 
they say the owl was a baker's daughter:

four existential noirs

Pablo D'Stair

Copyright © 2011 by Pablo D'Stair

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Kaspar Traulhaine, approximate

Yesterday was such an easy game for you to play  
But let's face it things are so much easier today

-The Kinks

On Friday, it was terribly cold, but I'd not felt like going home after work, was just sitting out, reading a magazine of allegedly true macabre stories, the first one I opened to beginning That morning, Lester Hauss was feeding the tail of a stray cat to the lizard he carried around in his leather briefcase.

I wanted to buy a new sweater, my sweater having worn nearly threadbare. I wanted to buy a belt, my pants awkward because I'd been dropping weight the last several weeks.

Everything was spooky, the nights coming on earlier and the magazine not helping.

I was on a bench far enough away from the road that the few pedestrians out for strolls wouldn't bother with me. I'd probably have slept on the bench awhile if not for finally noticing someone was watching me. A plump little man, not so little, a fat man still dressed as though from work, lingering up on a subway platform. He was staring at me, though it was obvious I'd caught sight of him. I read for fifteen minutes straight, hoping when I glanced up again, making it as casual as I possibly could, he would be gone, or at least facing the other direction.

He was still looking at me, puffing from a sour little cigarette, holding a cup that was probably empty.

Unsettled, I lit my own cigarette, suddenly wanting to be around other people. So I stood, started to walk in the direction of a fountain with a cobbled walk around it, a few monuments, streetlights lit mint white and orange, couples and families likely still lounging in the grass, talking, eating, having a moment of pointless calm.

I gave a look back over my shoulder as I got ten paces or so away from the bench. The man was no longer there.

***

I stopped at a street kiosk to buy coffee and a candy bar, double checking that I didn't also need more cigarettes.

A block later, there was a movie theatre, a small one I'd never known about before. It seemed out of place, just a slim entrance between a take-away restaurant and a laundromat.

The entrance door led immediately to a rather steep staircase, the door at the bottom opening into the theatre lobby which was well lit and rather busy, throwing me off a bit. A young woman who worked there must have noticed my confused expression, because she approached politely, asked if there was something she could help me with. I smiled, shaking my head, sort of nodded Thank you and kept looking around while she strolled back to where she'd been standing.

I bought a ticket for something that turned out to be a documentary about a family that tried and failed to run a franchise restaurant, the tone of the film bitter toward various commercial interests, though I felt that the flop was all the family's own fault.

I stayed in my seat until the credits were nearly done, then got up, a sudden burst of needing to urinate. As I moved down the theatre aisle, I was certain that the man walking in front of me, just pushing through the auditorium door five steps ahead of me, was the man from the platform.

It was.

He was out in the corridor. I walked right past him on the way to the toilet.

He was still in the corridor as I followed the exit signs, coming to a much larger, more accessible entrance to the theatre than the stairwell I'd come down.

Irritated, I walked at a brisk clip for two blocks then ducked in to a coffee shop, ordered an espresso and a cookie, took up a free newspaper and took a seat at one of the tables. Within two minutes, I saw the man loitering outside, leaning on a bike rack, scratching his nose then taking a tissue from one of his pant pockets to blow out what seemed a thick wet of mucus. He got a cigarette going and stared at the coffee shop window. He wasn't looking right at me, because the window glass was tinted, probably only showed him his own reflection, the street behind him.

But he was staring.

It might as well have been at me.

***

Thinking to call his bluff, to put a bit of a scare in him, I immediately walked up to him, asking just what he wanted. He gave me a sort of condescending smile, a gruff of air down his nose, took out his damp tissue and wiped at the skin above his lip. He got a cigarette out, asked me did I have a light, to which I told him to go fuck himself, so he took out a book of matches, got the cigarette lit and started to walk away.

I was not about to walk in the opposite direction, because it was obvious enough how that would play out, he would just start following me, again, putting me right back in the same position.

So I followed him, very quickly catching up, keeping pace a few steps behind him.

It was absolutely childish, but there was something about the sogginess of his appearance, about the ugly shumble to his steps, the dandruff over his coat shoulders, the worn out knees of his pants, about the sole coming off of his left shoe in flops with each step, something about his whole way of carrying himself that made me tense, more terrified to walk away than to see what he did next.

He went into a drugstore and I lingered outside.

If I ran, it seemed I'd be able to get away. But, this made it the wrong thing to do. If he was willing to give me the opportunity, it was just because he was flaunting his power in the situation over me.

I had to wait, I knew, because he knew where I lived.

Obviously.

I started to get sick to my stomach.

Had I ever seen him before?

Absolutely not. No. Absolutely not.

He exited the drugstore, slapping his cigarette packet in his hands, giving me a little nod, a pleased kind of flat smoothed his lips out. He put a cigarette to his mouth and stood there, squaring himself as best as his plump, slung over body could manage.

He waited what must have been a full five minutes before it dawned on me he wanted me to light his cigarette.

I stepped up to him, spit on his chest, then stepped back as his eyes narrowed.

-I'm going to turn you in, three days from now, he said, his voice smooth and still with a higher pitch like an adolescent.

I felt empty. Nothing. Just stood there.

I could have asked What do you mean? but it was pointless. Everything was pointless as soon as those words were out of his mouth.

I got out one of my own cigarettes and he held across his matches, but I took my lighter from my pocket, tried to get it to flame, the flint just clacking sparks, scuffing, my thumb tip sweating and sore.

He struck a match and shielding the flame with a cupped hand, he slowly moved it toward me. Disgusted, I slapped both his hands and shoved him hard, a few passersby giving us looks, slowing, waiting to see what would come of it.

I struck and struck and struck at my lighter, finally getting it to flame, my lips trembling with the lighting cigarette in them giving its first crackle.

***

I followed him up the street until he entered a bar, one I'd had drinks at myself, from time to time. He no longer seemed to be paying me much mind, but that didn't surprise me. There was no reason to be following him, any longer, but I was sick and couldn't think of what else to do.

In three days he's going to turn me in. That was the claim.

I looked at him, obese, exhausted from his day, hair two licks of glaze over his blotchy forehead.

A few patrons moved by me, one of them nudging me, saying something sharp I didn't quite catch.

I glanced around until I found the toilet, took a seat on the bowl without pulling down my pants, sat there, tense elbows digging into my thighs while I massaged my temples.

It was certainly conceivable that this man had witnessed me, but after four months I didn't see what good it would do for him to go to the authorities.

And with what evidence?

I got on my knees, vomiting hot liquid. As I spit strands of putrid phlegm into the mess of the toilet water, I realized I'd started to cry.

What evidence?

I didn't understand.

And what possible connection could this man have with any of it? Did he know Claudia? Did he know Gavin?

Neither of those options seemed the least bit likely, especially considering neither Gavin nor Claudia even knew me.

I tried to get a picture in my head of the stairwell in Gavin's building.

Had there been windows? Someone lingering a few flights up the stairs, peeking over?

Even if so, Gavin's body hadn't been found for twelve hours, not until the afternoon after I'd left him in the corner, covering him over with bags of trash, cardboard boxes.

***

I got myself cleaned up, straightened my clothing out as best as I could, exited into the bar and looked around for the man. It took me a moment to find him, though he'd done nothing to hide himself.

He was with a woman, now, some ugly woman who was laughing at whatever story he was telling, his hands flopping out, up, showing the sweat pushed through the fabric of his shirt under his arms, his coat slung over the back of his chair.

I took a seat for myself at the end of the bar, ordered a bourbon and sipped at it carefully.

The woman didn't seem like his date, just an acquaintance. The impish appearance of the both of them made me think they might be related, if not brother and sister maybe just cousins, or maybe just ugly friends from a long time ago.

He was obviously deranged. It went without saying. But there must have been a specific reason he'd come to this bar. It was clear enough that I would have followed him this far, though he'd done nothing to coax me along. The threat he'd made was enough to keep me tethered to him. He must have known that, plain as day. Just as he must have known that I would follow him wherever he went next.

I downed my bourbon, ordering another, giving the whole thing some consideration.

He wanted something from me. He must. It was not just some coincidence, he hadn't just decided to screw around with a complete stranger and luck-of-the-draw made his threat to someone who just happened to have killed someone four months ago.

He knew what he said he knew.

Absolutely.

I sipped at my new bourbon. Watched him. Now he was eating some cheese fries that had been brought. He and his woman friend both. Their round bulbs of fingers digging in, their mouths opening, the fries swallowed whole, both of them too greedy to even let the things cool down, their swallows clearly not the least bit pleasant.

***

The woman left when her boyfriend or husband showed up, but my accuser stayed behind, not even giving up his table, just ordering a drink for himself, having a brief conversation with the girl who took the order.

I ordered two more bourbons, taking one as a shot, paying, leaving a considerable tip, then took my last one with me over to where he was sitting.

He eyed me, then scratched at the sour skin of his neck, smiled, asked me what I was going to do with my time.

I felt crippled from the tone of the question. Without any heart, I asked him what it was that he wanted from me, his reply just a rubber shake of his face while he scratched the damp soup of sweat and scalp that layered the thin hair over the back of his head, flakes littering down over his shirt shoulders.

I pressed on, though, knowing the futility of it, telling him I didn't have much money. But I worked, he must know that, and I said I could easily get him more money regularly, as much as he liked. I admitted that he had me completely under his thumb.

He just slurped up the scum of beer from the long empty base of his last glassful, not listening to me at all.

I chuckled, at first faking, but then it became genuine. I would have started laughing, broken down into tears again if I hadn't forced myself to cough then slap my bourbon down my throat, wincing to keep from choking it back up.

-Three days, what time? I asked, letting out a long breath, leaning back in my chair.

That made him smile, sweetly, like I'd finally gotten around to something he was interested in. It was a very unpleasant expression, it suggested an intimacy, like I'd just off hand mentioned I liked his favorite song.

-Early afternoon, early afternoon, he said, and just like that the paste of disinterest came over him.

The warm of the first drinks I had taken crept up my back. My eyes blinked down a long time, my head swaying as I took a steadying breath.

-It is about Gavin, all of this, you can tell me that at least?

He took out his wallet, took up the bill that had been left folded next to a water glass, condensation having soaked the receipt paper through. I was staring at him while he calculated how much tip he was going to leave.

As he stood up, he looked at me. I turned down my head, not wanting to see his smugness. But I could tell he was looking at me, still and when I lifted my brow to meet his eyes he told me quite sadly that there was nothing I could do about it, so I really shouldn't bother.

***

I kept at least half a block distant as I continued to follow him, spent most of the time looking down at my feet, my cigarette smoldering, fizzling out, dropped from my fingers.

Each time I looked up to make certain I'd not lost sight of him, I felt further removed from life, from the past week, from months and months, everything.

I wondered if I should go in to work the next day and got upset, a hissing conversation about it jabbing the backs of my eyes. First, I'd think I should certainly not bother, but no sooner would this settle than it would seem a kind of admission of defeat. Worse, it seemed like I'd accepted my circumstances without even contemplating some escape, that I was so certain of being defeated I'd already stopped breathing.

What would I do if I didn't go to work and if I didn't go out the next night and if I didn't do whatever it was I'd had in mind to do two days from now, even if I'd had no concrete plans?

Nothing I can do, he'd said. Shouldn't even bother.

He knew exactly what I'd get to thinking.

Even if I wanted to do something to him, how could I? When?

If he was this full of himself, this meekly assured, it was apparent enough that he was right, there was no point in bothering.

I slowed, letting him get almost out of sight, but then a choke of panic kicked around in my gut, my bowels tightening and feeling hot. I hurried, trying not to break into a jog, was half a block behind him, again, five minutes later.

It was pointless, these conversations with myself. I was trying to pretend there was anything left to do.

He'd been taunting me when he'd said those things. The sadness on his face had been condescension.

He was doing this to me, getting his kicks this way, loving every step I was taking. He probably was having to keep himself from laughing when we crossed the street into a quiet block of closed shop fronts, just the sound of his flopping shoe sole burping in echo, my ears pricked to each suck of it.

***

We entered an apartment building, the lobby smelling of stale mop water, the carpet moist, pulping when I stepped on the rubber mat just inside the entrance doors.

While he collected some mail, I noticed two elevators off to the left. My chest tightened up.

Did he want me that close to him? Closed in a box?

I could kill him right there. Obviously. Taking only the slightest chance of being witnessed.

No.

Pointless thinking.

Even if I thought I could overpower him, even if I'd been armed, even if I was certain he wasn't armed, for that matter, there was no point in killing him. I just had to wait. At least until I knew what was actually going on.

I was feeling drunk, a bit feverish. Before I realized it, he'd moved past the elevators, holding some correspondence in his teeth while he used both hands to open a larger manila envelope.

He leaned in to the stairwell door then started to climb, his breath gravelly and raw with each step. I let him get up two floors before I began my pursuit. His funk was everywhere and the constant bubbling ooze of his breathing crept along the stairwell walls, moistened the banister, made my breathing short, harsh, anger rising, my cheeks clenching taut.

I was ascending the second two flights, listening to him gurgle his way upward, when he let out a peel of flatulence, first high pitched, then chugging and obscene, the taunt of a child with food smeared over salivating lips, the sound of it pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip.

I punched the wall, collapsing from the pain of my strike, rolled onto my side, then righted myself, stood with my forehead against the painted cement. I mumbled that he was a bastard, hated him for his disregard, for making me walk through breaths of his waste.

The alcohol in my system dulled the throb in my hand, but not entirely, so I knew I'd done some actual damage. Still able to hear his progress, I waited another minute before following, again.

***

He climbed all the way to the tenth floor, was blowing his nose, smacking his lips as he made his way into the corridor. He was hobbling, doing the best he could to keep his thighs from rubbing against each other, not that he could do much, his pants ridden up between the cleft of his ass, his socks, the elastic in them long worn out, were piles on the tops of his shoes, the dry skin of his ankles showing a few inches, thick spots of red from where he likely scratched and scratched and scratched at them.

I leaned in the open door, getting a cigarette going. For a moment, I thought I'd made a mistake about the elevator.

Why hadn't he gotten in? Was he actually afraid of what I might do?

This made sense, I supposed, if looked at in certain ways. He'd only just started this game, knew I must be flailing, struggling, desperate. Maybe he'd thought I would get overcome, not think things through.

But I could've overtaken him on the stairs, at any time. I could have gotten ahead of him or just lunged at his exhausted back, knocked him down a flight, done away with him there with just as much privacy as an elevator.

It didn't make sense.

Did he always put himself through such an ordeal? A kind of exercise? Or had he done it to be certain I'd follow him, learn where he lived, not just give up, wait down in the lobby, walk away?

He stopped outside of an apartment and gave a knock, using the same tissue to wipe at his forehead as he did to blow his nose.

An older man answered and they chatted for a minute. The older man glanced in my direction, narrowed his eyes on me, but there didn't seem any particular malice in it. I was, after all, loitering in the stairwell door, leaning with a cigarette drooling over my face. Any tenant would have looked at me

Both of them went into the apartment. The door closed. I started in the direction of the door, myself, but stopped, uncertain of how to proceed.

I felt drunk, sick with it, the cigarette smoke making matters worse, even if I didn't inhale.

Had he brought me here so that man would see me? What could that matter?

It wasn't his apartment, at any rate.

Did he even live in the building? Did he just want me to wait?

I sat down against the wall, closing my eyes, pressing the long of my palm flat over my furrowed brow.

It annoyed me that I was spending so much time asking myself what he might be doing. I didn't care. Or didn't want to care.

And the thought that the older man might be his deranged little friend, his ugly lover, intruded overtop of everything, making me seethe, making me growl aloud. I couldn't do anything about it, of course, whatever they were up to. They could both be in on it, the fat one having dragged me here, a little prize to show the old one. They could be chortling while they jerked and tugged at each others naked bodies, gloating while they orgasmed in each others sweat dampened hands, laying in their joint stink while they knew I was helpless, smoking drunk on the stairs of a stranger's apartment building.

Nausea closed my eyes, but I popped them open every three seconds or so, the thack of blood in my ears sounding like feet up the stairs, feet down the stairs, somebody coming up on me, down on me and I didn't want to be seen in such a state.

***

Of course I could just have walked away, left town, run as far as I could manage. The option was plain enough and tempting. It wouldn't stop him turning me in, but I doubted that not disappearing would make matters play out any differently.

It couldn't possibly matter, considering how this lunatic was conducting himself. He seemed comfortably assured that I wouldn't do him any violence, which meant that he must have evidence beyond his saying so that would interest the authorities.

But what could it have been? A photograph?

It was impossible.

Fingerprints?

The strangulation had been sloppy, I hadn't done anything beyond the most superficial wipes to areas of the body I thought I'd touched, not to mention my prints would've been all over the stairwell, the trash bags, the trashcans. But my fingerprints were on file, they'd been taken more than once in the last five years. If there was any such evidence it would've been found out in the course of the police investigation.

It must have been a photograph, no matter how ridiculous it seemed.

I'd never confessed, never even let anyone know I had an interest in Claudia. No one I knew even knew who Claudia was.

What in Christ's could he have on me?

It was something, he had something. It was beyond even the most warped imagination that he knew what he knew but would start all of this knowing he couldn't prove it out.

Or would his dropping my name be just enough to connect the dots of an investigation?

I was reasoning this all through as calmly as I could, would've been jotting notes on paper if I'd had any.

He must have known about me before witnessing the crime, there was no way around that. So, he knew about my infatuation with Claudia.

Had he intuited it from seeing me once or twice watching her, no matter how casual I tried to make the behavior? Had he then decided to document me, gotten it in his sick little mind that I might get up to something? Had he traced all of my movements? Had he collected bus slips, kept a diary of what trains I took, maybe taken pictures of me, kept it all neatly in order? When I'd broken, when I'd killed Gavin, had he seen that too?

I got annoyed.

No.

None of this had happened.

Four months ago. Four months. I'd not even walked past Claudia's workplace since then, hadn't even gone in to that part of town.

Reaching into my pocket for another cigarette, I found I had none.

Was he going to sleep in there with that old man?

For all I knew, he'd gone out the window, plumped his way down the fire escape. It was as reasonable to assume as anything else.

***

More than partway tempted to knock on the old man's door, I stood up to stretch myself out, no longer swimming with drunk, but a headache gripping in, fatigue in my bones doubled by the churn of my thinking.

I couldn't even kill them both, though images of doing just that gnashed in sharp lines through my other thoughts. But, if his being dead wouldn't change anything, it definitely meant there was physical evidence. Something in an envelope. Maybe in that envelope he'd been fingering, tearing into on his way up the stairs, though this seemed peculiar to consider.

And since this old man was likely privy to things, how many other monsters did this imbecile know? How many other people were included in on this? Or was it just an innocent seeming package he'd asked a friend to mail for him on a certain day, maybe not even addressed to the police but just to a particular detective by name, to an acquaintance at a newspaper, to Claudia, to anyone?

I'd been in the stairwell or a few paces down the corridor for an interminable amount of time. Maybe an hour at most, but it felt longer, felt shorter, didn't feel anything.

Memories of waiting around when I was a young man for a girlfriend to get off work, for the metro station to open, for weeks to pass before some anticipated event, thoughts of more pleasant waiting got into me, made me feel wretched, a weakling. Beautiful waiting, but waiting that still disappeared, didn't matter, felt like no time at all.

Just like this. Just like this, now.

And it mattered just as little.

This man might not even be the person who was behind all of this, though his demeanor didn't suggest he was somebody simply playing a part in someone else's revenge.

Revenge? Could it be that?

Not from Claudia. Gavin had hardly even been her lover, they'd seen each other twice and she'd gone to bed with him, yes, but would hardly be moved to these sorts of machinations.

Gavin's parents?

They would just walk up to me, slit my throat where I stood.

Or had this man loved Gavin?

Absurd.

All of it was absurd.

None of these people had anything more to do with each other than they individually had to do with me. And they had nothing to do with me.

I was just some morsel to this creature. I doubted he even cared. Nothing in how he behaved seemed to call out that he did. The opposite. He couldn't care less a gun to his head.

***

I'd started walking the length of the corridor, back and forth, was nearly back to the stairwell door on at least the fiftieth lap when my accuser exited the old man's apartment, a laugh on his face, the door gently closing behind him.

I squared myself and watched as he took a key from his pocket, entered another apartment, two doors further along the corridor, the opposite wall. He didn't even look over at me, not even to verify I hadn't left. He probably could tell peripherally that I was there, had maybe glimpsed me before I'd turned around.

Not that it mattered. I didn't know why I was considering it.

His door closed. Locked. The sound of two more latches or bolts.

He just left me in the corridor.

But it couldn't have been as simple as that.

However, I now knew where he lived, so there was no need to stay around.

Almost as though this were a cue, my stomach gurgled viciously, an insistence of grime tapping to be defecated, a sour breath lifting from my gut out in a whispered belch, my eyes stinging from the paste of sweat that had been settling on my face.

I walked to the elevator, rode it down to the lobby unsure of every movement, watching the elevator doors spread open, revealing the exit to the building, found myself up the block, ducking into a gas station toilet, giggling like an idiot the bowel movement felt so relieving.

I bought cigarettes, three pack, then reentered the little shop, glad to see they sold alcohol, though nothing very strong. A slim, tall bottle of red wine caught my eye. On sale. I bought two.

I found a bench in a little grassy area in front of a library, had a seat, stared at my foot, one leg crossed, raised so that the heel of my shoe was balanced on my knee.

What could he want me to do?

I pondered this, reminding myself, actually whispering the words as though the sober wisdom of an adult to a child, that I didn't have to do what I thought he wanted me to do.

I nodded and nodded and nodded my head.

I didn't have to. Certainly not. But it seemed a mistake not to at least figure out what it was. He was going to end my life. No question. I couldn't not know why. I couldn't not struggle. He had no right. And if nothing would move him, to not struggle made me twice as pathetic, like I was killing myself but blaming him as a cowardly dodge.

Listening to myself, all my thoughts, justifications, arguments, philosophies, psychological analyses, I hated myself. I hated myself, putridly. But not enough to think myself less than some fat, filthy maggot who felt he owned me, however right he may have been.

***

Into my second bottle of wine, I suddenly felt paranoid that I'd better not get caught just sitting around drunk. I don't know what I was worried might happen, but I stood, thought about finding a restaurant, but my train of thought narrowed and I began back in the direction of my accuser's apartment building.

As I walked, I slouched through my options, my thoughts erratic, not staying in place long enough to fully flesh out any one full course of action.

Supposing I were to leave, I thought, but then interjected that there was no need to jump to that, there was plenty of time to mull things over, the option of leaving always open, right up until the early afternoon of the day I'd be turned over.

So, I never wound up thinking about how I would go about leaving, if I did.

I did try to calculate how much money I'd have, but also didn't get to a solid sum. Instead, I fixated on what would be my last paycheck. I did have two work shifts left before the deadline, but as both of those shifts combined wouldn't amount to but one hundred twenty dollars, I decided against work.

-Added to which, I said aloud, a violent whish and closing fast of my hand, I wouldn't get this last paycheck at all.

I stopped, staggered against a wall, knelt down, swigged two long drains of wine, pretending to be tying my shoe. I didn't want to stand up, so glanced around, saw no one, stayed as I was.

I'd not even be able to pick up my last check. It would be three-fifty, four hundred dollars, not a fortune, but money I'd earned, would come in handy if I did leave.

I wanted to cry, but it was too pathetic. It was my fault. How many times had I meant to sign up for direct deposit? If I had, that money would be waiting for me.

Idiotic.

I felt I was being viciously abused by everyone.

So, I took the last of my wine in a series of chokes, lobbed the bottle at a wall, watched it hit the cement of the sidewalk without shattering.

***

I got a cigarette going in the lobby of my accuser's apartment building, the inbreaths of it tasting like thick brown foam, my throat dry but cankered with softs of clumped phlegm.

I hit the button to summon the elevator, but turned away, blundered over to the stairwell instead. I started to take the steps at a jog, but by the second landing was winded, dizzy, wheezed in discomfort. The drink in my head throbbed and I vomited, looked at it, wondered if I should clean it up, then furiously grit my teeth at it, continued slowly to ascend.

I got to the floor where his apartment would be, stepped into the corridor and became suddenly uncertain of myself.

Was it the tenth floor?

I peered down over the stairwell railing, looked up, leaned in the opening of the corridor and squinted. I saw the mat that was in front of the old man's apartment. I glared at it, spit clumsily, only half aware, heard it blot on the tip of my shoe.

A last hesitation closed me up another moment just outside of what I'd decided was his door.

But, what could be the worst that would happen? I'd wake someone?

There was nothing anyone could do about it.

So, I knocked.

No response.

I pounded. I kicked the door, my limbs then going out of my control. I worked up a sweat, stamping in place, hitting my thighs with fists closed up so tight they went numb, my open hands shaking as though from the cold.

I looked at the peephole of the door, then covered it with my thumb, ashamed of myself.

-I'm not a weakling, I muttered under my breath, then put my cheek against his door and whispered, sure that he could hear me, You can't just do this to me, because I'm not a weakling and I will grind your bones with mine if I have to, you piece of shit.

The last three words rose in volume, tone, were claps, crisp, stiff, sledging into the blank of his door front.

I pushed myself away with both hands, lost my footing, landed hard against the opposite wall of the corridor. That he could probably still see me no longer bothered me. I was spent, wanted to sink in cold water.

I wondered how many bolts that door of his really had. I pictured myself shrugging to stand, working up the nerve to kick and kick, getting the thing to crack open.

He could have a gun, waiting to lay me down just like that.

But it was more likely that he just had the door reinforced.

At least three locks, I remembered.

And what was to stop him moving a bookcase in front? A heavy desk?

I'd gotten a cigarette going, again, but didn't want it but smoked from it anyway.

***

I decided what I really needed to do was calm down, get things in order. I'd made a huge mistake getting so drunk, was motivated to do nothing but sit there, bemoaning my state, mixing in with my new resolve vague thoughts of sobering myself up more quickly by forcing myself to vomit, by drinking a lot of water.

In the morning, I needed to talk to him. After all, it only served to reason that he'd wanted to see how far he could push me, see how quickly he could break me down. He was probably having a good time with all I'd given him, right up to blubbering into his closed door.

But, there would be something that he wanted. That is, if I believed he really had some evidence, as he claimed. I began to doubt it, or let myself humor some slapdash doubts I cobbled up from nothing. If he'd gotten me to this point in one night, he'd want to have it done.

Or was he so insane he'd go on risking his life? Didn't it occur to him that if I felt trapped I might just think To hell with everything, decide to kill him, kill his friends, hurt him as much as I could before he could bring the ax down?

No. This had gone far enough. I obviously didn't care about myself anymore, accepted I was in his grip and now was dangerously set on spiting him.

That might be what he was thinking, safe behind his bolstered door.

I was imagining all of this to myself, slowly making my way down the stairs, leaned to the wall, slithering against it the entire way, when I heard a warble of static, a voice over a radio, the sound of two people talking.

-We have some vomit, here, one of the voices said, sort of like an aside. Another voice added that Yeah, it seems pretty fresh, here.

I froze up.

He'd called the police.

The sound of them climbing the stairs became clearer with each blink I resisted. When I got up the nerve to glance down, there were two officers looking right at me, making quiet remarks to each other.

I felt ashamed, wanted to cry, so weak, terrified, didn't know what to do. Even if I wanted to run, I was in no shape to, and so what would that look like?

I just waved.

-How we feeling, tonight? one officer asked me.

I apologized, said I was a little bit drunk.

-That you got sick down there, sir?

I stared at the second officer while he sideways talked something into a radio on his shoulder. They asked who I knew in the building and I managed some response, that I was there to see someone, couldn't recall their name, had only just met them out that night.

They motioned that I should walk with them, the first officer keeping one hand on one of my arms, the second officer moving sideways in front of me. They walked me to the corridor with my accuser's apartment.

-The thing is, we've got a complaint against you from one of the tenants of the building.

I kept saying I was sorry I was sorry I was sorry, that I should just get home.

But they weren't listening.

The second officer walked down the corridor, knocked on my accuser's door. It opened immediately, the fat slop standing there in lousy pajamas.

I sank into myself. I couldn't believe what was happening. I tried to think about getting the gun off of the officer, but couldn't even bring myself to look down at it, fearing a shift of my eyes would be enough to set the situation off.

They walked me to the elevator, talking the entire time, walked me through the lobby, asked for my identification, asked me to explain a few things, asked me if I needed a taxi home to which I said No and then they asked me if the address on my identification was correct, suggesting maybe I should catch a cab there.

-You can't afford a cab, tonight?

I glanced up and down the sidewalk, nodding like an imbecile.

-A cab, I finally got out. Sure. Yes, I'll take a cab home.

I apologized again while the officer made me sign my name to something, told me that I shouldn't come back, that the man in the building didn't want to be bothered.

***

The heater on in the taxi sighed a kind of hush over the dim of the radio and my head lolled against the window, my body screwed, doubled over at a peculiar slump. I wondered why the driver kept the radio that low, if he could even hear it.

It seemed far too soon that I was let off in front of my own apartment building. And it seemed there were too many people on the sidewalk, too many things happening.

My head was soggy with alcohol.

For a little while, I loitered near the entrance door, trying to get it right in my head where I was, what had been going on. The idea that I'd been sent home, ordered home, batted away like some bug gnawed at me. I disliked the sound of it. Sent. Shooed. But I couldn't shake that it's exactly what had happened.

Did he want me in my apartment, in particular? Or did he just want me away? Did he just want to reinforce that he'd meant what he'd said, three days, early afternoon, early afternoon?

I walked to the corner unit on the ground floor, found my key, opened the door slowly, cautiously, then felt an idiot, stepped in with as much arrogance, bravado, sense of home as I could manage.

When the door shut, I felt unseen, closed off, no place. I removed most of my clothing, drank three glasses of water, listened to the sound of my refrigerator and the hiss of nothing else.

For five minutes, sitting on the sofa, I was perfectly calm, relaxed, probably could've drifted off to sleep if the telephone hadn't rung. I felt drained. Impossible to stand. My eyes widened and unfocused, pointed in the direction of the wall, the telephone ring sounding, sounding, sounding, sounding, sounding. Stopped. My voice on the machine, a beep, then a hush, nothing, a click, a beep, the silence of the room which had a grip now nauseating and perverse.

There were eleven messages on my machine, all in the time since I'd last seen my accuser.

No words. No message more than two seconds long of nothing.

I knew it was him, but I played with thinking it could've been any number of other things. Telemarketers suddenly had my number. Someone had a wrong number, kept misdialing, getting my machine, more and more insistent to themselves that they were dialing correctly, that the girl or whoever it was they were after had gotten a friend to leave my answering machine message as a joke, a trick, some way of confusing them.

***

In another hour, I was drenched in misery, trying to convince myself to sleep.

The telephone had gone off three more times and I'd not had the courage to lift up the receiver once. Not even when the telephone wasn't ringing, just to vent, just to blather aggression, threats, profanities at an empty line. I was too afraid that the moment I took the receiver up it would connect me to my accuser, like he'd been calling in just that instant, no time even for the ring to sound. I sat hissing whispers at my knees, the tops of my feet, tired long past exhaustion.

Why these calls? To be sure I'd gotten home?

That made no sense.

To torture me, keep me awake?

I'd already been broken, his little scratching stray, mewling outside his apartment door, ready to do anything, so why would he send me home just to needle me remotely?

I was suddenly animate, agitated but brimming with more positive emotion.

I'd called his bluff. It laid itself all out in front of me. He hadn't called the police as some bizarre progression to get me to go along with whatever his game was, he didn't need me to be in my apartment, he'd just gotten afraid.

I clapped my hands, swimming through half formed thoughts to the kitchen where I drank from cupped hands at the faucet, then over to the bookshelf, reaching behind the second highest shelf for my bag of marijuana, two joints already rolled and waiting.

He'd called the police to get rid of me, plain and simple. He didn't want me outside his apartment, because he really had no control of me.

These calls?

Keeping tabs, but not for any reason other than he was worried that I'd doubled back, that I'd not been so scared after all, that I was on to him. He wanted me to break, take up the receiver, scream, illustrate how beaten I was, or else he wanted me to just pick up the receiver and slam it down in frustration, just to know I was here.

The marijuana stung and I coughed, refusing to get myself a drink of water, taking three more quick drags even through the wheezing.

I needed to sleep, to get calm and soft, needed to sleep so that I didn't become too weak to think.

He was just some slob, somebody who woke up one day to realize how he was less than his own filth, less than some dog's shit. And then had stumbled on to me, thought to use me to vent his loathing, puff himself up with something other than his own lard, his waste, his pointlessness.

I started on my second joint, laid cuddled to myself, mostly naked, on my sofa, the television going, some programme I'd recorded a few weeks ago and already had seen. I giggled and then pretended to giggle more than I was.

***

Showering, trying to arouse myself but unable to, blaming the marijuana though marijuana usually had the opposite affect on me, I felt my thinking crumple, reduce to cinders that let off rank stabs.

No.

I didn't want to think anymore, hated how I'd not fallen asleep and it was now practically daylight.

No. No.

I halfway toweled off, smacking myself as hard as I could in the face, mocking myself for always pulling back on the blow, called myself a cartoon, a make believe.

Had I really believed I'd gotten the upper hand? Was I letting myself deteriorate this quickly? Letting myself detonate?

I laughed, spit on the face of my reflection in the fogged bathroom glass. It was pathetic, but I was letting myself drain out the bottoms of my feet, dissolve, lose any sense of meaning, of preservation.

-How did you get the upper hand? I asked, sarcastic, making chicken juts of my neck, walking the apartment in oblongs. How? Tell me how you managed it. Idiot. Explain the line of thinking to me.

My eyes fell on the remainder of the last joint and I snarled, then rolled my eyes at myself, chiding, using the most insulting tones I could find in my head, told myself it was too late to lament little mistakes like smoking a joint, so I might as well finish it down.

Had I really convinced myself I'd gotten out of his clutches by doing nothing, by my pounding on his door for twenty seconds and throwing up on his stairs, waiting around like a starving mutt while he had a casual night with a friend and then went in to bed?

Christ, I hadn't done anything and was so desperate I was starting to think I'd already escaped.

Why would I do that? So that when the trap sprung it could be sudden, it could be out from nothing, I'd not have to tense in anticipation, sick and heavier with every letter of every thought I groaned out?

I started going through the kitchen drawers, pulling out anything sharp, knives, a potato peeler, prongs for corn on the cob, thumb tacks. I made a big pile before walking away from the lot, not even understanding what I'd been doing.

Did I want a weapon? Was I looking for the implement of assassination I'd utilize to get out of this?

I began to think I'd lost my mind already. I began to think about Gavin, dead dead dead dead dead dead Gavin. Began to talk to him, imaginary, to tell him there was no reason I'd needed to kill him but the conversation didn't go that far.

I didn't care about Gavin. He was supposed to be gone.

Or Claudia.

What did she even look like, now? In the weeks I'd watched her, how many hair colors had she had?

***

At some point, finally, I'd passed out on the floor by the television, my legs straddling tight one of the couch pillows, my head on my bundled up shirt.

I woke, still quite high, not feeling rested, feeling panicked. I dressed clumsily and slow, breathing only out of my nose, breaths that whistled no matter if I snorted hard to clear whatever it might have been clogging my nostrils.

I left my apartment at half past ten, the sun outside cold and tender, it hurt to walk in, smelled like snow but not a shiver of cloud showed.

Purchasing coffee from a gas station, I made up my mind not to bother with calling out of my work shift. Things would either end badly, or I would get through and the hassle of trying to weasel back into my lousy job wouldn't seem so bad. I needed other work, anyway.

-I needed I needed, I muttered, downed my coffee in uncomfortable heaps, threw the cup away into a trash can by a crosswalk.

It occurred to me I was thinking to walk back to his apartment, but I'd forgotten where it was. My head was nothing, I couldn't think, the marijuana had a better hold on me than I'd thought.

I couldn't have forgotten. I'd made it a point to note where the place had been. Cross streets. Everything.

Hadn't I?

I sat to a bench, a creaking, fake smile yawning across my face, and I tried to keep the feeling of tumbling inertia from distracting me.

I'd been out. He'd been at the train station. Some movie theatre. We'd walked. Walked. I went into the bar. Had it been so quickly after the bar? No. Blocks and blocks. I could only picture the lobby, the stairs, the stale of the carpet in the corridor.

I started to feel on the verge of tears, walking again, walking in the direction of the bar.

It hadn't been so far from there.

I saw a clock in the window of a bank. Nearly noon. He'd be at work. He didn't have the liberty I had, had a life waiting to be maintained, lived in. I had a husk waiting to crumple, could do anything at all, everything bringing the same consequence.

Then, like there had never been confusion, like I'd remembered the name of some actor in a film that had slipped my mind briefly, I remembered exactly where he lived. I laughed, not hiding it, clapped my hands, looked at someone who happened to glance at my display, gave them a silly affirmative gesture, then waved them away though they were no longer looking.

***

Having a fourth cigarette, looking at the flat of his building, I tried another attempt at rationalizing everything. With a little bit of distance from all that had happened, with the buffer of having been alone in my apartment, all of the events of the previous evening seemed more condensed. It was just something that had happened.

What had happened?

A man knew I'd killed Gavin. He decided to turn me in. But, before, he wanted something from me. He said that he didn't, nothing specific, no blackmail, so maybe it was just torturing me that he wanted. Kicks. Self satisfaction.

I'd given him too much credit, I thought, treated him like an apparition, treated him with reverence, as though he lived magically when it made as much sense that he just didn't know what to do with me. He'd thought he had a nice little plan, but it overwhelmed him. He'd taken his chance, but had been afraid of confronting me. Coward. He'd copped out at the end, telephoned the police to scare me off. Christ, he'd probably telephoned me all those times wanting to call the whole thing off.

I should just take a trip out of town a week, two weeks, wait and see.

Except I couldn't do that.

No.

I still was a mess.

What was I thinking? Coward? Called me to say it was over? Then why not leave a message?

And he'd let me follow him home.

Why?

He could've called the police from anyplace, any time. He was enormous, could've struck me down, rushed me, could've done anything.

He was insane. Was inhuman.

I shook my face and jogged up the stairs, slowed, got my breath back a bit, jogged up and was soon at the corridor end.

I was the coward.

-You can't hide, I said to myself.

I knew I was writhing, death agonies, wanted anything rather than to look at his bloated face on the plump glut of his neck fat, but I had to. Otherwise, this would just go on forever.

Insane.

No one tells someone they're going to turn them over to the authorities and then calls it off over the telephone, calls and calls and leaves no message.

I moved past the mat outside the old man's door, steadied myself, gave a polite knock.

Almost right away, five seconds perhaps, the door opened, a woman, middle aged, dressed for taking a day off stood in front of me.

-I'm sorry I said, blinked, looked at the corridor.

I was in front of the correct door. I felt nauseous.

-I'm sorry, I repeated. I think I might have been given the wrong address.

I fumbled that I was supposed to meet a man, quite plump, made a gesture of a rotund gut with my arms in front of me, snapped my fingers and said the word Mister a few times, like I was searching my memory.

-What address are you looking for?

I pretended not to register this. I didn't even know the address of this building. I recalled the number on the door front, though, so just said Ten Eighty-eight.

-They said it was apartment ten eighty-eight, right in this building.

I glanced back at the old man's mat, gauging the space from it to where I was, certain this was the door. The woman kept apologizing, supposed it might be a neighbor, but couldn't think of who fit the description I'd given.

***

I'd become accustomed so quickly to waiting in the stairwell, like a childhood bedroom or some bench I'd sit on everyday for months, smoking cigarettes after lunch.

I wanted the woman to leave before I knocked on the old man's door, but didn't know why.

Was I nervous she might leave while I was talking to him, see me, get involved, tell the old man I'd been bothering her as well, pretending to look for some fat man?

But the old man definitely knew the fat man, so it was stupid.

It was all stupid.

The woman obviously knew him, as well. Or else he had a key to her apartment, unknown to her.

I could call the police, have them back me up that the fat guy had been in there the previous night, had called them.

And prove what? To what end?

Added to which, the police would be upset to find me back, bothering people, wouldn't humour me calling women in apartments crazy, conspirators in some game of threatening to turn me in for some murder I'd committed.

I knocked on the old man's door, but no one answered.

Dejected, frowning and numb, ears buzzing with a rattle like coins spun underwater, I walked down a few blocks, sat in a fast food restaurant, ordered something after five minutes just to avoid being bothered by any of the people who seemed to be paying no attention to me.

The old man maybe had a key to her apartment?

He was a neighbor, it made sense.

So, the fat guy had asked could he borrow it to hide out for the night? Had gotten spooked I was still following him but didn't want to just stay in the old guy's room? Or what else? He used to be involved with her, still had a key, happened to know the old man and to throw me off the trail, had visited with him then ducked in to the woman's apartment? But why would he call the police? How would he know she wouldn't be back? Where had she been?

It was senseless. I felt I was trying to reason with the rules to a card game invented by a six-year-old.

Was it all just to screw with me, still?

After all, I was the only one treating it as though there was some outcome other than the one stated at the beginning. I only felt any of this was unreasonable because I wanted it explained, I wanted to be allowed out of it by promising something. It was pointless to even confess myself, turn myself in if that was what this cretin wanted. If I did what he was going to do, either way, I'd be no better off.

I finally stood up to go use the toilet, but only after honestly considering just wetting my pants, just sitting there, slumped over, urinating, staying put until it dried.

***

So I rode on the metro, read from a newspaper someone had left folded, jammed between the seat and the window, kept my eyes solid to the text, the photos, the cartoons, especially when the compartment got nearly full, people sitting all around me.

What was irritating me the most was how I couldn't shake one certain thought. If I left, even if I was never caught, that would be it. Taking it as granted that the man could give evidence against me, that he went ahead with it, that I left town and somehow evaded the police, evaded them forever, that was all there would ever be for me. My name was gone, my money, any chance of ever reemerging as myself. I would be an identified murderer, a fugitive.

The only way to know if he'd been bluffing would be to wait around, sit in my apartment, see if the police showed up.

Which they would, I knew they would.

Shaking my head, regardless of how the abrupt gesture looked to the passengers sitting around me, I forced myself to stay focused on my other hypothetical.

If the police didn't show up.

If they didn't. Not in the early afternoon, not in the evening, not the next day, the next week, if they never did it meant this would go on and on forever.

Would he change his game? What would he do?

I would never be able to just shrug it off, think it was all done, that I'd outwitted him, outplayed him.

Because I hadn't, I'd done and was doing nothing.

I could kill him.

The thought laid its wet tongue back down on me, again, went to sleep leaking filth.

If I killed him, I thought, and if I wasn't arrested, I might possibly feel I'd escaped.

If it went a year or two? How long?

Never entirely free, but I could make less rash plans.

The crowd around me had thinned out. I'd taken a corner seat, separated from the rest of the compartment by a partition, was reading business editorials, not understanding a word, not caring to.

I smiled, reminding myself that it would mean I'd have to get away with killing him, too. Obviously. Which I doubted I would. Not just because police had seen me badgering him, regardless of whatever this trick of the woman being in the apartment was, not just because the old man had seen me, but because I didn't have it in me to get away with it. I could butcher him, jiggle a long blade up his shuddering gut, I could obliterate him, but I had no idea how to get away with anything.

Hopeless.

I'd not even gotten away with the crime I'd gotten away with.

I'd confess. If I went through with it, killed him, I'd break down, confess to everything.

I switched trains, imagining being caught, imagined my confessing.

And I thought that I might as well kill him, but, like I'd realized before, he still would've won, still would've caught me, killed me right alongside him.

***

Then I walked and walked and walked around, walked around until almost four o'clock, entirely out of things to do. I was so worn out, I couldn't quite get it straight in my head if I would be turned in the following afternoon or the afternoon of the day after.

