CW: sexual harassment and manipulation
“There's going to be a rally,” Trent sat in front of Anthony's desk in the basement office at Osaka-Ya. He gripped his knees and looked around the office nervously. It was a cramped office, dark like the rest of the basement, lit by a single uncovered bulb in the center over the desk. There were filing cabinets lining the walls behind Anthony and the desk was piled with paperwork. It looked like tax returns and financial statements for the restaurant—a pile of receipts threatened to topple over the edge of the desk and onto the floor. Trent thought that perhaps it wouldn't matter if they did, it didn't look like they were in any sort of order anyway. Apparently running a restaurant was secondary to the running of a cult. “Next weekend, I guess.”
Anthony nodded and turned to his computer and opened a new tab in his browser. Trent glanced at the screen, there were several tabs open and multiple browsers. Anthony cleared his throat and Trent jumped and looked away.
“So..” Trent stared at the corner where the wall met the ceiling, there was a slight bubble of gray paint marring the otherwise empty, clean wall.
“So that's all you have for me?”
Trent sat up a little straighter in the chair and drummed his fingers on his thighs. “Well, I mean, he seems to be like just a normal dude.”
“Just a normal dude?”
“Yeah man, I've seen troll dens before,” Trent gulped and fidgeted in his seat in that dark, cramped, and cold office. “And his was...pretty mainstream.”
Anthony raised his eyebrows.
“I mean, like there was really nothing that stood out. Just some of the usual forums and pages, and Pornhub, you know, Nazi dude stuff. And we didn't really have that much time.”
“So what you found is there's going to be a rally.”
“Yes.” Trent nodded. “I definitely saw him comment on a thread about a rally. They're billing it as a Blue Lives Matter counter protest. Probably makes it easier for them to go out in daylight. I think the official statement had been all about mud slinging from the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter. Which, like, whatever. They're not punk enough to take it into the city though, it's gonna be in Libertyville. Libertyville man, like, what a load of--”
“Alright. Anything else then?”
“Uh, no.”
Anthony waved his hand, gesturing Trent out of his office. He looked back at his computer screen, disinterested, mindlessly clicking into windows until Trent left and the door clicked closed behind him gently.
“What did he say?” Kelly questioned Trent as soon as the door had closed. Kelly, Jodi, and Tracey huddled together around Trent. Anthony had said next to nothing since they had all come in from their recon mission—if what they did could even be called that.
“Nothing man.”
Kelly rolled her eyes and hit Trent in the shoulder.
“What?”
“You were in there for like fifteen minutes.”
“He's very quiet.”
The three girls almost all at once crossed their arms and stared at Trent.
“What?!”
“Was he angry?”
“No. I don't think so. I mean, I've never had a one-on-one with the guy. Who cares anyway, he's...there's something weird about him. I don't like this, man. This doesn't feel right.” Tracey nodded along.
“Coward.” Kelly's voice was hard and clear, louder than the hushed whispers they had all been keeping up thus far. She looked almost angry in the shadows. Above them the restaurant clanked and clamored on through the evening. Padma's laugh filtered through the floor boards and down to them. They could hear the sizzle of the grills, or thought they could, or else the sounds and smell of this place had started to burn into their brains and warp their perception of reality.
“Whatever, but he's bent man. Way bent.”
Jodi hit Trent in the other shoulder, mirroring Kelly's stance. “Why are you here, then, if you don't believe in the plan?”
“I seem to remember someone questioning 'the plan' when we were in Deb Miller's living room,” Trent hissed back. Their voices lowered again to angry whispers.
“That was only because he wasn't there,” Kelly said.
“No it wasn't.” Jodi straightened her shoulders. “I...changed my mind.”
“Couldn't handle another bitch telling you want to do?”
“Excuse me.”
Trent leaned into this words. “Couldn't. Handle. Another. Bitch.”
While the three of them fought, Tracey wanted to slink back into the dark shadowy walls and run away and be gone. None of any of this had been what she expected when Kelly told her Anthony was interested in her and had invited her to a meeting. Tracey's heart had plopped into her stomach at those words, had turned giddy like it had when Anthony hired her, like perhaps there was a chance to become that kind of girl that fell in love and was rescued from Carol's hoarding tower. This, though, this was not the love and inclusion she had thought it was. This was jealousy and in-fighting and piles upon piles of shit—more messy than anything in the Lamki household.
