The Restless Corpse

By Jonathan Clift

The book is about a young man who is beaten regularly by his father until he can stand it no longer. One night he snaps and hits his father over the head with a baseball bat and escapes through his bedroom window. He travels to Florida to begin a new life where he meets Zelda a local prostitute who has a very good heart. Sometime later he calls his mother who informs him that he killed his father with the blow to his head. His mother in the meantime had submerged his father in a black bin liner in the middle of a lake. However the news that the lake was to be dredged causes a chain of events beyond their imaginations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496995322

Jonathan Clift

The book is about a young man who is beaten regularly by his father until he can stand it no longer. One night he snaps and hits his father over the head with a baseball bat and escapes through his bedroom window. He travels to Florida to begin a new life where he meets Zelda a local prostitute who has a very good heart. Sometime later he calls his mother who informs him that he killed his father with the blow to his head. His mother in the meantime had submerged his father in a black bin liner in the middle of a lake. However the news that the lake was to be dredged causes a chain of events beyond their imaginations.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

SUDDENLY I WAS AWAKE and sitting upright in bed. The screams from my mother, and the violent outbursts from my father, echoed through the darkness. I’d heard those desperate cries before. Instantly, I knew that my father was in a drunken rage. My poor mother suffered the consequences of his violent moods, and she was often beaten senseless. I’d tried to intervene many times before, but suffered the same fate as my mother. I pulled the sheets over my head and wrapped the pillows around my ears.

Then I heard a crash. I screamed at my father to stop, and then jumped out of bed and stood there terrified at what he might do next.

Stay out of it you lazy son of a bitch, he shouted.

Leave my mother alone, I called back.

In a panic, I double locked my bedroom door.

Open this fucking door, he screamed and shook the handle violently.

After a brief silence, he battered the door open and burst into my room. He hit me with a punch that sent me hurtling backwards onto the floor. I could feel the blood streaming down my face. I lay there totally defenceless, as he ripped off his belt and tore down my shorts and started to beat me. I kicked and struggled, but it was no use.

He pressed his knee into the middle of my back as I lay there face down on the floor. I yelled out in pain as his belt crashed down on my rear. I lost count of the blows as the pain became unbearable. Suddenly he stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and I could feel his heavy breathing on the back of my neck. I realised that this was my chance. I struggled free and grabbed my baseball bat. With all my force, I hit him with a blow to his head. He slumped to the floor. Naked, I ran to the window and

forced it open. I slid down the slanting snow covered roof; jumping the last six feet to the floor. I ran into the darkness, without a thought of where I was going.

Finally, totally out of breath, I stopped running and stood in the middle of a field. I couldn’t feel my feet as they were dead with the cold. As I shivered in the darkness stranded in the snow covered field, all I could see was a halo of lights over the town in the distance. I wasn’t far from the house where my best friend Dan lived. My body was shaking with terror as I looked behind me, hoping my father wasn’t tracking me down; I breathed a sigh of relief in the eerie silence. I climbed the fire escape leading to the platform outside Dan’s bedroom. I was numb with the bitter cold. I knocked on the frost covered window. Dan was sleeping, and he didn’t stir, so I knocked again.

Startled, he sat up in bed and put on his bedside light. I knocked furiously on the window again. He quickly got out of bed and came over to the window. Peering out, he saw it was me, and pushed open the window for me to climb in. I looked a pathetic sight standing there, with blood stains on my face and body.

What the hell’s happened to you? said Dan as he threw me a dressing gown.

It wasn’t the first time I’d arrived in trouble in the middle of the night. He told me to take a hot shower and he gave me some pyjamas to wear. Afterwards we sat on the side of his bed to talk.

Dan, I can’t go back, I really thought he’d kill me this time. My Mother should have left him long ago. I don’t know what I’m going to do, as I haven’t any money or clothes.

I can loan you a few hundred bucks and some clothes, but where will you go?

I guess I’ll take a greyhound south, I just have to get away.

Maybe in the morning, when you’ve had time to think, you might change your mind, anyway let’s try to get some sleep.

I knew that there was no way that I would return home; I’d reached breaking point with my father.

I lay awake staring into the darkness, and wondered what was to become of me. A few hundred bucks wouldn’t last long after buying a bus ticket. What work could I find as a seventeen year old, with no college degree or work experience? Hours later, I finally fell into a fitful sleep.

The next morning I awoke early, it was still dark. I was determined to leave ‘Misty Falls’ a small town north of Atlanta where I lived with my parents. I was frightened that the next confrontation with my father may be fatal. So I thanked Dan for his help, and then as the sun chased away the remains of the night, I began my journey into the unknown.

The greyhound bus rumbled on through the early morning mist. Endless roads and barren terrain never seemed to come to an end. I’d spent half my money on a ticket to Florida, never knowing why I’d decided on that destination, but anywhere was better than the chaos at home. Eventually, I found myself standing on a beach sidewalk gazing aimlessly out to sea. The reality of my situation terrified me. I wondered how on earth I would survive in Sarasota, not knowing anyone in the town.

Later that day I saw a sign in a window, asking for help in the kitchen of a restaurant. I went inside and asked to see the manager. A rotund man with a stained white apron appeared.