The day after next seemed too long. It seemed he never would give me that much time.

Why not? Because I might escape?

There was no escape.

Escape wasn't escape.

It was the day after tomorrow. I would have to wait though the rest of the day, the night, the next day, the next night, the next day before it would be done.

No.

Yes yes yes, I nodded. The day after next.

I took some money from a cash machine and checked my balance.

Pathetic.

I wondered if I should call work, apologize, ask them to just mail my last check someplace, hope the police didn't bother with looking too much into my work situation, seeing as I didn't have much of a job.

Mail my check where? A post office?

It would be just as risky to show up for it there. The money was just gone, not an option.

I bought more cigarettes and saw that I was only ten blocks or so away from the bar he'd lead me to. I strolled, unhurried, and when I arrived I ordered a bourbon, taking it quickly, ordered another and challenged myself not to drink it.

Nervous about doing it, I asked the man at the bar if he knew a guy, really quite fat, came into the bar all the time, was in last night with a woman. I was adding that I was asking because we'd talked about some business opportunity and I'd lost his card, but while I mumbled all of that the bartender had called behind him to another employee, verifying the name, turned back to me and asked if it might have been Montgomery Fent I'd talked to.

-Montgomery? I asked, speaking slowly, the bartender, nodding like he was certain of himself, repeating the name, the surname, doing a pantomime of the guy's obesity while he laughed a bit.

Using the laugh as a prompt, I leaned in, swallowing my remaining bourbon shot, asked if the guy was just some loser, mentioned I'd thought he looked sort of shabby but that I'd also been a bit drunk, myself.

-Yeah, he always sort of looks like ass, the bartender said, but people seem to like him, he buys drinks for everyone, so he must do alright.

The bartender had no idea where Montgomery Fent lived, seemed genuinely apologetic, would not have had any hesitation in telling me if he did know. He told me that some of the night staff might know, one of the cooks seemed to know him alright.

***

Two more bourbons, a celebration, before I got morose.

Montgomery.

The name was ill fitting. He had the look of a wet bag filled with dog turd, while Montgomery was a name suggesting dignity, restraint, some sort of breeding. The name made him all the more freakish to me, knowing what he was called sopped up the last of what little humanity I'd allowed him.

I tried to resist having another drink, at least until I'd let the ones I'd downed catch up, saw how far gone they'd leave me. At least until I talked to the cook.

Montgomery.

It made me sick that he was called that, but it made me hate him more fully, too. Now it was certain that he was just trying to make something of himself, rise above the waste he'd become, his name must have mocked him every time he heard it, called him out for the slovenly, misshapen nobody he was.

Montgomery.

My conversation with the cook was brief, no problem, but it did make me uneasy. The cook had said that Montgomery did know what he was talking about, so he was glad I'd decided to give him a chance. This must have been referring to what I'd told the bartended about a business deal or whatever, but that was just some rubbish I'd concocted to have something to say.

Why would the cook mention it? Why would the cook do business with Montgomery? What business?

I stumbled to the toilet, cleaned myself up, wetted my hair and smoothed it back severely with both of my hands, as hard as I could, my forehead aching from the effort. The sag to my face reflected in the slightly chipped mirror was revolting. I turned away, wincing down.

It was a game. All a game. I was to sniff out the clues. Of course he'd wanted me to come to the bar. He would keep me plenty busy, give me a real wild time of it before he drove the last nail home.

All of it was pretend.

But there was nothing else to do.

I tried to feel flattered. I tried to feel anything but self loathing, anything to keep me from focusing on the fact that I was barely smart enough to keep up with his gibbering tricks and that I would keep blundering through this out of spite, out of pride, because I didn't want him to belittle me for being a fool on top of everything else.

***

I could've hopped any of the several buses that passed me as I walked, all of them had at least one stop in the vicinity of the address I'd been given for Montgomery. But I just walked, smoking, discarding the cigarettes before they were halfway through, not caring, hoping to sober up.

Montgomery had come a long way out in order to find me on that bench. It was irrelevant why he'd bothered even though he knew my telephone number, my address, knew where I worked, the telephone number there, but I got drawn in to thoughts about it, frowning, feeling futile, a moron, unable to thread anything together.

Additionally, the address I was walking toward was in the opposite direction, entirely, of the area of the city where Claudia lived and worked, so I found it bizarre that Montgomery would've happened on me the night of the murder.

Though he had.

Certainly he had.

I ducked in to a coffee shop, ordered a double espresso, downed it, thinking that if I was at least a bit more hyper it might serve as well as being a bit more sober.

I wanted my thoughts to stop. I didn't want to flail, didn't want to wriggle until I was free or until I was finished, I just wanted to wait quietly, reservedly, but it was impossible to manufacture an inch of calm. I was uncomposed, felt out of myself, disassembled. I'd given up to inertia and if it suddenly all drained, dissipated out and away I would accept that, I'd be over.

If it were an elaborate invention of Montgomery's, he certainly hadn't let all of the players in on his endgame.

Or had he? Could everyone, all of these people, actually be creatures like Montgomery, fiends willing to go along with playing pretend when they knew a man was guilty of murder? Could they all be mocking themselves up when they were in front of me, playing parts, nothing like their actual selves? The woman, the old man, the bartender, the cook, anybody I happened to come in contact with, try to utilize to some advantage, had Montgomery thought of it all, thought to have seemingly random people waiting to play each role, direct me, nudge me another hint or two? Did he pay them? Some perverted fascination of a wealthy degenerate?

I despised myself entertaining such obviously farcical thoughts, but what else did I have to entertain? No step I took corresponded to a prior step and I truthfully had the impression that if I stopped any passerby, asked any clerk, walked up to a telephone and placed a call to any number, mentioned Montgomery Fent, I would, as if by accident, have stumbled on someone who knew him loosely, knew someone who knew him, could tell me something that would turn into some other nothing when I squinted to give it a better look.

***

The address I'd been given was a second floor unit of a two story apartment building, long and on a hill. It looked like some of the apartments must be warped, built on downslopes, upslopes, but I knew that wouldn't be the case. There were numbers on the outer brick by the windows and I saw Montgomery's unit, the window dark, curtains half drawn.

All I felt like doing was waiting, some squirming fear in me made me hope no one would come to the door if I knocked. I couldn't see much advantage, at this point, in making contact, the only motivation I had was to present myself, show I'd deciphered what he wanted me to decipher. I'd no idea why it mattered to me, other than he had something over me and I didn't know how he'd come across it. It was more than I could bear to not show I could at least figure out something about him.

He hadn't paid the cook. He hadn't known I was going to go to the bar. He wouldn't be at home, because it would be dangerous for him. The same reason he'd used the woman's apartment to hide, called the police.

The old man?

He didn't even tell the old man what was what. They were friends, but not comrades in this assault on me.

What had happened, then?

He'd gone to the old man's place, likely just because they had plans from before, so it made just as much sense as any place else. Also, it got him safe from me, got him someplace quiet where he could rest, could gather his thoughts, at least to some degree.

He didn't know the woman, she'd never seen him, he perhaps knew that the old man had her spare key, so he secreted it, said Goodnight to the old man and then snuck in to the woman's place, hoping it would be enough for me to think it was where he lived. He wanted to sneak out when he knew for certain I'd gone. Or at least to hide until he could come up with someplace else to go, get away from me for good, leaving me with a false sense of knowledge.

How had he known she wouldn't come home?

For the exact reason she hadn't been home. She always spent nights with a lover, or often did. Worked nights. Or some remark from the old man had tipped him off. Maybe that was why he thought to steal the key, in the first place. I'd pounded on the door, though, so his hand was forced. He couldn't confront me himself, because the old man would wonder what he was doing in the woman's apartment. The police were a risk, but would get rid of me. Nothing else mattered.

Why would anything else matter?

It was as good an escape as any, from his point of view.

And it had worked.

I found myself grinning, scratching at my thighs while I sat on a bench up the block, mouth limp and open, staring at Montgomery's window.

I was cautious with believing my scenario, but didn't test it too strictly.

Plausible.

Plausible that I was the monster and he was shrinking from me, I was an insect who he thought he'd caught cupped in his hand, pinned in a tissue, but when he checked I was gone and now he felt me everywhere on his skin all at once.

***

It must've been while I was getting a new cigarette going, taking casual drags, leaning forward to retighten the ties of my shoes, that the window light of Montgomery's apartment had winked on. I got confused, wasn't certain I was watching the correct window, but sluggishly walked and within twenty paces from where I'd been sitting was near enough to verify the number on the brick.

With no real resistance, I entered the building, climbed the stairs, stood in front of the door, knocking even while still wondering if Montgomery had been there the entire time, asleep, sitting in the dark, or if he'd walked in while I was distracted, entered through another door.

He was dressed in dingy sweatpants and an open flannel shirt, had a look on his face at first of expectation, but it shifted to confusion almost immediately. He said Hi, sort of squinting over my shoulder down the hall as though the person he'd expected might be there.

I couldn't move.

His behavior was inappropriate. He wasn't corresponding, but his little improvisation seemed so natural I just watched it, unquestioning, was struck dumb when he finally gave me a screwy look, impatient, and asked me what I wanted, his features creased, softening, his eyes unsure.

I could hear my own breathing and nothing else.

-Tell me what you want, I said and he took two steps back, slowly, his eyes moving to the side but then recentering, as though afraid of being found looking that way.

-I don't want anything, he said and puffing himself up, an adjustment at his sweatpants, asked me who I was.

I started to cry. It cracked from me. I felt my face burn with pale then fill with blood, my nose began to run, and I clamped one hand over nose and mouth, thumb over one eye and just asked him to stop. I could feel myself churning, twisting into no shape, hands inside me pulping cold and morbid for me to lunge at him, but I was too shaken to move.

He motioned me to come in, but with his hands at the ready, ensuring a distance between us. He retreated like a door opening in, made a tick of a gesture to touch my shoulder, but halted it.

I spun in place, tightened everything I could to keep my limbs from lashing out madly at any surface, at myself, at his face and I screamed into my hands burying my face, felt hot and salt and slop and when I moved my hands he was still there, back a few more steps, the door open, the look of nonrecognition on his face not slipping so much as a whisker.

***

He let me cry, drunken, let me hiccup and eventually get myself settled, in the meantime pouring some water and then a glass I could wiff a hint of rum in.

I'd no idea how to start. I was exhausted, didn't know why'd I come to begin with. It was absurd, his standing at his kitchen counter, waiting. But he was nervous, palpably nervous, like he was in a situation foreign, no idea how to proceed, already feeling he'd made a wrong choice letting me in.

-Why haven't you already turned me in? I just blurted, my voice cracking twice. I couldn't look at his face for more than an instant without feeling tears well, so I stared at the water glass I had both hands curled around.

Almost whispering, he told me he didn't know who I was.

I dropped the glass, on purpose, as theatric a gesture as I felt capable of, tapped it with my shoe tip once, watched it roll not so far, watched his carpet moisten.

-You know who I am. I don't understand this, anymore. If you haven't turned me in, you want something. If you want something, tell me you want something.

I was about to tell him I'd kill him, feeling the thuds of the breaths of the words dampening and growing sour in my gut, when he said, still frightened, overtop of me Turn you in for what?

I swallowed. Looked at him.

He didn't move.

The thought came on me and I let it be a balm.

Was he not acting?

No. He was.

I didn't care.

Yes, he was acting. Christ, I started to laugh. He looked pale, livid as bathroom tile.

Making calm, more or less condescending, sarcastic rolls of my hands, speaking as though to an imbecile, I told him he'd approached me yesterday, claimed to know what I'd done, threatened to turn me over to the authorities, telephoned me at home, led me around town, he'd called the police on me.

With each word he seemed to grow at once more confused and more sure of himself, his hand finally going up, adamant, just to stop me.

-I don't remember yesterday, he said. And then his other hand up, both of them in a tapping motion toward me, like a pat to my shoulders to stay seated, calm. He paused and then went on. I sometimes forget things, he said, no inflection, absolutely blank. He told me about some condition he had, some pills he sometimes neglected to take, that sometimes just didn't work. He blathered, five minutes about this, always calming me, making me stay seated by brushing his hands in the air. He claimed to be ill, to sometimes lapse into states of mind where he wandered around, talked to people, did things he'd later not recall.

-I take medicine for it, he said and slowly, slowly, slowly, his eyes on me the entire time, he opened a drawer in the kitchen, took out a pill bottle and handed it to me, backing away as soon as he had.

I didn't look at the bottle. I heard it rattle in my hand. I watched his face, childish in its terror as I lunged forward, hurled the bottle at his forehead, stumbled past him out into the corridor and then was down the stairs, out in the late evening air, fell down, was standing, was someplace else, hyperventilating, growling, around a corner then another, blubbering, nothing and nobody.

***

I'd reached a point of such mental exhaustion that I walked an hour, thinking about various television shows I'd watched, various films, mumbling to myself about them, about ways some plot might've gone instead, having some made believe debates with old friends about whether a movie they thought was good was actually bad or vice versa. Simple thoughts, having nothing to do with anything. Distractions that consumed me, totally consumed me.

I finally started thinking of how I would call in to work the next day, apologize, say I'd had a personal emergency, had gotten too caught up to call. I was on good terms with the people at work, I thought, I'd not be terminated without ceremony, not for just not showing up to one shift without calling.

I got myself smiling, genuinely felt in a good mood, went into a franchise restaurant, got a table, ordered an appetizer, a meal, some coffee, a glass of wine, even apologizing to the waitress for my appearance, telling her I'd had an awful time of it all day, to which she smiled, said I didn't look so bad and I had to stop myself from responding to her because I would have flirted and she'd not said it to flirt.

Gradually, I came back to myself. Reluctantly I let in some slight pockets of thought about Montgomery, about the old man, then got caught up in my invented scenario of Montgomery escaping by using the woman's apartment, again, but the thoughts were still numb.

I likely was feverish, touched my forehead, wondered if it would be stupid to ask the waitress to touch my forehead, or to ask her, more appropriately, to ask some male staff member to touch my forehead.

I appalled myself. My food cramped stiff inside me.

I waited until I was certain I could do so unnoticed, put my coaster over my wine, got a cigarette in my mouth to at least give the appearance I was just stepping out for a smoke, then left the restaurant, hurried, almost jogged, three blocks, at each cross street taking a turn.

***

I entered the lobby of a large hotel, crossed by the front desk as though I was already a guest, walked the main floor corridor until I came on a door to a public restroom. It was a single occupancy toilet, so I locked myself in, the overhead fan activating loud when I flapped at the light switch.

I really was in no mood to vomit, anymore, especially as I couldn't tell where my inebriation ended, my fatigue started, or how much of what I felt was due to my becoming agitated, unspooled, desperate. But I did go to my knees, leaned my head over the bowl, curled two fingers, as though ready to probe them down, gag myself, empty everything out.

On my knees, I felt better immediately. So I lay down. I couldn't get comfortable curled, so lay flat on my back, staring at the fluorescent light and the underside of the sink.

I closed my eyes, but when I did everything went haywire, I felt the floor was being upended beneath me, the sensation of tumbling, pain, every thought had the thundering insistence of each bleating pulse of my blood's seething.

Standing at the sink, I just gazed at my face, wetted it, made my features seem menacing, touched my forehead to my glass forehead, backed away slowly, letting my face reconstitute in front of me out of a glob of confused colours drifting out of crossing images of each other.

For a long time, ten minutes, longer, twenty minutes, longer, I felt tense, waiting for some flood of images to overwhelm me, waiting to feel the violence of my mind rewiring itself, to have memories chortle up from my past, memories of me watching Claudia, but really just watching an empty lot, of me strangling Gavin, burying him under trash bags, clumsily wiping my hands of him on my pant legs, only to have it revealed that I'd only buried a wet cloth or a bag of my own clothes, to realize there hadn't been any one in front of me while I walked the street outside that movie theatre, that it'd been me out on a date with some disgusting fat woman at that bar, that it'd been my own door I'd pounded on, me who'd called the police on no one, called the police on myself. I waited to feel the sting of this, have my life reassemble in a cinematic epiphany, know I'd killed no one, had spent the last day stalking myself, a deluded wreck. I waited to suddenly realize that my name was Montgomery or to have my reflection suddenly leer out at me through saliva wet lips, notice how bloated it was, see that my hair was nothing more than a damp lick of grease from my hands, hear my shoe bottom flop when I went to stand straight.

When I realized this is what I was waiting for, I smiled, saw my face smiling, saw how red with wet my eyes were, how drawn my face was, gaunt past sickness.

I tested memories, bringing up without pain or difficulty clear images of myself leaned harshly up against Gavin, his hands holding my face so that I had to tilt my neck and back oddly, look almost behind me, and I remembered my groin practically dry humping his upper thigh and remembered how obnoxiously sudden he'd collapsed, how I'd collapsed half way on him, perspiring, recalled with clarity how he'd died with no more sound than the squeak of a half asleep fart.

***

Head down, my eyes reaching toward my chest like they should be sewn there, I walked a block from the hotel. Walked back. Walked a block in the other direction. Walked back.

I was shaking involuntarily, but it came across as jumpiness. I shuffled where I stood, probably looked giddy to anyone watching. I tried to sit, would squirm on the bench, the curb, some upcrop of brick. My feet walked me in circles, blocks long or paces long.

-Pajamas.

I hiccupped the word, a wince clamping my eye on some fleck of dirt had blown in it.

-Pajamas, pajamas pajamas pajamaspajamas I kept whispering, rubbing my raw eye, keeping it open, letting it water, rubbing at it more, trying to dislodge whatever had gotten in it.

Montgomery had been wearing pajamas when he'd answered the door for the police. Or had been wearing dingy house clothes, sweatpants, some loose shirt. They couldn't have been the woman's, she was a stick, a nothing, while he was a blot of tumor.

Why would there be clothes in the apartment to fit him? Why would he have changed, in the first place?

My head swayed and I set off, again, no direction in particular, trying to keep to any street not so crowded, eyeing liquor stores, feeling saliva under the rough of my dry lips.

Why even think about it?

-There isn't a mystery, I said, stamping once, almost tripping, stamping again to make certain I was driving this point home. No mystery.

The woman had a fat husband?

She seemed to not understand, though, even when I'd pantomimed I was looking for a fat person.

So what?

He'd snuck the clothes in, earlier, hid them under her sink, or had left a bag with them outside the rear window earlier in the day.

What did it matter?

A crowd welled up around me at a crosswalk. I held my breath, could feel everything writhing in me, my eye still worthless, heavy with wet from the irritant that must've been already flushed.

***

I felt lucky to have found the rear seats of the bus available, most of the other seats already filled. It was bright where I sat and the steaming of the bus wheels drowned so much noise out, replacing it with blats that kept my concentration subdued, I was grateful.

I started to think, in single breaths out single breaths in, about Montgomery, directly. The look he'd mocked up, smeared over his bloated eyes was indelible. I thought about it without being able to cast it as phony, as the cruel joke it had been.

There was no way I could've reacted differently, I wasn't just an offhand doodle, he'd rattled me. Especially the thing with the pill bottle, it was too absurdly tempting a path to be lead down. I started to think he may have done it to be kind, offering it as an out, a better drunk than the sour that I could feel kicking in my gut.

I lolled my eye to watch the pavement out the window, saw it like the grind behind the skin of my reflected face.

Kind?

He'd done it to be horrific. He was horror. Montgomery Fent. I couldn't have shaped him out of exhumed slimes of animal. He was repugnant, a cruelty so complete I felt my eyes tearing just considering him.

I also found myself actually wondering what I'd done to him, why this was happening to me. For a minute, five minutes, for a little while, I felt I'd not done anything to deserve a speck of the nightmare I roamed headless, ugly through.

I realized the bus was pulling up to the street outside of the old man's apartment, the woman's.

I shot up.

Why had I gotten on the bus?

I laughed, so astonished I just focused on the unsettling humor of it. I'd meant to walk back to Montgomery's building, steel myself to go back to his door, but I must've cross-wired my thoughts, gotten this building in my head when I thought about His Apartment.

Some other passenger pulled the stop cord. I stood, waiting behind her at the center door, looking up at my smile in the tilt of circular mirror that hung lazy, like it was asleep, half dreaming me.

***

The stairwell all but hurt to walk in, the space left by a lost tooth I was scraping at. It was a cowardly little ascent, had nothing to do with anything. I knew I was just climbing the stairs to keep myself convinced I didn't need to see Montgomery, again. I was certain the stress I'd been put through and my only recourse against it being trembling tugs at joints and bottles had likely turned him into more of a ghoul than he was, but it didn't change that each step up made me feel safer, just because I was more away.

I got a cigarette going, again. Again looked at the mat. Again leaned in the opening of the corridor entrance.

There was the old man's apartment. There was the woman's apartment.

I let smoke out of my nose deciding which to approach, totally ignoring the option that I might do both.

If I knocked on one, they might answer, but the other would creep to their door, maybe on hands and knees, verify I was out there, douse lights, not answer if I knocked all night.

Ridiculous. Not true at all. None of it remotely corresponding to reality.

I might as well knock on the one door, dash down the corridor, knock on the other, wait in the middle.

As it was, I was doing neither.

The old man hadn't done anything, really, hadn't indicated a participation.

Although, I thought, licking the outside of my two front teeth, he had looked at me. He had. Looked right at me.

With what expression?

None.

And the woman?

Out and out lied, pretended as absolutely as Montgomery had pretended, claimed that the description didn't even ring a bell.

Even if she didn't know Montgomery had been in her apartment, was I really to believe she'd never had occasion to see him, not once, even a visit to his old man?

She disgusted me, reeked of bile as I sucked in more smoke. I threw tight punches into the air just in front of my stomach, thought about driving a blade up her.

But I stood, doing nothing. Staring at two doors. Unfocusing. Hardly even looking at the bauble of light and the rough grime of dark the corridor I refused to look at had become.

***

The old man's door sounded normal when I knocked and for the first time I noted how painful my hand was, the one

I'd run in to the wall. It was swollen and didn't shake as much as the other, maybe the only part of me that had successfully gone numb.

No answer.

I didn't care. It's why I'd picked the door in first place, the old man wouldn't answer like he hadn't before.

I felt finished, looking down, not stopping a long of drool from going over my lip, heavy like rubber, dwindling down into the fuzz of the mat top. I trudged to the elevator, keeping my eyes as closed as I could.

It could've been Montgomery had wanted me to come here, again, odd as it sounded. There was no way he could've known I would, as I hadn't known I was, even while doing it. Unless he was so keenly aware of the minutia of my psychology he could map me, mark out trails for me to take totally unconsciously.

But what could I do?

I glanced back at the woman's door.

Did she have something to do with Claudia? How could she?

I blinked.

Claudia?

With Gavin, I meant.

Why was I pushing this off to have something to do with Claudia?

She didn't have to have anything at all to do with it.

I let the elevator close in front of me, even though I knew I was just pretending. I wasn't going to walk down the corridor, back to the door.

Gavin's mother? Was that it? Why would that be?

I slapped myself.

Even if it was, which it wasn't, it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't, what would it matter?

She pretended not to know about Montgomery. This proved beyond doubt that it wasn't Gavin's mother or Gavin's anybody.

Some woman lost her son is going to go along dressing up pretend with some goblin, her boy's corpse not even in the ground a quarter year?

I pressed the elevator button again, listening to the sound of the motor, stopping, going again, the doors simpering open in front of me, the stale smell of the old stains on the carpeted walls of it bumbling out, the door closing in my face again, leaving me looking down the corridor at the door I wasn't going to approach.

***

What was unsettling me so much, new cigarette, new drive in me to walk a block to get coffee, sit in a café full of noise, people, nothing to do with me or anyone, was that I had, however temporarily, slipped out of Montgomery's clutches, but had done so inadvertently. Knowing he didn't know where I was, had no way of knowing, had no purpose for me to be where I was, made my stomach tight, disoriented me. I rather wanted to be in the confines of the game, feel its mechanics around me. It made me dizzy to feel I could shoot off in some random direction, see myself drift out of the orbit of the end of my life.

Not that I was away. Not that I was any less trapped.

I felt nervous when I thought about him wondering where I was, why I hadn't done what he'd meant for me to do next.

Which was to go back to his place. That's what I'd tried to do, it's what made some semblance of sense. He'd made a buffoon of me, had his grimy little chuckle about it, but I should've gone back, called him out, gone ahead with the next charade.

How had I felt? Angry?

I couldn't recall.

I'd gotten on the bus, something churning in me, some set to my features and now was lost in this pointless interlude.

I had my coffee. I was staring at three women, their voices grating but one of them holding a book I became obsessed with learning the title of.

There was no reason for me to be here. This is what it would be like. Forever. Watching three woman in some coffeehouse, wondering what they were reading, no place to be, always feeling the plump of his sucked wet thumb on the back of my neck, the top of my hands, his breath just outside my mouth.

If I ran.

When I ran.

Had this been the next proper move? Had this been what he'd meant me to do?

I couldn't shake it, couldn't not care.

Maybe he hadn't exactly meant me to go to the old man's apartment, though that was suddenly a reasonable place to imagine I'd accidentally go, but he'd wanted to me go just anyplace, get lost, feel lost, feel how no one he'd brought me to. Then go back. Finish coffee and go back. Lack the nerve to meet the woman's eyes, be a mongrel and crawl back, groaning for a pat on the head.

***

The entire day seemed to have vanished, was gone already, I could hardly think of what I'd done. On top of that, my fatigue was becoming a suffocation. I waited at a bus stop, counting the minutes it would take once the bus came to get back to Montgomery's place. I tried to come up with some equation, to find the value in time spent for what result.

My apartment now had an allure. I had one more day, certainly. One more day, one more night before it would be done, one way or another. If I were to return to my apartment, my body was finally ready to give out, I'd likely not wake until midday, evening, then it would just be a gloomy sense of approach. I'd likely wake with my head straight, ready to leave town, run.

Thoughts crawled out of me, up my throat, down through my nostril. I was dank, riding the bus before I knew it, eyes closed, wide awake as though clutched inside my own fist held to my chest. I pretended a scenario of my begging, literally hands and knees, groveling, humiliating myself however he'd like if only he'd cut out the game playing, tell me what I could do.

My eyes opened.

This was fantasy. It was a waste of time. He'd told me what to do.

Don't worry about it. Nothing I can do.

Perhaps this was something even more damning than I thought, his way of letting me know how outside his hands it was. He could've put something in motion that not even he could alter, some endgame he couldn't slow, couldn't reverse. He'd just started some motor, I'd be turned over without his having to make another move.

It could be.

Maybe he felt his skin was peeling, so much regret. Maybe he'd thought twice about it but it no longer mattered.

Maybe.

No. Not maybe. Just no.

He was a growth. He was something sicked up, scrubbed at but never quite gone.

My apartment, my apartment I thought. It didn't matter if it was cowardice, I was allowed to be as much a coward as I felt.

I thumped my fingers to the outside of my cigarette packet, having to leave the bus early, get one lit, not so much minding the rest of the walk.

***

Right away to bourbon, a quick shot, then I remembered my marijuana. The motions were too quick to second guess, so much that I didn't even get around to double checking I'd securely locked the door until I was tilting back my head for a second swallow of bourbon, the lit joint set down, end over the lip of the sink, brought back to my mouth immediately after the growl of the liquor down.

I kept my palm, fingers spread wide, to the inside of the door, my forehead against the peculiar warm of the wood, slipped my eye to the peep hole a few times, didn't want to move. I had a vague sense of control, safety, the entire ordeal with Montgomery didn't bother me. I just thought about the police. Thought about what they'd say when they arrested me.

It was a waste of time, this thing with Montgomery. By mistake, I'd ended it, out of weakness I'd not made the mistake of returning to it. I was relieved, but even still, sitting on the end of my bed, the idea that I was making a mistake wouldn't get away from me.

I yelled out at the empty of the room, swiping at it, giving it shoves, demanding that it explain just what it was I should do, if anything else.

My breathing got normal, the joint tick-tocked down until I abandoned it, completely uncertain what I was doing.

How long would this idiocy last, how many stupors would I stuff myself inside of?

I must have some kind of mechanism in me, something that would jam up, make me get it together in time to run.

No. I didn't have to. I doubted it, in fact.

There were thirty-two messages on my machine, the indicator switching between the number and the word Full. I stared, reached numbly for my bourbon glass that was nowhere around, hit the button, waiting for the nothing. Instead, it was Montgomery, off key, humming a little tune.

Or not a tune. Tuneless.

Dum. Dah-dah. De de deet dah dum.

Then a beep.

I didn't recognize a bit of what he hummed.

The next message the same, different tuneless blurps.

Dum dah dant dun. De. Deet deet dah bah.

The beep.

The next message the same, neither shorter or longer, just other nothing.

Dah dant. Da. Deet deet bah baum dah.

The beep.

The next message.

***

Telephone disconnected, I sat on the kitchen floor, regretting that in a rush I'd poured out down the sink drain all the alcohol I had left, except for one large glassful I'd purposefully left, unable to rid myself completely of anything.

I should leave. I should get a hotel. But a hotel cost money.

Did he want me to waste my money? Have no means of escape?

He didn't want anything.

Waste my money on endless packs of cigarettes and coffees and bus fare and motels?

-Do you want me to waste my money? I asked, giving the cabinet in front of me an awkward kick, my back sliding more to the ground.

-I don't have money to waste, you don't want that you don't want that I mumbled, sick past death of trying to determine his motivation.

All that had happened was he'd realized I'd run away, felt it logical that my apartment was where I'd run to, started his little telephone game, again. A little change up to it, humming nothing instead of saying nothing. He wasn't even imaginative in his haunting.

-You're a worthless little ghost, I said, sluggishly getting myself up, first to knees, getting my breath, then to my knees with hands ready to pull up on the counter, getting my breath, then standing to bourbon glass to mouth, as much as could fit swallowed, the rest poured out while I said wet and childish and taunting You're an ugly worthless worthless little ghost, aren't you?

My mind had jettisoned, I had nothing to do with myself. I was disconnected from any aspect of my past. My life had been only these two days. I didn't even have a past to recoil from, be guilty of, I was a drunk taunt across my floor, realizing I'd wet my pants as I peeled them off.

I collapsed onto my bed mattress, reaching for and not finding the pillow.

I didn't want one more thought about it. None of it. Montgomery Fent no longer existed, as far as I was concerned. I didn't exist except I was Murder, an abstract waiting to be scribble scrabbled in a notebook, a detail to be crossed off a list. I wouldn't even have to worry about the consequences. If I could feel as I felt right then forever, there was nothing anyone could do to me that mattered. Expunging me, rubbing eraser left right left right left right left right until I was stained shaves of rubber couldn't give anyone solace, respite, vengeance, finality, not even numb worth a nickel.

***

It was a warped sleep. I got caught up trying to describe vague shifts in my thinking to myself, kept counting down, saying when I hit zero I'd get some clothes on, pajamas, but I lost track of everything. I fell asleep thinking about falling asleep, having a dream about how badly I wanted to be asleep.

I'd hear gargles of Montgomery humming, making his unconnected chirps and cacks.

I opened my eyes at one point, stirred, thinking it was odd my bedroom was dark. I thought I heard the faucet running or the toilet flushing. I didn't remember if I'd just dreamt this when I woke next, if it'd happened an hour ago, a few minutes, if it was just on my mind because I was right then considering how odd it was that the bedroom was dark.

Needing painfully to urinate, I wriggled side to side until I had the momentum to get awake, sit up, legs draping to the carpet. I turned my head up toward the door out into the hallway and stared right at Montgomery, sitting on a chair, his body a strain to it. I just stared, his image clear enough, even though it was mostly shadow, had the appearance of a lump of chewed food dropped to the floor, a cake of mud halfway dried out.

It wasn't until he hummed some random notes Dant Baum Dunt that I snapped back, scrambling backward, falling over the side of the bed, scurrying up against the bedroom wall beneath the window.

He didn't make any motion, except to wipe at his nose with tissue or toilet paper, to swallow like a rag being wrung out.

When he hummed again, I heard the hiss of my urine issuing down my leg, settling into the carpet. I covered my eyes, crawled under my arms, screwed myself sideways like the top of my head could burrow through the wall.

I knew he was there.

I tensed until I couldn't breathe, didn't breathe until a cough jabbed at me so piercing my nose started to bleed.

I got caught up pulling my shirt to my face to sop the blood, but heard Montgomery moving, the chair legs shift over the carpet, his throat clear, the bathroom door close, the overhead fan come cackling on.

***

After I closed the bedroom door, I crawled backward to the wall, staring at the doorknob, realizing I hadn't locked it.

I stayed there, staring, no idea how long.

It occurred to me that the flimsy little lock made no difference and I glanced around, wondering if I could move the dresser, the bed, everything in front of the door, do it so quietly Montgomery wouldn't hear, burst in.

I sat and stared at the unlocked door. Beyond it, I heard some sounds from the kitchen, smelled toast warming, a few moments later the television coming on.

I was crying, mucus dibbling over my lip down my chin, my tongue pecking out at it, wincing back in from the hot and salt.

Even if I barricaded the door, he could just go outside, come in the window.

I stood, pulled the cord to lift the blinds. He'd done nothing to block off an escape route. My feet tightened around the wet carpet where I stood.

I sat on the mattress.

He wasn't going to burst in. I could go out the window.

Go where?

-Anywhere, I whispered, but at the same time made a mocking face.

I set my features, asked myself in dead earnest Where? and waited while I came up with nothing to reply.

I changed in to dry clothes, nicer clothes than I'd been in, a rather cheap suit, but one of my better quality ones, something I'd not worn in more than a year, the fit of it loose.

I could hear him in the living room, on the sofa, the crunch of what he was eating, the smack of him taking a drink while still chewing.

He didn't even look up to acknowledge me when I came in to sight. It was unsettling. I wanted to catch his attention, but the absurdity of the moment paralyzed me.

What could the game in this be?

It was idiotic. I crossed behind him. There were any number of implements I could have bludgeoned him with. He was not tense, waiting for me to strike, ready to counter. I stared at the moist of the back of his head, but gradually my eyes drifted to the television screen. A syndicated sitcom, more than a decade old. The sound of it filled the apartment. He chuckled, briefly gagging on what he'd been just starting to swallow.

***

I was numb, didn't feel my legs as I got to the end of the corridor, shouldered the glass entrance door open. My hands trembled while I struggled with getting a cigarette lit.

I'd no idea what time it was, long past midnight, nowhere near morning. I didn't feel awake, didn't feel drunk, not high, but only because I was in shock.

No one was on the street. I did an inventory of my pockets, glad I'd remembered my wallet, cigarettes. I threw all of the random bits of tissue, receipts, all the coins away in a trash bin affixed to the lamppost by the bus stop.

Was this his way of taking ownership, claiming my apartment, letting me know I could no longer return?

It didn't make sense to think that.

It was something, though.

He had come looking for me. He hadn't let me drift off. Or, at least he hadn't let me drift off without verifying I had.

I winced. The flow of thoughts, even just beginning, was already exhausting me, I felt dread at the calm I'd so briefly established being upset.

No, I didn't care. I didn't want to think about it.

Was he just going to sit in my apartment? Had he already left?

I put my face to the outside of my window, squinting through the space left between the curtains, throwing looks around, not the least bit cautious of being witnessed as I could still prove it was my residence.

The lights were all off. The television off. I started to breathe hard.

Had he picked the lock? When could he have gotten a copy of my key?

I had locked the door, I knew I'd locked the door.

I stepped back around to look at the building entrance. Nothing. It was the only entrance and he was nowhere in sight up the rather well lit street.

Another cigarette to my mouth, I went back to the window, blowing smoke, moving my head in to see past my reflection when I noticed his face was pressed to the glass. I froze, clenched down my jaw, tensed everything, determined not to show my shock. He didn't seem to care one way or another, smiled, tapped the glass, held up his hand, one finger, tilted his head to indicate he was going to come around. I watched him go out the apartment door, watched it close.

I took a few breaths, then, a snap, started feeling around the window, trying to figure a way to get it opened, no idea what I'd do if I could manage it.

Keep some idiot game going, go hide under the bed? Anything? Something?

So glad when the window wouldn't budge, glad the attempt was worthless.

***

Montgomery lingered in front of the building a few minutes, not even looking for me, smoked a cigarette, discarded it, finally pricking to attention, taking a step toward the road. His hand raised. I saw a taxi lulling at the traffic light down the way half a block. He looked over at me.

The moment was intolerable. The most casual air imaginable, he waved me over, right away his head returning to watch for the approaching cab.

I began toward him, mostly out of wanting to avoid the awkwardness of his getting in the cab, the cab approaching me, halting, chugging there, waiting for me like spread lips. This way, I could keep going, enter the building, after which I was no better off, but it would screw with whatever he was up to.

At the same time, watching him there, the cab now approaching, I felt an abandon, an almost hateful snarl at myself, teased myself, pointed out to myself that it was a taxi, there was a driver, there was nothing to fear.

I wasn't afraid.

Would he kill me in a taxi?

He could have killed me in my sleep, killed me anyplace.

Where could he take me? To do what?

It was the taxi, which at least was something, or it was the long, formless drag of locking myself in an apartment he could unlock, he could wait outside of, it was the plodding down streets he could plod down after me, do whatever he wanted.

Was I so completely powerless I would let him decide everything for me, though?

It wasn't that. It was that in his menace, he'd managed to leave only worthless crumbs of choice for me to tap through, pellets that dropped soggy from his mouth, choices I could make but only knowing full well I didn't want to.

I wanted to get in the taxi. Did so without a word. I did cringe, swallowing down a rise of nausea, feeling my mouth go dry just a little bit when he held the door, letting me get in first. He waited until I'd huddled as far to the door window as I could before he scummed in after me, filling every sip of air, leg touching mine, my body trying to twist away so tight it cramped bile up into the back of my throat.

***

He gave his own address to the driver, but with a frowning expression, a surprise ruined. He sighed as though he should have thought of this before. Maybe he had. Maybe he'd made a special point to give the address to the dispatcher when telephoning for the cab, but didn't want to bother with saying to the driver I told them the address already, only to have the driver have to use the walkie-talkie, have the address skushed over the speaker, everything just as much ruined.

I thought about little things like that, eyes out, down, watching the road until my neck hurt. I turned to look straight forward, relieved I could see no smudge of Montgomery in the rearview mirror.

In a moment of sudden silence, the driver turning down the radio to answer a call from his dispatcher, saying something, waiting and waiting and waiting for a response, Montgomery took out his wallet, got a piece of paper out of it, took a pen from another pocket, scribbled something, held it up for me to take. I did so, noticing it was a very worn receipt from a drug store, the total spent less than three dollars.

Montgomery's writing was feminine, very legible.

The dirver doesn't know anything. Don't say anything.

I nearly vomited from the rush of blood to my ears, the backs of my eyes, my forehead going cold and waxy.

I didn't move until Montgomery took the paper from my fingers, wrote something else on the reverse side of it, held it back up to my hand that had not moved except to wobble in the empty, an inch or two from the seatback, the driver's identification displayed in a plastic sleeve.

Five new words. Periods between them. The fourth word in parenthesis. All the letters capital. The penmanship a bit sloppier than before. The words Daffodil, Moreover, Sizzle, Enunciate, and Vizage, the misspelling to the last word seeming purposeful, the final E in it written backward.

He let me hold the paper, my eyes watering from not being able to blink, all thought halting, a litany of the words over and over, as though there were something I should make of them and I could make nothing.

Eventually, he took the receipt paper, but just turned it over, returned it to my fingers, the first two sentences there, but now upside down.

The dirver doesn't know anything. Don't say anything.

Only after staring at this, the cab radio going again, Montgomery saying something to the driver I didn't hear at all, did it occur to me that Driver was misspelled, as well.

***

I took the cigarette Montgomery lit and held across to me, not thinking, taking a drag from it while Montgomery lit another. I smoked it, feeling tricked, following him down the corridor, into his apartment, going ahead into his living room while I heard him shut the door, lock it, put the bolt in place.

There was a cup on the arm of the sofa that already had a few bloated olds of cigarette in it, so I dropped mine in, watched it discolor, let off its last smoke, float.

Behind me, I heard Montgomery say Kaspar, his hand gently touch to my shoulder. I turned, his face soft with emotion, a movement of the beginnings of a tear at the base of his left eye.

-I suppose I should tell you about Gavin, he said. It seemed a requiem mass between the start of the sentence and the end. I suppose. Forever, death, forever. Gavin. After that, he didn't talk, didn't move for another few minutes.

Supposing he was waiting for a prompt, I started to speak, but only managed the Guh of Gavin's name before he brought his fist hard into my left ribs, winding me, collapsing me to my knees. In the next instant, he'd lifted a thick book from his kitchen counter, swung it full force into the side of my head. Blood filled my mouth, I lost any sense of spatial relations, felt rolled over myself, Montgomery's shin thundering in to the same set of ribs he'd punched.

He began to bulbously dance around, making grotesque squishing noises, letting farts of airs out of puffed up cheeks. In clear glimpses I got of him, his hands were raised high, arms jiggling. He retched my name Kaspar Kaspar Kaspar two distinct words made of it, the first elongated, imbecile sounding, Kas, the second a staccato, stifled sneeze, Par, pronounced Purr. Then he freely warped the name, laughing, wheezing, stomping on the back of my right calf once. Kuss Pur Ket Plert Kess Pess Klar Plar Kurd Pest Kesser Pear Krack Plack Kurd Plau a jumble of nonsense, flabby laughter, blows stuck to me here and there.

Finally, I'd crawled, hobbled, over to his sofa, arms around my head, body raw and pulsing as I spit blood out over my upper lip, felt it slip down into my nose, the top of my head trying to dig into filthy hardwood.

I could hear Montgomery, still giggling, completely amused with himself, sucking long, furious dredges of phlegm up, squeezing spits of the slop out into what I supposed was one of his filthy tissues, almost a seizure of hyperventilating delight.

***

Forever, the only sound my swallowing, bubbling saliva, blood, moaning, the crunch of my head as it kept pressing and lolling on the ground.

At some point, I stopped waiting for the next blow, tried to be quiet, tried to listen but had difficulty making my mind unclench, difficulty hearing anything but the muffled begging in my head.

I got to the sofa, propped myself back, certain Montgomery would swat me down, my eyes shut against this, but no violence came.

I looked around, dizzy. It hurt to let my eyes focus, jarred me like someone had poked a stick, thin and sharp, up my nose. He wasn't in the room. I looked around and around. He wasn't in the room. I couldn't let myself believe that. He could've been hiding, though there was no fixture large enough to conceal him.

Behind the kitchen counter?

He could've been behind the kitchen counter.

Why?

I started to cry. The question was revolting. I was pathetic, so broken, so wretched, only someone long dead could bother with that question still.

-Montgomery? I managed to say, though no idea if it sounded anything like a name.

Nothing. Nothing.

-Montgomery, again, like I was pleading for him to come in, was ready, needing him, longing.

Nothing.

Through my sobbing, I heard myself over and over and over and over and over and over and over going Sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry but it might as well have been hiccups, sniffles I was wiping at with the side of my wrist.

I laid on the sofa, but on my back it was too uncomfortable. Struggled over on my side. Then on purpose, rolled back to the floor, hoping I'd hurt myself but hardly even remarked the momentum of the fall, there was no jolt, my head a wad of damp grass.

Knocking things from the counter, from a small bookshelf, upsetting a tall lamp in the bedroom, the bulb not going out from the fall, just casting chewed up light straight down into a squat pinch of carpet, I couldn't find Montgomery anywhere.

I got to the bathroom, bled all over the closed lid of the toilet, tried to plant my hand there to lift myself up, felt it slip, my forehead blunted, gashed open by the sink counter's corner. It didn't hurt. It didn't anything. The cavity, deep, leering out gluts of dark blood, seemed commonplace, gazed at me blankly, the same as either of my two swollen eyes.