Jodi's nose flared up and Kelly reached out her hand to silence her. Anthony had never laid a hand on her, Kelly would never allow him to and he knew it the moment he watched Kelly lob off the head of skinhead in Aurora two years ago. But Jodi was different. Anthony handled his followers differently when he learned what would motivate them the most—what would destroy them the most. If they won't follow you on ideology alone, break them to make them yours.
“Just calling it like it is,” Trent pulled back away from the girls.
“Tracey dear?” Anthony's smooth voice came clear through the thin wooden door to the office. The three of them froze still. The color drained from Trent's face at the realization that perhaps Anthony had heard him questioning the whole thing. He was already on his bad side. Jodi chuffed at the sight of Trent scared and quaking, and raised her brows.
Tracey stepped forward and nervously reached for the door handle. The other three pushed away from the door and walked into the darkness of the unlit basement and made their way for the stairs to the restaurant above. Tracey opened the door. Anthony stood at the front of his desk, leaning on it, with his arms and legs crossed and a grin splayed across his handsome face. He had his sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms and the top few buttons of his shirt undone. Tracey's eyes locked on the mess of black chest hair she saw peek through his open shirt and the hint of a muscular chest beneath. Was this how it happened with all of the rest?
“What do you think they're going to talk about?” Trent asked, the anger from moments ago dropped in their fear to get up the stairs and away from possible reprimand.
“I don't think they're going to talk at all,” Kelly said matter-of-fact, grinning to herself as they opened the basement door and walked into the back end of the kitchen of Osaka-Ya. The sudden light and warmth hitting them with a blast, the spicy smell of the meat and noodles rolling over them in waves.
Trent's eyes widened into an oh of understanding, and he glanced nervously back down the stairs they had just come from.
“Whose worried about another bitch now?” Kelly chuckled.
Trent pushed past Kelly and Jodi in annoyance. He wanted to get out of this damn building.
“That makes you a bitch, too, by the way.” Jodi spat. Trent walked away from the two of them and out of the restaurant. For now he still had the power to leave. Jodi was turning into Kelly day by day. And Kelly, she believed so wholeheartedly in the plan that she was just this robot of a person who was angry all the time. She was basically just an innocent looking outside shell filled with moral rage. Kelly and Anthony could be the same person, though Kelly was far more straightforward but no less sinister. Trent shuddered when he thought about the easy way Kelly killed for this. Trent was starting to realize that he had no choice but to believe in it, too, that he was trapped either way—guilty and complicit or painfully gullible—that Jodi's way was just protecting herself, that it was easier to pretend you were doing this for love instead of out of fear.
Anthony had his right hand on Tracey's lower back and his left gently pushed the bleached blond-orange hair out of her face and tucked it back behind her ear. “You did what I asked?”
Tracey nodded. This didn't feel like what she thought it would when he looked at her in that way. The truth is, it didn't matter which way she felt, then or now, he would still be doing what he's doing. Whether she made the choices she made or not, whether it was her or some other waitress, whether there was a good fight and work to be done or whether he was just a plain old restaurant manager who made his girls wear short skirts.
“And?”
“Well, he didn't really say much about his dad. He kept talking about his stupid film project the whole time. He thinks he's going to be a producer or something? He kept telling me he'd make me the lead actress, if I wanted.”
Anthony pulled his hand away from Tracey's face and trailed his fingers down her neck and across the edge of her collar bone.
“Did that impress you?”
Tracey's brow furrowed, momentarily distracted from his ministrations by the question.
“No? It's some dumb low-budget thing.”
“But you slept with him anyway.”
Tracey started, her voice caught in her throat. “I thought...you...I did what you asked.” She was trembling beneath him. Anthony smiled and let his eyes trail over Tracey's body.
“Did he give you the part?”
“No.” Her voice was quiet. “His friend is in charge of the auditions, but he said if I showed up...”