Hi young feller, have you come about the job?

Yes sir, I replied in an uncertain voice.

Have you worked in a kitchen before?

No sir, I replied apologetically.

Well it’s mainly just washing dishes; I guess you won’t need a collage degree to do that, will you?

No sir, I replied.

When can you start?

Right now if you like, I blurted out.

I can pay you two hundred dollars a week, but the hours are long and you only get one day off a week.

I’ll take it, I replied, not knowing how I would survive on my remaining fifty dollars until pay day.

It was a start, but I didn’t think that I wanted to make a career of this kind of work. I slept on the beach the first week; not having enough cash to rent a room. I had no idea how dangerous it could be. The night time people were a scary crowd. Winos, drug addicts and thieves made up the cast who loitered there, and I rarely dared to fall asleep; even though I was exhausted from the long hours at work. I survived on hamburgers and left over’s at the café.

I searched the advertisements in the papers for cheap accommodation. With my first pay packet, I rented a small apartment in a dilapidated building in a seedy part of town; but it was a roof over my head. The other occupants of the building reminded

me of the night time beach people. My bedroom was very sparse and small. There was one very old bed, which had a stained mattress. I dare not think who had been lying on it before me. I covered it with a blanket, which I purchased in a shop that had a sale. A week later, I bought a new mattress.

My first encounter with Zelda Reed happened late one night when we passed on the rickety staircase. She was climbing the stairs accompanied by a man, who I guessed was more of a client than a boyfriend.

She said, Hello darling I’m Zelda, I live on the top floor, why don’t you come up and pay me a visit sometime? What’s your name? You’re new aren’t you?

My name’s Rudy, I moved in a few days ago.

Zelda’s man friend roughly pushed her forward; she stumbled on the stairs. I had the feeling that he was a real roughneck, and he only had one thing on his mind- ‘sex’.

See you, she called back, as he pushed her forward again with both his hands on her rear.

I couldn’t think of any reason why I would be tempted to climb the stairs to visit Zelda; but as things turned out later, she was not all bad.

CHAPTER 2

MY FIRST WEEKS IN Florida were dedicated to surviving. I was so tired in the evenings that I had no desire to go out searching for the local ‘night life,’ because I didn’t have the cash anyway. My one treat on my day off, was to see a movie and eat a meal in a diner. I was tempted to call home, but decided against it. I thought that if my father knew where I was he may come after me. It wasn’t that I hated my father; I just hated what he’d become.

When I was small, he used to carry me on his shoulders when we went to the park; we would play ball there, but times like that were a distant memory. He started drinking heavily after being made redundant from his job as a technician. He loved his work, and stayed with the same company for twenty five years. It was such a shock when one day, his services were no longer required. He couldn’t accept the fact that he couldn’t find a similar position. He had no alterative but to become a labourer on a building site.

My mother worked in a bakery. She had long since given up on her ambition to be a writer. I guessed that being a long suffering wife had destroyed any hope of that. She was small and petite and I could see that when she was young, she was probably very attractive.

Life in Florida was hard for me at first. However, as I acclimatised to the daily routine of work and sleep, things began to improve for me. After six months I ventured out

one evening, and entered a bar called ‘The White Pelican.’ It was full of mainly beach people, casually dressed and high on life; no one seemed to have a care in the

world. I began to realise that I’d arrived in happy land, where my doubts and fears would be scorched away by the heat of the mid- day sun.

There was a tap on my shoulder, I turned around and Zelda was standing there smiling at me.

I’ve never seen you in here before, can I buy you a drink? she said, flapping a twenty dollar bill at the barman.

Thanks Zelda, just a small beer.

Can’t I get you something more exciting?

If you insist, I’ll have a Captain Morgan and coke.

I looked at Zelda with enquiring eyes, as this exotic creature perched herself on a bar stool. She looked like some colourful bird that had flown in from some imaginary paradise. The barman gave Zelda a friendly wink as the ice cubes tumbled into my glass. She was obviously a regular in this escape from reality.

You’re very young to be living alone in this metropolis, she whispered in my ear.

I felt as though she was undressing me with her eyes as she pulled me close, her leg brushed against mine.

Her tight fitting dress caressed her voluptuous figure, and it seemed to me that any sudden movement would cause it split in two, revealing silk underwear of some sexy shade of mauve or pink. I hadn’t noticed before that she had beautiful eyes and jet black hair. I felt as though I’d been caught in a trap on some exotic island, and was being pursued by some over sexed temptress.

Come with me I’ll introduce you to some friends of mine, she said as she handed me my drink.

Her friends were a strange crowd. Jake who looked like a dead beat boxer that had spent more time on his back on the canvas, than having his arm held high as the winner of the fight! Kiki was a red head with an engaging personality. She wore her hair very short and dressed like a boy with a shirt, tie and jeans. Dominic looked as though he’d been caught in a time warp, all dressed in leather with long blonde shoulder length hair. He was obviously well educated, and he told me later that he was a member of a local theatrical company. Zelda waltzed me through the introductions as if she was the queen bee in this intriguing group.

It