***

There was a good amount of alcohol, bottles between one quarter and three quarters full, on top of Montgomery's refrigerator. A pathetic, whining argument with myself the whole time, I poured a small glassful of vodka, drained it slowly, surprised I could even manage.

Weighing my options, I concluded I was not in any shape to leave the premises, so roamed the four rooms, twice, three times, trying to be systematic about it, but this souring to paranoia. I did my best to convince myself there was no way Montgomery could still be in the apartment, locked the door, bolted it and sluggishly moved a bookshelf in front it, the coffee table with a recliner set on top of it against the bookshelf, slid the sofa up against both. Exhausted, I told myself that not only was all of this unnecessary, but if it wasn't enough to secure the front door, nothing would be.

I made certain there were no fire escapes at the windows, verified it was the second story, no way up. Even still, I could picture him getting a ladder, climbing it, slipping in some one of the three windows. Suddenly, I doubled over, giggling, laughing like a simpleton, couldn't get the image of his obese waste of a torso trying to get up a rickety ladder, could not get the cartoon of the ladder splitting in half, his falling on his buffoon ass out of my head. I howled with deep sucks of laughter, hysterical, sat on the floor and found I was hopping on my own ass in imitation of this imagined fall while I let the image wash over and over over and over through all other thoughts.

Sure, he could get a ladder, sure, he might have a trapdoor, might also rent out the next door apartment, have a hole dug in the wall, the closet wall phony, anything anything.

In this brief delirium, I started removing my clothes.

I woke, hours and hours later, the sun of at least ten, eleven in the morning chirping its way through the windows. I was wearing only my underpants, which I'd wet in my sleep, and one sock, my pants kind of draped over my abdomen as though I'd meant them to be a blanket. I stared at the ceiling. When I first opened my mouth, having to force it, so much blood had dried that my upper lip tore the top layer of my lower as they parted.

***

My shower was spent one minute cringing, shivering in pain beneath the fists of hot water, one minute stepping out around to verify the barricade at the front door was in place. Back in the shower. Back out. Again and again until the water was frigid.

Though I clearly was, I didn't feel cleaner, felt I'd just slathered myself in my own wet breath. My clothes were ruined, impossible to think of leaving in them. There was no washing machine, which I got upset at, a completely unreasonable outburst of profanity and beating the side of face with one hand wrapped up in my socks.

It was difficult to think outside of the direct sensations of my skin. Words were abrasives, had the sting of medication, made me feel finished. But I forced myself to try reasoning things out, even to just go through superficial motions of it. I needed to know the engine of my mind wasn't seized, gutted. I didn't even care what I thought about in particular.

I was naked.

There couldn't be any reason he'd want me to spend my last day and night naked in his apartment.

No reason. None.

Getting this thought out, I sat on the end of his bed mattress, rubbing my face, nodding as I repeated it, verified it.

He'd actively brought me to the apartment.

Had he mentioned Gavin?

This cramped up my ribs, my chest.

Had he?

I suppose I should tell you about Gavin.

He'd said that.

Before I got excited, I reminded myself there was nothing to get excited about and moreover, his mention of Gavin meant nothing conclusive. Christ, he was jabbering insane, had no motivation beyond this disgusting childishness. There was nothing to figure out. He wasn't leaving clues, he was just tormenting me.

No.

Again, I was wasting time with thoughts like that.

I sunk low in myself, tired, right back where I'd been.

Why had I mentioned Gavin, earlier?

It meant I had no way of even verifying he wasn't just parroting me, he might not know anything about Gavin. Even granting that he did know about Gavin, I admitted, if he was this insane there was no real reason to think he wouldn't be just this insane if he didn't.

Right back where I'd started.

I wasn't random. I was.

I had escaped, so to speak, several times, though.

If I hadn't brought myself to him, earlier, would he have come for me like this? Had I fueled it, as irrelevant as such a thing might be?

I was to blame. I wasn't.

I closed my hands around my face, awhile, pouting, my body warming to the bruises that marked it, dented it and pinched it into awkward ridges and crevices.

It crossed my mind that something smelled pleasant, a sweet fragrance, made me salivate from the roof of my mouth. When it occurred to me that it was just the smell of the place, of Montgomery's filthy rooms, was likely the odours of various unwashed towels and wafts of garbage from the bins and the guts of the sink drain, I began to cry, not bothering to wipe my dribbling nose, mucus tinged bloody a string to my left knee.

***

As far as I could tell, he'd not done anything to alter the natural state of his apartment. Unless, of course, the mess was an elaborate put on, a set piece, measured out down to the gram. He could've just removed key items, things of importance, though I knew I'd no idea what I meant by this.

At his desk, I found stacks of his bills, most of them past due, though not to the point of serious threat from creditors, found bank statements up to the previous week, his balance, combined from three accounts, less than six hundred dollars.

Why not take my money? Extort me? Why not make me do something as simple as work two jobs, sign one check over to him so he could sit in his sorry filth, do nothing, feed himself, masturbate with his greasy hands, have a line of modest subsistence? He was garbage, a boil of some kind, why not just let me keep him damp and feted?

An entire drawer of the large bedroom dresser contained pornography, magazines, two pornographic novels from more than two decades ago, videocassettes. Many of the magazines were quite old, but the majority were current, nothing especially perverse, mainstream except for two or three lesser quality titles, though these, peculiarly, seemed the most handled. Not that that had to do with him. All of it also seemed second hand, a lot of them with the covers torn off, likely rummaged from liquor store dumpsters.

Opening a drawer in the kitchen, not a thought about it until I looked down, I found the pill bottle he'd claimed had his memory medication. It was actually a three years old prescription for some antibiotic. From the jiggle, I doubted any of the pills had been swallowed.

As I grew more unsettled, I began searching underneath of things, in small crevices, looking for some hidden item, finding none, finding nothing but obscure trash that had gotten lodged here or there, cotton swabs, shaving razors, cardboard toilet paper rolls, spoons with dried cookie dough on them, bottle caps, sample sized lotions half empty and uncapped.

I wanted to leave. To dress and leave.

He hadn't taken my wallet, nor had he added anything into it, which I, in a fit of inspiration, felt he must have.

What could be the point in leaving if I'd found nothing?

He'd let me bury myself in the apartment when he could've had me removed at anytime, he could do whatever he wanted, so there must have been something.

Something that could make a difference by this time the following morning? Some further perversion to drag me through?

I took a final glassful of vodka, shaking my head furiously as I swallowed, refusing to play on.

I rummaged through his closet. Nothing remotely my size. Using a necktie to get some pants to stay tight to place, though, the rest hardly mattered. I'd get new clothes from someplace, it was really just an irritation, an insult, not even as sharp as any of the other humiliations he'd clamped on me. Underneath of a buttoned up coat, I hardly even looked bizarre.

***

The flat of the outside air, the sunlight, it gripped excruciating around me. After two blocks, I had to duck inside a fast food restaurant to warm myself. The scents were nauseating, my head felt stapled in over itself, I ached, stomach cramped with thin liquid I worried would just start leaking a stream as I moved my legs to walk.

I was hideous. The day seemed impossible. There was nothing else to do, though.

I imagined the calm soft of any legal proceedings that would be brought against me, the tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap of them, standing and sitting and wearing clean clothes, speaking, showing remorse if I had any, trying to explain myself, the weeks of it, months of it.

Prison. Kill myself. Rot.

The coffee I'd purchased stayed scalding, far too caustic to drink, but the steam from it to my face made me feel good for a few minutes.

I wondered where Montgomery had gone off to.

The old man's place?

I didn't care.

Some other friend? That woman? The cook?

I didn't care.

I looked out the window, just to verify he wasn't watching me, then looked over to the toilet door, knew I was afraid to go in because he might be there. It wasn't the same anymore. The gibbering goblin he'd made himself now was offensive. I was afraid of him. I was more afraid of him than anything. He could be behind that toilet door, just waiting, defecating, patting sour water to the scab of his face, waiting for me. Or he could be just outside, peeking from where I couldn't see, could have someone giving him signals, waiting for me to go in before entering, showing himself, shrinking me to a crumb with his girth, his rank, the way his teeth seemed too moist.

Prison, kill myself, kill him, prison, kill myself, kill him, prison, kill myself kill him, prison, kill myself not even three differentiated ideas, just a progression, one that swallowed itself, neither began on one or ended on one, each permutation the same glop of horror.

***

Some generic department store, nothing in it especially inexpensive, came up after moaning myself along another five or ten blocks.

It was anguish when I realized, already changed to the set of clothes I intended to purchase, that I'd have to remove them, again, slip inside of Montgomery's misshapen garments, go to the cashier, return to the changing room.

I tore the tags off, briefly relieved. I could just pay for the merchandise, wearing it, just hand over the price tags. Then I felt that the shirt, the coat, the pants, all had tags, magnetic. I began to shake, my head seized down, I teetered, had to force myself to sit, hold one arm with the other to keep from flailing out, losing cohesion, twisting violently, tearing at myself.

The spell passed. I undressed. Montgomery's clothing swallowed me down, again.

I paid, returned to the fitting room, made myself stay calm. I tiptoed through stripping, regarded my naked figure, touched at wounds on my ribs, my legs, my upper arms. I made myself look over every inch of me, as though to be certain I could still identify it all.

Montgomery's clothing I left on the floor, scum rinsed from me, feces, regurgitation. It was revolting when I had to go into the pant pockets, the coat pockets for my wallet, my keys.

I limped out of the store, caught a bus, neurotic shivers following me, ghosts of some clerk flagging the bus down, forcing me to carry off the putrid skin I'd tried to shed.

I stepped off of the bus after ten minutes, got my bearings, bought a coffee and stood outside a metro platform, watching myself in a sooty reflection taking sips. The most hurtful sensation passed through me when I realized I no longer looked so bad. My face was not even broken to suggest an altercation at a bar, some drunk leering at a woman gone off, blundering violence. The gash to my forehead looked like I stood up too fast into an open cabinet, my hair almost concealed it, either way. My cheek ached, my nose felt a crust of old shaving foam, but there were no unavoidably apparent wounds.

I hated it, that his water had cleaned me, hated myself, that I'd been molested, forced to swallow up filth, left to stagnate in it but no one would know.

I walked up the block feeling a cripple, a grotesque people would politely ignore, turn eyes away from only to surreptitiously, morbidly regard from behind when I passed. But these eyes I thought would see the growl I'd been reduced to, the maggot humping its own discard, only saw a man, his coffee, slight wince to his lip, someone walking someplace they weren't.

***

I didn't particularly hurry back in the direction of my apartment, but I'd made up my mind to collect a few small things, pack a duffle bag of clothes, some necessities, grab some keepsakes, the last little bit of money I had, my marijuana. A ridiculously worthless and impractical list.

Moreover, I wanted to wash in my own shower, wanted to shave, maybe trim my hair.

I had the odd compulsion that I should take a notebook of some kind, though reasoned I could purchase one at any time, easily enough, not even certain there would be a blank one anywhere in my rooms.

It was well in to the afternoon as I approached the building, smoked the final three cigarettes of the open pack I had. I was glad that I was feeling beat, uncaring, it would make this final transition simpler. I'd go see a movie. I'd eat a late meal. I'd have a drink or two. I'd board the earliest bus I could, for some reason leery of trains, maybe because I felt he could hide himself on a train, get on without my knowing, burble compartment to compartment.

From nearly the end of the corridor I could see that there was something the matter with my doorknob. It was dirty. The paint around it as well. The odour was concentrated, I couldn't get a hint of it until I was there. It was feces. Someone had covered the doorknob, made a clumsy mash of it around on the door, plops of it on the carpet. The knob was covered, filth, even the keyhole looked specifically filled plump.

I stood silent, anger seething up me, down me, my eyes refusing to close. I wouldn't touch it. I wouldn't open the door. Not under any circumstances. Not even covering my hand. I wouldn't wash it. I'd have nothing to do with it.

I stormed back outside, threw, as playfully as I could make it look, some blank punches around, but I tightened my sides hard, pain nibbling me with each tension.

I could wash it. I had to.

Of course I could, but it was such an obvious joke, such a puerile, malodorous little prank. If I cleaned the knob, I'd open the door and he would have the blinds done up, I'd need light, so he'd have caked the light switch, left mounds of it here and there, left handfuls in the cabinets, in the refrigerator, the ice cube trays.

I didn't even want to scream after a moment of supposing I was about to, didn't want to strike anything, didn't want to check the window, find it was sullied as well. I didn't want to hear myself think I don't understand the point of this, didn't want to admit to myself, though I did admit it, silently, broken, that I most certainly understood it, every tick.

***

I had fifteen minutes of a very, very intense desire to see Claudia one last time.

I could approach her, maybe that night, out at some bar, one of those basement bars she went to, strike up a conversation, flirt, at least have her know my face.

The reverie ended when I realized she'd see me when I was arrested. At some point, she would have to. She'd have no choice but to come across my face.

She would revile me, of course. Absolutely. Questionless.

It was better to have that be her only impression of me. She'd never laid eyes on me, never even casually. She'd never been nearly close enough to note any line of my face. I could bear the thought of her seeing me first and forever as the degenerate who'd murdered some man she'd slept with, been friends with for maybe longer than I knew, maybe had feelings for, missed, but I couldn't stand a moment the thought of her having seen me beforehand, thought about me, even if not kindly just innocently, devoid, only to have my image warped, disintegrated, unearthed into grime.

I smoked a cigarette outside of a bookstore, peeking in the window, whispering her name.

I wondered if Montgomery did know about her.

If he did, did he know I wouldn't try to see her a last time, or was that where he'd gone after defiling my rooms?

More directly, I thought, beginning to walk again, leaving on purpose a glaze of handprint on the window glass, would I see her, again? Did I have any control over it? Did it matter if it was what I decided against if it was what Montgomery had decided for? Was it such a risk as that? Was I under his influence, so much to the point that if I became convinced it was what he imagined, I'd do it, find it compulsory, necessary, not able to leave him disappointed?

I was willing to admit all sorts of powers to him, even through my adamant reminders that he'd displayed nothing uncanny. He'd learned one thing, everything else could be off the cuff make-believe.

Was it so impressive to think I'd go back to my apartment to pack a bag? Was it some arcane understanding, something other than the most obvious, commonplace next move?

I smiled, unable to remember any of the list of words he'd penned on that receipt to confuse me. I thought one started with an M, but was so uncertain it made me glad.

Claudia.

I wanted one of the words to be Claudia. One of the ones I couldn't remember, think it started with an M.

***

I got a cheap haircut, just for the interaction, to feel like a child, mumble through the initial dialogue, no idea how I wanted it cut.

-Just short, I said, I have a new job.

I would've stayed in the place, paid to have it dyed, but thought I could dye it myself in some hotel bathroom, any place, then didn't want to dye it just because I would feel ridiculous being caught with dyed hair. I knew I was going to be apprehended, didn't want them to think I'd tried to fool them with idiotic antics like making my hair red.

Certainly I had a fever, but didn't see what could be done about it. It might help me sleep on the bus, dose myself up with medicine and alcohol, pass out, wake either miles away, temporarily safe, or else wake to hands poking me, voices ordering me to stand.

While I walked, my thoughts would turn to various pointless objects I'd been unable to retrieve from my place. I'd squirm from the thoughts, wriggle from them like they were wet garments, couldn't stand to stir emotion.

I also stopped every block or two to question myself, ask where I was going, genuinely investigating the cross streets, wondering if I was trying to trick myself into ending up anyplace having to do with Claudia.

Claudia Claudia, on my mind like the scabs of a scratched rash.

Where had I first laid eyes on her?

No place. I didn't want to remember.

Outside of the building next to the downtown library. I didn't even know what the building was.

Had she seen me, then?

She'd never seen me.

Hadn't she? How did I have such an image of her face, then? Did I have such an image?

I could hardly recall her.

What was the closest I'd gotten? The distance of a room, the distance of a crosswalk? Had I never let myself be unconcealed?

Never. I hardly even looked her way.

How had Montgomery known about me? When had he first coveted me, decided I'd be his little grub?

I shook my head. Wished the answer could be Never.

Did I still want to pretend it was coincidence? He'd shit in his hand, soaked my door with it, just because I'd followed him after his little threat? He'd mauled me, danced on me, lured me around to play fatuous games because he knew I felt guilty of something, some crime, something I dreaded more than what he could put me through?

No.

When had he first seen Claudia?

I hated the question.

How close had he been to her? Across a table? The seat next to her on a bus?

Closer than me.

Did he know what she sounded like? Smelled like? Had he laughed at something he'd heard her say, something she'd maybe said to him?

***

The sky dwindled overcast well before it was properly the evening and the drape of night, the dark so hurried, unneeded, broke the quiet I'd been able to create, the dull babble of questions I'd no intention of investigating.

I'd squandered the chance to learn anything, get some semblance of control, whatever had happened to the moment I realized it would be night before I knew it, that I could wander under this new illusion with no urge to break from it, simply no longer existed. There were not two hands worth of hours before I intended to flee, hardly a curling little grip to get any last thing done.

This train of thought going, I felt violent, the pestering little fantasies of hurting someone, anyone, pointless pointless, of doing some grotesque uncounted on got hold of me. Something Montgomery wouldn't have expected. He felt invisible, felt I'd been ground underfoot, that he had the firm grip of morality on his side. Even if his behavior the previous few days came out, even if anyone believed me if I called him out, he would have the stern mouth of everyone on his side. People might shake their heads at him, might call him unbalanced, misguided, might even punish him, but only in some offhand, kindergarten way. And this disgusted me.

I wanted him to feel the consequences, to know he'd destroyed something, that he was no better than I was. Uglier. Bloated and repulsive. Selfish. I wanted his hands bloody over the dirt beneath his untrimmed nails, the scrags of hair dead out the tops of his knuckles.

It lost meaning, but not at my hand. It became a void of whatever bile would be shook from me while I bucked like a sick animal against my muzzle, knowing I'd been glutted just to be drained, made ready to be devoured just to be excreted and forgotten.

I walked, halfway jogged, not particularly energetic, waiting for the simpering little grumble to sprout me new legs, hang a new hungry tongue from my throat, one that dragged wet, needing satisfaction, a trail behind me, saliva hot and rank, puddles screwing lines of steam into the thickening dark.

***

Lit cigarette staring at it from my lip as well, I stared up to the tenth floor of the building I'd first taken to be Montgomery's. I watched it. I waited for it.

The moment a grim emotion stirred, I spun on the heel of my shoe, walking back three blocks to the grocery store I'd passed, wandered the aisles with tight intent until I found the one where there were cooking utensils, just wanting something sharp. Originally, I'd thought to use a broken bottle, but when the reality of the building approaching got over me, I understood that I was not capable of some absolute, unresisted strike to whichever one of them I'd kill. I needed something sharp, final, something seeming inappropriate, the venom of me a single stab.

I wanted to kill the old man, most of all, but in my gut I felt I'd kill the woman.

I bought a set of skewers of various lengths, some writing on the package promising they were sharp, would not ever bend, the points never dull. I paid the almost twenty dollars for the things, briefly grumbling about the price in my mind, wondered if there wasn't something cheaper. Still grumbling, I was already outside, new cigarette going, the plastic of the bag twined around my left wrist.

The woman frightened me, somehow. Because I didn't understand her, yet. I didn't know what she had to do with it.

I couldn't be weak, though. She was just a miserable association with Montgomery. She knew him, was vulgar enough to pretend she didn't. Even if she didn't know what he was doing with me, she would know just from the stench he'd been in her rooms. She'd likely just shrunk back, not knowing what to make of me, knowing I was some one of Montgomery's little toys, she'd distanced herself out of fear.

Maybe.

Maybe she didn't know anything. All some garbled mess.

But the old man was well aware of it. When I punctured him, he'd know why. And for that moment, I felt he'd hate me less than the slug he let cover his thin, naked bones, he'd understand what was happening, he'd let his ugly little partner bring it down on him and would choke to death on the soured blood up his throat all alone.

***

In the stairwell, my bravado flagged, the deflation bumbling and complete.

I sat on the fourth floor landing, taking my time opening the skewers, my scrotum biting tight to a solid coal. I tapped the sharp of the one I thought best to use, more of a stub, but long enough to stick in one end of him, come out the other, no problem. It was sharp, but when I tried to steel myself, to give my skin a pierce, just to verify things, I couldn't. I couldn't give myself a pin prick.

What did the old man have to do with it?

Nothing.

But, the point wasn't that he did. I didn't want revenge on him, I wanted him hurt to hurt Montgomery. That was all.

I couldn't stand up.

The woman might not matter, at all.

Didn't I think he'd just stolen her key at some point?

Even if they'd been lovers once, it made sense she wouldn't have wanted to say she still knew him, some stranger asking about him, obviously not being forthcoming about his intentions. She might have ended things with him bitterly, just didn't want to think another moment about him.

Had she been some kind of victim of his, too? He'd learned something about her, forced her through sick positions, made her think she could humiliate herself enough that he'd not turn her in as he promised?

It was perfectly plausible, I didn't know why I'd not thought of it, before.

But not the old man.

Why not the old man? Why was he so much more sinister? Why was he a weakness, some raw spot for Montgomery? What made me think it wouldn't thrill the maggot to death, pushing me to profanity, using me like a starved dog, unthinking, capable of anything?

-Break me down, I mumbled, looking at the skewer. Break me down, know I'd pop, have his long laugh, then pack me away like a childhood toy in a dank attic corner.

Why did I believe so firmly he wanted a specific consequence, wanted me to do any one thing over the other?

I was entertaining enough just sitting on the stairs, whining, looking at a twenty dollar generic brand cooking skewer.

If I killed no one, would he be less disappointed?

I thought Yes, because he'd spent days stoking me, needling me, not letting me alone if I for one moment let myself alone. I thought No, because he'd given me closure in advance, let me know that however grueling it was, I not only knew it would end, I could bring the ending about more quickly if I wanted, if I turned myself in. He just wanted to see if I was a cockroach who froze when the lights came on or a cockroach who scrambled for the grease of a stove corner.

***

The chirp of my knocks was wrong to me, sounded like I'd struck my teeth on the lip of a cup I'd raised too quickly.

I didn't bother to conceal the skewer. Deflated as my resolve was, I knew that were the pricker hidden, I'd never pull it out. I had one motion left in me, elbows relaxing tensing relaxing tensing just the hiss, the formless, stupid motion of the stab to the throat of whoever opened the door.

No one did.

I knocked three more times, waited three more times. Nobody.

A stir of dead grass over stiff pavement, I drifted from the old man's door to the woman's.

Had my knocks alerted her? Signals, scents spread from point A to point B like insects might? Were the rooms actually vacant, Montgomery telling his children Time to go home, knowing I'd come to stab at empty corridor air? Or were they in their rooms, the old man, Montgomery, the woman, sitting there, listening to my knocks, knowing just what I was up to?

I stared at the peephole, mouthed the word Knock to each of the last five knocks I gave.

I tried both doorknobs, a blip of curiosity, had they been left open for me, some last place of rest, my last hours to be spent in the room of one of my potential victims?

When they were locked fast, stiff so much they didn't even jiggle, I was almost despondent.

Were my little fantasies, my cobbled together inventions of what might be going on so off base? Was I wandering around in the ether, detached from reality so far that my guesses had to be so utterly scoffed at? Why couldn't it make perfect sense, be a clean symbolic line, move me here and there, make me sleep in his room, make my own room repugnant, lead me to the brink of murder, make me sleep a last few hours in my living victim's bed before I was clumsily flicked off into nothingness?

Down the stairs. Numb again, not even allowed this amateurish beauty, this unimaginative cleanness.

I was still holding the skewer when I went for a cigarette. I looked at it, at my hand, gritted my jaw, held my breath to store the resolve to stab myself in the thigh, but eventually my lungs collapsed air out of me, I set the skewer down gently on an upcrop of brick, mulch and the temporarily dead bushes casting cloth deep shadows over it due to the hum of the almost green of the outer door light.

It was almost the end, I thought trying to sound poetic to myself. I thought There's almost nothing anymore, not even knowing if the sentence particularly meant anything.

***

It turned out to be an hour earlier than I thought it would be at the earliest, a few minutes shy of eleven o'clock. I checked my account balance at a bank machine, based on the sudden paranoia that perhaps Montgomery had gotten his hands on one of my unused checkbooks, made some purchase that would drain me, but my funds were intact.

The little fright depressed me though, because I knew not only was it a possibility, but if I could come up with it, Montgomery could come up with ten million far more ruinous things to do, execute them at anytime.

Would he let me have my last hiccup of currency, my last tool to make a run for it? Would he denude me entirely before I was forced out, left an unfed animal?

I'd no doubt he would do something, just because the way he'd said he'd turn me over seemed to suggest I'd be in custody no sooner than the word was given. He didn't seem interested in my roaming around, desperate, vagabond, things like that had nothing to do with his plan. I'd only let that occur to me earlier because he'd given me three days.

He hadn't really given me the three days, though, it was just another thing he'd said, just another form of control. If I'd scurried back to my apartment, grabbed a bag, made for the train station, he would've intervened, closed everything off right then and there. Or even if not finish it off, somehow make it so I couldn't run. He hadn't needed to bother, though, because I was so weakling, broken before he'd broken me, I'd just served him up his ideal. He'd said three days, yes. But I'd given him Three Days, not the other way around.

I'd staggered back and forth, finding things to do, just because I'd accepted his pronouncement as though it'd been stitched in the walls of my atomic structure. I would give him until his early afternoon, early afternoon. I'd play a few more hands out, see how clever he was, morbidly fascinated at how he would create something elaborate, nuanced from any halfwit scrap I gave him.

I knew it was idiocy, knew I was in my last idiot little writhes, but I needed to feel I wasn't myself, that I was some creation, some meaning, Montgomery artist, me his art.

***

I stopped in to a liquor store, bought two bottles of wine and some bourbon, cavalier about the waste of money, knew I'd never drink the stuff, bought three cheap things that would have been the same price as one decent thing. But, immediately, having probably bought a screw cap on purpose, I opened a wine bottle and drained it as fast as I could.

I was drool, I thought, couldn't get the phrase out of my head.

I started to walk toward my apartment, the drunk washing over me suddenly, no negative effect, no positive, the brief spot of time I had left just melting into glop, making me peaceful even in my knowledge that it would harden back up, jagged paste, crumbling cement.

I was proud of myself when I examined the window of my apartment, found it had been dirtied with Montgomery's feces. I opened my second bottle of wine to toast my first right answer, giggling when I swallowed, hoping to Christ I wasn't right about the interior state of the rooms.

This stalled me up.

I honestly hoped I was wrong about it.

I drank another few swallows, reasoning it through, silly thoughts, little boyhood teases at myself, old nicknames thrown in. I'd thought he'd ruined the interior rooms when I was in a stale anxiety, miserable past death. It actually made no sense he would have, so I knew he didn't.

This is what I said to myself.

He hadn't even necessarily done this to my window and door to keep me out, just to let me know he'd been there. He likely thought, and fair enough, that I might sneak in the window, so never notice his mess on the door knob.

Why had he come to the room at all? Why did he want me to know, if not to keep me out?

There was no reason.

The same no reason.

I left the wine bottle on the top of the trashcan by the entrance door, walked down the corridor, fished my key from my pocket, stared at the crusted dead on the knob.

Another idiot giggle, I got the bottle of cheap bourbon out, had difficulty getting the cap off, swallowed a half mouthful and went to my knees. I removed my shirt, soaking it quite thoroughly, used it as a rag, the angry fragrance of the waste mixed with the alcohol shuddering everyplace. Once clean, I doused the metal of the knob, discarded my shirt off to the side, inserted my key, having to dig a bit of the crust from the hole but not so much caring.

***

The stench was overpowering, a sleeping animal's breath over soggy gums. The light switch had been completely muddied with shit, I stood in a funk of urine. The shock was outrageous to me. I just closed the door behind me, jaw open, taking heavy, deep breaths in.

I could not quite fathom it. The amount of human feces spread around was obscene. Everyplace.

I started to shake. I felt as though flakes were whispering down from the ceiling onto my naked chest. I felt completely unhinged. I locked the door, walked around, gulping in the immensity of what Montgomery had done.
Was this all his shit? Had he been saving it up, did he carry it here in bags, in a slop bucket, or did he excrete it all, one lump at a time, divvy it out everyplace while I'd been away? When I'd earlier come to the door, had he been in the room, squatting on the tile of the kitchen, smearing the stove burners, filling the juice bottles in the refrigerator to their brims with his piss?

I lifted the bourbon to my mouth, but almost immediately retched, a thought stabbing me, that Montgomery had somehow known I would buy just that bottle, had held his penis over the bottle lip, voided himself into it, somehow resealed it. I wanted to cut open my stomach, let myself drain to be certain he was out of me.

Reeling, I walked in a sort of semicircle, frightened to death, then closed myself in the bathroom, plumps of his waste in the toilet, in the sink, over the showerhead, the mouthwash bottle filled with his urine. But I felt closed in, safe, barricaded.

He'd smeared shit on the mirror, so my reflection was beneath the half-day old stiff of it. I looked horrified, made wretched, turned inside out.

I'd been right, and this was torture. I'd been right in thinking he'd defiled my home, had been right even while he'd probably been doing it.

Back out into the living room, I couldn't get past the idea of this. I felt too close to him, felt him nibbling at the backs of my eyes.

There were twenty-three messages on the machine. The button to replay then had a distinct, almost modeled, round crisp of shit on it. I pushed a finger through, viciously, sobbing. I wondered would it be another little song, another nothing, would he speak this time.

The sound of the squirting shit from his bowels cracked from the small speaker, his labored breathing, his grainy, rubber sigh as his body relaxed.

The beep. A whir.

A moment of static quiet, then the forceful strike of his urine to the wall, this dulling as it was aimed at the carpet, the sound of him sucking up phlegm through his nostrils, the squirm of his spit pushed through tight lips.

The beep.

A whir.

***

Collecting items in a trashbag, I kept flitting my eyes around, expecting to have overlooked the presence of someone in the room with me. I muttered that the mess was not so total as it seemed, that it was jarring simply because there was any mess at all, that obviously not everything in the place had been soiled. I would get a proper duffle bag once I'd left, because even after examining the one I had, finding it clean, I couldn't believe he hadn't contaminated it somehow, underhanded, obscene.

I hardly paid attention to what I was doing, but the weight of the bag became a strain. I'd lost track at some point, making no distinction at all between trash and clean. The bag was worthless. I dropped it, gave it a violent kick, heard something in it break, kicked it again, then tensed, breathed heavy, got calm, terrified to have, on top of everything, a neighbor suddenly appear, complaining of noise.

Why hadn't the smell alerted somebody, already? What in Christ did the neighbor just on the other side of the corridor think when they'd seen the filth on my doorknob? Had they seen it?

I tried to get a picture in my mind of who lived there. Somebody did. Somebody did somebody did.

Nothing.

They could be out of town, could be at a friend's, could've noticed, just thought it peculiar, nothing else.

If I saw some turd on a neighbor's door, what would my reaction be?

I mocked myself.

Nothing. It would be nothing.

These thoughts got me distracted. I just strolled around the room, touching at things, looking at the vents which were covered in electrical tape, probably had perfumed towels back behind them. I didn't check. I didn't know if that would make a difference.

I thought I could scrub down the shower, make it clean. I was filthy already, so it might be best, it wouldn't make a difference to get filthier first, rinse in my own water.

How long would it take? Would I be out by three in the morning? Two? Four thirty?

I looked at the kitchen clock, it read nine twenty-two. The bed stand clock read eleven-sixteen.

***

Few articles of clothing were left untouched. Three shirts, two of them hanging in the closet, the other in the top drawer of the bureau, two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, both draped over the back of my desk chair which had been dragged in to the bedroom, and one blazer. The other clothing was in a pile, had been spilled from the hamper, soaked with urine.

I did consider that it might've been a combination of urine and water, as the things were completely sodden, but it hardly made a difference. I could, of course, have taken anything I wanted, gone to a Laundromat, have clean, dried clothing well before the deadline for my departure, but I wouldn't. I wasn't so far gone as that.

However, I couldn't decide what I wanted to dress in. Stared at the different items. Wondered which combination Montgomery would've preferred, which he'd made a little bet with himself about. Also, I was resistant to changing at all, let alone taking all of the clothing, because he'd chosen it, he must have done something to it, must have subtly rubbed waste on it, semen, licked the things, rumpled them under his arms, sat on them, something.

Otherwise, what was the game? Or was there a game? Why was this freezing me up?

I pointed with one hand at a shirt, the other hand, pointed finger ticking between pant and pant, pant and socks, and pant and socks.

Most of all I distrusted the blazer. It was to identify me. All of the clothing was, but the blazer certainly. Green corduroy, thigh length, heavy, obvious from three blocks away, completely distinct. A gift from somebody, but I didn't trouble with remembering who even as I said the sentence A gift from somebody aloud to myself, pointing from shirt to pant to blazer to socks to shirt to socks to pants to blazer.

So, it would work like that. A telephone call to the police. Or the evidence delivered. An anonymous call that I had last been seen wearing the blazer.

No. None of that would be necessary.

I stared at the blazer. I hadn't been wearing it when I'd killed Gavin.

Had I been wearing it when I'd strangled Gavin? Strangled Gavin in my green blazer?

No.

And it was a coat, not a blazer.

-Not a blazer, I said, not a blazer not a blazer it's a coat a green coat.

I pointedly stated that I'd not killed Gavin in a green coat.

Looked at the socks, the pants, the shirts, the coat, still calling it a blazer despite my own correction.

***

A list I came up with, items I would immediately need, was only six words long. Of these, I doubted I needed any.

I crumpled the paper up, shoved it to the inside pocket of the coat, not willing to give it up, not trusting I'd remember the items without the list, or if I did remember I'd forget one, or I'd not really be forgetting any but since I'd have no list I'd haunt myself with the vague itch of something I'd insist I'd written down, lose certainty, work myself into a fit.

I didn't really need anything. I wasn't packing for some trip. I was stepping in front of a train, no special preparation was required.

I had a cigarette, really taking my time with it, the smoke mint blue in the dark, the apartment rooms soot, just a stain of light from under the bathroom door spreading itself thin everywhere as best as it could.

Montgomery would never let me leave. He just wouldn't. It wasn't allowed. I had the option of trying to elude the police without fleeing, but knew that was pointless. It was a condensed version of the larger game. Each hour would compact it, abstract it, reduce it to atomic components more and more. I had a series of choices that would all lead to the same result. From the moment I'd seen Montgomery I'd been flitting through them, she-loves-me-she-loves-me-nots, each choice made got rid of five thousand others, but any of those five thousand would have gotten rid of the same five thousand.

Meaningless.

If I hadn't looked up, would he have followed me?

Yes. He would have just been out of some different nowhere, a train platform, a cinema, a café, the rounding of a corner.

I'd been through it all, whittled things down to the last half dozen touches of wet finger to specks of salt left on my plate, doing anything differently wouldn't have been doing anything differently.

But I still couldn't accept this, something automatic in me groaned, burped, wheezed dry little moans, whimpered for some way out, forlorn, abandoned, invalid.

More pathetic, I still couldn't see the last moment, didn't know anything about it. I was looking right at it, standing in it, dressing in it, oblivious. Somehow it would still be a surprise. I'd still be caught dumbfounded, unaware, helpless.

***

The bottle of bourbon I'd used to clean the front door was on its side, not emptied, where I'd dropped it. I lifted it, took five hurried drags, then discarded it, again, off hand.

I was trying to figure out where the nearest clock would be, as I doubted I was in good enough shape to approach anyone I came across. I could get a receipt from a cash machine, just down the block, as I needed to withdraw as much money as I could, astonished I hadn't already done so.

Had I already done so?

I chuckled about this, trying to coax the recent alcohol to its first flare up of disaffection.

I touched my hand to the inside of the doorknob, brought my eye to the peephole, hardly conscious of doing so. There was a man standing outside of my door. My ears began to ring, my nose felt congested, damp. Standing straight, I waited for a knock. I didn't know if it would be better to address the neighbor or not, if it would be better to pretend I'd either gone to sleep or gone away.

No knock.

I stayed still, not wanting to indicate my presence in case they were just listening, trying to figure out if I was done making noise, eager themselves to avoid confrontation. I tried to count down from sixty, kept getting lost, just sighed, leaned in to look.

The man was still there. Hadn't so much as moved.

The bile in my throat squirmed around over the stains of itself. The man didn't move. At all. It wasn't a neighbor, I hadn't even made noise in the last ten, fifteen minutes. He wasn't even looking at the peephole, just standing there, head lilting off to one side a bit, maybe a slight natural sway to him. It was like the first insect had landed on the eyes of my cadaver, the first aroma of my stink had spread and eggs for maggots were piling up in the bowels of flies.

I backed away.

Montgomery had sent other people to keep vigil?

Not vigil. This man was outside my door. Sentry.

I tensed my hands to claws, gripped my face, roughed my head up and down.

He was going to have me apprehended in my own room? In what would be taken as my own filth? This was how I was to be delivered?

***

I moved to the bedroom, padding at the empty dark. I tugged the string to lift the window blinds, revealing another man, stationery, not even reacting to his suddenly being uncovered. He didn't meet my eyes, seemed to be casually looking at something down by his feet, even had a cigarette that I watched him take two drags from, arm up, arm a flop down to his side.

I sat to the edge of my mattress, forgetting that it was soaked in urine, felt the chill creep through my pant fabric where my coat didn't provide padding.

I waited for him to look at me, but he didn't. I couldn't fathom it, but also felt no panic. Wished I felt panic, wished I felt numb. I only felt childishly curious.

What was it now? Hired actors? What were they told? Everything? Montgomery explained to them I'd strangled a man, outlined his plan, they'd waited for telephone calls and now got to do their bit?

It had to be playacted, somewhat. You tell a man Go stand outside of Mister X's door, offer them money, the man will do it. But these men were taking such postures of lackadaisical disinterest, as though where they stood, in corridors, in bushes having cigarettes, made all the sense in the world.

Had Montgomery specifically said for them to do so? Was he watching them, making sure they weren't ruining it by making scary faces at me, hinting threats with darks of eyes? Was he having a cigarette, stale coffee, a sandwich, entertained by the set up?

For a moment, I wondered if these men had been coerced. This was what I might become. Montgomery would spare me at the last moment for the promise I'd be his tool in some later torment, my own torment made forever, but only intermittently.

No. Ghost story nonsense, the idea fell apart.

The man outside my window wasn't a murderer, a pedophile, some monster who'd reduce himself to this, broken so into cricks by fear of Montgomery. The man outside my window and the man in the corridor had no belch of my sympathy.

I banged my hand to the glass. Again again again. Wanted to scream he should look at me, but only coughed dry when I tried, a re-e-eek, the cartoon of a sick frog.

***

Outside the seep of light from under the bathroom door, I did my best to work up the resolve to exit the building, one way or another.

Question my guards? For what reason? What could they tell me?

I already knew what was going on, so there was little point. As a matter of fact, they were harmless. The worst I could imagine them capable of was physically restraining me, doing their best to get me back in the apartment. So if I stayed in the apartment, I was doing their job for them.

I laughed, bent to cough, vomited a thin soup, one mouthful of it, heard a stitch of silence and then the weak little splash.

They weren't going to kill me, stop me, weren't going to even touch me.

I went to the front door, grabbed the handle, tugged, laughed at myself for not unlocking it, unlocked it, tugged, found the corridor empty.

-Christ, I muttered, sick of this old game, the kindergarten of it. I knew they were still around, no question, but like a badly wound clock, striking each second eventually, certainly, just in slugs and coughs, the thoughts surfaced, the questions.

Had I imagined them? Were they gone?

I shut the door behind me, leaned on it. They were gone, yes, momentarily. I'd not imagined them, however.

Perhaps it was building maintenance staff, something about the smell?

Idiocy. Despicable that I could even think this after banging on the window, watching the man not react, smoke his cigarette, the other man teeter so imperceptible on his feet, as stock still as a man could manage.

Pointless. But the thoughts came.

Did I know for certain the man would've heard my banging?

Yes.

No. No, say I didn't.

I banged away, he didn't hear me, didn't see me, didn't react when the blind opened?

Maybe because of the tint of the window he didn't see any of it, just saw his reflection. Maybe there was a legitimate reason he hadn't looked up.

I was to the end of the corridor, rounding the corner, stepping into the squat lobby. Three men, now. Three. I was sure two of them were the men from outside the window, outside the door.

Who was this third? Entrance door guard? Why? I couldn't get out of the apartment, why have a third man?

Snapping myself out of a daze, I realized I'd just been standing there, none of the three moving, none addressing each other, none addressing me or even regarding me. I balled a fist, tried to think of which one to strike.

None.

I walked past, through the door, trembled up a cigarette, got it to my mouth, was up the block, another block before I thought to light it.

***

At a public telephone, I fished through my pockets for coins. The motion was bizarre, how automatic, my mind fumbling for a disguise, making me seem to be doing something when I wasn't doing anything. I'd no one to call, no desire to call anyone even if any telephone number occurred to me.

I called for the correct time, energetic when this idea popped into my head. I bobbed up and down through the few rings. Three forty-eight in the morning.

-Early afternoon, early afternoon, early afternoon, early afternoon I whispered, making tapping sounds with the tip of my tongue to my teeth in between each repetition. I kept the receiver to my ear, looked at the numbers on the keypad.

If evening was six o'clock, I had less than twelve hours, now. This made sense. I nodded and nodded. Three o'clock would be midafternoon. So, sometime between twelve and three. Probably between twelve and two, as it would hardly seem fitting to say Early Afternoon then let it go as close to midafternoon as possible. One o'clock was the most likely, because once it really gets an hour into the afternoon, it's rather stupid to still call it Early, it's just Afternoon.

Early afternoon, afternoon, midafternoon, late afternoon, evening.

This progression didn't satisfy me.

No.

There needed to be some term between midafternoon and late afternoon.

What?

I didn't know. So it was wrong.

-Not wrong not wrong, I said, massaging the side of my neck with the receiver.

The first part made perfect sense. Say one-thirty was the cutoff. Early afternoon, afternoon, midafternoon, something, late afternoon, evening.

What something?

I started to fume, couldn't put the receiver down, knew it must have been the high proof, cheap bourbon, the fistfuls I'd just taken, the shock of the people outside my room. I was delirious, again, had probably never stopped being delirious.

When had I last slept?

Not too long ago, I realized, so shook my face, trying to focus.

Early evening, it occurred to me. That's how it would work. Early afternoon, afternoon, midafternoon, early evening, evening.

I giggled, ribs cramping. A moment later, I deflated. It was wrong. Because that would mean early evening came before evening. Which it did, of course, but it would be the equivalent of early afternoon being eleven o'clock and eleven o'clock was still morning.

Wasn't it? Why didn't I know how this worked? Was it subjective?

Eleven o'clock was early afternoon, noon was noon, one was just afternoon, so was two, three was midafternoon.

Or was two midafternoon?

I was missing some word, fixated, couldn't move away.

When I used another coin, just to distract myself, confused, tired, draining with every twitch of eye back and forth, it was four twenty-three. Time was slipping out at both ends.

***

Blocks later, some direction, I perked to attention at the sight of a gas station with a little food mart, saw the bright sign indicating there was a cash machine inside. I trotted past the pumps, a shivering wince when a woman met my eye and smiled.

I walked over to the coffee pots. I was obviously still being followed. More than ever. And it was now abundantly obvious that I'd always been being followed, more than I'd ever known.

I saw flaws in the idea of withdrawing my cash from the machine. That would make it vulnerable, utterly defenseless, the first thing that would happen is someone would accost me, rob me, leave me dizzy, wondering what had happened. However, leaving the money in the machine left me no less vulnerable. Someone could rob me of my card, use it at a bar or something. They didn't even have to spend the money, in fact. Without the card, I couldn't get at it, anyway. I'd never be able to get it if I didn't get it now.

