mistaken for some kind of chanting.. 

the light that had been peeping in the about the edges of the shade were dimming.. it was evening.. she had slept the whole day away.. 

and then it hit her!! vespers!! the bell,, the chant like prayers,, she hadn’t heard them in years,, but it was all coming back to her now.. the nuns that over saw the dormitory at that abortion of a catholic school her mother had sent her too,, they said vespers every night at dusk too.. in fact it was the only time she was ever able to sneak away and catch a smoke without having to worry about one of them hunting her down and punishing her with a string of hail mary’s and our fathers, and whatever the hell else they called the rest of those mindless prayers.. 

trudy’s first thought was to wait it out.. they would be going to bed soon.. she could sneak out while they were sleeping,, and they would be none the wiser.. but then she remembered those medicinal spirits,, and how much she wanted to get her hands on some of them before she made her great escape.. 

escape to where?? she had nowhere to go.. no one cared.. in fact no one had probably even noticed she was missing..  fuck them all!! buzz, gil, john!! where were any of them when she really needed them??

“useless pieces of meat!” she muttered under her breath as she sat bolted upright with disgust.. it was all their fault.. all their fault she was in this mess.. all their fault that she had been gotten over on by simone.. the very sound of that name made trudy’s skin crawl..

oh but she would get her,, she would tell the cops everything she knew about simone’s devotion to brenda, and how simone had admitted to her in intricate detail that she had every intention of poisoning gil that night at her apartment.. oh yeah.. in that she was secure,, she had simone by the short hairs.. 

as her blood reached the boiling point,, she realized she had to pee,, and that meant leaving this cozy little nook and actually facing the sisters somewhere along the line.. 

“a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.” she told herself as she pulled her form fitting black lace dress back down where it belonged and headed for the door..  maybe she’d get lucky and she could hit the head without being noticed.. maybe the sisters would be so wrapped up in the saying of their vespers,, they wouldn’t even notice she had come out of her room at all.. 

she crept silently to the door,, and opened it with great caution so as to not make any noise.. however as soon as she stepped on the glossy hard wood floor just outside her bedroom door it gave way with an unmistakable creaking sound.. 

“damn these old houses!!”

her cover blown,, she made her way down the dimly lit hall,, and seeing no bathroom along the way,, she sought out the sisters.. 

she found them in what could have only been an old gothic chapel.. all smooth stone and hard wood kneelers.. the door had been left open,, and she watched them for a moment as they recited their vesper prayers from memory..

“such devotion..” she thought silently to herself.. “what else could cause a bunch of old ladies to kneel on those hard wooden kneelers every night.” 

as she was wondering just how painful that must have been, on their old knees,, one of the sisters she recognized as having been in the car when they picked her up on the side of the road, rose silently, expertly genuflected in front of the massive antique crucifix that dominated the small altar,, turned toward trudy,, and silently made her way out into the hall.. the remaining sisters never missed a beat..

as she stepped into the hallway,, the sister silently pulled the chapel door closed behind her,, took trudy by the arm and lead her into the spacious kitchen before she spoke.. 

“we were wondering when you were going to join us.. i’m sister esther,, you may remember me from last night.. of course you had had quite a day before we crossed paths so i wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.. welcome to our humble home.. we are the sisters of mercy.. a small cloister to be sure,, but somewhat successful in our own right as well..” she carried on as trudy just took it all in.. 

“we are almost completely self-sufficient here,, in fact if we hadn’t been running low on coal oil for the lamps,, we two might never have crossed paths.. thanks be to god that we did!!” 

sister esther’s face just glowed with pride as she went on to tell trudy a short history of the cloister,, and explained to her that they were sisters,, not really nuns at all,, as they ministered to the community thru charitable acts like feeding the poor from their vast gardens,, taking in lost souls or more often than not people that just had nowhere else to go,, and serving as tutors to the many children that would have otherwise fallen thru the cracks of the public school system..  had they been nuns,, she explained they would have found their calling strictly within the confines of the church,, and not involve themselves with the non-catholic community.. 

“but there will be more than enough time to expound on all that.” sister esther cut herself off.. 

“what is of real importance now is that we get you something to eat,, and change the dressing on your wounds..”

“hey,” trudy piped in quickly, as this had been  the first break in sister esther’s monologue since she had encountered her at the door of the chapel. “you gotta bathroom around here somewhere i could use??”

“why certainly..” answered sister esther with a warm smile,, as she lead trudy to the rear door of the kitchen,, lighted the wick on an old glass and metal lantern, and opened wide the door.. 

“you will find it directly at the end of this cobblestone path.. the facilities are not luxurious by any means,, but functional.. oh yes.. that they are..”

“this is totally not happening!” trudy said to herself as soon as sister esther closed the kitchen door behind her.. 

“i am not walking down a cobblestone path, barefoot, in the middle of the night, to use a freaking outhouse!!” 

“oh yes you are!!” she answered herself aloud as she allowed herself to break out in a sincere fit of heartfelt laughter.. it occurred to her, as she held the lantern at arm’s length and tentatively entered the pitch black outhouse,, that it had been a long time since she had laughed like that.. a real long time.. too long.. 

hey, maybe this wasn’t gonna be such a bad experience after all..