“Shhh.” Anthony placed a finger on Tracey's lips and gripped her backside tighter in his right hand, pulling her up and towards him. “You've done enough. We wouldn't want him to think you were available. We'll send Kelly.”
“Kelly? But I thought..” Tracey leaned back and away from Anthony but he held gripped her by the waist and stilled her.
“Don't you trust me?”
Tracey nodded slowly as Anthony leaned in and kissed her neck. She looked up at the single uncovered bulb straight over the desk and stared into it until the rest of the office blurred and all she saw was white light.
Levi, Pathik, Brad, and Maggie stood in the middle of a large emptied space of a warehouse while the lights slowly flickered on above them. A stack of empty, old pallets sat in the corner and Brad's dad had dumped all of the random crap supplies they had gathered into the space next to them. The lights eventually all came on in full force and the space fully illuminated looked much less grand than it had before. They had a lot of work ahead of them.
Maggie dropped her backpack to the floor and stepped forward. “So, are we going to build this damn thing or are we just going to look at it?”
“How do you build a set?”
Maggie chuckled and patted Levi on the shoulder. “Boy, haven't you made like five movies by now?”
“I never had to build one before. Brad handled that stuff.” Levi ran his fingers through his curls and looked around the empty warehouse overwhelmed.
“Okay, so Brad,” Maggie turned to him expectantly. “We gonna build this thing then?”
Brad rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Huh?...yeah.”
Pathik rolled his eyes and walked up to the pallets and pulled the top one down. “It's supposed to be a padded cell, right?”
“Yep,” Levi nodded.
“You sound so cheerful to be building a padded cell,” Maggie winked at Levi and shook Brad by the shoulders. “Bro, it's like noon. Wake the fuck up and help us.”
“Don't talk so loud.”
Pathik scoffed and pulled more pallets down, skidding them across the floor recklessly, making as much noise as he could. “He's hungover.”
“No one asked you.”
This back and forth between Pathik and Brad, fighting over Levi, was getting on Maggie's nerves. It wasn't like she particularly liked Brad that much anyway, but they kind of had a history. She was used to him, at the very least, and figured he'd have grown on Pathik over time. Levi wasn't ending his friendship with Brad anytime soon, and if Pathik couldn't get over it, Maggie thought that he probably wouldn't stand a chance. Brad was charmingly convincing when he wanted to be.
“Y'all need to chill, put your dicks away, and get along.”
Levi giggled and walked over to Pathik. Maggie and Brad slowly pulled pallets together, thinking they would shape a foundation and then figure out walls.
Levi placed his hand on Pathik's lower back, and felt him stiffen under his touch. Pathik avoided his gaze and picked at the edge of a pallet that was splintered and jagged.
“You know, he's just being Brad.”
“An ass?” Pathik turned to face Levi but kept his gaze kept fluttering to the floor.
“Did he say anything to you?”
“What?”
“I mean, did he do anything to make you hate him so much?”
“Uhm, literally everything he does makes me hate him.”
“Come on, Pat.”
“Really?”
“There's more to him than you think. He's really not all that bad, all the time, you know.”
Pathik looked silently at the floor.
“He says some shit, sometimes, but like, he doesn't mean it.”
“You think he doesn't mean it?” Pathik looked Levi in the eyes. He wanted to grab him by his bony shoulders and shake him until he woke up, rubbed the gunk out of his own eyes, did what was good for him and ripped the Brad shaped tick off his neck.
“Would I really be friends with him if he did?”
“Apparently.”
Levi sighed and gestured towards the half darkened warehouse spread out behind them and the faraway front door. “No one is forcing you to be here, you know. You don't even like horror movies.” A small part of Levi's voice sounded hurt by Pathik not liking the things that he did.
Pathik whined. “I like you.”
“Okay, well, I come with friends.” Pathik fell quiet and felt his stomach knot. Levi walked back into the center where Maggie and Brad were looking over a half-assed sketch for a blue print that Maggie had brought with her. Brad's eyes were unfocused and he blinked several times, woozy but trying at the very least to power through his fog. Pathik looked at Levi standing next to them both in that empty space, so sure of himself and his film, forgetting that the real world had different consequences.
To be continued...here
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