Maybe Montgomery hadn't even thought of the money. He clearly wouldn't care.

If he was so cocksure he'd have me caught before I could get away, why bother with planning on how to get at my money?

-Just to have it covered, I said, unable to keep the thought a thought, needing vocalization. I'd start babbling soon, talking aloud every flitting little mistake that occurred to me.

I felt I should do some clever feint, pretend to take out my money as a way of testing the water, but then I was smacked with the absolute, undeniable, weakling pointlessness of this idea. I should just take the money. If I took it and I was robbed, they'd take my card, too. If I got rid of my card I'd never get the money. If I pretended to take out the money and was robbed, when they found I had no money they'd take the card.

-I'm not going to be robbed, I said, coffee cup covering my mouth, spits of the hot liquid rippling to bubbles off my lips.

***

His motion was so casual that my response was reflexive, even gracious, going to my pocket for a cigarette, opening the pack, saying some commonplace There you go as he took it.

I got out a cigarette of my own, started going through my pockets for a lighter. As I did, I peripherally saw that he was doing the same. Chuckling, I turned to him and said You can't find one either and overtop of me, chuckle one second after I'd chuckled, each word just a little bit delayed, not quite said with confidence, he said You can't find a light?

I stared at him. He stared at me. I imagined that the look that crossed his face was his best approximation of my own expression in that moment. My arms were limp, his arms were limp. I saw him grin, oddly, uncertain, his eyes peering at every detail of me he could take in.

-What do you want? I asked, my voice cracking on the last few words even while his slightly delayed, much more confident, make-believe tones of fearful to it What do you want? came overtop.

His lip pretended to tremble, stick out, his eyes wrinkled like they would tear. I flapped my arms, he, almost synchronous, flapped his. I started to cramp up, very painful, and also pretended a fit of laughter was coming on. He bent a little bit like me, either pretending a laughing fit or pretending to be pretending a laughing fit was coming on. We stood on first this one foot then the other, then did a stupid wiggling dance I've no idea if he imitated correctly. I flailed, made jibber jabbering noises and he did the same, less concerned at that point with exact mimic than the general idea.

I stopped short, stood stock and, perfect facsimile, he did the same. I was livid. I couldn't tell if this had been coincidence or if I'd given clear signal it was what I was about to do, if it was obvious, like counting down three two one now. I seethed and he pretended to seethe back.

When I shoved him, he had to wait until he got his footing back to shove me and I laughed, mocking, as though I'd won just because he hadn't been able to do it at the same time, like I was the clever kid, he just the nitwit thug.

Again, I trusted the expression on his face was mine, felt such a weakling from it, so infantile, afraid, so brought low that I huffed off, an overdramatic, high pitched sob of a sigh, began pouting down the block.

He didn't follow.

I made some farting sounds, snapped my fingers, hummed a bit of a song. I peeked over my shoulder, saw that he had walked down the block in the opposite direction a way, but had stopped, waiting to see if I'd turn around. So miserable, so spiteful, I bent my legs, did a bit of a monkey dance, clapping my hands at the ends of arms dangled forward.

He did the same.

I turned, didn't care if he had or if he'd just wait until I didn't turn back all the way out of his sight.

***

Up the street up the street, every street seemed up the street, never down.

My mind had totally shunted down paths I couldn't curb, control, I'd no dominion over what was just a flake of thought, an opinion, a fear, an attempt at reasoning, a plea, a screech of desperation.

These new people involved, or these people who'd been involved all along, it was all too shaking. It couldn't have to do with Gavin, but it did. Gavin was what I'd be turned in to the authorities over, nothing else, there was no other crime. But it was impossible to fit this persecution to that offense. Obviously, in an ethereal, abstracted sense I was deserving of the flagellations, yet there was no objectively real way to reconcile this, to account for the tortures actual existence. If there were a soul to rot, yes it would, disfigure, cancer, collapse under its own putrid weight, but as it was there was only my skin to peel, hair to whiten, tug out, my eyes to cut, watch scab over from behind them.

I couldn't stand that so many people would go along with applying this otherworldly effort onto me.

For what goal?

Montgomery by himself, an obese ghoul, a drooling, hiccupping butcher, I could understand, see him, isolated, getting his jollies from it, convincing himself of a superiority he knew each time he looked at the mongrel his body had deformed into he didn't actually possess, but add another person, another person, another, another, a concerted, philosophical, cultivated effort and it spun into flames, was too incomprehensible.

Montgomery didn't have but six hundred dollars to his name, so he couldn't be paying out sums, nor could he have blundered in to this many damning secrets, broken so many people so utterly, taken risk after risk of a bullet to his chest in the hopes of building his empire.

And I was on empty streets, up empty streets up empty streets, each second in the fresh air, each second avoiding even the most casual encounter, knowing it would be arranged to garble into abstract taunts the moment it started, made me feel comfortable.

All of this for the goal of arresting me on evidence in a file folder was inhuman. But that was the leash, what kept me tethered, gnawing at my bound limbs. Imagination, play-pretend was the only thing made sense.

If they could do this and did, if they conceived it and bothered to execute it, why in Christ would they ever give it up?

***

A touch of wind or something, a shift in temperature, walking got to be too much to bear.

I sat on the stoop of an apartment building, certain I was being observed, though I'd no idea how. Everything around me was dead and quiet, only slight sounds of early morning cars starting, the hiss of a trash truck somewhere, the first softs of blue breathing at the blank cold of the sky's black.

It didn't even have to be Montgomery.

This thought accompanied my body relaxing, sore to the point of sharp pain, uncomfortable in relaxation.

He might be just one creature out of many. He clearly was. He may have had no particular importance, whatsoever. I couldn't actually believe this, but that was, I imagined, because he had been the face of my tormentor for so long, it seemed ages, like I had a long standing rapport with him, a lifetime. I'd succumbed to the reality of being in a single demented person's unique grip after flailing this way and that, and now even this sour comfort was being taken away. I might never see him, again. He might not care. I could picture him, taking off his flopping shoe, sitting in front of a television, eating some plate of garbage, sleeping in his unwashed creases, warmed by the rank of his odours, his part played out, my name for a few hours a dream, then a memory, then forgotten.

-So maudlin, I scolded myself.

I screwed myself into the most uncomfortable way of sitting I could, asked myself if Montgomery vanishing made me sad, lonesome, nostalgic, in love.

-Better him than an anthill, I retorted. Better to be singled out, pawed over wantonly than to be slathered on by countless mouths, each one getting less than a thimble full of me.

Soon enough, up the street, a woman slunked in to view, leaning on some newspaper vending machines, halfway seated, walking a dog, having a smoke. Maybe five minutes after, a man approached from the other end of the block, giving me a surprised glance as he passed me. The two of them embraced, kissed, his hands gently over her ass, the dog sniffing at his shoes.

Disgusted with the display, honestly reviled, I stood, stiff, began clunking in their direction, glowering, my teeth gritting, each a cockroach, halfway buried, groaning in violence to wriggle out. I was ten paces away when they took notice, the dog curious, the woman tightening her grip on the leash.

What did I look like? What could I possibly look like to them?

Their victim. A piteous half buried man, still breathing, but the breaths the ones that would've been my last, dirt down my throat or none.

***

Onward, the hours all taking too many steps, it couldn't have been half hour, it couldn't have been twenty minutes, not fifteen, not quite ten and just as much it could've been dawn the following day. The streets were not filling, but the leaks of the first commerce of morning were going, employees showing up to shops, chatting, opening the doors, closing them, locking them behind.

I'd wound up in some part of the city close to nothing I knew, found this dismal and happy all at once. It was probably seven o'clock in the morning, every hour up until then already wasted.

Would they offer me some bargain? Become Montgomery's imp and they'd spare me? Stand at some window, from time to time?

Such nonsense, utter, unforgivable nonsense the thoughts, simply nothing else left to think about.

They would vanish in the waking day, become hidden, entwined in with everything else so fully I'd have no chance of knowing when the trap would spring, of knowing when the final gnashing would begin.

I'd accept it.

On what grounds could I deny them?

I would accept, beg them even, beg them to not turn me over.

Pathetic, worn down to this, I held up one hand, the other, but unquestioningly preferred the imprisonment they would offer to that of the police.

Why? Why why why? Did I feel there would be a chance to fool them later, slip the noose, escape? Is that what the woman had thought? The old man? Is that what the three outside my rooms had thought, maybe still thought, so beaten over and drained, what the hateful mimic thought, that he could run away when their attention slipped?

This odd spell was broken by the thought of walking back to Montgomery's place, waiting there.

I wouldn't do that. No. They would have to drag me under, hold me down, I'd not limp back only to be denied, see the spit bubbles in the creases of his mouth foam and cleave as he one minute said he'd spare me, the next that he wouldn't, the next that on the other hand he would, the next that no, no defiantly he wouldn't.

I'd not serve myself to them.

Serve myself to them?

I laughed. I stopped laughing. There was no thread to my life, now, I'd no idea what I was thinking, no idea where I was. And while I'd sat, the day had smeared not quite gray through a thin strain of overcast.

***

I took the deepest seat, the large chair in the corner of the coffee shop café, the lighting dim, filtered through tints of lampshades, the seat around a corner, no windows directly facing me, just the sliver of one that it didn't seem anyone could see me if they looked through. I had a large coffee, letting it cool, took a few of the free newspapers, wanted to close my eyes.

It seemed unlikely I could be found. It might just be a waiting game, wait until evening, try to slip away.

Would they have searched everywhere for me by then? The police? Montgomery and his posse?

Obviously, they could show up at any moment, theatric, or simply take a seat across from me, I'd never know until I stood to leave and they stood with me.

I challenged myself to read an entire article without looking up, like if I could do that it proved something out. I didn't question what it might prove. It had momentum, inertia, what I needed.

I failed my first attempt, so looked for a shorter story. Even one column was too much. I flipped pages, pausing at the police blotter. Little boxes of text. I made a game, I'd read one, let myself look up, I'd read two, look up, read three, look up, read the last four. I was delighted at the idea, so glad of the one two three four symmetry.

The first brief concerned a young man who was apprehended in his home after a call had been made to the police from a witness. Apparently, the young man had wanted to rob his former employer, an ice crème shop, had smashed the window with a rock, entered, was unable to get the safe or cash registers open so, in frustration, stole two large tubs of ice crème and some bags of toppings which he proceeded to return to his apartment with, carrying one, rolling the other. The witness was a neighbor who'd seen him rolling the ice crème across the lot, knew his name from some conversation at a community barbecue, and who'd heard from a friend who had a job at a bookstore in the same shopping center as the ice crème store that it had been robbed.

The chairs around me remained empty. I smiled, drank my coffee, turned my eyes back down.

A man who had murdered a child had been arrested at a community cold weather shelter. The article noted that the man, apprehended naked, had refused to put on any clothes or to cover himself with the blankets that the police offered.

***

The girl who had served my coffee was kind enough to tear three pages out of her own notebook when I'd asked if she had a pen, perhaps a scrap of paper I might write on. Sitting, trying to decide what surface I would use to write, likely just leaned forward, painful, use the low coffee table, scoot it in a bit toward me, this simple gesture on her part took on odd angularities, shriveled, turned vulgar.

Why had she given me three sheets?

I'd only asked for a scrap of paper, I'd said the word Scrap, asked for a pen and I may or may not have also used the word Jot.

-Do you happen to have a pen, a little scrap of paper I can jot something down on? I whispered, testing, now certain it was what I'd said.

From that she'd assumed I needed three sheets? From that she'd assumed I was a writer?

No. For all she knew, I was just noting the price of one of the mugs for sale, copying down something from a newspaper or magazine, making a shopping list.

I wanted to stop from thinking, but it was too direct, too inside me.

I'd wanted to write a letter to Claudia and had been provided more than enough paper, enough for a draft, revisions, more.

What was I going to write?

I doubted I even really wanted to write anything, had wanted the scrap to doodle, placate myself, pretend I was going to write a letter I didn't want to. And the girl had, like a machine, given me a profanity, a curse word of paper, she had extended it so encouragingly.

So why hadn't I said That's alright, I just needed a scrap? Why not?

She could've been assuming I was a writer because she was a writer or something, it was natural enough, and if I didn't need the paper I didn't have to take it. But I'd taken it because I knew that I had it in mind to write a letter so the amount of paper made sense.

Except I didn't want to write a letter, so I was back to the beginning, to the fact that she wanted me to write the letter.

No.

I lit a cigarette, absent mindedly, doused it immediately. No one seemed to have noticed. I hid the stub under the seat cushion, waved the sips of smoke away.

***

A young woman took a seat, one of the chairs across the way from me, curled herself in to a comfortable position and, taking three quick taps from her coffee before setting it on the little table, opened a paperback book. Her eyes flitted up to meet mine and immediately a warm, embarrassed smile, blushing, crossed her face, her head turning down to the book, self-consciously. I looked another moment, then turned my attention back to my paper.

I'd numbered it one through twenty, but for no particular reason. Instead of trying to figure out why I'd stopped at that number, I just started writing next to the numbers, a list of what had happened. One A man had followed me. Two A man had threatened to turn me over in three days. Three I'd followed the man. Four The man had dinner with a woman. Five The man went to a friend's apartment. Six The man hid in a woman's apartment.

I looked up, but the young woman seemed to have settled into what she was reading, completely, even absently reached to her coffee, drank from it, set it down, not looking up.

The list was meaningless. I scribbled over it.

I thought about maybe calling my father, maybe calling my mother, some old friend. So I jotted down another set of numbers, one through ten, labeled one through three Dad, Mom, and Herman, started tapping the pen against my forehead.

Why Herman?

I didn't want to call him. I suppose his was just the first name to occur to me. I didn't want to call anybody. I scribbled over the list.

Turning the sheet over, I quickly wrote out the name Claudia, set a comma after it and down a little space wrote the half of a sentence I never really got close enough to see how beautiful I knew your face was, I always stayed and then just got pitifully bored, dread creeping over me. I made curlicues of all of the letters of all of the words, a thick spit of ink, smeared it with my thumb side, regarded the paper from each side until I was certain it was indecipherable, crumpled the paper, stood, thinking to tear it in the privacy of the locked toilet, tear it into a hundred squares, maybe swallow them, no chance that any of the words could be read.

It was an excruciating panic, the faucet running, sitting on the toilet with my pants down as though doing this legitimized me, would keep everybody away, make me not a liar. I didn't count the pieces, soaked them in sets of no more than ten, balled them tight, swallowed them with shaking palmfuls of slurped water.

I didn't want her name associated with this. No one needed to know about her. She didn't need to know it had to do with her.

Christ, had I used her name around Montgomery?

I stared at the confusion of my reflected face.

No, I hadn't. Or I had. Or I had I had I had.

Did he know about her?

He couldn't. It became a certainty, though, that he did. Yes, absolutely, unavoidably. I'd either said her name or been seen with her before I'd done in Gavin.

Cramps doubled me over back down onto the seat where I strained, neck tensing, hardly able to bend, trying to force any sort of release, stiffened to place, nothing leaving me.

***

Montgomery was sitting next to the girl when I reapproached my seat, still feeling on the verge of defecating, my shoulders in pain from the stomach ache.

I sat to my chair, neither Montgomery nor the girl looking up from their conversation. It took a few moments to notice that it wasn't the same girl. I didn't know what to make of it. She had the same paperback, spread open, face down, on her knee, the same bag was on the floor, leaned to the seat side, the same coffee, but it wasn't the same girl. She seemed captivated by Montgomery's whispered story, smiling, giggling.

What could it mean?

I wondered also what time it was, scanned for a clock.

Could I ask the girl the time? Ask Montgomery? Just lean forward, croak out the question, sit back? Would they feign concern? Ask me something? Was this the lead in?

It could've been the presence of Montgomery was just a fungus over things, my mind recoiling from it, unable to focus correctly, it could've been the girl was the same girl.

What was different?

Too much was different.

Hadn't the one's hair been up and red, orange, the skin a bit fairer than this one's, though this one' s skin was quite fair, pale? Or was this one too pale, this one paler, not the other darker?

Maybe it wasn't red hair the other had had, but definitely different pants and I'd noted the fact that the other one had open toed shoes, absurd for the weather, this one in sensible boots, thin leather, but obviously warm.

It was another children's game. A silly picture puzzle.

I glared hatred, murder, bilious venom, curdled insects, tried to secrete odours that would make them ill, cause their joints to ache, make it so they'd bleed from the itches they'd have to scratch at like sick animals.

Even in some incidental motions they made, every reason their eyes could've so casually passed across me, they somehow didn't. It was as though both of them were doing their best to avoid looking at me, but at the same time were both aware of how intently I was regarding them. It was a tease, if they'd been doing it to each other it would be a flirtation. This unsettled me.

Was I their flirtation? Did Montgomery have an erection? For who? The girl? Me? Was she becoming wet? Did her uncrossing her legs, changing the posture of her sitting, indicate that?

I closed my eyes. Nothing I was thinking mattered.

Why were these my thoughts so close to no more thoughts?

***

They spoke so quietly, it was like they were just moving their mouths, a kind of hypnotic rhythm to it. It seemed they put motions at the wrong places, that the quiet mouths were open closing open closing overtop of each other too often. But they were too far away to verify.

Did he want me to just sit here until the authorities arrived? Or did he actually want me to ask him the time?

Three four quick upbreaths, a chuckle, I thought about leaning forward, raising a hand to get his attention and when I did just mouthing the words Sorry, do you have the time?

What could he do if I did?

I wanted to see.

I lurched a bit, wriggled, got to a more upright position, dug one elbow into a thigh, my other hand gripped over my knee. I waved. Montgomery looked over first, the girl, as though genuinely curious, noticing me for the first time, followed his drift in focus from her to me.

-Do you know what time it is? I mouthed, pointing at my wrist to help facilitate things, my throat dried, near to choking.

Montgomery looked at his heavy wrist, no watch on it, using his thumb and forefinger as though he were repositioning the watch face, squinted as though to verify, then looked at me and mouthed, very clearly, Ten fifty-two, the words followed by a smile and a friendly tip tap tilted head of a nod.

My head started to tick as I sniffled, rubbed a knuckle at an itch on my temple. Then I scooted a bit more forward on my chair, repeating without talking Ten fifty two? and Montgomery pretended to check his watch again, but instead of saying Yes or That's right, when he looked up he said something I couldn't make out, long, several sentences, lips going fast.

I mouthed What? and he pointed to the girl, mouthing something, then just insistently pointed at her face, as though aware from the intensity of my breathing I was fixated on him, absolutely.

The girl had her eyes closed, was making sips of her tongue out, blinks, lizard snaps, every few seconds, after a few times glugging her neck like a bird swallowing something, right back to the tongue motions.

When I switched focus to Montgomery, he was still blathering, but now was moving as though in slow motion, making strokes to the air with his fingers like spelling out letters, but not spelling anything, just shapes, sticks of motion, or else maybe letters in such poor penmanship I couldn't read them, slow, indecipherable, invisible scribble scrabble.

***

I felt heavily under the influence of something, wondered if my coffee had been tampered with.

Montgomery had returned to his pretended conversation with the girl, a sudden thack of his head in her direction, a clear jangle to her arm, her eyes opening, bizarre motions ended, no attempt at some subtle signal, a shift of a foot, something to make it seem natural. Montgomery had simply tired of the game and had no reason to not let on full well that it had been a game.

I looked at my coffee. Of course it hadn't been drugged. I was just collapsing, entirely, lack of sleep, mental stress, my injuries, the alcohol clotting my veins into bones.

Or it could have been the clerk had spiked it. This did make sense. Dosed me, called Montgomery. The timing was a little bit strange.

If I hadn't gone to the toilet, would he have just showed up, pantomimed a greeting to the girl?

No. Because it would've been a different girl, before.

Would he have brought the new girl, plainly let me see the switch?

Suddenly, it was more important to me to know if he'd been lying about the time. I staggered up, took a misstep, corrected myself and rounded through the shop, which was now bustling, a lengthy line, people milling, waiting for their orders. I asked a man who definitely had a watch on and he told me Just past eleven, then looked back behind me, so I twitched a look back, as well.

Nothing. Nobody even there at all.

There was a roiling in my gut so I started back in the direction of the toilet, halted when I saw Montgomery, standing, just handing the girl her bag, leaning in, whispering something in her ear, giving her a quick kiss. Or pretending to whisper something in her ear, pretending to give her a kiss.

I wanted to grab him, slap him like a frustrated child, weak rubber limbs plopping harmlessly in flopping swings on and off of him.

Why couldn't I?

A customer passed behind me, saying a polite Excuse me, so I scooted more toward the window.

-Where are you going to go? Montgomery asked me, abruptly, snapping his fingers to be certain I was listening.

The tone of the question, so sincerely curious, so lacking in menace confused me.

The girl moved past me, out of the café, most likely away forever.

-How long do I have? I asked.

-Until what? he said, now getting an odd look, like we'd gotten on two different subjects.

I started to answer, but he took a few steps toward me, past me, like he'd been walking a line from the back of the room, like I wasn't even there or else was just in his way, saying So sorry to his gruff Pardon me.

***

I got three, four blocks up the way before, at a crowded crosswalk, Montgomery was beside me, again. I hadn't been walking at all quickly, no longer cared to, but all the same he was breathing hard, brow clammy, distinct beads of gritty brown, brackish sweat on top of the overall glaze.

The signal changed and everyone moved forward, the mass of people crossing from the other side weaving through the mass I was part of. I had no urge to create a distraction, no urge to run, didn't even know if I was traveling in the correct direction for the bus depot.

I eyed some taxis, stiff thoughts of Couldn't I possibly escape in to one?

It seemed I could. In fact, escape might've been a more realistic option this late in the game than at the start. By now, there had to be an element of chance in it, the necessity of precision on Montgomery's end, it could no longer be sloppy, nitwit games, infantile taunting, taking his time. The more his fist closed, the more I might slip out.

I stared and stared and stared and stared and stared at taxis, so many empty, but couldn't reason it through.

Montgomery must've reappeared for some exact reason, must've needed to be close to me, now. It was another kind of pretend, he knew I'd be beaten down, so if he showed up it would keep me teetering, waiting for his next move, it would give the suggestion of power, his obscene little games with the girl in the café would make me feel buried when finally I might have dug my way out.

No. Not true. He just wanted to be close. He never had to show himself to begin with, in fact. Obviously he wanted to be close, wanted to torture, it was the part he enjoyed. He wasn't a conscientious citizen, phoning in a tip. He was reasonless, just here because he could be and I could do nothing about it.

Which, I stammered in my head, didn't mean I couldn't get away, now. If I did get in a cab, I thought, forcing myself not to drift from the idea this time, I'd be free. There was no way he could know where I was going, not with certainty. Even if he managed to follow in another cab, I could dash out when he was caught in traffic a few cars back, a mad scramble, he couldn't keep up. I'd be in another cab before he knew what was happening, jump out of that one, flail and flail and flail and flail and flail, eventually everyone would lose track of me.

***

I turned around, Montgomery stopping, casually getting a cigarette out, seemed so certain I wasn't tricking him. I wasn't tricking him, of course, but for some reason his certainty, which was correct, made me feel I could've been tricking him, he could've been wrong, there was no way he could know I was actually stopping to talk, not about to assault him, make a scene, dash off, although I wasn't. He knew. No rhetoric. He seemed to know better than I did, though I knew absolutely.

-What if I just ran from you, now? I don't believe you'll ever let me go, let me out, you never will, right?

He didn't respond, so I went on, surprised at the absurd calm of my tone.

-You don't want anything, you're going to turn me in. Do I have any chance at all? Or had I just ought to sit over there and wait?

I pointed at some random bit of wall, the outside of a clothing shop, Montgomery turning, squinting at it, seeming to give it all so much thorough consideration.

-How about over there? he said, pointing just up the way, to a sandwich shop or to the bus stop in front of it, I couldn't tell.

Was it an answer? Was it a taunt? Why was I asking him questions?

-Are you going to turn me in?

He took in funny breaths, stifling a sneeze, sneezed and then said Yes.

I opened my mouth to growl something flippant at this, something blunt, an insult, but drooped before I even sighed, head swaying side to side, looking at my feet, looking at his feet. Then I reached across, took his face in both hands, firmly. He didn't struggle at all, though he was difficult to grip, exactly, for the slop of him. I could feel his whiskers up through his acne pocked skin, could see a scab over his slightly parted lips.

Nothing. Not even one word. I couldn't say anything.

Maybe I'd just wanted to touch him, to know he wasn't some other man covered in a hideous growth of this man, that I wasn't going to be devoured, forced to slosh around inside of him with other simpering, digesting victims.

This thought crossed my mind, and right away I started dissecting even it, even its ridiculous, abstracted, entire lack of form or logic I had to argue with.

Touching him didn't prove he wasn't composed of people he had eaten, arms and legs of them sucked to bloats of soggy bones, it didn't prove there was anything but stagnating toilet water in him, anything but mounds of filth, not even his, the excretions of everyone he had devoured moving in gulps and fumbling squishes.

Whatever it was I was going to say, whatever moment had entered me just as quickly slipped out of me, flatulence, air down my nose scented sour with mucus. My arms flopped to my side.

He turned his head, raising his arm to cover his sneeze with the inside of his elbow.

***

In line waiting, it didn't matter to me where, but it was the sandwich shop Montgomery may or may not have pointed at, Montgomery waited behind me, may have been giving the lower part of my back little taps, so light, giving me little caressing tickles over my sides, fingers barely grazing the cloth of my coat. Whether he was or not, I didn't care, I didn't even bat at the sensation of itch or chill once. Whatever he was doing behind me, I just hummed to put out of my mind.

Three people from the front of the line—no need to be waiting, as all I wanted was to know if anyone working knew where the bus depot was, which I could just as well learn from anyone on the street, I could just as well get into a taxi and ask for—Montgomery started to hold my hand. I let him. He used his thumb tip to caress the wet center of my palm, a tingle rising through me, tears welling in my eyes.

He didn't try to hold me when I slipped my hand free, wheeled clumsily around, dabbing at my face, giving awkward apologies left and right as I bumbled my way back outside.

There could have been no purpose in his touching me, nothing but a perverse desire to molest me.

Or had he been worried what I might say to that clerk?

No. Stupid. I couldn't even think of anything remotely reasonable to think about anything. I'd no longer any idea if I was functioning properly, if I'd wet my pants, if I was drooling, if I was naked, felt myself crying, hobbled to a wall, covering my face in my hands, a moment later pulling the hand he had touched away, roughing it on the wall, on the side of my pants, fighting against the desire to clamp it back to place with the other one.

A long, blubbering void of time. A trembling, fist to my eyes length of isolation.

Slowly I calmed, touched at my face to clear it as much as I could.

I looked up to see Montgomery standing there, hovering and lazy, directing any concerned look from passersby away with soft gestures of his hands, one hand in the air over me, motherly, like he would have caressed me but knew I needed my space. The people who looked at me, distressed, pityingly, then moved their eyes to Montgomery, regarding him kindly, lovingly, so moved by his display of caring they were envious of me, whatever I was.

***

There was a stink to my every motion, head congested to the point of dizziness, even blowing my nose didn't help and sucking in, trying to snort phlegm to spit out just made my vision blacken, slowly crackle back to normal, or normal washed under grit, burnt yellowing stale brown.

I really had no idea where I was. Any time I tried to think of the bus depot, the only thing that came to mind was an image of the streets around some museums in another town I'd once lived in. People didn't seem to find my appearance off-putting however, I must've just looked like I'd caught some bug going around, influenza, something everyone knew someone else suffering from.

I dawdled over to the curb, giving up. The only chance I had was a taxi, the situation so decayed that I'd not be able to stop Montgomery from getting right in with me.

What could that matter?

It was that or he'd follow me. That or I'd make a scene, cause some trouble, ruin any chance I may still have had of escaping.

I glanced behind me, saw Montgomery still at a distance of twenty, thirty paces, the distance he'd been maintaining. The smoke rising from his cigarette seemed weighted in perspiration, sagging even as it rose and disappeared.

My hail got the attention of cab and by the time it had wended its way across the three lanes, was nearly to me, Montgomery had closed the distance between us, touched at my arm, softly, courteously. I kept facing the taxi, turned my head just a bit, met his eyes a moment, turned away. My hand to the door handle, he halted me by leaning in, whispering long and damp in my ear.

-You're worthless, you know? Pathetic, weakling, sick kitten, absolute filth. You deserve nothing. You have nothing. You deserve nobody and nothing and have never meant anything, never nothing, never regarded at all.

As soon as he'd started whispering, I'd frozen, tensing against the blubbering that was squirming to begin.

-And you're stupid, he went on. You're pathetic, ugly and stupid, Kaspar. You're as stupid as nothing, Kaspar, you're just as stupid as nothing.

On that word Nothing he moved away, was already half a block gone by the time I winced a look around, hand still on the taxi.

***

The bus depot I was dropped at was the same large facility as the train station, was the Train Station, properly, I supposed, the area for buses just an offshoot to one side.

There were crowds of hurried people, crowds of people lingering in waiting, the restaurants and shops bustling, plump with everyone. I glanced over at a restaurant with a bar, packed almost to capacity, promised myself I'd get a drink as soon as I had a ticket. I'd no idea where I would go, hoped that my bank account had enough to cover it, doubted it, suddenly felt I was down to my last five dollars.

The worst that could happen is that I couldn't afford a bus. I couldn't think further than that. I could think I might not be able to afford a bus, and then abruptly, all sentences stopped. I couldn't even think of some nonsense to mutter after it, it would just be the blunt, flat end to things.

The line I waited in went quickly and the old man who attended to me was pleasant, conversational, apologized for having to wait for his supervisor to come do something with his computer, explained he'd gotten locked in on some screen and could not process me yet.

I didn't care.

Would he delay it delay it delay it? Would I just stand in line until they took me?

The thought sort of comforted me.

Kaspar, you're under arrest, they'd say.

No.

Mister Traulhaine? they'd ask. Mister Traulhaine, you're under arrest.

Or something else. I didn't know how it worked, didn't care how it worked.

I was able to afford a ticket, bought it for a trip that had stops everywhere, all the way across the country, though I honestly couldn't see myself ever leaving the bus. For the first time, though, I could see myself boarding it, riding it, languishing in my seat by the window, sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping.

I drank a glass of bourbon, ordered another, thinking about the trip. I couldn't even remember if I'd given my right name to the attendant. I must have though, and I seemed to think I'd shown my identification.

I'd have to leave the bus, eventually. It might be best to do so early. Early. I imagined myself doing it at the first wide mouth of field and trees stretching away overgrown and fat and swallowing. But I realized, also, that I was picturing myself stepping down from a train, walking away, entering the gulp of the woods.

-I wouldn't be on a train, I whispered, I wouldn't step off of a train.

***

I berated myself, scoffed myself, couldn't let myself alone. I was sitting in the boarding area for my particular bus, which I still kept calling Train, calling myself a buffoon.

Why was I sitting when I'd ought to be running?

It was the most insane gesture of all, transforming motion into static, giving up. I'd given up. I'd given up.

Eventually, this created enough of a slime of paranoia that I stood, decided it was pointless to wait there, that it would be best to wait a distance off, keep an eye on the bus as it started boarding, see if police took post, detectives in plain clothes.

I entered a bathroom, one sink, one urinal, one stall which I closed myself in, my abdomen cramping viciously as soon as my pants were down and I tried to untense my bowels. I doubled over, sweating.

It could've been part of Montgomery's plan, actually, a last spit in my face, this paranoia, make me so afraid of my bus I wouldn't board it, I'd walk out the front of the depot, get five blocks down, ten blocks, suddenly apprehended, realize I would've been clean away had I boarded.

It didn't matter. They could have detectives waiting at the first stop.

The bus meant nothing and I still called it a Train.

I was so caught up in my stomach ache, my plodding thoughts, that I'd not heard someone else enter the bathroom, the tip of their shoe creeping in under the side of the stall while they flushed the urinal to clear it. They didn't retract their foot, it stayed more than halfway under the stall. I couldn't pull my eyes away. I didn't hear them urinating, though they could have a problem, take awhile, or their stream could have been weak, arcing into the porcelain soundless.

I gently brushed the shoe tip and it moved away. I tensed for another attempt at voiding myself, eyes closing. They opened perhaps ten seconds later, my body relaxing, a thick stream of urine foaming around my feet. Letting out the breath I'd been holding in, I could hear the tinker, the slap of the man's piss hitting the tile, the fizz of it surrounding me in a puddle.

I just watched, but then, furious, slapped the side of the stall, unable to stand, stapled into place by the wrenching in my gut.

The shoe, pulping through the still spreading urine, reentered the stall, a yellow post-it note now on it, in thick black ink a drawing of a peering, bloodshot eye.

I slapped the stall harder, babbling half breaths, inarticulate threats of violence, this mingled with chugging coughs, pain gripping headache, stomachache, cramps up my side.

Sometime while I yelled, the foot pulled away, whoever it had been left the bathroom.

I couldn't move at all, couldn't unclench myself, just watched my soaked pant cuffs darken, inhaled the brine, closed my eyes, heard the still crisp snaps of the bubbles in the urine, warm, lazy, one by one pop, breath over everything.

***

On the glass of the mirror there was a clean outline of a person, the ink thick, permanent, the inside of the outline pocked here and there with jagged scribble scrabbles.

I approached slowly, expecting my own reflection to fit perfectly into the confines of the outline, but it didn't. I was taller, slimmer, couldn't manipulate my position to be anything near the proper fit.

I'd never get on my bus. Not only would Montgomery never let me, it would never take me anywhere. If I got on it, took my seat, the word would come down to hold the bus, not let it depart. I'd be forced to sit, wait for the police, wait to be delivered exactly according to Montgomery's specifications.

I didn't feel anything about this. I had no jolt of anguish, no sadness, nothing, not even an awkward giddiness, which I wanted, wanted to slip in to another delirium, wanted whatever was going to happen to happen without me. I wanted to just wake already buried in it, irrevocably, didn't care that what was going to happen was going to happen, just wanted to be shut of the moment, before and after could be what they would. I wanted anything anything anything but that moment when his hands would finally surround me, throttle me, hold me as if forever. I couldn't bear that, couldn't bear to allow him that power. It's what I'd fed him and fed him, power, control of every mouthful of me. I was something dead, half cooked, picked at with the prongs of his fork and fingers. I'd let him take his time, pick my bones, and now he wanted his slobbering mouth to suck the last salt of me, the last grease, the last gummed down bone.

I tried and tried to twist into the outline, tried to match myself to it, to the smears of jagged ink strokes, to find some direct correlation. I couldn't. So I tried to get a look at myself in the mirror somehow with no line of the drawing touching me, at least not touching my face. I squatted, stood on tip toes, profile, straight on, tried to even see just an inch of my face unsullied, but it couldn't happen. Either the clean of the outline or the doodling scrags of scribble, one of them, the other, one of them the other blemished me someplace.

***

Waiting behind a cup of coffee, cigarette ready behind my ear, certain I'd see something to prevent my boarding the bus, I watched the other passengers all stand, form a line, have their tickets checked, the clump of them tottering with their luggage out under the long awning where the buses lulled, coloured the window outside a stale urine tone of exhaust.

I didn't notice anybody else who seemed to be keeping an eye on things, nor did I notice anybody paying me particular mind, which I was worried about because even though I tried I couldn't keep my eyes off of the boarding area, couldn't just glimpse it now and again, I lapped it incessantly, poked and poked and poked.

The area emptied, the passengers were all seated, the driver was finishing out his cigarette with the others.

I saw nobody watching.

-Liar, I whispered, but didn't know if I really thought he was. Montgomery could've wanted me on the bus, could've wanted one more little moment. It could be, I thought, this was how I'd finally shook him off.

I should run. I should go find some dumpster to hide behind, somewhere in the gut of the city, ride the metro, get lost, see if I could last a week that way.

Futile.

Futile, futile.

If I was supposed to be on the bus, if that was what Montgomery had told the authorities to expect, any search for me, when it turned out I'd never boarded, would begin with the depot. It wouldn't be difficult to trace me, especially if I never left the city.

He likely wanted me to have second thoughts, run, reduced to a child hiding from the monster under the bed under the bedcovers. Just something else he could have over me, that I'd just huddled, coward, pathetic, some cur without presence enough to run from his hangman, the cell door left wide open since the sentence had first been pronounced.

Run.

I should run.

I tried to goad myself into it.

-Run run runrunrunrunrun, I whispered, tucking the cigarette back in the packet, taking it back out, putting it to my lips, taking it in my fingers, rolling in around, pinching first one end then the other end then the first end then the other end.

***

Grey, braying grey when I stepped out of the depot, the white of the circular cement leading to the long steps down to the sidewalk matching the gaze of the filtered sneer of sunlight down on it.

I was smoking, moving to the stairs when I happened to notice someone in front of me, a look of concern, of sick, morbid disgust mingled with confusion, uncertainty crossing their face. Another person shared the expression. A half circle of people reaching the top of the stairs all slowed, took sidesteps, eyes transfixed on some point behind me.

The glare was worse with the glass of the depot redoubling it. My eyes shut almost entirely, crept open the sliver enough to make out the awkward, hobbled form of Montgomery making his way in my direction. Eyes adjusting, I saw that his one leg was limp, a slop of blood trailed along behind him, the fabric of his pants loose, draggling under his feet, sloshing the blood in short zigzags like mop water. There seemed to be a deep wound under the shirt over his left side, that whole weight of blubber seemed sagging, a droop compared to the thick waste of his other side. He held one hand out in front of him, like a tray, it gripped some gore, I couldn't make out what, something pulpy, jittery with the unsteady of his arm.

He approached me and I didn't move. When he was near enough, a sudden snarl, he rubbed whatever it was in his hand in my face, bloody, rank of long decay, screwing his hand as though to drive it though me, make certain I was stained, enough force that I fell backward, desperately rubbing at my face, slapping my hands around.

I got to a knee, trying to force down the vomit that was rising and it was then I made out that he was screaming, high pitched, rusted yarls, screaming and shaking where he stood, pointing at me, stabs of pointing at me with each repetition of his yelling That's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar that's Kaspar.

In horror, I wheeled away from the grotesque of him, the gibbering, infantile giddy of his slathering mouth, his jabbing my name out at me, everyone around stock still, dumbfounded.

I jiggled my head left and right, after one step unable to move in any direction. Two men who must've been struggling through the crowd in the direction of the depot finally got to the front of the cluster of bodies, stopped, stared at Montgomery, their faces livid, breathing heavy from their effort.

I could see the moment they registered what the words out of his mouth were, the click of reason, the irreversible finality of it. Their eyes shot over to me, motionless, bloodied, urine warming the front of my pants, stammering drool being weighed down, a wet trail to the pavement from the top of my shoe, by the mucus flowing over the ridges of my open, screaming mouth.

***

While the detective led me over to the officers at the squad car, I kept my head down, saw that my right shoelace was undone, a trickle of discomfort at this, fixated, couldn't think.

-Can you tie my shoe, please? I asked, mumbling, didn't even think I'd been coherent, but the officer asked me What? and the detective, just turning away, must've heard the officer or just remarked that we'd stopped, because soon he was in front of me, leaning in, trying to get my head to stop doddering away from his eyes as he tried to get my attention.

-You want your shoe tied? he asked. You want me to tie your shoe?

He touched my face, repeated the question, my mind biting down on it.

-My shoe?

-You want me to tie your shoe?

He was old, thin and old, an untrimmed scruff of beard growth everywhere, all the way up over his cheeks.

I nodded, letting the first clear nod tremble on, turn into a doddering tremble, seep through my whole body.

The detective smiled for some reason, turned away from me, said something to the officer, the officer nodding deep, a look of considerate admiration to his mouth, then started walking me the rest of the way to the car.

I sat down, wriggled to find balance from my hands cuffed behind me, the officer cautiously kneeling down, asking if my left shoe felt loose, also.

-No.

-Did you understand the rights that detective explained to you?

I shrugged.

-You understand me, right now?

-I understand you.

-Well alright. I'm going to tie your shoe, but I need you to listen. And then I'm going to need you to sign something for me, alright?

I sat motionless, then sighed into a slump, nodded my head oblongly and said Fine.

I was under arrest for the murder of Gavin Turlen. I had some various right. I said that I understood.

The officer tied my shoe, asking me if it felt tight enough. If there was a snort of admonition to the question, some curl of disgust masked in the politeness, I couldn't tell. It seemed genuine, the least he could do so he hoped I appreciated it. I wriggled my toes, my ankles, nodded and said Thank you. He said Your welcome, the detective approaching from behind him, some sheets of paper folded softly in one hand, the other hand brushing the air of some insect.

***

I scootched around until I could get my head against the window comfortably, my only real concern that when the officer stopped talking to the others, when he got in the car to drive, he might tell me I had to sit straight.

I tried to sleep, but if my eyes closed there were chattering thoughts waiting, a head full of dirt caked shards of glass, nothing to retreat in to.

The whole world was Montgomery's whining little pet, everyone his minion, every breath of everything was the pulpy sigh from over his unwashed tongue, the sip of belch into his hand. I half expected him to be my driver, to look out the window and find that he was my detective, he to be my cellmate under some perverse pretend coincidence. But he wasn't going to prison. He might be questioned, might even be held on something, some illegality in what he'd done, but I doubted it. Back to the hovel that was his throne, the clogged toilet of his life, he could have his ugly gloat with everyone in the world, all of them patting his back admiringly even if they weren't. He owned every particle of everything, the obscenity of it absolute, so large it no longer mattered or meant anything.

I thought about Claudia.

Did she already know about all of this? Had she been given a call, assured I was in custody?

The car door opened. I could hear the last of the officers' conversation, didn't listen, little chuckles from one to the other about something that had nothing to do with me.

As if for the billionth millionth time, I remembered, the click of the thought still a stiff smack to my face, a hand to my throat, fingers gripped relaxed gripped relaxed gripped relaxed, that Claudia wouldn't be called, she had nothing to do with it. Nothing more than she'd had her mouth once on the man who I'd squeezed dead. He'd had his hands over every part of her, felt her breath as she'd lost herself to ecstasy over him, had heard what she'd had to say, would have gone on and on and on with it, even if she'd left him, never touched him again, he'd have had her forever. Even dead he probably still could be said to have her forever, some smear of thought in her head always, some speck of him left. The most I'd managed was to bring forever to an end a bit more quickly, forever to forever.

***

Sleet had started, was just getting into its throes by the time I was taken out of the car. I'd not even registered that there were two officers in the car with me until being stood straight, I noticed the driver was opening an umbrella, coming around to hold it up over his partner.

A dozen or so last, wretched little steps, it was all that remained before I'd be nothing more than a thing in a box, left in room, or else just the box, empty, closed tight so not even dust got inside me.

I should've run. The thought recurred and recurred, up the steps, through the vestibule, into the station, up more steps, narrow, stopping a few times to be held to the side, allowing more room for some people coming down.

None of this would've happened had I run. I'd have been free. If I'd run the moment I'd seen Montgomery, I would've been safe, he had no plan for that.

Or he did. The same plan he'd had the entire time.

I should've run when Gavin folded to the ground, shouldn't have even covered him. Run then.

Those four months, Gavin burned, in jar up on some mantle, four months of him rotting in a flimsy casket in flimsy soil, Gavin someplace, no place, Gavin not Gavin not anything, those months were what had doomed me, brought me so low, spoiled, curdled thick every breath I thought I'd have left to make.

I should've killed Claudia, it occurred to me. A true mistake. She was the one I wanted to touch, to have buried, a keepsake, a memory, something I'd have touched last, nobody else would've ever have had a moment with, again.

-I should've killed her, I said, clear, plain, four words to the officer.

Like he'd been waiting for it, like the statement didn't phase him at all, he asked Who should you have killed?

I hung my head, was led on a few more paces, sat to a bench some people seemed to quickly have stood from.

I looked up, found the officer waiting.

-You said you should have killed someone else?

He just waited. I wasn't even certain I hadn't already told him this from the look of placating patience on his face, the same kindness that had tied my shoe, said You're welcome.

-I should have killed her, I whispered, then repeated it loud, a squeak of clearing my throat, repeated it again.

-Who is she?

A dwindle of a sigh, shoulders back to the wall, my eyes rolling, going out as they raised to the ceiling, lowered halfway to a clock face I was too bleary to read.

-Claudia, I said, but might just as well have said Nothing.

i poisoned you

There's a little boy with a spider in his hand

Hello

-The White Stripes

Damp with groggy, standing unwashed at my brother's bathroom mirror, wondering would I use his toothbrush, I remembered how sunken he'd become the previous night, buried under drunk, telling me he was certain he could bring himself to kill Lecia. His lover. His girlfriend. He used the word Girlfriend, but it's an idiot word to me.

He'd been drunk past the point he'd remember any of it—how he'd gone on, bemoaning, blubbering in every way except actually crying, slurred and helpless. He was certain she was having an affair. Multiple. That she'd seen some other man, still was seeing another man, on and on, on and on. He was sure.

I'd known after the first few drinks he was depressed. This sort of emotion, this instability, it was something he never showed outwardly during the normal course of things. Or it was something I'd never recognized. He adored Lecia, never seemed to have anything but good to say about her. And they, together, seemed to seem happy—she seemed in love as well as he was, for all I could tell.

I really didn't understand it, the idea of her cheating on him, of him thinking it and thinking it but being with her, despite it. I didn't understand what sort of weakness she had or what sort of sour thrill he got from having it all going on in his head.

I'd started the shower and standing there naked, waiting for the water to warm, sore and getting used to the first blood of the day flowing, stretching my calves, neck, going on tiptoes, I didn't focus on the fact my brother had told me he felt himself capable—if not on the verge—of murder. I thought vaguely about Lecia, how she'd make stabs of direct eye contact when saying something wry. And I found myself slightly erect, rubbing my eye, wondering how she might've reacted, in some moment I'd been alone with her, had I touched her side, or told a joke and then, on purpose, touched my forehead to her shoulder, like a shove, but not a shove, immediately leaving the room. I tried a few times to get myself fully aroused, but it didn't go far. I soon felt ridiculous and perverse, so just washed, stood there, water luke warm, the air a shrinking chill when I stepped out onto the spongy floor mat.

***

Before straightening up the apartment—something my brother wouldn't expect of me, certainly, but something I felt would be proper repayment for the amount of alcohol he'd let me down—I took another half glass of bourbon in my mouth, swished it, swallowed. Setting the glass down, I decided I'd use some of his pomade, even though it smelled thick of peaches and I thought about getting a hair cut, getting rid of all of my hair, except I'd been growing it out to get just this length, should wear it awhile even if it no longer pleased me.

I set the television on while I straightened.

Poking around on his desk, opening the small drawer, I decided to leaf through one of his spiral notebooks, vaguely curious if he still kept them as meticulously as he had growing up—doodled cartoons with little notations, ideas for television commercials, for strange billboards, for music album booklets.

Nothing so much in the book, I kept snooping.

In a box that'd once held little decorative envelopes and cards, I found some photos of he and Lecia—pornographic, more than a dozen. They must've been a few years old, my brother looked young, same age as I was, now. Lecia had her hair short, tight to her head, singed curls of slight red.

A little dribble of anxiety, wondering if my brother knew the exact order of the pictures, I just sighed and walked with them over to the kitchen for a little more to drink.

Lecia was more attractive, now, far more attractive as her body took on more and more of the tone of adulthood. The difference was extreme, like I was looking a photograph of her as a child—mouth around my brother, his penis between her breasts, her laying face down, buttocks raised pertly as though to better showcase the semen that darkened a few lines into her panties.

I spent awhile looking for other pictures, wondered if they'd made any videos, but soon returned to straightening, finishing up and resting on the sofa, my head plump and warm from the new bourbon.

I didn't have to be anywhere, had taken the night off to attend the concert with my brother and Lecia, some band he was forever going on about, a band I vaguely remembered having heard before and disliking. I sighed at the thought of Lecia taking little glances at some guy through the audience. I wondered if she kept the whole thing separate or if she crossed everything together, pretended my brother was another guy when they were in bed, talking, whenever, pretended another guy was my brother, my brother being the guy she was going behind someone else's back with, if she permuted it every way possible.

There was a page taken from a magazine stuck to the wall by the bookshelf, some film actor I didn't know the name of posing against a ratty telephone pole. The actor looked a lot like my brother, at least like my brother from a few years ago. It made me realize how attractive he was, made me wonder what the germ was that was in Lecia, wonder what way my brother had failed her, how he'd earned her easy deceit.

***

Another hour had drooled by, I'd not felt like leaving, watched some documentary programme about deep sea life which I mumbled my fascination about the whole time, a little bit drunker than I'd intended to get.

The telephone rang a few times, to the point I wondered if it was my brother needing something, hoping I was still there, but I didn't feel like taking the risk that it wasn't, of having to take down some message I'd probably get wrong.

I continued to poke through his things, checking all the usual sort of hiding places where we'd put stuff in our house growing up—behind books on the shelf, inside some box in the cabinets—and I found a little bit of marijuana, found some keys I didn't know what to, didn't really find anything.

There were no boxes of any kind in his closet, so I sat on the bed, stared at the hanging clothes. Looking through the inside pockets of some of his blazers, ones that seemed set back, no longer used, I found a pair of panties. It made me chuckle, such an odd surprise—they were soft yellow with some orange embroidery around the waist band, a bit of a design to them in mint blue. I looked at them, holding them variously, trying to figure out were they Lecia's panties, maybe some pair he'd absently put in the pocket after fucking her some time, some pair he'd put there on purpose, some strange sentimentality.

Or were they another girl's panties, maybe someone he'd been with because he was so convinced about Lecia, kept them around out of guilt and pride?

I don't know why it didn't occur to me, straight away, exactly what they were. It wasn't until I checked the other pocket, then rechecked the first and pulled out the opened condom package.

-Oh Christ, Bertram, I whispered, you are far far gone, man.

They were Lecia's. Maybe he'd found them in this very apartment, maybe someplace else, I didn't know. He'd likely found them someplace strange, but superficially explainable, didn't even think twice until he'd checked around and found the wrapper.

-Christ, Bertram I said, regular speaking voice, touching at the crotch of the panties as though to see was the fabric stiff at all, then realizing, no, of course not, a condom had been used.

I actually rechecked the photos in the box to see if the panties were the same, no point in doing so, as I clearly remembered those panties—deep blue with a lighter blue design of stars all across them.

It was unsettling. It had taken me—not counting watching television—twenty minutes to find all of this. If I kept looking, I'd find everything else there was, whatever it was.

I thought about the way Bertram's face had vanished last night, how he'd been speaking things he didn't even know he was saying, wondered how often he paced around saying them to himself.

-You're an idiot, I halfway said, looking at the door, thinking how he must take pains to not let Lecia stay in the apartment alone.

***

I waited for the bus in a cold not as curt as I'd remembered from the previous night, staring at the squat coffee shop down the opposite corner of the street. My day was going to be rather empty, I saw myself doing little more than dropping in on my brother at work to see how he was feeling, going home to my own bed, passing out.

By the time the bus left me up the street from the shop my brother worked in, I decided I'd go ahead with the haircut, spend the day out doing something—something, a film, a lazy stay in a bookstore, something—just felt I'd get depressed if I went home and slept.

None of the sales staff working the floor knew me by sight, so I had to go up to one of them, shyly ask if Bertram was at work today, explain I was his brother and just needed to give him something. After a few minutes, Bertram came out of the backroom, done up like he was leaving for the day, smiling, pointing at me with an unlit cigarette.

-All done? I asked, to which he just scoffed and said he'd decided to take a smoke break on account of my being his kid brother, said the girls thought it was sweet.

During the smoke, he teased me about a brief infatuation I'd had with one of the girls in the shop who was generally considered dirty, a real nothing, all manner of derogatory things. I defended myself as I always did, saying I'd only seen her one time and never heard her voice. Really, I'd not even seen this girl 's face, the remark that had caused all of the teasing had been an offhand thing to say, months ago, a way to break an awkward moment's silence one night, smoking pot, watching some lousy movie with my brother.

He showed no sign of remembering what he'd gone on about the previous night, didn't seem awkward or overly forward. I asked how he was feeling, he said not so bad. Then, snapping his fingers, exhaling smoke down his nose, he told me he apologized, but the concert was off that night.

-Why's that?

He shrugged, said that Lecia had given him a call, her work schedule had changed, she needed to be at the library all night to finish some paper, the time she thought she'd be doing it now eaten up with evening shifts, her days already packed dense. He gave this explanation lighthearted, with a hushed respect for her, no betrayal of the slightest doubt.

He didn't remember what he'd told me.

I asked him if he wanted to do a movie, then, said I was thinking to go to one during the day, but I could wait. He said he might, but really imagined he'd just get home and sleep, said he was a little bit the worse for wear from last night, could use the night off.

***

Rather than cut my hair, I paid to have it styled, something I'd never done before, felt foreign about. It looked remarkable, when finished, and I kept taking long looks at myself in any surface that could catch a reflection, but at the same time figured it'd been a waste of money, didn't understand how I'd get it to look the same after a shower—it wouldn't just fall to place itself and I'd just towel dry it, pat at it with my hands, there'd be no difference.

Nothing worthwhile was playing at the cinema, not even anything that would obviously be terrible but have some grim charm to it, something to mock later in pleasant company, so I started in the direction of the larger of the two bookstores in the vicinity with it more on my mind to listen to music than to browse for something to read. For a few minutes, I tried to convince myself I ought to stay downtown, go out to some club or bar myself, get into some adventure. I never did this, so started chiding myself for treating it like it was some exotic thing, something I needed an invitation to.

This got me thinking about finding some little bar with live music, some band I'd never heard of—this got me, the segue hardly noticed, thinking about Lecia calling out. Obviously, there was every reason to trust the explanation she'd given, she had so much going on it was shocking to think she ever found time to go out. She did have a job that I recalled from previous conversations with not only my brother, but with her, that screwed her over with it's scheduling all the time—she and I had swapped stories, griped about co-workers who seemed to have no qualms about calling out last minute, no consequence, in little cliques with the supervisors so there was nothing to be done about it.

I bypassed the bookstore, because there was something pleasant in walking, braced to the cold, irritated by it in my ears, sharp in my nose, lost in my thoughts. I'd walk as far as the central metro line, I decided, and if I didn't feel like heading home, yet, I'd turn around, walk back to the bookstore.

I tried to replay my brother's exact words, how he'd brought up Lecia changing plans. It came across as pretty genuine. He didn't seem the least bit troubled by it, there seemed to be no playacting. He took it as reasonable, because it was reasonable. He was worried, but not to the point he'd show it.

At the same time, it was odd that there hadn't seemed to be much regret to it—as though he hadn't even imagined it would have happened, anyway, didn't care, expected it.

***

The train so empty in the direction I was traveling, I kept drifting off, catching myself, looking around disoriented. The drifts into sleep never seemed to be more than two minutes in length, but I got increasingly agitated by them, simply because I realize I'd be thinking to myself 'Don't fall asleep, move, don't fall asleep' and then would wake with a grunt, find some bit of drool forming, ready to lift over my lip.

I paid for a taxi home, because I knew a bus ride would be just as awkward as the train, smoked a few cigarettes before entering my building lobby.

I checked my mail, rode the elevator, entered my room and checked my telephone messages. One was from my brother, said he'd tried to catch me before I left his apartment, wanted to let me know that plans for the night had been canceled.

I sighed, looked around the rooms, decided I'd take another shower, dress, head out, maybe call someone up once I'd gotten someplace.

Before stepping into the stream of water, I carefully regarded my hairstyle, noted where it was parted, how it laid at just such and angle, then got frustrated, shut the shower off, decided I'd keep it in place for at least one night out—already it was made a little bit lumpy from how my head had slipped against the train window, the seatback.

It bothered me while I dressed, the whole thing with Lecia. I tried to make a timeline in my thoughts about it, ticking the points off on my fingers. Bertram had been with Lecia before I'd met up the previous night—plans were intact then. The bookshop where she worked would have already been closed. When had she gotten a call about this schedule change if my brother had been calling me about it while I'd still been at his apartment? He'd left for work early, I'd left for the day before noon.

I went to check the answering machine, get a straight time for the call, but none of the clock features were set up so there was no information available.

Lecia wouldn't have gotten a call first thing in the morning from the opening manager or anything like that, because when would the other employee have called out? And it didn't make sense that she had to switch her schedule, especially as she not only already had plans for a night out but had such a hectic schedule, otherwise, something I'm sure her bosses knew about.

-They would have asked her, not told her I said to the mirror, getting my shirt half tucked in, half not, the way I liked it, so that it showcased my belt buckle, made me seem thinner than I was.

-She wanted to switch her schedule, Bertram, I said, looking at my face while I told him to think about it, knowing he probably already had.

It wasn't like I could ask him, couldn't talk reason to him. He was keeping the secret for her, was made an accomplice in it, a dupe against himself. He was going to go home to bed—sleep it off, sleep through it.

I wondered about him. I was upset, but this changed abruptly. It was obviously a mess for him. It was obviously so many things all at once.

***

From the train, immediately into a convenience store for cigarettes, I thought about heading up to my brother's apartment, a few blocks away. I'd forced myself to get off the train at a random stop, but I'd not strayed from the primary line. I began walking in that direction, at first rather sluggishly, paying attention to people on the other side of the street, trying to stoke up some interest in having an encounter, some adventure, then it came over me that I really should go to my brother's apartment.

I'd poke around, try to find Lecia's address. Bertram wasn't going to do anything, but things obviously had him in such a state that he'd broken down to me as he had. That time it had taken alcohol, but he was seeming dour, lately. My little snoop through his apartment more than justified getting to the bottom of things. If I didn't, things were likely to implode. Less alcohol for each confessional session, he'd just burn himself down.

Realizing I was moving as though in an actual hurry, I made myself stop, smoke two cigarettes down to the filters at a corner, made myself take the longer route along the canal—all a pretence of making the whole matter seem more trivial, off hand.

It seemed to me that tonight, this situation, would actually prove something out. If Lecia wasn't stepping out, if this set of circumstances was exactly as she advertised it to be, one method of dealing with Bertram could be taken—I could try to get him not to worry about it so much or something—and if something was off, I'd have to act accordingly. Not that anything would be definite, but I decided that in good conscience I couldn't ignore the situation.

And I wanted to know. I wanted to know. If she was going behind Bertram's back, she was hurting him, was manipulating him, it was not something to just sidestep.

Just down the block from his apartment building, I slowed, wondered if it would be wise to tell Bertram if I found something out. My thoughts sort of tended that way, but something in the look I knew would cross his face—the unappreciative, almost accusatory aspect he would take on—sort of got me feeling glum. If I told him, it'd not even be a done deal and I would be distanced from it all over again.

I tried to picture seeing him again after I'd told him, see him touching her back, know that when I met them out from drinks they'd just earlier been wantonly at each other, had not even washed from it.

It was a drag.

Bertram knew, anyway. I knew why he knew and I knew for the same reason. I almost muttered this to myself, a last cigarette, a last shrug before I moved toward the heavy glass of the lobby door.

***

As I was getting the key into the door lock, struggling to get it to catch, I heard the bolt from inside slid, the chain undone. Bertram opened the door, looking at me, a friendly smile, his head tilted, hair wet from a shower, not even toweled, almost dry. I smiled, nodded, moved into the room when he made a motion and I apologized, saying I'd thought he was still at work. He explained he'd told them he was feeling really bad, which he also admitted was not so far from the truth, furthered that it'd been slow so he'd been kind of going out of his mind.

-About what? I asked, just offhand, and he, genuinely having not heard me, made some questioning sound.

-You were just going nuts from it being slow, you mean?

Making a dismissive wave of his arm, he said he'd just wanted to get to sleep, but then when he got home, he'd not been so sleepy.

-What brings you? he asked as I was pouring myself a shot of bourbon, looking at the television screen, some film I couldn't quite remember the name of.

I told him I was going out for the evening, thought I'd left my wallet around, quickly corrected that I didn't mean my wallet, I meant a gift card I'd gotten awhile back, meant I couldn't find it in my wallet and figured I must've dropped it, as I'd definitely had it the night before.

He'd not really been listening, just asked me where I was heading out to as he went around into his bedroom. I hadn't decided, I said, quickly snapping my fingers, asking him if he'd still be up for going to a movie, as he couldn't sleep.

I playacted looking around on the floor, was going through the sofa cushions when he reentered the room, went to the kitchen. He poured a rather large glassful of bourbon and said 'I'll sleep', but there had been so much time between my question and his speaking I'd nearly forgotten what my remark had been.

-I'll probably just go out to some bar, then, I said, making a show of getting my wallet out, my back turned, removing the card I'd allegedly forgotten. You're a thief, my friend, I said, pointing at him with the card as I reinserted it into the wallet, the wallet slipped back into the pocket. He asked me what it was, so I repeated the whole thing about the card going missing, this time getting a dull nod and him wondering how much it was for.

-Two hundred dollars, man, I answered—not true, but harmless to say, it kept it light, let me riff that I understood why he'd coveted it so highly.

I invited him to join me one last time, keeping my tone even, not wanting to betray any concern, especially standing in the same room he'd confessed his suspicions to me in not even twenty-four hours previous. He shook his head, dull and obviously final.

To be certain he meant to stay in, pass out, I told him to pour me another drink, a big one, save me a few dollars. He said now I was stealing from him and I reminded him to pour himself a second one, because I couldn't be trusted drinking by myself.

***

I was already making light of myself, riding the elevator down, asking myself where exactly was it I thought I'd find Lecia's address written down? Why would my brother have his girlfriends address written down? Did I ever have a girlfriends address written down, leave it around in a drawer someplace?

In my defense, I suggested there might've been a piece of her mail around, something with a return address, and even though I couldn't find a counterargument to this, I still felt the plan had been ill conceived.

The bourbon had me warm, giddy, a little bit too much outside of things. With me, a drink or two will set me out of orbit, while a night of drinking seems to tether me in. So, I made my way along, not concerned about much, not looking for anyplace to stop, even ignoring a group of people my age, two of the girls, I was certain, having directly made eyes at me, whispered something to each other about me while their companions chattered on.

Finally taking stock of where I'd wound up, I searched out the nearest metro entrance, wished I'd brought a book to read, brought a flask, a small bottle, saw myself swishing along in a train, soused, reading some novel. I stepped onto a crowded Green Line, back stepped off immediately, apologizing for knocking into someone, though they hardly registered it.

I'd take the chance that Lecia might still be at work. Not much of a chance, but then again it did make sense, and at least it gave me something to do.

I got impatient for the Yellow Line, teetered back and forth, kept touching at the flap lid of a trashcan. The train was packed, the first flush of the evening commute, I thought, but when I asked someone for the time it seemed early. I put it off to the weather, the lisp of overcast, the half asleep scent of coming snow.

It was disconcerting, walking up the escalator, out into middle afternoon, the distinct feeling it was late evening, middle of the night. I reached into my pocket for my cell phone, distrusting everything.

I decided I'd get coffee if Lecia turned out to still be there. I'd get drunk if not, try to forget about it, let her go do whatever she wanted.

Needing to have a piss, I ducked around the long line of some slim little bagel shop, waiting for three other people to get through in the toilet, a queue four deep seeping in behind me.

While I urinated and took a moment to throw hot water on my face, I started ticking off the day one finger at a time. Woke up. What time? Eight? Nine? Snooped around. Call that two hours, at the longest? Eleven o'clock? Noon? Home, train and cab, no more than an hour, hour and half. Then back out, up to see my brother.

Even if I was forgetting something, it was still what time it ought to be.

I flushed after washing my hands and so washed my hands, again. It felt like something was missing, some amount of time, a moment somewhere, some aspect of the day. But even if something was, it was something that didn't seem to make a difference.

***

There was no way to see in through the front windows of the shop where Lecia worked—posters, little event flyers the place let any local artist slap up, carts of books, two sodden bookshelves left out all day and night, cheap books on them the shop doesn't care if passersby take for free, clutter, no way to see in.

I milled around, leafed through a weather beaten copy of The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis, smoked down a cigarette, realizing when some patron left the shop that I'd been waiting for such a prompt, something to remind me I was actually someplace, actually doing something.

The shop was deep, expanded wide about halfway through, shrank to an odd little hall of stacks of old magazines. An older woman was at the front desk, counting and straightening the money in her till. I nodded, generally, letting out a breath of puffed cheeks, feeling tight, idiotic for how casual I was trying to appear.

I saw Lecia just as she was turning, hadn't recognized her from behind—it was kind of a shock, she said my name before I'd processed her appearance, as though she was suddenly superimposed on someone else.

-It's the baby brother, she said, moved in to give me a hug, exuberant.

I awkwardly returned the gesture, cautiously let both of my hands rest a moment at her hips before backing up, dizzy and just slightly erect from the unexpected close contact. She asked what brought me, taking a very casual stance, speaking in an excited sort of whisper, like I was supposed to be telling her a secret.

-I'm out getting drunk, I said, pointing at myself.

She wasn't betraying any sort of awkwardness at my appearing where she worked, nothing to make me think my presence put her off. She also didn't ask about Bertram at all, just made a cute little shocked face, covering her mouth with both hands and then flitting at the air in front of me.

-I didn't know you were a scoundrel, she play whispered.

-I am I am, I said, not bothering to try at charm, feeling a bit embarrassed.

After a moment or two of silence, she arched her back, rubbing a shoulder blade with the side of the bookshelf she was leaned against and I admitted that I knew the bookstore didn't sell alcohol, that I just noticed where I was and thought she might be at work.

-I appreciate the pop in, are you going any place in particular?

I shook my head, said that I'd only just gotten a message from Bertram that plans had changed, altered this to explain I meant I'd gotten the message an hour ago, had left my phone off, been on my way into the city, anyway.

-He didn't say what was up, that you're busy or something, but I won't tell on you if you stop for a quick drink with me when you're off. The words came out a stupid, hurried mash, but she smiled, said I was so forward when I was drunk it was almost contagious.

-I have to go to the library, though, actually, and she trailed off, reaching into her pocket, producing some money. She handed me a bill and said I was to take four shots of a particular bourbon, raise the glass to her each time.

***

The trouble I had, tucked into the space between some restaurant and a closed-for-the-night clothing shop across the street from Lecia's work, is that I was distracted by the thought that she seemed to have genuinely considered going for a drink with me. The whole conversation didn't seem to have anything evidencing she was on her way to mess around on my brother. If I had a lover on the side, I thought, nodding at each point, and had canceled plans with my steady to get some on the side and my steady's brother happened to walk into the store where I worked, I'd be put off, at least ask some question more loaded than Where are you getting drunk? I'd never stopped into the store where she worked, before, only knew about it because Bertram and I had met her there the night I'd gotten drunk, broke up with Courtney.

It was odd, and the unsettled feeling it gave me mixed in with the sense of fun I was having, waiting to see her again.

I also considered that I hardly registered with her—she, after all, was more than eight years older than me, was older than my brother by a few years. Ten years older than me, perhaps? Nine, either way. I could've just come across as she'd said, the baby brother, adorable in my slight intoxication, in my playing the rake.

I chuckled about this.

It made just as much sense that I'd not put her off at all, of course—she'd no reason to think Bertram would send me to keep an eye on her, because Bertram hadn't sent me to keep an eye on her. In an overly technical way of looking at it, Bertram hadn't even given me a reason to keep an eye on her, as he didn't recall his conversation with me, that night didn't exist to him, it was less present than a dream.

I nodded, heavy, knowing the logic was sound, knowing I was an absolute anomaly.

Holding up one finger after another, keeping my mouth busy with cigarette, I explained that if she had something going on, she had it going on in such a way that she either thought Bertram knew nothing, or knew he knew everything—the general facts, anyway—but was comfortable enough about it to know he wasn't ever going to make a show of it.

Which he wasn't. She was right.

I smiled thinking of her face dismissing me, the click of her head, more stern than smiling, once she'd given me the bit of money to go off and play with. She was a bit of a caution, all things considered. If my brother was the guy she was stepping out with rather than the one she was screwing around on, I'd just write off the other guy she was involved with as some hump didn't deserve her, someone who'd let it slip out of his hands, couldn't keep up.

I wondered what she told the other guy about Bertram, what the exact differences were between them.

I remembered the diminished husk of Bertram's voice. He could kill her, thinks about it, about killing her and what he would be afterward, what he would've become.

This wasn't really a game, it wasn't something abstract—it was something hurting, something stabbed in that needed to be pried free.

-I whispered You're a bitch, and I tried to picture what her face might do if I said it right at her.

***

She left the store inside of the hour. I let her get a block away before I started to follow, keeping to the other side of the street. She didn't look around very much, I noticed, immediately wondering what I meant by it. Her face stayed trained in front of her, even if she made a glance it didn't seem to take anything in. She just seemed like she was going to the next place she was going, the distance between not pleasant, not an annoyance—like she simply didn't exist for a little while.

Ten blocks or so along, I took the time to cross to her side of the street, this allowing her to get a lead on me, again. I kept my hands tightly down my pockets, tapped my nose to my coat shoulder whenever it seemed wet, the feeling of a sore throat along the back of my mouth.

She entered an apartment building, nothing more I could do. I had a cigarette, just in case she'd lingered in the lobby for some reason—checking her mail, having a conversation with a neighbor—then went up to the entrance door, finding it locked. Her name was right on one of cards by the buzzer, but I couldn't tell exactly what had to happened to get the door to unlock, there wasn't a keypad, wasn't a card slot. I did find a place where a key could be inserted, so I supposed that was how it went.

Finding that there wasn't a good place to conceal myself, I just crossed the street, waited at a bus stop bench, my back to her building front, took up some crumpled advertisement papers, figured they'd look like a newspaper from a distance.

Ten minutes passed and twenty minutes passed, the creeping realization coming over me that I didn't really have things so under control. For example, there could be a second entrance to the building, she could be out and gone, already. I had to tense against heading all the way up the block, rounding the corner, verifying whether there was some entrance in back.

Worse was that I was taking it at her word she was going to the library. She knew this is what she'd told Bertram, so she'd repeated it to me, if not to out-and-out cover her bases—actually suspecting me of being there to snoop on her—then because the stories would have to match up if I happened to bring up the encounter with Bertram, some time. She could have given me the money for that very reason, an echo chamber, testing in conversation with Bertram if I'd let him know I'd seen her, if I'd accurately reported back—or else to see if he'd bring it up himself, if he'd act surprised, awkward when she did.

What if I hadn't brought it up and she asked Bertram about it? How would she interpret that?

That seemed a pointless consideration. I was getting away from myself.

The trouble really was that her lover could be meeting her at her apartment, could have gone in when I wasn't paying attention—he could have been there, already, when the possibilities were carefully considered. I could try to verify this, it wouldn't be too much trouble to get into the building. But it would be oddly indecent of her to have the guy over, not knowing if Bertram might pop in. Bertram certainly had a key. I thought he had a key, at any rate.

I didn't know what I thought. Was just agitated with waiting, wondering how she'd be dressed when I saw her, again.

***

My mouth was getting a bit gummy, the saliva in it thick, as though the same little bit was being chewed, sponged into my tongue, squeezed back out, chewed.

Lecia came out of the building alone, a backpack with her that seemed heavy, cumbersome—I could imagine the soreness when she'd set it down later, it was likely to give her a headache. She looked a little bit sloppy, I supposed, but honestly this registered in an odd way. My first impression when she walked out—and the impression I kept for more than three blocks, walking next to her but separated by the four lanes of the street, obscured by the hiss of traffic and the growing clamber of pedestrians—was that she looked far more attractive than when she'd gone in. The clothes were casual, dumpy, well worn, nothing done up about them, but this is something I generally found attractive, and the combination of it and her way of carrying herself—unselfconscious, lost to her purpose—riveting.

I realized it was odd to think this is what she put on to meet with some guy. It would turn me on—a woman like her making advances, coming onto me, even getting things started fully clothed in such a way—but it was abnormal, a quirk of mine. She looked like someone going to the library to put in several hours of work, knowing the dry air, the crisp of breathing through her nose, the stale bottled water sipped at, sweating through plastic, warm almost immediately after the machine dispensed it.

And she went into a library, a large one, a building I'd passed many times but had no idea it was a library—she just walked in, not stopping, not glancing around, a sighing tug to the heavy door, already somewhat winded from the tip tap up the twenty steps.

I let her go, had a cigarette, felt tense, stupid for doing it, but it seemed that the worst that could happen was I'd be spotted when I went in to look for her. It didn't really seem to matter anymore, though. It became more playful, a make believe little hunt. I imagined she'd spot me and I'd shyly explain myself, somehow.

The step I sat on was wet, but other than sighing I didn't do anything about it, felt the moisture soaking to the fabric of my pants under my knees, wondered if it would get all the way through my coat, wet me through to the skin.

I laughed at myself, snuffing air out my nose—air and cigarette smoke, just air, air and cigarette smoke, like I was trapped in a little repeat until I could think of a clever name to call myself.

I discovered she'd given me fifty dollars, not twenty, so chuckled at that, too wondered if she didn't have a bra on, because she was wearing that thicker, very loose sweatshirt—the thought of closing my hand around fabric and breast getting me very aroused, making me feel embarrassed. I'd gotten turned on around Lecia a few times, my brother in the same room, always later into the night, at home, she in sleep clothes not the least bit tantalizing, in general, ones she'd probably put on specifically because she knew it wasn't just she and Bertram in the room.

***

There were restrooms immediately inside the library door. I stood at the sink, washing my face with cold water, then with hot water. I'd certainly caught a cold, felt the tension along my sides, the groan to my eyes holding shut. I didn't really look so bad, didn't even looking draggy from the drinks I'd had earlier thinning out, leaving me dry.

I checked my cell phone, saw that Jeremy had left a message, started to call my voicemail but realized he was probably just wondering why I wasn't on shift with him, was on his smoke break, bored, thinking to use me as a distraction.

It was an even larger library than I'd thought—the map showed all nine floors in miniature, each one massive, spreading out to both sides like it was being pinched in the middle, like it might burst, spill out in a heap. Three floors seemed dedicated to study rooms, but every floor also had large areas set aside—even partitioned off I saw when I started walking—for quiet work.

I kind of got lost with just taking the place in, it wasn't the sort of library I'd ever have reason to enter. I liked how I knew nothing about any of the books on the shelf, as though what they were, even conceptually, had nothing at all to do with me, with any life I knew about.

Lecia turned out to be at a little side table, one that seemed to be set up more for workers to organize books on than for students to use in studying. Her backpack was emptied of its contents and at least another ten large volumes were stacked up, one splayed open, two more on top of it, one open, sort of leaned to the rest—she had her notebooks out and was reading, completely gone from everything, like she was some air she'd swallowed, a thought she'd bit down on. No make-up, her face still had a scrubbed look from when she must've washed before leaving her apartment.

I wondered how close, exactly, I could get to her, if I could actually step into the row of book closest her, even there, leaf through something, she never even casually glancing up. I watched her yawn, unaware of anything, throwing her shoulders back, twisting a bit where she sat, using the butt of her palm to cover her mouth while she rubbed hard at one of her eyes with two fingers bent hard for just that purpose, the motion creaking, a moan pulping and circular.

There wasn't much reason to stay, but I felt too ridiculous just leaving, walking out of the library, going about my night. I was being stupid, I knew that—I even started to think this was all something I could bring up to her some time, like it could be a little secret I could let her in on next time I stopped by the store. She wouldn't care—she'd nod, take it as something curious about me, give it a wry smile.

She looked like she cared about absolutely nothing, like she belonged right there—a stack of books or scribbled notes or just a pen set down under brown dry light.

***

Lecia stood up and I shrunk down, everything in me tightened—I felt caught, though there was no way she could see me. She coughed, very softly, tucked her chair to place, set a certain book on top of her notebook and moved off.

I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted to do. I assumed she was heading to the toilet, but I didn't know where that was. She also might've been going for another book, might've been doing anything. I stayed put as I was, half crouched, nose almost touching the side top of the book I was squinting over. I kept my eye on her until she turned a corner, until I heard the clack of a stairwell door opening, the empty of it swinging open, the ache of it's creaking change in momentum, reclosing with an elongated scrape of the latch hitting.

I counted to thirty a few times, always starting again when I'd get distracted—though by the third restart I knew I must've been well past thirty—then hushed over to where she'd been sitting.

The print in the book she'd left open was nonsensically small, more footnotes on the page than anything. She'd left her purse, which I peeked into, probed my fingers through, sort of looking for her cell phone, which I then looked for under the flopped covers of various books. I was getting very anxious, but the fact the telephone wasn't there got me going, again. She'd stepped out to call someone, which could be ordinary—she might even be calling Bertram for all I knew—but why not call from her seat, text message, something more direct?

Then I saw the phone in the unzipped smaller section of her backpack.

The cell phone didn't mean anything, though—didn't mean anything that it was there, wouldn't have meant anything if it hadn't been there.

I opened it, tapping to see any recent text message activity, braced for something, but the latest thing was incoming was from Bertram, two days ago, the latest thing outgoing was to Bertram, earlier that day, the words Maybe. I'd like that. Let me know. obviously the last of some back-and-forth.

The sound of the stairwell opening kept me from looking at anything else—I closed the phone, stuck it back in the backpack, slunked back to my hiding place. I heard Lecia coming back, laughing at something the guy she was walking with was saying. She sat right down, taking the guy's coffee as well as her own when he went to grab a chair to pull over. I pressed my foot hard into the tile to stave off a spasm, not catching anything they were saying, their voices not whispers but not loud, shuffled around by the weight of the books and the empty nothing of the stale flecks of air all around—mashed words, muffled echo, meaningless.

The guy set down his own backpack, leaned in his chair, then let out a slapping sigh, a chuckle, stood up, Lecia's face perked, her nose a quizzical wrinkle, and he said he'd be right back. I listened to the chop of his footsteps, then to the clatter of the door opening and his squawking shuffles hurrying down the stairs as it closed.

***

Downward three flights, then slowly through a door out to the milling snips of muted conversations, I took a seat at an empty study table surrounded by little clumps of students, pockets of older people who were leafing through magazines, seemed in the wrong place but also seemed ignored by the people who should be there.

I felt exposed when I saw there was a restroom door right down the way from me, thought I'd snuck away only to stop at the surest place Lecia would turn up, but was quickly able to dismiss this, doubting there was only one set of toilets for four floors of library. But the uneasiness got right back on me, so I walked to the end of the floor, stood by a sooty window and the hack of a poorly running floor heater.

I wanted to leave—take Lecia's money, get drunk, forget the whole thing—but I hadn't even gotten a proper look at the guy, only taken away the slithering impression that he was just as casually done up as her, a days growth of beard, lounge clothes under which he seemed trim, on the rowing team or something. Honestly, though, everyone seemed like that to me. I couldn't even remember if he'd been as tall as me, as Lecia, as Bertram.

A classmate. He was someone she studies with. He was not her lover.

I tried to grind this into my mind, make it reasonable, but the thought that this all served as a liaison just slipped out from under any reason, resettled on top.

Were they meeting there, going at it, right there, in the rows of quiet books? Maybe he was inside of her, the kink of it to keep almost still, almost silent—his hand over her mouth, his both hands over her whole face, her fingers at his throat?

Christ. No. This was not likely. I repeated the phrase This was not likely this was not likely this was not likely.

I went over to the bathroom, sat in a stall, lowered my pants, and though I hadn't thought I needed to, found I was having a bowel movement.

I was far too agitated. It was unnerving.

What was I even doing?

Yes, Lecia was going to have interactions with human beings other than my older brother. I reminded myself she'd had an odd meeting with me, only earlier that night. From Bertram's point-of-view, for example, she and I chatting about how I was charming when intoxicated would be stranger than her studying—like she'd said she would be—and someone else studying with her.

I was the one following her—my head full of ideas one minute, empty of ideas the next—feeling like I had a fever, jittery from the fact I was doing something unnecessary and unexplainable, from letting every single thing I saw prove everything and then disprove it right back in its face.

-You need to leave, I said. I held up my index finger and said Leave, my middle finger and said Find a bar, my ring finger and said Get drunk, pinkie finger and said Vomit somewhere or something.

Then I paused.

Then I tensed out my thumb.

-I said you need to leave, I said.

I shut my fingers around themselves, limp, said You need to leave, Aldous.

Then my fingers were tight, knuckles rubbing like dogs into the side of my neck.

***

I left the library, crossed the street to a convenience store, purchased cigarettes, bought a magazine and some nonsense paperback, then walked back to a ledge with some dead bushes in the soil around it, across from the library entrance. I'd sit and wait, not paying the strictest attention. If they'd already left, there was nothing I could do. I doubted they'd left, as I'd only been away from them half-an-hour at the longest, so I felt it was more a matter of whether they'd slip past while I was reading or leave out a different exit, both perfectly plausible.

I didn't approach the library to check it's hours of operations, didn't know if it was the sort of place one could go into at all hours, provided arrangements had been made.

It was coming up on nine o'clock. I leafed through the magazine, reading nothing, blowing cigarette smoke down on photographs and pointless text, tried to read even the Prologue of the paperback, but found it god-awful, worse than I'd expected.

It was twenty-minutes past ten when they came out—she carrying her bag, he carrying his, she discarding a coffee cup, he getting a cigarette lit.

He was taller than her, than me, quite a striking guy, but he couldn't have been older than I was, even seemed a bit younger. I followed, glaring, one eye half closed from some smoke squirming into it. He was thin, but had a lithe, athletic look to him—not like he was excessively athletic, but like he ran, did something, there was a clean inward arc to him, his shoulders clearly the top of him and a flat line, stiff, precise, into his groin. He wore his coat—which was lightweight to begin with—unbuttoned, had a green wool cap, some of his hair tufting out of it here and there.

They stopped in to a fast-food restaurant, sat in a booth near the toilets, both washed mint by the stale of florescent light in the place.

Lecia seemed rather fatigued, a looseness of sleep around her eyes, but seemed to pay close attention to whatever he was going on about—talking while holding up a salt shaker, holding up his napkin, making some example. Suddenly she laughed, and he made a flicking gesture in her direction, she made a grimace, laughed again, looked around and then went to refill her drink.

They hadn't touched.

When they walked, they stood close, like people familiar with each other walking, but there were no bumps, no little jabs, no casual caressing against even the furthest outside of each others clothes.

I supposed his fitness could make him look younger than he was, maybe if I could see his face I'd see some hint of age. He looked like I'd look if I did any sort of regular exercise, if I ever managed something more than pretend pushups standing angled against a wall.

Lecia sat back down, pointing in the direction she'd come from, saying something and shrugging. He took a more relaxed posture, bunched himself into the booth corner, sort of looked out the window next to him while she had a few more bites.

***

It was another ten minutes in the direction of one of the busier areas of downtown that a grim sense of disgust licked all over me. They weren't heading back to Lecia's and they weren't parting company. So how was it to work? What could she have to say for herself?

It was twenty past eleven. Even with the concert plans canceled, there was no reason we couldn't have met up to do something.

I imagined they were going back to his place, so all of her little illusions fell away. She'd not dressed up because she was telling the truth about her change in work schedule. She'd be with him all night, but then needed to have her usual things at hand, probably go back to the library thighs wet with him, jaw sore with him. It was a practical decision—I saw that, and it got me infuriated. This guy was so casual about being worked in, but the way she was being with him wasn't wanton—this wasn't a little escapade, wasn't her having a romp, needing to feel a sharp polished object, doted on and flaunted—she was completely herself, unconscious, dressed in her favorite comforts, not putting on faces. And he wasn't excited about simply the look of her, the thrill that some woman was going out of her way for him—he knew she wasn't even going out of her way for him, was just giving herself to him.

How had they met? As casual as they'd nodded, she'd suggested it, it'd happened? Was he some younger student she'd met at that library? How long had it been going on?

This wasn't the way someone strolled to an affair when it was fresh, when it was daring, inappropriate, this was just an ordinary meeting between people who could care less.

I almost walked right into the hotel lobby behind them, but choked to a halt, back peddled, stopped, squinted to see what my options were.

-A hotel. A hotel a hotel a hotel, I whispered, letting my cigarette stay smoldering where it fell from the bounce of my lips, only stepped it out when I pushed through the door.

I kept my head down, looking in the direction of the pictures on the wall by the elevator, rounded the corner and walked down the corridor a bit.

I didn't know what I was doing.

I'd seen they were in line behind someone else, crept back along toward the lobby until I heard the clerk chime Hi there at them, Lecia doing the talking. This was spontaneous, it seemed. No reservation. She was handing her credit card and identification across, naming the sort of room they wanted—saying Smoking is fine, just for the night—and the guy was offhand looking at some one of the brochures on the counter. Then he leaned in, saying something to her quietly, making a little motion with two of his fingers like a little man walking, and she perked up, drummed her hands on the counter, apologized to the clerk and said Is the top floor, alright? I'm sorry, if not it's fine, but if there is we'd like the top floor.

She took out her cell phone, flipped it open, looked at the screen long enough I knew she was reading something, scratched her nose, flipped it shut.

***

I heard the labored ping of the indicator above the elevator door lighting, was having trouble getting my breath from the climb up the stairwell. A moment later, the shush of the door opening, Lecia and the guy stepped out, he in the middle of an impersonation of some dialogue from a film I couldn't quite remember the name of.

I'd ducked entirely back into the stairwell, counted ten, not able to tell if their voices were getting nearer or were headed down the corridor in the opposite direction, then carefully peeked around.

They were about three quarters of the way down toward the other stairwell. She'd handed him her bag and went through her pockets for the key, laughing, saying she'd thought she'd left it on the counter. There was a friendly sort of pause, the both of the milling, chuckling, and I saw her point at him, finger not touching to his chest, and she said 'Alright, you can come in, but behave' and he going on the toes of his feet up down up down, holding up his hands in mock innocence 'I'll behave I'll behave'. And they were saying something else. I heard the word Library just before the door closed.

Involuntarily, I moved a few paces into the corridor, then stopped—just stopped and looked.

I sighed, scratched my forehead, then noticed a few of the rooms had dishes and trays from used room service left out. I kicked at a covered dish, purposefully tipped over a quarter filled glass of wine, then saw that the bottle was still in an ice bucket. When I lifted it, it seemed heavy enough there should be something in it, but it was a dribble, nothing. Setting it down, I saw a rather elaborate, heavy corkscrew, took it up, removed the cork, put the thing in my pocket, gave the cork a little kick, watched it skirt along the carpet, roll to a halt.

I sat on the stairs, head tilted back, eyes closed. The whole thing seemed so shabby, so put together without thought. I wouldn't—even still—let myself be certain of things. I fabricated some reasonable makeshift for what was going on. She knew the guy. They'd met to study. Something went down, the library closing, something. They were going to go to his place, study a bit more, but he remembered there was a party going on. Spur of the moment, she suggested the hotel, because it would be a drag getting back to her place.

I laughed, nodding, whispered that yes, yes they were in the room studying, working on a paper. They just didn't go back to his room, because of a party. It was stupid, with her schedule, that she would go home, his place nearer the library or something. She had to be in this area in the morning for something. Something. Something.

I just couldn't see this being what it looked like, her bothering with all of this for so casual a hump. I was getting beside myself, making her ugly when she wasn't, painting everything with the colour of my particular feverish misery.

In a swallow, though, I got bitter, thought I was behaving worse than Bertram—the same as Bertram, if nothing else. He at the very least could keep a distance, have some buffer of trust built up, some—however wobbly—sense of confidence in his not seeing things for what things were. He was sitting passed out, drunk, probably getting himself off in moaning tugs about the whole thing. I was sitting in a stairwell, their bodies a little more than speaking three sentences away.

***

The waiting seemed like nothing—like I just kept telling myself Five more minutes, but each time five minutes passed it was like I'd just finally decided to start waiting. Soon it was past one in the morning. Then it was one thirty.

I'd started standing in the corridor, almost to the elevator, leaning to the one wall then the other, hands in my pockets, cigarette in and out of my mouth, in and out of between my fingers—I'd gone so far as to strike the flame of my lighter a few times, watch it go right out.

The loud clack of the bolt and latch of a room door opening stiffened me, I felt my throat constrict, knew it was Lecia's door. The guy stepped out, letting air out of his cheeks, bare feet, his shirt only buttoned in one place, just getting his belt closed.

I hit the Down button and tilted my head side to side, folded my hands behind my back. When he got next to me, he gave me quick smile. I nodded, could still see what was left of perspiration up his neck, into the wetted bit of disheveled hair at the base of his skull—saw that his shaggy hair was unkempt, though it had been smoothed at least once with his hands and water from the faucet.

-They don't have snack machines on every floor? he asked, a puff of grin, as though I might be the person who could tell him.

I told him it was ridiculous, that they only had them down in the lobby, said room service might still be going, though.

The elevator opened as he was about to say something else and I patted at my coat pockets, muttered some obscenity, raised my hand like I'd have him hold the elevator a minute, then waved him off and said 'Sorry, fuck, forgot my' but stammered the rest as the door closed.

The motor of the elevator kicked in and I immediately turned, reached my one hand into my pocket while I knocked on Lecia's door with the other. The hand that knocked I used to cover the peep hole while the other withdrew the corkscrew, the tip of that thumb pressing, testing the sharpness, I felt my skin puncture.

Lecia opened the door, naked, the freckles along her shoulder more pronounced from the sated pale of the rest of her skin. She had the question 'They had one right there?' out in the instant it took to realize it was me standing there, not whoever he was. I thrust one hand at her to grab her hair, felt it thud against her nose on the way up, felt the tug of her wincing from that blow as a resistance to me forcing her head back and up. Taking four steps into the room I jammed the corkscrew into the tight of her neck, heard the door close as I kept pulling up on her hair against her bucking, pinning her head fast with my cheek to hers, further forcing her head up and back, a gurgle that sounded like the sigh of a running faucet everywhere. I stumbled with her toward the light of the bathroom, got into the room, steadied myself, turned her around, bent her forward so that her head was pressing to the counter at the lips of the basin, pushed down with the hand that had been tugging her hair and tightened relaxed tightened relaxed the arm with the hand and corkscrew still writhing in her.

I caught a look at myself in the mirror, recoiled, let her body go, took a step out of the room while I saw her lurch once, hit her head on the toilet bowl, sort of hiccup her torso in gulps a few times, trying to get her head to stay up, her arm reaching to grip the top of the toilet tank before the arm failed, slurping to the towel folded on the floor, hand depressing the flush of the toilet at it moved passed.

***

My jaw wouldn't stop chattering—the endless titter of a squirrel, the click of a cat's mouth, staring at a bird outside a window. I was wheezing while I did it, both through my nose and through my mouth. I briefly tried to hold my breath, but felt dizzy from even a moment of the effort, coughed, jaw chattering, bit my tongue every few seconds, had to swallow in sharp juts of neck forward, up, side to side, make the gathering saliva bubble, slosh, trick it down my gullet.

There was a large splotch of Lecia's blood to the carpet, some evidence of it elsewhere—everywhere, more and more each time I looked.

I doused every light except the one mounted above the bed, took the bedcovers and left them draped over the spill on the floor, turned open the shower, clicked the switch for the ceiling fan, left the bathroom door an inch or two ajar and then reassessed the room.

The corkscrew wasn't in my hand, so I glanced around, my left elbow refusing to bend, a spasm to it like blood was caught in the veins just there, bucking and bracing, scratching to get past.

I'd no idea what I could do, backed up into the little closet area just inside the door, up against the wall that shared the door, at the very least concealed. I could creep out the moment the guy entered, get to the stairwell, down to the next floor, dash down the corridor, down again, there would be a side door, I could run.

I couldn't. I gripped my hand to my mouth to try to keep it from it's shivering. I felt the shudder, so hard I couldn't grip it still, it pulsed against my rigid fingers. My wheezing was muffled, though, and with the racket in the bathroom I felt sort of nonexistent.

I reached a hand out and grabbed the iron off of its little stand above the hanging board, held it against my chest, no idea if I'd be able to move, again.

The guy had trouble getting the key to unlock the door—I heard him laugh, curse, heard the crinkle of wrappers as he tried to balance whatever he had bought in the crook of one arm. He walked into the room without pausing, stopped what he was saying when he noted the sound of the shower, tossed what he'd bought onto the bed, undid his belt and let his pants fall.

I felt my clamped mouth was flooded so much with saliva the sensation was something more like I was smothering an animal in there, felling it roll and roll as it eventually gave up.

He took up her panties from the bed, wiped at his penis with them, tossed them gingerly on the pillow and began taking his shirt off, lifting it over his head.

I brought the iron down as best as I could manage at an angle into the side of his neck. He squealed and stumbled a few steps one way then, in an instant, dropped to one knee and I delivered another blow to the opposite side of his neck. Dropping the iron, I slammed my knee into his face as it turned, then I charged, knocking him onto his back, clambered onto him, pulling his hair so I could get my knee sharp onto his throat. His thrashing only lasted a moment before I got up, grabbed the iron and brought the back corner of it down into his forehead, into his chest, into his chest again, a last drive of it gouging open his cheek.

I looked down at him, noticed that one of blows to the chest had left a dull, blunt puncture, blood glutting up from it—his breathing was shallow, nothing that could nourish him.

I was on my knees, straddling one of his legs, a long strand of my drool seeping down onto his leg, slipping around the back of his knee, soaking into the fabric of my pants and into the carpet.

***

Pacing, a simpleton little patter of my feet in a short circle in the little closet area, trying to focus, get an idea of how much time had passed since I'd burst into the room. How much time between killing Lecia and killing this guy? What time had it been to begin with? I seemed to think one, but that didn't seem right.

The first thought to snap me to attention was like a scratch to my eyes, swallowing something too hot: Had any of Lecia's blood gone out into the corridor?

There was blood on the inside of the door, on the wall, a fist of it and then taps all the way up into the ceiling corner. I had difficulty physically getting only one eye or the other to close so that I could look out the peephole. When I did, it didn't matter—the angle, the warp, the washed out haze of the corridor light—I couldn't make out anything.

My fingers rested on the door knob, but I found the door wasn't locked, bolted, or latched and I fumbled, getting it closed as completely as possible. I found myself whispering It's locked, it needs the key card to open it, even without the chain done.

A kick of relaxation came over me. If there was blood, any noticeable blood, the guy would have reacted to it, he would have taken pause it, every reason to be concerned—he'd have seen something, standing out there, fiddling with the food, the keys, the soda.

One breath in, one breath out, it became a different thing.

The guy had noticed, wondered what could have happened, got the door open but heard the shower going. The guy could've been thinking to ask Why's there blood outside? as soon as he stood behind her, under the flowing water.

I unlatched the door, opened it, peeked out, didn't see anything, stepped out one leg and made more of an examination. A little line of bloodspots, right across the way, up toward the light.

I went numb, reclosed the door. My jaw was no longer shuddering, but my tongue kept flitting out to wet my lips, run side to side, wet my lips, run side to side.

That blood was the most important to get rid of, straight away. I took off all of my clothes, scanned around for a towel, didn't even want to think about it when I saw the guy's body right where it'd expired, oozing. The guy was something I'd deal with when I had to—something needed to take priority and the blood outside the room seemed the greatest threat.

In the bathroom, I didn't look over to see Lecia, but her blood was all over the counter. Her blood was everywhere. It was getting on me while I reached for a towel, another, ran the faucet, wetted one towel sopping and roughed the cake of soap into it until it was thick with froth. I reached for a third towel, a larger one, examined both sides to see it was in good shape, then got to the door.

-It doesn't matter if you do this or you don't do this, I said—not really aloud, not really in my head—then opened the door, set the large towel on the corridor carpet, set one of my shoes to hold the door open, reached up with the soapy towel and scrubbed as quietly as I could, used the dry towel, patting it gently, the mess vanishing except for the temporary residue of the cleaning.

Sniffling odd breaths, duck quacks, I slipped back into the room, head to the inside of the door, trembling, absolutely no idea if I'd accomplished anything.

***

I turned off all of the lights except for the television's stuttering crags of bright and dark, spasms that didn't illuminate anything, sat on the ground, back against the room door, reached through my coat pockets for my cell phone.

It was nearly three o'clock.

Nothing was going to happen, nobody was coming to get me.

I nodded, thinking this, repeated thinking it, closed my eyes.

When I opened them, I stood up, rickety calm, a foreign sensation to my weight. I went to undo the chain and the latch, but I'd not reclosed them. I chuckled, the sound of it like a word—like hearing word Chuckle—and a very uncomfortable few moments passed, my mind squirming with this sensation, afraid to make another sound, afraid I'd just hear the word instead. I let a long breath down my nose, coughed, both sounding normal, opened the door, casually, and looked across at the wall.

No sign of the blood.

I glanced around, looking for any other splots, thought perhaps an odd dark of the carpet was something, but even if it was, it was the sort of thing no one would stop to examine, wouldn't see it unless they were looking for it.

I took up the clothes the guy had removed, pinched each garment between forefinger and thumb, set them inside one of the bureau drawers to be certain they'd not become sullied.

As soon as I saw the bottle of soda, the cookies, I reached for them, downed a long gasp of the soda, tore the package to the cookies, ate three, each in my mouth all at once, a few rough chews, a swallow, the next shoved in. By the time I opened the second package, the soda was gone and I'd stood, knew I'd have to move the guy's body into the bathroom with Lecia, but used the time eating as a final respite.

His body was already halfway on the comforter I'd used to cover the larger spill of Lecia's blood, so I wrapped the rest of it's length around him, tucked it underneath of him, tried to make the closure as tight as I could but had difficulty getting his body to rock back and forth, left the swaddle part way undone. It wasn't a long way to the bathroom, so I was relived—had it been longer, the blanket would've come out from under him, it inched out and out and out each time I had to give a new tug, one slow fluid movement just didn't work.

My feet sludged into Lecia's blood, causing me to involuntarily glance down—saw her calf, her foot, an odd twist to them, my eyes continuing on to the rest of her corpse. She was awkwardly propped up against the side of the tub, head flopped all the way back over her shoulders, her torso slathered in a long tongue of drying blood, a look to it like a wet sponge, and a clag had dried over her face, as well, matted into a rough of mud up her nostrils.

She hadn't been dead when she'd fallen. She hadn't. This wasn't how I'd left her.

The growing awareness of this didn't seem to elicit a specific reaction from me, I just looked at her body—hideous, flopped like a sodden mop head—and knew she'd been alive, had squiggled and moaned a bit. I'd no idea exactly what she'd been trying to do. Crawl away? Hide in the tub? Just stand up to look at herself, to see if really she might not be dead?

I said something, looking at her, but in the next moment, turned away, quickly averting my eyes from the scab of my reflection in the mirror, I couldn't think what it'd been.

***

Four o'clock seemed sudden, the numbers on my cellphone like a tooth falling out. I parted the curtain to have a look outside—the street was barren, parked cars frozen, only every other streetlight on.

I padded my feet on the two towels I'd set over the damp of blood where the guy had died, they'd soaked through quickly, the bottoms of my feet sticky, dry feeling from the filth. I took the pillow cases off of the pillows, peeled the towels up, set the pillowcases on the spot, reset the towels.

I didn't want to worry about cleaning the tile floor of the bathroom, knew the bodies were going to be found, knew it was just a matter of time—the morning, new business day, housekeeping—but did check to be certain none had seeped over to a floor vent or anyplace that might leak down to the room below.

Lecia's body was underneath of the guy's, the blanket on top of both of them. I wanted to take down the shower curtain, wrap them up, but it seemed pointless, I didn't even really know why the idea was so insistent in my thoughts—it wouldn't serve a purpose, was just an idea that groaned like a bruise behind my eye.

I cleaned myself off using the one hand towel that was left, thicking it with soap, scouring over my body, everyplace. I wetted my hair, then scrubbed the soapy towel through it, soaked the towel, roughed it through my hair, soaked the towel, roughed it through my hair, took palmfuls of water, scratched my fingers along my scalp—I got stuck in this pattern, thinking nothing, eyes closed, listening to the hiss and tunks and spratting taps of water.

I dried to some degree by using the bed sheet, then carefully moved back over toward the door, to the closet, meticulously peering around for any sign of blood.

I needed to leave. It became an ache not to just run, scramble down the corridor, the stairwell, run and run, get home, no matter that I was naked, wet, anything, I just wanted to scream myself out of the room.

I wondered what I was doing, what I thought I'd accomplished in the time since Lecia had died. I was just moving things around in an empty room. I wasn't changing anything, not making a difference, was probably just making things worse.

-You are, I mumbled, told myself that everything I was doing was just reinforcing what had happened, everything I was doing now was making it more apparent I'd already done what I'd done—what had happened was just happening again and again, each time I made a circuit of the room, moved a body, washed my hands, ate a cookie, wetted a towel.

I needed to leave.

I opened the bureau drawer and took out the guy's clothes. I dressed in them, found them loose, which surprised me—for some reason I'd thought I'd need to force myself into them, squeeze the waste of my body in, misshapen, bulbous.

No socks, I didn't know where the socks were, probably wrapped up in the blanket with the bodies. And shoes—I saw one over in the corner, needed to find another.

Or could I wear my shoes?

I covered my face in both hands, wriggling my fingers in my ears, rubbed at the front of my teeth with the knuckle of my thumb. I started to undress. Stood naked. Folded the clothes up and put them back in the bureau.

***

It was the hiss of some trash truck somewhere outside—the invective hiss of it and then some dulled clatter of hydraulics, the dumpster being lifted, the hollow, dull mess of it being poured out—that made me realize it was too late. I'd been laying on the bed—the same as I might lay thinking about putting off showering in exchange for ten more minutes sleep, going to work still dirty from the previous day—likely been lulling into sleep when I recognized the sound.

The clock on the nightstand showed it was six minutes past five.

What did I think I'd accomplish by the time I had to vacate the room?

A Do Not Disturb hanger to the outer handle of the door would only stave off a knock from management or housekeeping until eleven o'clock, noon.

For a few minutes, I thought I should just go to sleep. I did know I'd just killed two people. Two people were dead, piled without ceremony in the bathtub. My limbs were exhausted, I couldn't think.

I started to teeter, gritting my teeth when I saw the guy's coat was folded in the chair by the writing desk—I'd not even seen it, not even thought to wear it when I'd dressed as him. Lecia's purse, a pack of cigarettes, a glass bottle of flavoured iced tea on the window ledge by the recliner. It was as though things were appearing.

I fixated on her purse.

I took up the room phone, dialing for the front desk, a female clerk coming on straight away.

-Good morning, I was wondering about extending our stay, is there some way we could do that?

-She asked You're in room six eleven?

I paused. I'd no idea if I was in room six eleven. She wouldn't be asking unless I was, so I coughed, apologized, said that Yes, myself and my girlfriend were, repeated the room number, felt my mouth dry out, bile start to squirm like dissolving cackles of soap all up my throat.

-We'd just like to extend it until tomorrow, if that's alright.

-Overnight?

The line sagged, I heard her breath, knew I should say something, but the question didn't mean anything.

-Overnight, I repeated, then said Yes, overnight until tomorrow.

-You want a checkout of the fourteenth of December?

Without any confidence, I flatly said Yes, then, getting a feel for the thing, I chuckled, apologized for being a bit groggy, said I'd been a little bit busy all night, wasn't quite awake, asked what the date was.

-Right now it's the thirteenth.

Then I wanted a checkout of the fourteenth. And I asked if it could just be added to the bill, or did something else have to happen.

She asked me to hold. Some music came over the line, seemed to go on forever. Then the line went silent, a few seconds, and then a man's voice came on, a recording explaining some of the amenities the rooms offered, where to find discount coupons, this ending in abrupt silence, music starting again.

I shifted where I sat due to an unpleasant sensation of moisture, glanced down, found I'd wet myself, clenched my jaw and had to hold my free hand around my throat to keep from sobbing.

The woman came back on after a moment, apologizing, asking if I was still there. I managed to say Yes. She told me extending the room would be no trouble, I'd just need to come to the front to present them a credit card. I wanted to protest, ask what this meant, but was overwhelmed, had sat back into the wet I'd left, said I'd be down in an hour, to which she said there was no hurry, but it'd be best if I could by eleven.

***

I'd put one of the cigarettes from the pack on the nightstand in my mouth, started pawing around for something to light it with, but when I found the booklet of matches, got one struck, I extinguished it with a breath, setting the cigarette back into the pack, tossing it across the room.

Lecia's were the cigarettes on the window, the one I'd almost smoked must've been his.

I shook my face, went to the window, took one of the last three in Lecia's pack, dug through her purse for a lighter but couldn't find one. My shoulders raised up and down like I was amused by this, by all of the trouble I was having, kept doing so while I went back to the nightstand for the matches, just a booklet provided by the hotel.

Taking in the first smoke, tersing it out my nose I said, openly addressing it to the stripped bed A cigarette's a cigarette, a cigarette isn't anything to worry about, it isn't anything that matters.

My gut tightened, moved like it was being probed, groped inside out by animal's snouts.

There wasn't any reason not to smoke this guy's cigarettes—I'd killed him the same as Lecia, Lecia the same as him—he hadn't done anything wrong, there was no reason to dislike him.

I didn't want to think about it.

The chance of extending the room had just allowed me to scurry into my few last hours without feeling that's what they were. I could go present a card, there wouldn't be a problem with that.

But then how would it go?

The fellow who was actually in the room would be dead, the clerk would be asked questions, it would come up that someone, obviously the murder, had come down to extend the room.

-And what did this man look like? I said, sarcastic, said it over and over, as though the clerk might be having trouble remembering. You didn't get a good look?

Well, I supposed, getting another cigarette lit, so she didn't get a good look, what difference did it make? That wasn't even the problem. I couldn't go on extending the room forever. I didn't even know why I'd made the call. Extend the room for what?

In a rush, I knew I needed to get rid of my fingerprints, traces of me, wipe everything down, scrub everything up, something that would take a day, something I needed the extension for. So it was worth the chance. It was worth chancing it. Maybe they'd let me, maybe not. It wasn't something that could be avoided, something I could hide under the bed about, climb out the window to change.

Remove all traces. Leave. Hope the clerk couldn't describe me.

-Hope, I added, aloud—smart-aleck, as though someone else entirely was butting in on me—that I wasn't on camera anywhere in the hotel. Front desks often had cameras up. If this one didn't and the clerk couldn't describe me, I'd maybe be in the clear.

And if the clerk could describe me?

I wanted to know, but refused to concentrate on an answer.

I lit a new cigarette from the last smolders of the one I was smoking. I needed to remember, I remineded myself, why it was I was in the room, to begin with. These weren't strangers. Lecia was my brother's lover, his girlfriend. My brother would be the first person who'd be asked anything. Christ, I knew they'd think it was him well before they thought it was me. It was almost funny to see it, a humourous little paradox really—they'd have every reason to think it was him, yet it absolutely wasn't, and they'd have no reason in the world to think it was me, yet it absolutely was. The world had disjointed, its fingers had entwined incorrectly, gotten broken and jammed, wouldn't add up to the right thing.

I briefly followed the train of thought of trying to pin it on my brother—ridiculous, perverse, a cretinous dream. My brother wasn't an abstraction, he wasn't an idea on paper I could stack up evidence against. He'd say he didn't do it. Because he hadn't done it. So, this would be investigated. He couldn't prove his whereabouts, would claim he was passed out drunk. So, the investigation would turn to other things. To blood, to urine in a mattress, to fingerprints, hair fibres, molecules, to interviewing random people on the street, interviewing me, interviewing people Lecia worked with—people like the woman in the shop who'd seen me, like some librarian—anybody, anything. Something would show that Bertram hadn't done it.

Bertram. I started pacing funny, slovenly, thinking about him.

Something would show he hadn't done it. And something would jar out of his head some memory of his little confession to me, his crybaby whining on and on. Something would. How he'd told me his jealousies, said to me he suspected Lecia of being a betrayer, felt capable of killing her. Even if he didn't tell the police he'd told me these things—even if he genuinely didn't remember telling me—he'd tell them he'd thought these things. Honestly. He would. Lay it down for them.

Even without a clerk to paint a picture of my face I'd be asked questions, they'd get at me some way. And no matter what, Bertram would know. Bertram would know that I'd done it. It would occur to him like it occurred to me there might be blood in the corridor—it would occur to him like it was occurring to me it might occur to him.

I felt belittled, smothered, felt a mockery, some piss-ant who'd been shoved on one shoulder then the other, the other shoulder then the first, jostled until he couldn't tell the difference any more, any step a stumble, forever uncertain, timid, cowed like a dog with handclaps, I no longer even needed to be kicked.

I couldn't face the clerk to extend the room. She'd remember. Even if she couldn't recall me up from memory, she'd at some point be shown a photograph of me.

What difference could another twenty-four hours make?

If I left without anyone seeing me, I could option it out, could find something to do. But there was no need to sit around, stiffening bodies through the half closed door, sucking corpses' cigarettes one at a time, waiting for all eyes to fall on me, hands to pry my mouth from me, rend me into pieces.

Even if I vanished, now, failed to exist, it meant nothing, didn't change anything—what I'd done took dominance, didn't need me to be anything one way or the other, it effaced me, swallowed me up and sat plump and slothful, grinning in it's own rank.

***

I could wait for the knock from housekeeping—the knock, the first knock, the one I knew would come, that I'd answer through the door with Not quite done or Still here or some such thing.

Then what? I mumbled, turned on the television, stared at it—a weather man joking with a news anchor, no volume—turned it off.

I wondered could I bear it better if I just went to the police, confessed, wondered if there was some way to have it all done with, get locked in a room, never have to open my mouth or lay eyes on anyone.

I paced to and from the peep hole, squinted at the yawn of the corridor, the arc of it warped through the lens, air through a snoring nose.

In reality, it couldn't happen. I knew that. There would have to be some moment of facing it down, people would have rights to me, I'd be accountable to them and it would be a leering cruelty to not respond to their inquiries.

Why is my daughter dead? Why is Lecia dead? Why is my brother dead? Why has this happened?

I would be sat to a slogging parade of people who wanted whatever words I could manage, the anger behind their eyes so precise there was no explaining, no reason, all they'd be waiting for was some tone I'd not even have, they'd paint me as defensive, as trying to make their grief infantile.

-In reality, in reality, in reality, I kept trying to jar myself past these first two words, rolling my hand as though to unfold a speech. But nothing in reality meant a thing, any longer, it'd been gobble up, spat out, picked at by beaks and mawing worms. Nobody needed the reality of it, just the description of it, and I couldn't even give that, any first word seemed so incorrect.

-I killed Lecia, I whispered, killed Lecia because I followed her, because I followed her and found her. I killed her because I said, swinging my arms, my shoulders, my head around, but it was impossible to find the prompt.

-Because of my brother. I said it, but it didn't mean what it sounded like. I didn't mean Because.

My brother. Bertram.

A growl tightened through me.

Bertram. Lecia. They couldn't pry themselves from each other even when they knew together they were just a rotten limb.

No. This didn't have anything to do with it.

What could I confess, then?

Lecia's pack had run out of cigarettes, so I started taking from the guy's pack—godawful cheap cigarettes, I could feel the slivers of glass hitting the back of my throat, tongue going dry like I'd slept with it full of syrup.

I regarded the room, spreading the curtains from the windows just a little bit, enough that the space spilled wide, tripled in size, became daunting, heavy, endless.

Downstairs there were people aggravated, luggage to cars, leaving for the day, a shift change, a coffee pot, newspapers brought in, old ones taken out, telephone calls taking on more regular a pace. Lecia would've been leaving, off to the library, she'd have indulged in one last tumble—let the guy's tongue in her, at least—or perhaps she wouldn't, perhaps he wouldn't have even broached it, sated, sprawled, agreeing that he would sleep in a bit, enjoy the room that was paid for already, have a while longer with the scents of them, tuck her forgotten panties in his pant pockets on the way out.

I glanced to the bed, to where the pillows had been, climbed onto the mattress, squinted and groped around, finally found the panties where they'd slipped between the bedpost and the wall. Soft lemon yellow—reflection-thin of lemon yellow—a series of three circles, purple on the fabric that would cover the left side of her ass, hollow green around the crotch, half an outlined one of black curving up into the waistband.

I slipped them on and lay there, tingling with an erection, then doubled up with cramps, brought my fists hard against my face and moaned, blubbered, disgusted.

***

Throwing my head back, unaware exactly how I was oriented, I banged it into the headboard, hardly registered the impact, sat up, body lilting to the side a moment involuntary, eyes plodding into focus, drifting back up into my head.

I'd fallen asleep. Panicked. But when I looked at the clock, it wasn't even six, yet.

Had I fallen asleep?

I had—my arm was wooden, tingling from where my weight had been vicing it, I slapped at it blunt and on purpose, the sizzle up my limb making me hiccup.

When I stood up and got myself moving again, I happened to bring my hand over my penis, an absent gesture because of the tightness of Lecia's underwear. I'd ejaculated while I'd slept, the semen bunched mostly to one spot, wincing it's way through the fabric, enough that some of it came away, transparent slick to my fingertips. I brushed my hand along my side, then looked around for something I'd not yet touched, something I could begin wiping the room down with.

If it came to it, I decided, I'd confess before anyone brought their hands to me, but there was no reason to leave an easy trail of my grime to follow. There was no reason my apprehension, when it came, should be any less haphazard and off-the-cuff, any less mine than the mess was. Whoever opened the door, whatever detective poked through things, they'd have nothing to make of it, because until I said so nothing meant anything, nothing true could be found. If they found my hair, they'd need a reason to discover it was mine, my fingerprints likewise. First they could test anyone else—everyone else—find it all the more befuddling each time somebody's hand had never been in the room. But I wouldn't just let them have my hair, my fingerprints, or anything else I could obscure. Let them hunt that down, find whatever crumb I hadn't managed to lap up, start playing their idiot games with it.

I opened the bureau, removed the guy's underpants, and starting with the outside handle of the door began running the fabric over everything I felt I might conceivably have had contact with. There was so much. I didn't even know if a quick touch would be enough to efface everything, but was comforted by the fact that it was a hotel room—alive with fingerprints, hair, with blood spots, semen spots, mucus and all manner of things.

I abruptly stopped what I was doing, wobbled my head around, let my eyes run sloppy, dragging like a tongue over the space. There was so much, it just didn't matter.

I dropped the underwear, sat down with legs folded, kindergarten, laced my fingers behind my head, bent forward, vomited into my lap. I scooted back from the mess, covered it with the guy's underwear, got back to my feet, steadied myself to the wall and then vomited, again, most of it a splash to my feet, the rest a meandering trickle over the fronts of my shins.

I crossed the room, used the heavy window curtain to wipe myself clear of the mess as best as it would come away. I stared at the bathroom door, berated myself for behaving like a child, crossed the room and turned open the sink tap without turning on the light. I started soaping my hands, was bending to bring them to my leg, as I didn't have the strength to elevate it, but instead slowly removed the sullied panties, stood up, began running water on them, soaping them, rinsing them, wringing them out. I used the hair dryer mounted to the wall—reminded of it by the burning orange of it's power indicator—and did nothing else until the fabric was dry, until I'd set the things on the bed mattress, a spot I verified was clean. Then I wetted and soaked my groin, tended to my leg, roughed water all over me a last time, stood a few minutes until I felt dry, closed the bathroom door behind me and slipped the panties back on.

***

The guy's name turned out to be Kevin Dricoll—so bland, so much like he was nobody. Kevin. He was younger than me, almost four years younger.

I went through the contents of his wallet, the majority worthless business cards and scraps of receipt—little tears of paper with random names on them, lists of dollar amounts, food orders, some things I didn't even understand, imagined were passwords for something. He had only one bankcard, had his social security card, had seven dollars in cash. The books he'd had in his bag didn't interest me, nor did the pieces of trash, food wrappers and an empty water bottle, some pens, some coins, some paper clips, a few plastic bags—empty bags I opened and gave quick sniffs to, vaguely hoping for some marijuana.

I found his cell phone in his coat pocket, immediately sat to the end of the bed, hungrily opened it up, moving right to the text messages. The first few were to Lecia, a little series of three, quick little taps about how he seemed happy she was free to study, how he'd be a little bit later than her, and how he was there, where was she studying?

I checked the incoming message folder, found several messages from Lecia that seemed to correspond; one explaining that her schedule had changed, so if he wanted to study with her it would work out, to just let her know; one saying that she'd be at the library after she got off of work, no later than sevenish; another saying she'd come down and meet him, as where she was sitting was sort of strange to explain.

There were no other messages to Lecia's number and only one other message from Lecia's number was saved What was the name of the author you're presenting on?

I scrolled through the lists of messages over and over, imagining there could be a different name they would text to each other as, though this didn't really make all that much sense. There were no telephone calls from the one number to the other, either.

I stood and walked in a circle, tossing the phone gently onto the bed, scratching at my head which felt bruised from being so dry, litter of dandruff apparent in the air, stuffed under my fingernails.

It was no use looking through the phones, but I dug through Lecia's purse until I found hers. The first four text messages didn't make any sense until I realized the number she was responding to was Bertram's. No, it's alright, I'll be out till late, you said you didn't feel good and Maybe. I'd like that. Let me know and I really don't think it's a good idea tonight and I'm still at the library, don't worry about tonight. This last one was from just around midnight, from eleven, just about when they were getting the hotel.

I switched to the incoming messages, read the first one, from Bertram, it said Hey, just checking in, feeling a little tired but should be good even if you want to meet late.

I closed the phone, fumbled around with getting one of the last cigarettes out of the pack, getting it lit. Then I snatched Lecia's phone back up, skimmed through the pictures she'd saved—random things, she and Bertram, someone I didn't know, she and Bertram—no idea what I'd thought would be there.

Kevin's phone couldn't take photos.

I was hyperventilating, sat back down, bent forward, smoking with my head limp between my knees. A little sound came from the front door, so I wheeled around, balance upset, side of my leg thudding against the mattress corner, causing me to fall to one knee, catch myself with a palm slapped down hard, a pinching burn scuttling up over my shoulder.

There was slip of paper on the carpet. It just lay there, seemed to have some tuft of air trapped beneath it, the middle of it a little pocket lifted up. Crawling, I got to it, found it was the summary of room charges. I went to the front door, eye to the peephole, ear to the door—couldn't hear anything—then eye back to the peephole.

Nothing. Nothing.

I waited awhile, then opened the door a crack, put my head out, saw no one in the corridor, but the food trays had all be cleared away at some point.

***

Deciding, finally, that I couldn't dress in my own clothes, I took Kevin's back out of the bureau and got them on. My coat, I decided, didn't have to be abandoned—it had blood on it, but it didn't show so much, wasn't anything that some passerby would point me out to a cop over.

It didn't matter about Lecia's things—the room was held under her card, they'd know who she was—but I imagined if the guy's body wasn't identifiable that would hold things off awhile, in case I couldn't extend the room, something I'd switched back to thinking was a good idea to try.

I took the phones and address books—anything that would make getting in contact with specific people an easy task—tucked all of the clothing and Kevin's belongings into one bag, slung it over my shoulder and left the room.

I waited for the elevator, rode down with two women, both dressed in loungewear, probably just heading to take advantage of the complimentary breakfast, and then I waited in line until a second clerk came on, the people in front of me having some difficulty that was taking up a lot of time, required a supervisor's attention.

-I'd called before about extending for room six eleven.

He tacked something into the keyboard, squinted, looked straight at me saying Room six eleven under Tye?

I blinked. If the clerk hadn't gotten a slightly confused look, glanced back at the screen, then said Lecia Tye? I would have just stayed there, frozen, completely lost for anything to say.

As casually as I could manage, a shrugging wave of my hand, I said I thought I'd put it under my card. Does Lecia have to come down? We'd called earlier, she's in bed, they just said they needed the credit card.

The clerk sort of made a squirming motion, an unsure look to the supervisor who was leaned forward, intent on dealing with the other guests. Briefly turning his attention to the screen with Lecia's information on it, the supervisor—more to the clerk than to me—said Where' the problem? They haven't paid? I just about interjected, but the clerk pointed at something, the supervisor, as though now irritated he'd even been brought over, said That's the credit card there and I—quickly, apologetically—said We'd given the card last night, the supervisor giving me a quick, friendly look.

-Yes, you did. No. Don't worry about it. You want to extend?

-I want to extend.

The supervisor patted the clerk's shoulder, returned to the other station, the clerk telling me he was sorry, cleared his throat, asked Through until when?

I considered saying through the week, but decided there was no need to complicate the thing, just asked for through until tomorrow morning. I was printed a receipt, nodded, returned to the elevator, hit the button for the top floor—all a pantomime, just to seem more normal about it, even though I did already have my backpack.

On the ride up, I became uncertain as to whether or not I'd set the Do Not Disturb sign to the doorknob. It was there when I checked, but I still wondered if I should, from the room, phone the clerk, ask it to be noted that the room should be left alone.

Another shiver, I started sniffing, my nose congested, tried to pick up any hint of rancid to the air, any waft of decomposition.

Going through my pockets, I couldn't find a room key—probably had left them both in there, someplace—so just turned down the corridor, descended the stairwell, had a cigarette lighting as I twisted, letting the weight of the bag over my shoulder lurch me into the exit door, through it.

***

From the scent and the tint of orange to the overcast, I got the feeling it would snow, later on. There even seemed to be that crinkling to the air as a slight breeze moved around my face, got into my ears, my breath seemed to issue out against something, like into my cupped hands, though my hands were stuffed in my coat pockets.

It was disorienting, being out in the expanses of the city, even the congestion of people up and down the sidewalk—all of us bunching, globbing at the crosswalks, milling and avoiding each other's eyes—didn't make me feel pressed in, closed off, didn't make me uncomfortable as it sometimes would.

It was when I noticed on a digital display in some shop window that it was getting up past ten thirty the fact that I wasn't going any place in particular got on me. I'd just set off in the first direction I'd turned—I wasn't even smoking, just trodding, getting a little bit further with each step like it was a simple as that to walk away from it.

Maybe when the police caught me, I'd actually be surprised, I considered, looking at myself in the window of a coffee shop, no desire to drink, no sense there would even be room in me if I tried to swallow. I did wait in line, did order a double espresso, just thinking and thinking that maybe it would be a surprise. But this meant nothing. I didn't even know what I was talking about.

A surprise, how? What could I be driving at?

I started walking again, not sure if it was the same direction or not, kept vaguely thinking I recognized some building from ten minutes earlier, some advertisement on a bus stop, some homeless person, mid-morning cheerful hitting up workers on their early breaks, their runs to the printer or whatever.

My head wasn't working right.

I went into a convenience store, bought three packs of cigarettes, looking at the backpack I'd moved from my shoulder to the ground, the weight of it like some discard there, animal waste. I wanted to get rid of it and couldn't think why I hadn't. So I walked around, looking for some dumpster to toss it into, every dumpster seeming garish, suspect—if I put it in X dumpster, someone would dig through inside of the hour, their attention drawn to it, of course; if I put it in dumpster Y, the same difference. Dumpsters seemed alive, crawling with wretched little insect people, mongrels waiting to sniff around, lick their tongues to any new refuse.

I went into an alley between two apartment buildings, a cluster of dumpsters halfway through, unzipped the pack, littered some of the contents into one, some into another, some of the clothing I roughed down into a gutter drain, no idea where that wound up, who might come across anything down there. I peered over the dumpster tops, what I'd just gotten rid of invisible to me.

The bag seemed so immaterial, all of a sudden, even with some few items left inside. I kept it with me, would just throw it in the trash while waiting for a train, I'd decided. I'd go wait for a train.

***

Nothing more than a stumble, I was a motion through the winter on weakling little legs, stopped at a row of newspaper vending machines, sat on one, new cigarette going at a drip.

-You need to decide what's going to happen, I said behind my mouth, behind the dwindling tobacco I couldn't even smell, couldn't taste, my tongue a dead bulb stuck to the side of my mouth. You need to decide what you want to do, how this is going to work.

But there weren't options to decide from. Just because I could walk around, see a film, buy a new suit, go to sleep, get drunk, look at other people doing the same, didn't mean it wasn't all done, already.

Bertram.

It finally shunted itself, square and final—I wanted to see Bertram, look at him before I was arrested. I wanted to confess to him. I wanted to tell him what I'd done, maybe let him somehow have a hand in deciding how it would conclude.

I tried to picture his face, patting around for my cell phone—his eyes, the way his mouth would set, how long it would take for his features to walk the length from confusion through disbelief through blank empty to the realization that Lecia was dead.

The line rang and rang, rang and rang, rang and rang, I started to think I'd dialed wrong when his voicemail came on. I shut my phone.

He was still passed out, I supposed, though right away this seemed incorrect. He hadn't even passed out when I'd left, he'd been texting Lecia until all hours, checking in on her, suggesting they still get together. Though he probably got drunk after the final refusal, had probably been sinking into worry, loathing, self-effacing remorse while she'd been taking Kevin in her, while he'd been roughing her to the bed, pinning her shoulders, her feet in his face, her panties just tugged to the side.

I winced down, tight, bit down hard enough that my cigarette tapped up against my nose, dropped, and I slapped idiot at myself to be sure it was not burning a hole through me.

I called Bertram, again, already walking, hung up at the voicemail.

The shrill thought that he'd been rousted by the police already got all over me—they'd knocked on his door, told him Lecia was dead while he stood groggy in his underwear in the kitchen, asked him where he'd been, their eyes so obviously shards of accusation.

I knew it wasn't yet check-out time at the hotel and I'd extended the room, but all manner of What-Ifs needled me. That supervisor had been so cursory, maybe in reflection he noticed that, in fact, Lecia did need to come down or a new card did need to be produced. It wasn't like decency would keep him from phoning the room, sending someone up to knock. It wasn't as though blood hadn't started dribbling from a faucet below, caused a spider web of sick brown through some crack in the plaster, some pinhole in a drainpipe.

Everything was just left disheveled behind me—I'd abandoned it to the pokes and sniffs of anyone, to the coils of their own whims and quirks. Anybody could do anything with what I'd done.

***

I stood on the Green Line until the transfer, a ten minute ride at most, the car empty, a moaning cavity, crumbles of newspaper, empty cups turned over, rotating around the oars of straws still crammed through lid openings.

The platform where I waited for the Yellow Line was vacant enough that I decided to rid myself of the backpack, used one of the large trash bins set around back of the escalator on the far side of the platform, shoved it down, under the rubbish—smeared plastic containers of food, tied shut bags, newspapers—even thought about taking off my jacket and shoving this down on top, but knew this would draw more attention than it would help conceal the thing.

Once the train was moving, I was gripped with anxiety, padded my hands all over myself, went through my pockets to verify certain necessaries were still on me—my wallet, my apartment key, Bertram's apartment key, my own telephone.

I still had Kevin's phone, so I fiddled with it to keep myself occupied, hoped it would make time clatter past more swiftly, dash up to the point I'd suddenly be where I wanted to be, but if it had any effect on time—on anything—I didn't notice. Time was just a crust now, something done and set aside, pointless to consider.

I was opening messages in his incoming folder, not looking for anything, the screen showing a message that read Then tug my hair while my mouth is around your cock.

I froze. Blood stalled in my ears and I read and read the message. It wasn't from Lecia's number. It was more than two months old.

I flipped through the rest of the messages, found one or two other, equally suggestive, messages from this number, one in reference to a particular pair of panties she'd like torn off, one saying she hadn't even showered, could still feel her camisole sticking to her back. And there were several messages from the number that seemed to concern casual, everyday goings on—movie times, what to get from the store, in-referenced comments I didn't understand.

There were no reciprocal responses from Kevin saved, only her end of the conversations. I put the phone back in my pocket, tensed my hands overtop of my knees. It didn't matter. He had a girlfriend. He was in a relationship. It didn't change anything at all.

-What does that even matter? I asked, sniffled in hard. My ears started to ring, a sweet hum. This drained away, things sounded unobstructed again.

-It means I'm glad I killed him, I said, testing it. But this didn't mean anything.

-It doesn't mean anything, I said, dubious.

But this didn't mean anything, either.

***

Entering Bertram's building, I hoped to just bump into him—find him ready to step off the elevator when I stepped on, find him just locking his door behind him as I approached from the center of the corridor—but I didn't see anyone. The building was always quiet, seemed empty until you stepped into a corridor, the sounds from inside of the apartments easy to hear—vacuums, televisions, conversations, ovens opening and closing—Bertram and I sometimes joked that it was like a set-piece, little spooling tape recorders playing out background noises all day long.

He didn't answer when I knocked, so I milled, knocked again, thinking he may not have been sure the first knock was at his door, still splayed out under his bed sheets. I knocked a last time, getting his key out of my pocket.

I said his name as I opened the door, knocked on the wall, flicked up the light switch, closed the door behind me, calling out to him, again. The place was silent, smelled of the dishwasher having been run, smelled of coffee in the pot, of the air settling after steam from a shower—scented something pink or soft yellow, too, sweet, a perfume probably wafting in from someplace or just the peculiar mixes of dirty piled clothes, deodorant and perspiration, mildew, a not altogether unpleasant funk.

His bedroom door was open, so I knocked, repeating his name, stepping through after counting down from ten.

Sighing, I sat to the sofa, got my phone out and dialed him. I was startled by the vibrating whirr of his phone being jittered along the kitchen counter top. The second time it's vibration shocked me just as much, even though I was looking at the thing, watching it wriggle about a half inch along at time, lazy in the direction of the toaster.

I hung up, took up his phone, saw the display said he'd missed several calls, saw that all of these were mine. I called out his name, one last time, pointlessly, then went through his phone looking for his work number.

A girl called Dorie answered—I could vaguely picture her, thought I'd met her at some party once—and I said I was Aldous, Bertram's brother, this not eliciting any response in particular, so I just added that I was trying to get in touch with him, if he had a moment. She said he wasn't at work that day, double checked the schedule to be sure he wasn't in later, so I apologized and she hung up without saying anything, kind of just making a Mmn sound.

I reached for a coffee cup I saw, paused when I saw another, touched the outside of both trying to gauge which was newer, then dumped both out, refilling the second one. Cigarettes and a lighter were on the counter, so I took one and lit it, leaned against the counter, glancing around, slowly blowing smoke, scratching at my eyes.

It was half past eleven, so there was every reason to think he'd already gone out for the day, absentmindedly left his phone, and he wouldn't be back until evening. But I couldn't bring myself to start moving around, just sipped coffee, dragged from cigarette, anticipatory that he might be through the door any moment, entering with his mail, a hamper of folded laundry.

***

Bertram's marijuana was on the floor on top of a book. I rolled my own joint, rather than using one of the ones in the bag, sat down, but got too antsy, stood and paced around, inhaling deeply, lounging into the sensation of soft half-asleep.

I smoked the first joint down quickly, abandoned rolling a second when I found I was giggling too much to concentrate—kept rubbing my eyes, explaining the appropriate method to myself, speaking it aloud as a list, saying Step one, but never explaining what step one was, rolling my hand around clumsily, saying Step Two, eyes tearing from the amusement.

I opened the drawer to Bertram's desk, taking out the stack of photograph's of he and Lecia. I found the one where she was laying on her chest, head cocked to one side, hands folded under her cheek, just the suggestion of the raise of her ass, enough to know she was arching into a half pose. Her eyes were dulled purple from how she'd been sated, her look sort of amused, like she found the photograph at once silly, but liked to know it would be there. It seemed she knew that eventually other eyes would fall on it, that she wasn't letting the shutter fall so that Bertram could get himself off to her some other time.

Another photo had her pressing her breasts together—obviously positioned on her knees—Bertram leaned to move his cock between them, the photo capturing the line of saliva she was letting slowly from her mouth to her chest, the skin of her breasts and the skin above them wet from this happening once or twice already.

I turned back to the first photo, set the others back in the box, took them out and, feeling guilty, turned to the one with Bertram's semen in three lines across her presented ass, the panties bunched a little, showing more skin of one side of her ass that another, felt myself become erect, shut the box, returned it to the drawer, moved to the counter for a cigarette, setting the photo I'd kept down.

I looked at it, careful to exhale smoke away from it, then grinned, moron from my high, leaned in close like I'd kiss her face, slowly let a flat line of the smoke out onto the picture, saw her bemused grin, her eyes suggesting she'd allow it, that she had her mind on other things, but liked that I liked that she'd let me be so purposeless.

I carefully set the photograph to my inside coat pocket, reminded myself to be careful with it, sort of grumbled that I should get an envelope, hold it until I got home, sort of snarled that Bertram would probably not even recognize it'd gone missing—not even after I was incarcerated, even after years and years, even when he roiled in remorse, when he clawed at his face every night unable to sleep, wondering what I'd done, why I'd done it, forced to remember whatever make believe he'd sat up nights imagining, dissolving himself in his old fantasies of cuckold revenge.

***

I took the elevator down as a last chance of bumping into Bertram. It really didn't matter, when I came to think about it, if I told him first or not, and every moment he wasn't around was a moment I'd no control of anything. In a way, by going to the police I decided when and where people would learn things. Maybe it was best to keep Bertram out of it—he was likely going to be prodded with questions, going to be put through all manner of groping, of blame even if just for his blood association to me. Beside which, I knew I would have reminded him about his own desires, which would be unfair and cruel.

It had started to flurry snow outside, hardly anything, but a weight to the flakes that fell, splotched to water on contact with pavement or glass, metal of streetlight, of trashcan. I watched through the door, finding a cigarette, getting ready to light it in case it was too difficult once through the door.

Bertram might not have ever thought those things he'd told me before he was saying them, it may have taken that deep an intoxication to gut them from him—who knows if they even represented the truth, if he even had emotions so desperate.

I stepped through the door, a whine to the air, the breeze hardly perceptible except as the sound it made, a hungry dog in someone else's house, starving but starving not to do with them, starving in a life no one else knew. I made a mocking snuff at the poetics I was trying to force, then wondered if Bertram had tried to go see Lecia, today.

Where would he have gone? The library, the bookshop, her apartment?

I drifted off in the direction of the metro, upset I hadn't thought to keep Lecia's key. I'd just go to her door, stand there—knock a few times like she would be there, like she might call me the baby brother, insist on a hug—then I would go to the police, fall over on their floor, let them carry me off, figure me out, decide on me.

In my wallet, I found the fifty dollar bill Lecia had given me. But what was the name of the bourbon I was to buy with it?

Nothing. I couldn't remember. She'd put the money in my hand, I was to get drunk on her, drink to her, raise a glass to her name—would have raised a glass to her name, her eyes, her wrists, her voice, the way she stopped herself from saying something to better bluntly indicate what she had to say—and she'd touched me one last time or maybe hadn't, I'd off through the door and could get no farther, tethered myself to her, a mistake she had no way of knowing she'd made.

-What was the name of the bourbon? I said, sang it like it was some part of a song because I couldn't keep the words subvocalized, the marijuana making me giddy, didn't want to seem a jabbering menace, just wanted to come off as some harmless guy, giddy from some memory that chipped him in to tuneless song.

***

I wasn't sure it was Bertram, even once I'd crossed the street—the glare on the windows of the little coffee shop just showed soot and my reflection, the image of the interior no thicker, no more real than me outside of it.

I went inside, held up a finger that it'd be just one moment when the woman started getting a menu ready, craned my head and tried to find him. He was sitting with some girl, plates of food half eaten, just then gesturing for a passing server, overly politely asking if he could get a refill—the same shy way of requesting things at restaurants he had always had—then he tapped his head in the girl's direction, she childishly shaking her head No, head a tick forward, chin brought in, nose pointing at her chest.

I took a step forward, stopped, said Sorry to the woman—though she was not exactly standing by, had returned to the little counter to chat with one of the other patrons—and I exited.

I'd never seen this girl. She looked younger than I was, so much so I really started to wonder if it'd been Bertram sitting there. I could understandably be imagining things, even admitted to myself that thinking back—though it had taken place less than two minutes ago—I couldn't quite get it straight whether I'd seen anything, whether I'd actually confirmed it, all of it seemed a choppy sketch, scribble, like when a song is being played too low to hear and it sounds like some other song, like listening for a voice through a jabbering train station, not even seeing the hands being waved and waved, the laughing faces trying to get your attention.

There wasn't any harm in waiting, in not causing some awkward moment. I'd just been on my way to the police, I reminded myself—then reminded myself I'd actually been on the way to Lecia's apartment—then reminded myself I couldn't even get into her building, so was, in essence, actually just on my way to the police.

Ten or fifteen minutes of waiting was not going to alter things.

I figured I could make the approach casual, like I'd just been heading over to see Bertram and found him, by chance, just leaving the diner, shake his hand, make it all seem playful. I really didn't know why seeing him there made me so agitated.

Who was the girl?

She wasn't anybody.

So why would he be having breakfast with her?

It could also be, I thought, nodding and nodding at it, that it was not just Bertram and the girl there—it could have been that her boyfriend or some other member of their party had just gone to the toilet or hadn't yet arrived.

I'd wait to see, didn't want to have to interact with Bertram in a group setting, but it wouldn't be right to just pass him by like nothing, not when this was the last time he'd see me without having to tense against rising bile or his hands bucking to raise, to thrust from the ends of his locked stiff arms, to throttle me dead.

***

The two of them kissed, immediately upon stepping into the cold—like it was expected, automatic, a kiss as a result of the cold—and while he got his coat buttoned she straightened her purple hat around her head, turned him by the shoulder and gave his ass three pats, like she was dusting out an old mat.

Not caring at all how I must have looked to passersby, I was pressed flat to the corner of the diner's outside wall, forehead against the jags of brick, very much aware I wasn't hidden, that if he caught my eye, even if I ducked, he'd recognize me.

He and the girl just stood there chatting, he making some left right gestures with his shoulders, hands in his pockets, she rolling her head around elaborately, making a scuffing movement of her toe over the pavement, flapping her arms in a silly kind of shrug. He brought his elbows locked to him, brought his knees together, bent forward until his face was close enough their noses touched, returned the silly shrug and she gave his shin three or four kicks, shoved him away, he using the force to spin, start strolling in the opposite direction, she staying put a moment, play-pouting her hands to her hips and stamping her foot once. Then she trotted to catch up, gave him a spanking with her mittened hand, again.

I started to follow.

They walked.

At a crosswalk—me not even ten strides behind them—he abruptly turned to her, lifted her up, she squealing like an imbecile, then he turned her around, slapping her ass, the crowd on the corner, rolling their eyes, some genuinely smiling, the girl flushed pale with the attention, biting her lip, her shoulders raised to her ears, giggling with her eyes closed.

The signal changed. I didn't follow, swayed over to the wall next to a cash machine, got a cigarette, just watched them continue on, the direction of Bertram's.

I felt sick that it was this girl I'd smelled in the room, had so readily accepted the odour of her as some element that belonged.

But my irritation had nothing to do with her, really.

What in Christ was Bertram doing? He groans like a little baby at the thought of Lecia turning her back on him, and he replaces her with some little kid? This child for Lecia? What could it possibly mean?

Automatically, some sort of justification started up, absurd thoughts, anything to excuse him, but it got stale, just a joke, just a waste of time.

I caught up to them because they'd stopped outside of the lobby doors for the girl to have a smoke. She had on green rain boots, a patterned scarf, a coat in grey and pink plaid—a falseness to the coat, like it was well worn when really it'd been paid for, bought just to resemble what it wasn't. Bertram laughed at something she said. Big smile. Made me want to vomit.

There was a sound like a large droplet of water hitting the tip of my shoe, and when I looked down I realized I was drooling, brought the side of my sleeve to my mouth, tried to swallow, but had to turn to the side, spit everything out, the consistency of the saliva like mucus, a tinge of brown to it, some grime that seemed to be oozing from the roof of my mouth. A man passing by was looking at me, a disgust in the sympathetic crease to his brown.

Bertram was holding onto the girl's arm as she playfully acted like she was trying to squiggle herself free.

***

I stared at the empty space in front of the lobby door, sort of holding my breath, then took out my phone and texted Hey man, give me a call when you get this, really important to Bertram, hit Send, knew his phone coughed a spasm on the counter, went still.

I moved to the door, watched my reflection bow its head, shield it's cigarette under curled palm, cautiously let flame lick to cigarette end before making tittering puffs, smoke tufting, hardly even registering as reflection.

When the cigarette was nearly smoked down, I flipped my phone open—no message, no missed call—started to text another message, but decided not to. If he picked up his phone, it'd be the first thing he saw, added to which, there would be an indication that he'd missed calls from me. So if he didn't call, it was because he was purposefully not calling, I'd no idea what else I could do.

I waited another five minutes, thinking they'd paused so many times on the walk over, they might still be in the corridor—or Bertram might've needed to have a piss right away, not checked his phone yet.

Another message would prove it out, one way or the other, I knew that, but got queasy thinking about it. I didn't even need to be doing any of this, needed to turn my back, start walking again—back to Lecia's, or to the police, I reminded myself.

I walked into the lobby, padded around in sloppy circles—my back to the wall, a few paces oblong, my back to another wall—checked my phone, checked my phone.

I began another message with the words Something's the matter with Lecia erased a few of the words, started to type something else, flapped the thing closed and returned it to my pocket.

The elevator spread open and then yawned shut around me. It had a staleness, smelled like an elevator. I hit the button for every floor leading up to Bertram's, closed my eyes and felt the inertia rise through my feet, make me bob, loll side to side, felt the soft stopping, listened to the whisper of the door ricketing open, sighing closed, playing my game with me. And I counted the floors off as One two three four Two two three four Three two three four Four two three floor, not opening my eyes when the door opened the final time. Not opening my eyes when it closed. Stood there. Didn't move. Reached forward and depressed a button—then another, then another—felt the give of the floor descending beneath me, the ease to it going flat, the inertia lifting me up again, the breath of the stop, the sag of my weight pressing me down, following the elevator, legs ready to give out.

It was the third floor when the door opened for the last time, my eyes opened, a smile crossing my face, so relieved for the final delay. I pressed the button for Four, watched the door close, rolled my head and rubbed my face, snapping myself out of it. I jutted my arms out, raised my knees in high steps, cleared my throat and tested my voice.

-Bertram, I tested. Hi, didn't you get my message?

***

I could hear the sound of them from three doors away—not loud, not some obscenity being foist on everyone, but just like anything else, like the sound of someone else clattering their pans.

I stood at the door, put my forehead to it, heard the girl whining fuck words, the sound of her being slapped, insisting that he slap her again—from him sounds more of his exertion, only a phrase every now and then when she told him to talk, to say something.

It was like listening through static, bits blaring, distinct, silence that never seemed to end anything—silence was just them slowing, him holding her to place, as deep in her as he could manage, jabbing himself with tension to his abdomen, her face a twist against the pain of it she in other moments would insist of him.

There was a longer silence and I listened to my breathing, stared at my fingertips—all of them where I'd put them, a pulping touch to the door. I hoped it was finished, but soon heard burbles, heard the give and shift of the sofa, something being moved, the rising intensity of her whining, her high pitch somehow getting guttural, profanities coaxing easily from her, a rising in the percussive undercurrent to her speech pattern, Bertram getting worked up, and she squealed, all of a sudden, lost in her exaggerated groans of witnessing him finish off, the chuffing laugh of him pulling away from her after, she giggling, something falling over and shattering, her giggling even more.

I retreated to the stairwell, had a seat, lit a cigarette, stared at the ceiling then started to take out the photo of Lecia I'd stolen. But then I didn't. I rested my wrist on my raised bent knee, looked at the other foot at the end of the length of my splayed leg.

I checked the time, heard the stairwell door open all the way at the bottom, two people jabbering with each other, their feet flopping up and up. I got to my feet, but even as I did I heard the door two flights down open, their voices recede, the door shut, the ghost of its click loitering around until I decided it wasn't worth listening to.

I started considering that I could run, I could try to get away. Inside of a day, I could even get to another country. It started to sound exotic—vanish, no one would ever hear from me again, I'd just wander around, see what I could get going, the perpetual foreigner.

I checked the time, again, decided to wait until the top of the hour, no need to go anywhere.

Overseas, even. I could take whatever money I had, whatever money I could scrape up—a cheap flight to someplace. Even when the bodies were found, it would take forever for suspicion to fall on me.

-How long? I asked, offhand, just throwing the question out to the fire extinguisher, pretending it answered—though I didn't supply a specific number to the pretend—just nodding to myself, mumbling Yeah yeah, I could puff into smoke by then, no one would ever find me, even if they really started to look.

I started to imagine returning home after five years—a boat across the ocean—showing up in town, knocking on Bertram's door. Where have you been? he'd say, open an embrace. I'd tell him lie after lie to make him plump and burst dead with jealousy—I'd see in his face how much he'd forgotten all about Lecia, how little he'd ever cared.

***

Behind Bertram opening the door, I heard the shower running, saw behind his saying Hey, I got your text, what's up? that the girl's coat was over the arm of the couch—didn't see her other clothes, she'd probably taken them into the bathroom with her.

I told him I was in some shit and just sort of needed to relax at his place. A look of soft concern coming over him, he tapped his nose toward the kitchen, asked if I wanted a drink. I shrugged, said I didn't know that Lecia was over, had just been in the city from last night, didn't feel like going all the way back to my place.

He nodded, saying that he understood and that I could stay over. Then he leaned in and, with a hushing gesture, asked me not to mention Lecia, said it wasn't Lecia in the shower, looked a little bit ashamed, a little bit waiting for me to scold him. I just made a little pistol gesture at him, nodded with a mobster face, called him a dog, to which he—as though melted into his actual behavior—saying that he did what he did, that Lecia was sort of cold on him, lately.

-I'm sorry, man I said, starting to say something else, but then, as though actually regretting it, he said No, actually Lecia's fine. Lecia's fine. I don't mean to paint her that way. It's just something, you know?

I nodded and let him change the subject, let him return to a tone of was there anything he could do for me. I asked if I could maybe use a little bit of money, this widening his eyes. He held up a finger, mouthed Just one second, then slipped over to the bathroom, opened the door. I heard him say to the girl My brother's here, she say What? like she just hadn't heard, had maybe had the spray of water in her face, him repeat My brother's here and then stammer something to the effect of she should be sure to cover up, they weren't alone, she giggling—his voice trailing in such a way I knew she was taking some provocative pose, reaching her wet arm toward his pants, making him lean in for a kiss.

The door closed. Bertram came back into the room, shrugged that she was a little bit feisty, he didn't want her to dash out in all her glory, give everyone a show.

I chuckled, looked at her coat, felt him look at me, and he made a face I didn't understand, said that he was sorry.

-About what?

But he'd snapped out of it—back to smiles, back to asking what I could need money for and how much. I didn't feel like making something up, just then, so let out a ten second sigh, leaning my head back, roughing my hair, and just said Oh, Christ man, I don't even know where to start, maybe nothing, I should just get some sleep, you know?

He sighed, too, almost as long as mine, said he'd probably do the same. But I should feel free to use the couch—even use the bed if I felt like it—as he'd likely be out for a few hours, was sorry he'd have to run.

***

I turned my head down on purpose—using the excuse of pouring myself a drink—when the girl came around into the kitchen. She had on one of Bertram's shirts—not one I recognized, but clearly his—an athletic male cut to it, drowning her twig form, the sink of her abdomen apparent in the way the fabric breathed, her nipples pert and obvious.

Apologetically, Bertram introduced her as Margaret—moved his hand between she and I, explained I was his brother Aldous—while I downed my shot and she said I could call her Mag, if I wanted. I called her Mag, shaking her hand, Bertram, standing behind her, sort of holding his breath—or it seemed to me that he was—waiting for something to come up he'd have to step in to control.

Was I supposed to know something about her? Had she been given some story about me?

I tried to give a face to Bertram at once reassuring and dubious, but he just moved to her, leaning down to kiss at her shoulder.

She couldn't have been twenty—the smooth to her eyes, the particular way she made eye contact but held it to no purpose, no effect. When she twisted, leaning down a bit to scratch at her leg, the protrusions of her spine pushed up against the shirt fabric draping over her.

It got on my nerves that Bertram hadn't yet said anything, was whispering pointless talk into her ears, his hands on her shoulders, obviously wanting to slip off with her, just leaving me to be the awkward fixture. I was about to say something when Bertram explained to her that I was having some trouble with the law and so needed to hide out for the day, this bringing her eyes to me, my head cocking, telling her it was nothing to worry about, I'd be gone by tonight.

-If you're not, it's fine. I've wanted to meet you, she said, said Bertram had been hiding everybody, then bumped him with her shoulder—he talking overtop that he wasn't hiding anything from her, he was hiding her from everything, tapped his forehead to the back of her head while she batted at him, her fingers absently wriggling against his chin.

-We're going to a movie, later, if you want to come, Mag said, sort of using one raised shoulder to rub her ear against, so I nodded and said I should be able to do that, that they could just kick me if I was asleep, it wouldn't do me good to stay cooped up.

She didn't give the name of the movie, so I figured it was one of those things—Bertram had said they were going to go to a movie, never said what, left the plan tentative, it'd never happen.

I poured another bit of bourbon, Mag excusing herself to finish with her make-up, explaining she'd wanted to make sure I wasn't able to slip out without her meeting me, again. I gave her sort of a wink and a fingerpoint, Bertram batting the air next to him, not coming in contact with her at all as she went.

He sat himself up on the counter at an angle from me and as soon as the bathroom door clicked shut he said So, now you've met Mag.

I chuckled, said she seemed alright, had my fingers over the rim of the bourbon glass, index tip, middle tip dabbling into what I'd just poured.

***

Her coat added a lot to Mag, I could understand why she wore it—she still seemed a girl, but it gave her some presence, some sense to her posture, somehow elevated the tilt to her head and caught her neck at such a line as to make her eyes seem more absolute, like they were looking at something.

I'd stayed in the kitchen while she and Bertram finished getting dressed, was just waiting, felt helpless, already so far away, already so forgotten, like my existence was somehow a complete oversight, was there but not so much.

Bertram exited his bedroom complaining of a stomach ache, apologized to Mag, said he'd be just a minute—told her to ask me about it—tapped around on the kitchen counter for something, settled on some brochure for specialty gifts, Mag asking if he wanted her to get him a book or something, he sort of grunting, chuckling, said that he just needed something, tapped the curled up catalogue to his forehead, said it would do. He closed the door, the overhead fan kicking on.

Mag tilted her head in the general direction of the bathroom, said He gets stomach aches, as though this was news to me, as though she had some insight into my brother, some intimacy that had escaped my observation.

She lit a cigarette, asked me if I wanted one. I shook my head and she moved off into the bedroom. I could hear her digging around for something while I took one of the shorter cooking knives from the block next to some stacked boxes of spaghetti and the remains of several loaves of bread—no more than four slices left to each bag—and I walked after her.

She was holding what seemed to be some fabric, sort of sadly regarding it, looked up at me, responded to my smile and chuckle by explaining that Bertram got a little carried away sometimes, had torn it during the festivities.

-He's like that, I said, focused on her cigarette, leaned in like I noticed something and the instant her eyes flitted to the smoldering end of the thing I reached one hand forward, cupping the back of her head, bringing her forward into the blade of the knife as I dug it across her throat. The blood that gulped out on my hand seared, felt thick like vomit. She took a fumble step, then all at once had pitched forward, chin propped up on the front of my shoe, body in a pile, the hand that had held the cigarette lodged under the weight of her collapsed knees.

I pulled at her body, getting it so that she was laying on her back, reached around for something to cover her with, not understanding the rag I pulled up, then realized it was the torn shirt she'd just explained. I propped her head up with one hand and wrapped the thing around her face, the torn shirt long enough to go full around four times. I took up her cigarette when I noticed it was nearly extinguished, gave it very quiet sips until it was going properly, again, rested it into the crease of the side of my mouth, leaned over her wrapped head until enough saliva collected that it globbered out without my having to force it.

***

I felt ugly and weightless, kind of droned my way over to the bathroom door, head a sponge scrubbed worthless with mud, like I'd been used to unearth a potted plant. I could hear the little throat clearings and shifts of Bertram's weight, the blanks in the pattern of his breathing when he tensed to void himself, knew he was stopped up.

The overhead fan chugged, overrode any thought in my head—my own breath rattled in mimic of it, was it, I wasn't any different than it, waited lifeless for my brother to shit.

Eventually, toilet paper was undone from the roll—Bertram always stood when he did this, wiped himself that way, checking the colour of each wiped piece to be certain he wasn't still dirty, this something he'd told me years ago, I'd no idea why. The faucet ran, I heard him mess with his hair, knew he was still uncomfortable but didn't want to be awkward, this all something he was sensitive about.

He opened the door, turning back quickly to shut off the light and I drove the knife into his chest, jiggled it, wrenched it out, drove it back in, also thrusting my weight forward, sending him off balance. Stammering mottled glegs of air, he reached for the towel bar to get his balance, but I could tell his eyes had lost focus, he'd no idea what was happening or how he was situated and I lashed out blindly a last time, struck against his head quite hard, his body, for whatever reason, toppling over in the direction my strike had come from, as opposed to being batted along with it.

I tottered backward, stood in the squat hallway area, shrugged off my coat, clumsily kicked at it until it was out of the way, got my shoes off, using only my feet to do so, removed my belt, dropped my pants, stepped out of them, steadied myself against the wall and, bringing my knees high, got out of Lecia's panties.

I crouched down, tilting up Bertram's head—found I'd gashed the side of his cheek, through his eye, up into his hair line wide open, the knife blade, which had come away from the handle, lodged, pierced through his scalp. Prying his mouth open wide, I stuffed in the panties, started to close the mouth, but them shoved the panties further back, probed my fingers down him until the fabric could not be seen, scragged my fingers down him as far as I could, until I couldn't even retrieve the panties when I made an attempt. I left his mouth gaping.

-You're nothing but a carcass now, Bertram, I said, gnashed the sentence, hardly recognized the words myself.

And then I stood up, glared at him, made a hissing sound, scratching my sides through my shirt—doing this until the crawling sensation all over me was so distracting, so claustrophobic I pulled the thing off over my head, lurched my arm back to throw it but the hand impacting the wall sent a numb shock through me, broke my anger, brought me low to my knees, laid me to my side, burying my face in the raised up bend of my elbow.

***

I knew that I wasn't asleep, was hardly blinking my eyes, fixated on some odd tangle of thread on the carpet—not carpet thread, thread from something else, a shirt, a towel, something. I made some sounds, pretend snoring, felt the rise and fall of my chest, the rattle of phlegm in my throat. I'd no energy to move myself—thought about my legs, said My legs my legs my legs, thought about them but couldn't summon the proper sensation to make them move.

I started to cry, tears uncomfortably large, heavy, slithering over the ridge of my nose, somehow winding up inside of my nostrils, twining with the mucus that was clotting up against my cheek, spreading under the weight of the side of my face, pooling, bubbling around the crevices of my ear.

It was dreadful to think of laying there in that apartment for who knows how long—however long it would take someone to show up, however long it would take the hotel to find Lecia and Kevin, the detectives to connect enough dots to look for Bertram, to get authorization to kick down the door. A day at least—but Christ, I thought, it could well be two, could be three.

-Could be could be could be could be could be I sissed through my teeth.

But I was able to prop myself up onto an elbow after awhile—it hadn't seemed so long—and from this position I was able to worm my way along to the sofa, from there got to my knees, to the kitchen counter, to a cigarette in my mouth. But I couldn't find a lighter.

I got the refrigerator door opened, downed a three quarter full bottle of apple juice, immediately started to urinate, watched the arc of it collapse into the tile, the mist wet the base of the cabinet next to the dishwasher, watched it foam and listened until the foam had gone quiet, until everything settled.

There was absolutely nothing left, now, but I was still moving along. I was like a stick, getting myself back to my feet, running the faucet, gulping slobbers of water in, running every other palmful over my face, through my hair, washing at my chest with it, smoothing it along the tops of my shoulders.

When I had enough composure to walk around, I noticed that the fingers of both of my hands would not stop wriggling, coiling, flicking out, clenching involuntarily into fists, scratching at the handbacks of each other. I took peculiar steps, watching this alien life of my hands, soon enough getting it all under control—soon enough finding a lighter, on the ledge of the bookshelf, getting a cigarette going.

I retrieved my clothing from the hall, dressing slowly, had difficulty getting my shirt to tuck in the way I liked, flailed around in frustration, struck myself along the head until I felt dizzy. Calmed down. I left the shirt untucked, got my coat buttoned and pawed my way along the wall until I managed to dump myself against the front door, nuzzled my cheek against it, whispered Oh Christ, Bertram.

***

Steady enough on my feet to get to the kitchen, to down a half glass of bourbon—choking on my attempt at a second mouthful—I returned to the bathroom, knelt, turned Bertram to look at me. His eyes were mostly closed, so I left them alone, didn't really feel like touching them, like touching him at all. I took the damp towel that was sloppily folded and set on the toilet tank, offhandedly let it fall, covering Bertram's head and most of his torso, then lugged his feet up, bucking my body, not able to budge him an inch. I was already perspiring from the effort and a spasm started up along my ribs. But I rebraced myself, gave a haul and the body began to move, made a slow progress along the carpet, and I gave up, leaving it half way in the bedroom, reaching to pick up the towel that had come away, dropped it back over top of the thing's face.

There was a mess of blood in the bathroom, but mostly in the area around the sink—I was able to cover enough of it with towels and Bertram's dirty laundry that I didn't feel showering would be a waste of time, felt I really could give myself a thorough wash, take my time of it, let the hot water reinvigorate me enough to go on.

I didn't feel like being found in Bertram's apartment, it felt some cavity, some crook an insect had bore. I'd turn myself in, but needed to get clear thinking, first—needed to understand the approach I'd make, to feel some inch of control in the matter.

The water was painful, no matter how I adjusted the temperature it hurt to let it touch my skin. I whimpered, shuddering, mewling like a sick child trying to contort itself to sleep. But I soaped myself completely four times, used shampoo and waited for conditioner to set, used an exfoliating scrub on my face, worked my fingers into my nose, clearing it of scabs of hardened mucus.

I steeped out onto the mat in front of the toilet, just enough to reach Bertram's toothbrush, the shriveled tube of paste. Back under the flowing water, I cleaned my teeth furiously, spitting out mint froth made filthy with blood, scoured my gums. I stepped out and reached across for mouthwash, shushed mouthful after mouthful—didn't spit, just opened my mouth and let it limp down over my chest, let water pellet me until I felt the residue of it was gone—then stood shivering in the dribbling echo of the stall.

I laughed when I saw I'd left Bertram right where I'd need to step past him to get to his closet, turned around, surveyed the parlour room, but there wasn't a full set of clothes among the various garments he'd left strewn over however long a period of time.

It didn't so much matter, I supposed, if my feet got dirty—socks and shoes would make it irrelevant, I could scrub my feet in the kitchen if I couldn't bear it.

I selected a pair of nice brown pants, a t-shirt with some design on it in faded splotches of grey, moved across to the bureau for underpants and socks, then turned, squinted at the hanging clothes. I found the blazer with the panties in the pocket, the wrapper from the condom, slipped it on, the fit a bit large, but nothing so much, not enough to make me look a clown.

***

In what I knew were my last roils—circling the rooms like a toilet flush—I rolled a new joint, took four deep inhales off it, extinguished it gently by dapping the tip in a spot of coffee that had fallen in three droplets over my chin to the countertop. I did up my coat, noticed Bertram's wallet, took what cash there was in it, then saw his key ring, jagged, crooked, set on a rumpled shirt on a box in the entranceway. There were eight keys, six of them regular, two of them nubs—the odd keys having to do with his job, I imagined, trash compactor, supply room, something. The normal keys I fondled, knew one of them would be to Lecia's apartment, wondered what the others were for—his apartment, Mag's apartment, perhaps. I'd no idea. He was just a pile of keys, a void of ways to get in rooms, ways to spread himself.

It was ghastly that he was my brother, suddenly, made me feel deformed, like there was some grotesque slant to me I'd never recognized, some resemblance to a disease.

I pocketed the keys, left the apartment, dwindled down the elevator, smiled in the lobby when I realized one of the keys must work his mail box, one of them was my apartment key, but shut myself from thinking about this.

I stepped outside, met with the scrape of various people shoveling the walk clean—the snow everywhere already rusty piles of damp grey, grit from the pavement wound up in it, a tangle of something half melted, debris, the weight of sodden boots.

I walked a block or two before milling on the curb, trying for a cab, five or six passing by, the driver of one motioning me over through two lanes of loitering traffic but I shrugged at him, his insistent hand rolling and rolling, wanting me over. I took a step down the curb, retreated, saw him exasperated, rolling his eyes, face puffing almost green with emotion. I turned my head down, continued walking, didn't want to bother with him, didn't understand what he could possibly care about it.

Two blocks later, I held up my hand at a man milling against the front of a doughnut shop—coffee lazily set to the window ledge, some magazine folded around itself—when I saw a taxi parked at the curb. His eyes met mine quizzically and I thumbed a gesture at the parked vehicle.

-Off duty? I asked, felt idiotic, the guy turning the page of the magazine, nothing to say.

I was wiggling a head nod of I'm sorry when, at a trot, a fat woman glugged her way through the shop door, asked did I need a cab and could I wait just two minutes, she was just having a quick break. The tone of the whole moment was senselessly aggressive—I drooped my brow, mumbled that I was fine with waiting, I'd have a cigarette, she should take her time, but none of this registered with her, she bubbled her hand to her mouth, the back of her wrist wiping at something, said she'd be right out when she finished a drink of her soda.

I looked at the guy with the magazine, but his eyes were down to the page, a warbled grin to his face, chuffs to his breath then his tongue left and right, a wipe to his front teeth.

***

Unable to recall Lecia's address, exactly, I timidly asked the woman to drive me along to the general area—asked her to head toward the library, apologized when I didn't know the name of it, exactly. She kept making breaths out her nose, turned down the radio, asked and asked and asked questions while I tried to come up with a better reference for her. But I couldn't think of any, finally laughed, gave the name of Lecia's bookstore, which also didn't help. Her questions finally stopped because, plumping out her cheeks, she said she thought she knew the library, I'd have to let her know, though, and if she went the wrong way awhile, I needed to keep in mind I wasn't giving her any address exactly so I had nothing to complain about.

I sat poised, nose to the window, felt I needed to show I was on top of things, trying to be an aid as much as possible. It actually didn't seem so long before she lulled the car to a stop, the library there, the steep cement stairs up to it—a trodden mess of slush and the contents of an overturned trashcan all down them, some attendant taking his time, his trash bag caught up by every little spec of breeze, to gather things up, a broom resting against the hand railing.

I left the driver with more that double the amount of the fare, but she still lobbed some advice at me that I should get an address, that a lot of drivers might not've known their way around, driven me all over to get the price up. I shut the door, stepped away, heard the choke of the exhaust out the cab's back.

Up a block, I sagged down to a bench, moisture seeping up through my clothes, sat shivering, biting at my wrist, unable to remember if I'd followed Lecia and Kevin onto a train.

I hadn't.

A bus? Something?

It seemed the library was removed miles from the two of them.

I sat, chewing on myself, depressing teeth marks in, looking at them, trying to fit my teeth back to the same spots, always without success. Then I laughed, recalling I was thinking of things backward. I flicked my index finger to my chin, ticking it there with each bit of the sequence I started getting to place. Lecia had gone from the bookstore to her apartment, met Kevin at the library, I'd followed the two of them to the hotel. I'd not followed Kevin to the library. I'd followed Lecia, Kevin had come later. I was confusing the bookshop with the library—was confusing what I'd been doing, was confusing things.

I sulked back to the library, brought low by the fact that I'd have to recollect the path backward, wished I'd thought to look up the bookstore's address, wished I'd found something with Lecia's address on it at Bertram's, wished I'd written the address down when I'd followed her to it.

I thumped my fists in squeezes in my pockets, remumbled that I was confusing everything.

***

Lecia's building hung fat, stuck into the ground—there seemed something wrong with everything above it, the sky angled wrong, it made me sick to my stomach, it's curve, the immensity of it.

I checked the time on my phone more than a half dozen times before it registered with me, and when it did it didn't mean anything to me—I couldn't even gauge the distance from what I'd done to where I was standing.

A last cigarette—a last outdoor cigarette. I thought this to myself, no particular emotion assigned to it, knew I didn't even believe it, had some qualms about telling myself lies, but soon I was leaned gently against the alcove wall. I gave a tug to the locked door, looked at Lecia's name on a buzzer, really hoped that hers was the apartment number next to the name.

I fiddled around with Bertram's keys, tapped the jags of one them against the spout of my cigarette, watched the ash from the tip loosen, fall, then started to try the keys in the insert I was hoping caused the building door to unlock. The second key was the correct one, but I tried the others, nothing else to do.

The lobby smelled like it'd been heavily cleaned a few days ago, the polish now going stale, a moisture, ozone, dust, mingled with what would have been such a sharp clean breath before days of tenants passing through—their bags, their feet, boxes, their hair spray, deodorant, the sag of their clothes from their work days and the shifts in weather, their foreheads sweating under fevers held down by medicine pills.

I felt intoxicated, free associating, playacting I was some bastard poet making my way up to a party or something. I held the elevator door open for a middle aged woman who had the air to her she would have preferred I'd stepped out, let her ride up alone—a real garish disgust to the way she stood still, hands folded over her lap like pieces of broken plates.

-You're just a fucking goat, aren't you? I said casually, saw that she tensed down on herself, lips stiffened, little cadavers. There was a kind of silence after that that made me have to keep from contorting in mirth. When the elevator door opened—the floor beneath Lecia's—and the woman stepped forward away, I reached to tap her shoulder, had it in mind to repeat the insult, but she slipped away, unknowing before my hand could get at her, my arm just limped through an empty space, the door shutting while she cockroached her way along, likely ready to burst out into sobs, mortified that I could still be behind her.

At the next opening of the door I walked into the corridor, had an odd pang of guilt, of trespass, found Lecia's door and started probing it with keys. There were two locks, both fastened. Once the first was opened, I started trying keys on the other, no luck until I reused the first one. I thought it was sweet, pathetic—it made me regret myself, I kind of looked over my shoulder hoping that someone would be there, reaching to stop me.

***

I moved right over to the dining table, shrugged out of my coat, left it over a chair back, started poking at a pile of mail. The name on the letters was Courtney Zenn—it sounded pornographic. There was a thicker envelope from a commercial photo developer I'd seen advertised—this also addressed to Courtney—but I opened it, started leafing through the pictures. No one I knew standing with no one I knew. Five pictures in, I'd deciphered who was Courtney, hardly recognized Lecia when she was finally depicted—a different setting than most of the other photographs, just a snapshot, probably the shutter had depressed by accident, Lecia in the kitchen I was standing right beside, fixing her hair, odd folded expression on her face, profile of her head creaked forward raising lines of her chin up her cheeks.

Lecia's bedroom was the first door I opened, the one all the way at the end of a rather lengthy hall, a laundry hamper affixed to the outside of the door, half full, a mangle of the leg of a pair of jeans burbling over the lip.

Her bed was unmade. There were some playing cards on the floor—some of them left over in their positions from some game or another, the rest just there, no order, no purpose, a spill she'd have attended to later on or else leave that way for weeks, something I didn't think she really cared very much about.

I had a seat on her desk chair, picked up a piece of paper she'd been making a list on, tapped at some notebooks that were around, unwound a paperclip, tried to goad it back into shape—something I'd never been able to do.

I sighed my shoulder up, head down a lump, reversed this, torso sagging into arms I let dangle, fingers feeling bloated with the blood flowing down, numbing, like there wasn't enough spring to return the flow upward.

There wasn't any reason I'd come. The room had nothing to do with me. I kind of whined a moment, but this made me feel uncomfortable.

I sat on the end of the bed, fell back, then tensed my abdomen, sat back up, stared at the poster she had up on her wall, framed—I'd absolutely no idea what it was, if it was something recognizable to anyone or just a design that meant nothing.

She had her own small bathroom—no door, just a curtain, which I thought was strange until I saw it was just a tiny shower unit, a mirror not wide enough to take my whole image, cutting me off less than in half, a sink that had a few stains from toothpaste, from mouthwash, another deck of cards over by the soap dish. The cards had been sitting there awhile, pellets of chalk stain, colour drained from water sinking in, bloating the pasteboard of the top card—sagging it, stiffening it, blistering it, scabbing it.

Catching my reflection in the mirror, I made my lips a pout, poked my stiff index finger against the reflection of my forehead, said You killed this person—tap tap tap tap tapped the finger, lowered my hand, made my features square.

I mouthed I killed Lecia. Paused. Nodded my head I know.

***

In the kitchen, I went through the cabinets and then two drawers before I found some medicine—touched my forehead, could taste the grime of my fever along the sides of my cheek—swallowed two pills with a handful of tap water, swallowed four more, swallowed two more, dropped the bottle to the tile and heard it spin, the pills titter out, spread across the floor.

I put my hands in my pocket, felt something there that turned out to be the fifty dollar bill Lecia had given me. I regarded it, crumpled it, uncrumpled it. The paper was dull already, warm from the stench of my skin under my pant fabric.

I'd just taken a seat at the table when I heard a key going into the latch, turned to watch the door lock, grinned. The doorknob turned, a tug made the thing thump, a key was reinserted, closing the other lock, the door was tugged—this going on until the pattern that got it to open came off, a young woman, done up shabby, mussed from a day out dealing with some aggravation, came in.

She was still cursing about the door when she looked up, saw me there. She stopped short, thacked in a breath, hands at her stomach like seeing me tasted heavy, soured her.

I raised a hand and told her I was Aldous, Bertram's brother.

Tentatively, she nodded, moving, but not approaching me—moving toward a thick chair over near the television, lowering her purse into the rumpled blanket in it.

-I need you to call the police, I said.

She went livid—I could tell even in the unlit apartment, she took on a tone too thin for the lack of light, disappeared a moment.

Shutting my eyes, I rolled my head around on my neck, opening my eyes in the direction of the kitchen, noticing bottles on top of the refrigerator. I stumbled up, the chair I'd been sitting in falling backward, a sound of some pills rolling and some others being ground down, broken by the press of my step as I pointed at the alcohol, asking Is this the sort of bourbon that Lecia drinks?

The bottle was nearly full, but had been opened. There was a smear around the lip when I uncorked it that somehow made me thick she'd taken a tug straight from the bottle, freshly lip-glossed. I sloshed the liquid, made it messy, watched it settle, watched the few spots of bubbles that had formed meet, pop, turn to nothing.

I turned to see that Courtney hadn't moved, or hadn't except to partway sit her weight on the arm of the chair, get her body turned in the direction of the door. I stared at her, couldn't guess at her age.

-What happened to Lecia? she asked, then three up down up down up down breaths.

I shook my head, said Just call the police, something happened to Lecia, just call the police., waved my arm around, saw her move—a dart toward her room—and I asked the air behind her as she went, knowing she wasn't likely to call a response from around the corner and through a shut door Is this Lecia's bourbon, is this the kind of bourbon that she likes?

I blew a breath that would've whistled if my lips hadn't been heavy with spit, bubbles leering briefly then popping.

I had the fifty closed in my hand, balled it and balled it, put the bourbon cork in my mouth, blew out, watched it arc over into the parlour area, hit the carpet someplace, invisible, silent. Putting the money on my tongue, I tilted the bottle into my tilting back head, tried to swallow but took a wrong breath, choked, a spray of bourbon falling to the surface of the table, coughs wheezing from me as though I was being dismantled, a string of mucus from my nose to the wet back of my hand I'd used to steady myself—whatever I might've said worthless behind the gags of me standing there emptied.

Twelve ELEVEN thirteen

A body split in two doesn't know how to sleep

You're standing on you head while you're standing on your feet

-The Kills

Idiot of me to do, I left the apartment, throat sore and probably feverish, I hadn't honestly checked, to go across the street for cigarettes. The weather was soggy, freezing, the heavy downpour I'd been listening to out through the apartment window since I'd gotten up to vomit, unable to sleep, had slackened to a breath of damp, maybe even just the wind mawing around the slop that had already fallen, not even genuine sleet anymore. I only half dressed, figured under my coat the lounge pants I was in, rather thick, would be fine, kept on the undershirt I'd been sweating through, tugged on a wool hat.

On the elevator down to the lobby, I tried to decide when I would call out of my shift, not that any time instead of another would make it less of an irritant—there seemed something particularly cruel in my actually getting sick, something in it that made calling off into an actual task, like it was something so much more unacceptable because there was sincere need, nothing to be done.

Across the street, no trouble, no traffic, a slow drag of myself across, I limply mumbled about how I shouldn't even buy the cigarettes, that I'd not smoke them, would find it too unpleasant.

I'd smoke them, I scoffed, a sniffle that tasted stale. Of course I'd smoke them. They'd lay thick and mangy in my mouth, but I'd smoke them down as though this is how they were meant to behave.

***

The drugstore only had every third of the overhead lights on, typical for this hour, I wondered why they even stayed open all night. I strolled the aisles, thinking to get some more fruit juice, something to have around to eat, worthless little impulses, there'd be nothing better in the shop than what I had at home, already.

I was holding a package of cookies, glazed eyes to the label reading nothing, thinking nothing, was just setting them down when I noticed a man walking in, head bowed forward, one of his hands clamped around his mouth. I eyed him, squinting, really holding my gaze too long, the man leaning in close to read the fronts of the newspapers disheveled in the rack. His hand was still to his mouth when he moved to the counter, pointing at something.

I had my purchases pinned under an arm, almost set them down to read a magazine when the man, a bag twined around his wrist, approached from the end of the aisle, hand still covering his mouth.

I narrowed my eyes around him, he seeming distracted by something back over his shoulder, but when he turned his head his eyes locked on mine, hardened, hand around his mouth.

I turned my head down, started to shoulder past. As I did, now outright glaring at me, he moved his hand to the side, just for a second, like unlatching then relatching the bolt of a door, revealing a mouth with lips stitched shut, like curling in closed on themselves but plump, sore seeming. He jutted his features, like he would be barring teeth if it were possible.

***

The weather had gotten worse in the ten minutes I'd been shopping, wind tightened to short fists thudding into each other, blabbering slosh falling like it was being poured out of low windows.

Not wanting to stand in the shop's vestibule, I quickly dashed to the awning of a building that had been a restaurant before going out of business two month prior, slapped my cigarettes in my palm, got one going, swallowed the first breath in along with a twist of phlegm and the thin saliva that slipped from the insides of my cheeks.

It was no good, I could already feel my bowels loosening. Cigarettes, coffee, the cheap noodles I had to heat up, the microwaveable hamburgers, the peanut butter and saltless crackers—everything I had in the apartment I might ingest would be hideous with how I was feeling.

I turned back in the direction of the shop, thinking to just get medicine that would put me to sleep, even if it had nothing to do with my particular condition. I wasn't going to go to the doctor, it was nothing so bad, I'd be best off if I just dosed myself, disappeared.

I made the jog back, paused to try to get my bearings, to read the hanging signs listing what was in each aisle, then moved in the direction of the rear corner, just having the feeling it was where medicine would be kept.

I came up with a bottle of ibuprofen tablets and a bottle of liquid medicine for cold symptoms. A few paces toward the cashier, I noticed the liquid said Non-drowsy, retreated, took up several bottles, inspecting them all over, before settling on one. Approaching the cashier, I found I was chuckling, a little bit too loud, realizing I'd been looking for a bottle to actually say Drowsy on it.

***

Thinking to get a drop on things, I was already working the plastic from the cap of the cold medicine bottle, was almost back under the awning when I noticed there was another person standing there, his back against the sooty door of the building front, reading from a film magazine curled open, held in one hand, the other hand clamping over his mouth as I neared.

I didn't slow my approach, but did grit my teeth, gave thought to making a dash for my apartment, but that would mean turning back in the direction I'd come from or else crossing the street, right there, then back in the direction of my apartment—either way it would be an obvious recoil.

I came to a dawdle under the awning, plastic removed from bottle, thumb and forefinger toying with the cap. I ducked the bottle to my coat pocket, retrieving my cigarettes, getting one lit, bouncing on my toes. A few drags in, thinking I'd been there long enough to justify a move, I playacted a look up and down the way, realizing it didn't matter which way I went, anymore, it would appear to the man I'd just used the awning for cover, hoping the weather would break, and now that I realized the weather wasn't going to let up I was just going to let myself get soaked. I even thought about whispering a forlorn curse word or two to myself, for effect.

In my little pantomime, I happened to catch the man's eye. He tilted his chin as though indicating he wanted my attention, sort of made a tapping in my direction, a pecking with his nose. I gave a shaper look to him, but his eyes seemed soft, no hint of the earlier aggression. It occurred to me he might be asking for a cigarette, as illogical as it seemed to me, so I held the one I was smoking up, like communicating with a child, saw the rise of his shoulders as he chuckled, pecked his nose, seeming to focus on my shoulder.

I looked down, suddenly jolting at the sight of a large insect, no idea which kind, batted at it like an imbecile, so shocked I'd no idea if I'd gotten rid of it. The man, magazine hand sort of waving in little arcs, tottered back and forth a bit, then brought his foot down dead onto the pavement, turned his torso all the way to the side with a twisting of his weight down onto the thing.

***

The crawl of the insect was still all over me as I got across the street, stepped up onto the curb, getting out the cold medicine to have a slug of it, just to feel closer to rid of the whole night, closer to bleary, roiling sleep.

I was soaked even from just the two minutes I'd been out of the awning, figured I could stand in the a hot shower while the medicine did its trick.

I saw that the man was crossing the street, as well, casually, holding his magazine over head. I took another swallow of medicine, bottle back to my pocket, tightened up and got to my building door.

The humid stale of the lobby was repulsive and mingled with the unsettling coating of the medicine down my throat, around my in my gut. I became queasy, lightheaded, set my bag on the ledge by the mailboxes, grabbed my thighs, massaging them, leaned forward, spitting the wet that had collected a mouthful, the floor soaking wet already, the damp just absorbing the saliva as soon as it struck.

Not standing straight, I reached for my bag and moved toward the elevator, hitting the summon button.

The man, hand clamped over his mouth, entered the lobby, shook his magazine, made an annoyed face with one eye hard shut, tossed the ruined thing in the general direction of the trash and then, shaking his sleeves of thick moisture, the thit-thit of this against the wall bullet hard, he approached, stood idle, coughing inside of his throat, giving three quick hisses of air out his nose, his eyes closing through the length of these sounds.

***

I hit the button for the twelfth floor as soon as I entered, lumped to the back wall, the handrail at an odd height, digging into the base of my back. The man entered a moment after me, and he just turned, stood facing the closing door, clasping both hands politely behind his back, the doors not properly reflecting enough to show his mouth, he was just a smear of colour that didn't quite seem to match what he wore, a blot under the vague shadows cast all over by the elevator lights.

I glared at the twelve button, the square of it dull white-yellow, looked at the man's hands and noticed that two of them, the little and ring fingers of his left hand, were bound together by an adhesive bandage.

My stomach unsettled enough that I could hardly concentrate on the thought, I wondered if he was following me. There was no reason he would be, and so I swallowed a thick of phlegm, the taste of it stained of cigarette, looked at the side of his face as best as I could, at his balding scalp, the spotting to the skin at the base of his head, likely all over his shoulders, down his back.

I'd never seen him before. I was certain of that.

He had a sweet odour to him, feminine, or else the elevator did, every smell tucked under a general sponge of cold humidity.

It could have been me who smelled nice, for all that mattered, my shirt taking in the smell of my deodorant, my sweating into it diffusing the scent.

The man did not look like he smelled nice. The bandage over his fingers was white, but a definite tinge of dull grey to it, brown from use, unchanged for a few days.

***

He stepped out through the door to the twelfth floor, very casually, and I made a point to linger a moment, see what he would do, rather expecting him to mill until he could see which way I went. But he turned in the direction of my apartment, not hesitation, and didn't seem to notice at all that I, slowly, began down the corridor in the opposite direction.

I wanted him to go into his apartment first. I needed him to. It was ridiculous, but I could not bear the thought of him knowing where I lived.

I heard a key going into a door lock, so gave a casual turn, touching to the door I happened to have stopped in front of, fingers tentatively to the knob, saw the man open a door, not even a clipped look toward me, the door shut behind him.

I swallowed heavily.

It really seemed he'd gone into my apartment. I tried not to blink, not to lose sight, even for an instant, of the last spot I'd seen him in, could rather make out a difference to the air, there, while the sound of the door latching, bolting, chain to place clacked quite clear in the empty hall.

Not my door.

Still a good way off, I realized he'd gone into the door to the right of the enclosed bulb affixed to the wall, mine was the door to the left.

I had to stop moving to tense against a violent urge to defecate, clenched my fists, grinding one into the side of my face. I made the last of the way to my door with face winced, involuntary little moans from my throat clenching.

I fumbled for my key, dropping my bag to do so, rather kicking it into the apartment as I got the door open, gave a last look, my eyes a tongue over it, to the front of the door to apartment thirteen, the apartment I knew that man didn't live in.

***

Every time I sat down to the toilet, nothing would issue, it was as though I dried up somehow just when I knew I'd have relief. Then every time I stood, I could feel the writhe of things inside of me, the slup and pressure down of waste.

Groaning, twisting my head at the end of my taut neck, I seriously gave consideration to defecating while standing in the shower, just letting myself empty.

In a lull, seated almost sidewise over the bowl, my shoulder touching the edge of the sink counter, my feet splayed, toes of the left one touching the rise of the tub side, I really tried to remember about apartment thirteen.

I felt absolutely certain that woman called Ginette lived there, that she lived right next to me. But it was possible she lived two doors down, perhaps, perhaps that she lived in apartment nine.

No.

It was next door. Thirteen. I'd said Hello, made that pointless little comment about the fresh paint that afternoon while she'd been leaving to do her laundry and I'd waited at my door to get a glimpse of her through the peephole, when she came back. She'd been wearing flimsy lounge clothes and I'd waited more than twenty minutes to see her, again through the door.

Next door.

No middle aged, decrepit bastard with his mouth stitched shut lived there. With his hand bandaged up from God knows what.

A cut of cramp slipped around both sets of my ribs and I strained, again, leaning forward.

Chin touching my knee, I whined that I had no idea who lived there, really. She could've moved out. They both could live there. He could be feeding her cat.

In another brief respite, breathing heavy, I chuckled that he could be eating her cat, smiling when I realized he actually couldn't be.

My stomach knotted back up, salty tasting liquid, sour, filling my mouth. Because I didn't want to swallow, I drooled onto the floor, onto the top of my shoe, feeling pale, light, heavy, empty and far too full all at once.

***

I removed my pants when I stood to flush, still tight along my side, the rest of me feeling saggy, bulbous, like the skin of my lower back was hanging from me, a sack filled with wet grass.

Hoping it might get the whole thing over with, I lit a cigarette, smoking it as I opened the refrigerator, taking out a bottle of water—water from the tap, the bottle already having been refilled dozens of times—and I stared at the clock on my oven while it changed to eleven forty-nine from eleven forty-eight, from eleven forty-nine to eleven fifty.

The man had used a key to get in the door, I muttered, kind of pointedly, scoffing my lips at the imaginary self I was making the remark to. It's getting on toward midnight and he just went to the drugstore.

I shrugged, it dawning on me that I was actually still thinking about this, that I was earnestly unsettled.

The man lived there. He lived with Ginette. I'd just never seen him. There are hundreds of people in the building I never see, have never seen once, people on my own floor and in fact I couldn't even remember the last time I'd seen her.

It was just that his mouth was stitched shut. And this made sense, it was nothing out of the ordinary to be put off by that. Or it was the mouth combined with the fact that the man had all but hissed at me, that the man walked around with his hand covering his mouth.

Why not wear a mask?

Maybe he did. Or a scarf. Maybe he'd just forgotten it, left in a hurry, didn't want to bother about going back up the elevator.

What had he purchased at the drug store?

A magazine.

What else? When he'd been at the counter, hadn't he had a bag, already? When he hissed at me, hadn't he had a bag?

I shook my face, the sensation muddy, warm, longer than it should've been.

***

I couldn't find the bottle of cold medicine in my coat pocket. It wasn't in the kitchen, the bathroom, I even crawled around on the floor a moment, laid there, cheek to the carpet, could have passed out. Then I figured the bottle must've been down in the lobby or on the floor of the elevator. I'd paid for it and even if I didn't down it all right now, I'd want some later on, didn't think I'd want to leave, again. I tugged on my pants, didn't bother with shoes or socks, grabbed my keys from my coat and left the apartment.

The hall light was oppressive, I felt I was on my way to the snack machine at some hotel, the way hotel corridor's at night always seem forceful, trying to thumb your eyes shut, to dry you to empty sleep.

I saw the bottle on the floor by the mailboxes, stuck my tongue out, wagging it triumphantly, treated myself to a mouthful, which I almost retched from, as the elevator doors closed me in and I felt the lift of the floor beneath me.

Getting back to my door, my head began to vice, a rather sharp pain, so much so that I let my forehead tip against the my apartment door, massaged my neck, the top of my spine with both hands. While I did, my focus all a blur, I heard the sound of a door latch opening, a bolt undone.

I turned to see the man with the stitched mouth backing out of Ginette's apartment. I reached hand to pocket for my key, had it in the door, the knob turned, not hurrying, not wanting to seem I cared. I took a casual glance in the man's direction, saw him with a laundry hamper he'd set down, looking at me.

I turned my head away, pushed open my door, closed it shut behind me. I put my eye to the peephole and waited to see him pass.

Inside of ten seconds, his image filled the opening. He paused, his face turning, looking curiously at the outside of my door, eyes twitching up once while he brought the back of the hand to the underside of the nose.

Then, the sight of him moved away.

***

I drifted in oblongs after another swallow of the medicine, one I didn't even think about and vaguely regretted as I ran tap water into my cupped hands, swished it in my mouth, spat it.

I looked at my movies stacked haphazard, mostly on the floor, leaned against the side of the television stand and the wall, knew there was nothing I'd want to watch.

But I sat to the sofa, anyway, puffing my cheeks, tapping air out in pointless four or five note melodies, generally mumbling, letting my eyes close.

It was twelve fifteen in the morning, now. Not so late. Not so late to be doing your girlfriend's laundry.

But Ginette couldn't have been more than five years older than me and this guy, he was at least twenty years older than me, than her.

It was peculiar. Because I'd seen the laundry, it was not his clothes.

It's one thing to be staying there, I said, not opening my eyes, feeling a pressure begin in my gut I hoped would subdue itself without incident, but it made no sense he'd be doing her laundry.

I'd drifted asleep for a few minutes. It'd felt much longer. I got disoriented, whatever my conversation with myself had morphed into while unconscious lingering around me, but nothing I could focus on.

I was pasty with the sweat of my illness and the medicine in me, the hissing warm of sleep through me, so got undressed, got a popsicle from the freezer, stood with the coolant making my skin tight, making it irritating to breathe in through my nose.

I got a thermometer I was surprised to discover I still owned out of one of the kitchen drawers, sat on the counter with it under my tongue, wondering if what I'd eaten of the popsicle would ruin the reading.

It was one hundred two degrees point something, something less than five.

Dully, I heard the door to thirteen close, heard only the clack of the main lock a bump through the wall, though I was certain the bolt and chain and doorknob went, as well.

***

There was no reason to think there'd be anyone in the corridor, but I kept my eye to the peephole awhile, tilting a bit this way, that way, seeing how far down I could see in either direction.

I chuckled then turned my glance down, thinking to pick up one of my socks from where I'd tossed it after taking it off, but recoiled from the sight of a thick insect, moving along the carpet slowly, like it was teetering itself side to side with great effort, it's legs to weak to lift it's mass.

I rubbed my hands all over myself.

It was the same bug. I was sure of it.

I growled, sneering at the wall in the general direction of the apartment thirteen, gave it an obscene gesture, then quickly reverted my gaze to the insect.

-You're supposed to be dead, I said, pointing, but not extending my arm, not even wanting to be that close to it.

A mass of phlegm caught up along the roof of my mouth, making it difficult to get a good breath in. I hacked, snorted, then squiggled past the thing into the kitchen, spit into the sink and just held my hands up, shivering, numb fists of the fingers, thinking of how to get rid of the insect.

I opened a cupboard, getting out a green plastic bowl. I flopped it over the thing, fast, worried it'd have wings it could thump, rattle, frighten me away with.

I put two cans of soup on top of the bowl, laughed like an imbecile and turned to the wall, pointing again, calling the stitch-mouthed man a liar.

Not only did you not kill it, I said, a grumbling, wet whisper, I bet you put it on me to begin with.

I swallowed, slumped my shoulders, hated that I'd said that, hated that I was now deflated in a medicine haze wondering if it was a possibility.

He'd been standing behind you, he'd been standing behind you, I said.

Looked at the soup cans, the green bowl, wanted to peek under, mistrustful.

***

I took a few more ibuprofen tablets, massaged my forehead and neck, shook my arms around and drifted into the bedroom.

I couldn't see Ginette being involved, romantically, with this person. I granted that there must be medical reasons to have one's mouth shut, but no reason at all to draw stitches through the lips. It was some sort of grotesque.

And because of that, I said lazily, laying down, still rolling my hands, I could not allow for the supposition that it was her father or something. So the list of middle-aged, ugly men who would be doing a young woman's laundry in the middle of the night was done.

I sat up, actually concerned.

Maybe I was wrong about the apartment, or maybe she had moved out. But I'd seen her panties in that laundry, I said, correcting this to I'd seen panties, which could've belonged to anyone. Then I wondered if I actually had see them, was I sure I'd seen panties?

What if something was happening, over there?

Things happened to people. I wasn't a lunatic for thinking something might be off.

Isn't this how people die, horrifically? They don't go someplace else, someplace else comes to them?

I chuckled, fake, had let a thick of wet collect in my mouth, went to the piled laundry in the corner and squeezed the spit into a rumpled shirt.

Just then it occurred to me that he's looked at the outside of my door so intently because he'd seen me pretending to be going into another apartment. He'd stopped and looked at my door.

I chuckled, fake again.

How long had he stood there?

I went to the door, eye to the peephole, rechecked the lock, the bolt, the chain, listened to the air from my nose whistle, felt it warm the skin above my lip that was touching the cold paint.

***

Sort of pretending I was talking myself out of it, I dressed to leave the apartment. Unable to come up with any other idea, I figured there might be a nameplate on the mailbox to thirteen, I could at least verify if Ginnete was still the tenant. Probably not, but there might be, or there could be something in the trashcan, junk mail, circulars, something that might be addressed to apartment thirteen and have a name on it.

I undid my door meekly, not wanting to be ridiculous about it, and mocked myself the entire way to the elevator with how idiot I was being. I did my best to quiet my agitation by reminding myself I'd just not be comfortable unless I checked something, at least, made some attempt to convince myself out of this mindset. It was check the mailboxes or it was something else, and checking the mailboxes was harmless.

There was no nameplate. Only about a half dozen of the mailboxes had nameplates. I gave a tired, heavy look to the trash can, rubbing my eyes.

The rain was hideous, outside, I could see it roughing everything illuminated by the street lights, so dense and forceful, like lines of rain, long lines, think as twists of hair around two fingers.

I only thought ill of this man because of his lips. And because he'd growled at me. I'd been staring at him, though. Because he'd been walking around with his hand covering his mouth like a creep.

He was a creep.

I drooled a long few breaths into the trashcan, hit the summon button and leaned to the elevator wall, then just stood, waiting, cramps building from behind my knees up through my ribs to hang from my collar bone.

I hit the button for twelve, forehead to the panel above the other buttons and before the doors closed I also hit the button to the basement, left it to chance if I'd head back to my apartment or give a quick check to the laundry room.

I closed my eyes, listened to the shut of the doors, the sigh of the mechanism starting, felt the floor drift down away me before resettling, clenched my jaw, groaned low in my throat.

***

I took a seat on one of the many folding chairs all along the slanting left-hand wall, just inside the laundry room. I stared at the folding tables, three set together, the stack of ratty paperback novels and magazines left in a decrepit laundry basket. Sniffling roughly, running the butt of my palm into the skin between them, I closed my eyes.

There were a few baskets, a few hampers around, one in the chair next to me, two others on the folding tables, one already full with folded garments, but there was distinctly only the slush from one churning machine, a damp, hissing sound, and there was the humidity of the damp scent of this in the otherwise blunt chill of the space.

Just deciding to get it over with, I moved to the machine and popped up the lid, the soggy whir of the thing coming to a slow stop, the clothes slicked to the machine sides.

They were all woman's clothing, nothing even close to a man's clothing, not a sock, a pair of underpants, a t-shirt.

I dug the things out, a few at a time, laid them in a loose pile on the closed machine tops. I checked the sizes of the panties, medium, the sizes of the shirts, medium, small, six on one button down, eight on another.

I closed my eyes, stopping myself, turned in the direction of the door, expecting some witness to be there.

He was washing the clothes, but what could that mean?

It only meant he was washing clothes.

Was I thinking he'd done her some violence?

That was idiot to think. What would washing all of her clothes have to do with that?

But right away, even in the mud and wet of my drifting thoughts, I could supply an answer, almost gave it to myself snidely. He could easily be washing all the clothes, intend to fold them, put them away, store them in moving boxes—he could be packing up her whole apartment or something.

Or what?

I felt almost disappointed when my riff fell apart, when I forgot what I'd even been trying to explain.

***

Putting the clothes back in, I felt something in the pocket of a long, thick skirt, so set this aside. Once everything else was back into the machine, I patted the skirt fabric, found a deep side pocket and emptied it of seventeen dollars in cash, a few sodden slips of paper, two credit cards, an identification card and a card with a magnetic strip on it, the name Noran, G. and a number printed in green on it.

The identification read Ginette Levents Noran.

I jammed the skirt back into the machine, closed the lid, had taken a step away but wheeled around when the machine didn't start up, again. I scanned the thing around where the coins should be inserted, screwed around with the dials a moment, but the thing would not reactivate.

Hand still around the items from the emptied pocket, I hurried out of the room, not wanting to run, my gait taking on a quirk, a limp due to my being so conscious of myself. I took a bad step, the toe of my shoe striking hard, full stop, into the flat carpet, tensed myself into striking the wall, a thump to the side of my head, my nostrils cleared a moment from the shock, but congested by the time I was back at the elevator.

As soon as I'd hit the summon button, I shook my head, moved along to the stairwell door, got it closed behind me and leaned to the wall, both hands now to my head where I'd hit the wall, that eye watering, not stopping when I dabbed at it.

I sat to the third step, miserable, forming little bubbles of spittle on my lip, listening to the distinct pitter of them breaking, not even understanding what I thought I was doing.

I scooted around awkwardly until I had the identification out. Looked at it. Ginette Levents Noran.

I stared at the stairwell door, like I was looking at the wet clothing out through it, unsteadily stood myself up, began climbing the stairs.

***

Despite the exhaustion of the climb, or because of it, I got myself calm, somewhat sensible, tried to make it all a joke about myself. Either way, I could return the stuff, just put it all in an envelope, tape it to the door with a note or something. Without a note. I'd get it back to her, somehow.

And the thought Who is this person? returned, again, not waiting for any answer, like I just wasn't awake enough to think of anything more interesting. His face. Mouth. Stitches.

By the seventh floor, I was considering urinating in the corner, the sudden urgency in my groin painful, so much I decided I get the elevator.

Was I worried about him seeing me? I wanted to know. Was it really that?

And nodding, a twitch of my mouth, I admitted it was that.

Why was he in Ginette's apartment?

It was certainly obvious he wasn't doing the laundry at her request, otherwise these things in the pockets wouldn't be in the pockets, he'd have made sure things were in order. This was her identification and some card she obviously needed for work and her money.

I just milled at the end of the eighth floor corridor.

No.

No, no, I just repeated, referenceless.

But it was true, I said, pointedly, gave a scratching motion to the door at about the height of my elbow.

The stuff hadn't been sorted, either. If he'd been involved with her, insisting on doing laundry at midnight, why wouldn't he have checked the pockets?

All pointless, all wonderful and pointless, I decided, belching along, a stick of my one leg hard, my body lurped after it, the only sort of motion that felt comfortable.

Nothing that meant anything, nothing that meant anything.

The elevator door took more than a minute to open from when I hit the button for it. I waited, my fingers tight, stiff little tips, a circle to the metal around the button.

***

I was even stiffer from tension, I noticed, the elevator door letting me into my corridor, a stiffness like waking from a long sleep, still fatigued, the room too warm. But I cricked to my door and quietly got the key in, was through, had the door shut behind me.

Immediately to the sink for a drink of water, then opening the refrigerator for something colder and with some hint of taste.

I made a tight fist of one hand, thumped my forehead, stood there with the fist side screwing the skin in and out of place.

I thought, just for a moment, that I should—or should have already, it was too late now—dropped the identification card and the money and all of it in the corridor, in the elevator, on the laundry room floor, something.

The stuff was wet, though, probably ruined. The cards were certainly ruined, seemed dulled, polished away.

I retreated to the sofa, laid down before getting undressed, lacked the energy to do anything, squirmed my head into the corner and cushion side, just listening to scruff this all made in my ears, to the whine behind my eyes, the squish of them moving like blinking though they were closed.

I focused on my breathing, making mouths of it, wide open air in, puckered loose lips air out. Over and over. Over and over and over and over and over.

I realized my eyes were open, my breathing shifting to my nose in a whistle. I put on the television, staring at some repeat of a sketch comedy show, the same repeat that always seemed to be on.

I looked over at the wall, at the wall under the thin cake of light blotting on it, dark, grey as bone, blue with cracks, dark, grey as bone.

Shutting off the television, I doubled over, not particularly needing to, could taste my breath, it seemed raw, like something sweet chewed too long.

***

I moved to the kitchen counter, leaned, spit long and thick into the sink drain and looked at the identification card.

It must mean that she was at home, at any rate.

The thought just lay there, it was like an insect that didn't know it'd been noticed.

It must mean that she was home.

Did this make sense?

Even if it did, I couldn't get any further than it.

Assuming it meant that, assuming it meant that, I said and didn't say anything else, just lost in the sing song.

I took out the thermometer, washed it off, shook it, shook it, shook it, set it beneath my tongue, the long of it also pinched by my teeth.

I tried to recall when I'd started thinking about this, now that it was such a fixation. It was a bit much to think I'd gone out for cigarettes just when this guy had left for cigarettes, headed back just when this guy was heading back, thought he'd been following me, but instead he goes to the apartment next to mine. Strange. But at the same time, it was a bit much to now suspect him of something.

Except I couldn't not admit to things, couldn't say because things seemed odd that it meant they weren't.

If something was going on, I hummed, was I now involved or not?

Was I?

If there was something happening to Ginette or if something had happened to her, if I told the story of this night to someone built around her having been hurt or something—I wouldn't, for some reason of decorum, go past the word Hurt—what would the faces be, what would be said to me, how would it look?

My fever had not subsided, except maybe to one hundred two degrees proper.

I glared at the bug I'd pinned beneath bowls and a soup can.

If I mentioned that in the story, what would people say?

-You pinned a bug under soup cans? I said, quizzically, testing it out.

Paused.

-Said, But what is it happened to that woman, Jervis?

***

Wetting my face again and again, I couldn't get rid of the feeling of wax, the feeling of being damp somehow under the surface, air trapped inside me, something making me feel looser than I was.

I considered just calling the police.

Why couldn't I?

I could utterly fabricate something, they'd show up, have to show up.

Fabricate what?

Anything, I said, as though it was obvious, a gag of spit in my stomach, loosening my pants, sitting to the toilet bowl, repeating Anything.

But actually, I couldn't come up with one particular thing to say.

I'd call, say that I heard screams? Heard an argument, it'd sounded like someone was hitting a woman?

Five minutes I sat, nothing issuing from me, chugging breath in head tilts through mucus, just playing out the scenario of the call.

They'd ask who I was.

So I'd just hang up. They couldn't ignore that.

I just couldn't call from my apartment, I supposed. I'd have to use some payphone, though maybe that would make it seem strange.

It became too much, any thought flattening to the same sullen clack.

I had a slight bowel movement, mostly thins of flatulence, flushed, stomach still upset, but shut the light, returned to the kitchen, returning to the pattern of thinking.

What if the police arrived and no one answered the door?

They weren't going to go kicking it in, they weren't going to sit there, sentry.

Or what if the man with the stitched mouth just answered? What if he communicated with them, pen and paper, let them have a look around? What if nothing was found?

He could claim he was there with consent, apartment sitting, that he was her boyfriend, that he had a key.

So, his word against a hang up call. His written word against a coward prank on the telephone.

The police would leave.

The stitch mouthed man, I said, he'd have no choice but to think of me. He'd think of me. I was obvious.

***

I started the oven for one of the cheap pizzas I'd buy in bulk from a nearby gas station, the only place that carried the brand, my favorite since I'd been a kid, they used to be everywhere. The task, the familiarity, it caught me up, combined with the drift to me from the fever and medicine, I soon was even milling, staring at the oven light, red, waiting for it to click off, indicate the heat had reached three-fifty.

I must've been back from my little trip to the laundry room at least forty minutes, I thought vaguely, glancing at the clock. The laundry had been almost done washing when I'd gone down there, halfway at least, certainly it'd have legitimately been finished by now.

Had the guy gone down for it?

I frowned, not really because I was still thinking about it, but because it was another thing I felt I should have a way to verify, but didn't. Or not a risk free way. I could go back down, but that would be tricky. Unless I took my own laundry or something.

I shook my face, put the pizza into the oven, went to the door, eye to peephole. I figured I'd hear his door unlatching, but this could've happened sometime earlier, when I was occupied, he could've gone down, come back.

He'd have to go down, again, to get them from the dryer.

My eye was still to the peephole, the warped image into it a poke, like a rub to an itch, a squirm.

Maybe he wasn't going to go get the laundry, I thought, maybe that was the idea. Leave the laundry, her identification and all, some evidence she'd been home if someone looked for her.

I coughed, suddenly, the tense of it bumping my forehead to the door.

I tried to regather the thought, sat down on the carpet, let my chin drip to my chest, the congestion running into the ridge of my nose.

***

I snorted, blinking awake from not knowing I'd drifted, a hard of phlegm having formed in the grip of my throat, but immediately realized I should keep quiet.

I heard the door to thirteen open, close, and focusing I stood up, trying to be quiet, no idea what could be heard through the thin of the door.

Face to peephole, I waited a moment and the man with the stitched mouth passed by, not stopping to look. It was over in three breaths in, two out.

The straightening of my body caused my stomach to unsettle, burrow down, a damp weight, sour lining my mouth. I got to the toilet, both loosening my pants and going to my knees, certain it was more likely to be vomit than a bowel movement, but my face over the crisp of the water, my breath moving stiff chills of ripples to the surface, stirring flat scents, seemed to settle me. But when I tried to move, the sensation of cramp and foul intensified, I just remained there, plastered, eyes viced in irritation.

If she was home, it'd only be her in there, she'd have to come to the door. Or, she wouldn't have to, but I couldn't see why she wouldn't. She'd assume he'd gotten locked out, it wasn't like he could call through to her. I'd knock, hold a finger over the peephole, she'd have to at least say Who is it? or something, maybe open the door, think he was playing a joke.

I let the thin spittle drizzle the water, blew, a mist of little bubbles popping, ugly sounds.

I straightened with less of a bad reaction, started getting to my feet, cramped back up, draped forward, grinding my forehead into the curve of the seat.

It was ridiculous, I hissed out of my nose, nothing, no air coming out, my sickness a clog, ears closing up.

***

A sudden burst, more like a sob than inspiration, I probed fingers down my throat and forced myself to vomit, did this three times, stood, felt unsteady, then had to sit for a loose bowel movement, breathing strange and digging fists into each of my thighs.

I took only a moment to rinse my mouth, throw water on my face, give myself a quick look—I seemed disheveled, miserable, almost hideous—and moved to the door.

Quietly, I undid my locks, stepped into the corridor. Empty, quiet except for the hushed buzz it always had.

I looked at the door to thirteen, then glanced in the direction of the elevator. If he wasn't doing anything but switching out the laundry, he could be up any minute. Or, he could stay down, have a cigarette, read a paperback.

I was frozen, didn't even want to do what it was I was doing.

It was just a knock on the door. It was a knock on a door.

What could happen? Everyone would be irritated, think I was an idiot, a creep?

I stepped to the door, looked over my shoulder at the elevator, again, gave four deep knocks and put my hand to the peephole. In the wait, not able to swallow properly, dizzy, my legs feeling numb, my groin too warm, I wondered what it would look like to him if he came off the elevator just then, saw me. I should've hit the summon button, know it'd at least take the time for the elevator to go down and back up, but it was too late, pointless to think about.

No answer at the door.

I knocked louder.

No answer, knocked louder.

No answer.

I let breath out my nose, warmed, I must've been holding it in two minutes, the blurt of it a whisker of mucus down to my chin.

***

Knowing that the gibber of thoughts was my own invention, that I was in the meager adrenaline of the moment, I teetered, left heel thumping the dulled carpet, staring at the back of my hand.

She wasn't in the apartment. This is what this meant.

I couldn't bring myself to knock, again, but the sensation of the thought was one of half-awake running into a wall, not even caring it'd happened, face to a flat mattress before the sensation of pain even warmed, a confusion about what'd actually caused the injury, wall, mattress, just the tightening of the face.

With my free hand, I touched to the door knob and gave it a turn, not having meant it to, but it turned, completely, my arm seizing fast.

A pause of one mouthful, no breath out, no breath in, a nothing.

I pressed the slightest weight forward, just enough that I'd be able to note when the deadbolt caught, but nothing did, the door was just unlocked. I had it opened a sliver before my thoughts caught up with me, then pulled it shut, slipped to the side, my hand covering the peephole as long as possible, got back in through my door, which I should've done quietly but didn't, the locks all to place in a coughing fit of one two three.

I shut off every light that was on and closed the door of my bedroom, the instincts of childhood, as though dark and asleep was proof I'd not done anything.

My clothing unbearable, I stripped, laying to the floor, laying my shirt over my face, my hands rubbing it down on me, a squish of the wet in my nose, my mouth, behind my eyes. I removed it in a cough, shoulders tensing me an arc, gut cramping, sitting me up, curling me forward, knees brought up by my ears, legs splayed, head hanging over my crotch.

***

I wanted to move to the front door, but was completely drained out, like a portion of me had leaked, was slowly drying into the carpet fibres.

I tried to calm down, reasoning that I'd only almost gone into a complete stranger's apartment at two in the morning for absolutely no reason at all, feverish and looking like a degenerate cretin.

Only almost.

I chuckled, sadly, blaming it all on something else. This certainly wasn't how I behaved. I was only acting this way because this was happening.

Eyes adjusting to the dark, I looked at the closed door to the room, half expecting the knob to jiggle, for there to be some pock-marked face behind the opening, a face as large as a train station clock, disc of skin covered with eyes, blisters and eyes—I actually had to put my hands over my eyes to stop the fixated gaze, felt on the verge of manufacturing the hallucination.

But it was worse, unending behind my hands, worse getting my thoughts to focus, because they centered on legitimate possibilities.

How did I know that the girl wasn't in there, that she hadn't just not come to the door?

She'd tell the man someone had been messing with the door, he'd know just what to think about it.

Or not even the girl, but some other person in there, some person who knew the door was unlocked, so it wasn't the stitch mouthed man knocking.

I started to cry, but made myself stand up, get a grip, made myself stop thinking, began talking aloud, said No more thinking, only talking, you need to stop thinking about all of this and stop being an idiot.

But immediately after the snap, I slumped, mute, sat to the bed, stared at the closed bedroom door, thought about my hand to the peephole of thirteen, someone's eye to the other side of the hole, only a door thick of wood separating their blinking lash from my sweating palm.

***

When I approached the kitchen again, groping, dragging my feet slow, bent toes roughed hot by the carpet along them, I felt better, like leaving the shut in room made me somebody else, or just myself, but then I upset the soup cans and overturned bowls, stumbled, caught to the opening into the kitchen, immediately understanding what I'd done. Fumbling, I got to hands and knees, flipped the bowl back over, held it down , got the cans on top, stood, hopping backward, brushing myself, brushing myself, coughing from the effort of brushing myself.

The light switch flapped up, a sour wince against the three exposed bulbs from the squat fixture, I cursed loud, balloon pop.

Eyes bitter slits from adjusting to the illumination, I scanned the floor, bent halfway, like having a squat, righted myself, flipped the main light on, looked for some disruption to the flat and nothing I should've seen of carpet, saw nothing, saw flat and nothing of carpet.

I attempted to convince myself the insect was still trapped, but even before my weight fully settled, leaning to the counter, I'd collapsed into angry tightening of my wrists, slaps at the air, throttles of nobody there.

I got the broom from the corner and ran it over the kitchen tile, at least wanting to be sure the thing wasn't hiding in the undersides of the cabinets, in the inch and a half the bristles got under the dishwasher.

For a hideous moment, I wasn't even certain if I was positive I'd caught the bug under there, the first time.

Had I? Or had I just hoped I had, not bothered to verify?

The problem was, if I'd verified it before, now I couldn't think how I had, because I wanted to verify it now, but just stared at the bowl, the cans, not able to imagine myself lifting them for a peek, not able to imagine I'd done so just an hour or so ago.

I tipped the cans down with the broom handle, then put one back, went into the parlour for a heavy book, found a dense film directory, returned, removed the can and slowly began to lift the bowl. Peeling it up like a bandage, underside-wet, scab stuck to the raising adhesive, I already knew nothing was there.

I flipped the bowl.

Nothing there.

Flipped it back. Set one can on. Set the other on. Took both off. Set the film directory on. Set one can on, again. Set the other can on, again.

***

I started a shower, dreadful, couldn't really tell that the water was hot from touching it, just from the way it steamed the room. I left the overhead fan off, not my habit, but I wanted the steam, the moist to everything.

I was more aware of being ill, more aware of how I felt clamped, stale air kept by force in a mouth unable to open, air passing from the nose into it, out the nose from it.

I turned on lights throughout the apartment, a childish quiver to me, any time I saw it dark around a corner it made me feel uneasy, caught my thoughts in worthless sideways.

So I flopped on the bed, cheek to the mattress sheet, a view of the odd pile of books over on my dresser, no idea which they were, if I'd read them, how long they'd been there, and I didn't care, fell anything, just looked.

My eyes closed.

If I went to sleep, I could wake up unremembering. Obviously, I was just excited and fatigued too much at once.

Either way, I really was out of options.

And either way, nothing was happening.

I rolled to my back, sometimes my eyes open, sometimes my eyes closed, making taps in the air as I moved through points, tried to come up with what I was actually so worried about, to begin with. The best I'd manage—noticing a tepid trick of saliva in the crack of my mouth over and over, proving I was nodding off, not thinking about anything—was to make a list of words, icons, ideas.

The man's mouth.

Going to the store.

He'd not been following me.

I'd thought he had.

Too late for laundry.

Too early for laundry.

My throat had dried and I sat up, violent coughing, sure I'd passed out, forehead swimming with the dull warm of an hour past.

But an hour hadn't passed. The shower was still running hot, the sweat of the room too unpleasant to enter so I shut the light and decided to let the water run itself cold.

***

I'd nibbled the skin at the side of my thumb to the point it'd started to bleed, not much, just a dot, a shaving, but if I sucked on it or pressed on it, the bleeding didn't stop, the spot'd go lifeless pale, then slowly recolour red, form a droplet, stand.

I got up from the sofa, hadn't even been paying attention to the film I'd put in, and went to the kitchen for a paper towel. In a casual glance, I took in the front of the stove, noted the time, turned to find the towel, then tensed, chuckled, realized my pizza was still cooking. For a breath I wanted to move quickly, give a violent tug to the oven door, but it wouldn't have mattered, so I just sighed, shrugged the motion, found the pizza burnt, inedible. I left the tray on the stove top, went for a slice of bread, decided not to eat, finally took the paper towel from the roll and saw Ginette's identification, money, credit cards.

I could take them back to the laundry room. I felt sober for realizing this, almost cured, giddy. I even said it aloud, like a fine conclusion to an intricate logical construction, said that I could just take the things to the laundry room. The dryer would even still be going, I could toss them right in, that would be that.

A pang of curious guilt went through me, concern that I'd definitely be wrecking the things. But it's what would've happened anyway, it's what should've happened—my being the one to make it happen was a gesture that, in effect, removed me from the situation.

-Yes.

I said that aloud, too. Didn't feel happy, exactly, but agreed.

***

I was only hesitant a moment, stepping into the corridor, but had decided to dress in more than just pajamas, had tucked cigarettes in my pants, would either smoke in the stairwell or step out to the building side.

I tucked Ginette's things into my pocket, felt them in there through the fabric compulsively on the elevator down, in the silence of the decent really attempting to hock up phlegm, get rid of what seemed a dome, a film of thick mucus that covered the roof of my mouth, seemed to sheet over the drop of my throat down into me. The spot wouldn't clear, no matter what, I was even tempted to forcefully clear my nose, like a homeless man, degenerate, anything to feel for a moment like my mouth was actually empty, like something wasn't just halfway down me.

I'd gotten a cigarette to my lips in the hall up to the laundry room entrance, moved in through the propped door, eyes on the thudding machine, only one operating, was two paces in when I knew I'd walked right past someone seated, reading from a beaten up paperback.

I felt nauseous, ridiculous, caught, pathetic.

I took a moment, coughed into my fist, doubling over though I didn't need to. When I straightened up, I turned, like I was just stretching out a discomfort, and even expecting it to be there the sight of him, hand over his mouth, eyes on me, was a jab. He was still dressed as I'd first seen him—no coat, but otherwise the same.

He fixed his eyes on me, giving me a nod, slowly letting his hand go slack to his knee, scratched his ear, turned his attention back to his book, like finding the point where he'd left off.

***

Assuming I was just making matters worse, I pantomimed opening a dryer unit, reaching a hand in, squirmed my face put-off, as though I was touching something still damp. I couldn't bear to turn around, knew he was looking at me, or wasn't perhaps, he didn't need to be, but certainly thinking about me.

As part of my act, I reached into my pocket, removed Ginette's belongings, skimmed two of the dollar bills into my left hand, replaced the rest to my pocket, and then as casual as I could make it, dragging phlegm around gratuitously in my nose, as though this was something important to establish, I stepped to the change machine.

If I left the room, he'd of course go over to the machine, open it, find it empty. He'd check the machine, whether I started it or not, though, at least if I started it there was a chance the illusion would not be poked through.

The obvious solution presented itself—have a seat myself, pick up a lousy magazine—but I winced against it, walked back over to the machine, not exactly sure it was the same one, not sure whether he'd notice, if it even mattered at this point.

He knew he was the only one doing laundry. He was just watching me, completely bewildered, watching me lunatic around with make believe laundry.

I wouldn't stay. It was impossible. I would not sit next to this person, in silence, no choice about that unless I wanted to blather, not that I could maintain even a flimsy nonchalance.

The dryer started up, vibrating coolly, no real difference to the overall drone in the hollow space, just a two second clap of louder, then everything evened out.

I must've drifted, just been standing there, caught myself and rolled my neck, found he was looking at me, something almost like concern on his face.

I broke my eyes from him, slowly, at a loss for what to do, not wanting to do anything, dismal and finished, absolutely finished, childishly destroyed.

***

Again, I was too aware of my walking, felt stiff, rickety the corridor back to the elevator.

I hit the button, training my eyes back on the opening into the laundry room, craning my neck to see if there was some strange angle he might be able to see me from.

In the elevator, I hesitated, popped sounds from my lips, cigarette in them, two fingers pressing the ridge of my nose to relieve some pressure.

A few minutes went by and I thought I could let the door open, sneak back, quickly slither up, catch him red handed checking on the dryer I'd started.

Then I flapped limp hand at the button for the lobby, knew it would be even worse to catch him, because then a confrontation would be forced. At this point, I still had nothing to do with him, other than perhaps he thought I found him distasteful.

His mouth was stitched shut, I snorted, spit without meaning to, a thick of it striking the door, hardly moving down even with the weight of it, but moving down, moving down, if I stared I could see it. Of course I found him distasteful.

My breaths were swimming and stale, made into a loose mouth, out through a shaped pucker. I'd either pass out as soon as I laid my head down or else vomit for an hour, empty myself dry.

The doors opened on the lobby, the waft of the damp in, evidence of sloppy footfalls on the tile, new damp on the carpet, a big stack of telephone directories all along the wall beneath the fire alarm panel.

The door closed.

I hit the button for twelve, dabbed my cigarette tip at the smear of my spit that was no longer moving, no longer a lump, the descending line of it had flattened it into an off colour lick, the touch didn't even make the patted cigarette tip dampen.

***

I didn't leave the confines of the elevator, a rectangle of my corridor appeared, replaced by the door again.

I got a giddy sensation, something akin to how I'd felt the few times in my life I'd been caught out at something wrong, dead caught, nothing to do but sink in it. I figured he'd left the door to thirteen unlocked, again.

I nodded and nodded, for a moment got no further than that.

I could open it. At this point it wouldn't matter. Open it, call out Ginette's name.

If she was there?

Then I'd look an idiot, duck into my room, wait for the inevitable knock from her, the police, the stitch mouthed man—but I'd be past it, the worm out of my skull.

If she didn't?

I pressed the button to open the door, was ten paces down, just hearing it sliding shut when I took a bolt step, hard, accidentally bit my tongue, turned, staggering without needing to, exaggerating the pain of the hurt to my mouth, didn't catch the door but hit the button to get it open before it could move off.

I hit the button to every floor, in descending sequence, floor sixteen down to the lobby.

As I walked toward thirteen, it was against a churn in my stomach, sickness and tension that the trick wouldn't work. But it would. I didn't believe it, so I'd just pretend that I knew it would. It wouldn't take long enough that he'd decide to use the stairs, and even if he did, that took just as long. Likely, he'd fold the clothes if he was already just sitting down there.

My shadow coughed on the door front, covered the number, a blunt slurp of the saliva I'd let collect nearly dribbled over my lip.

I touched my hand to the knob, waiting for any resistance from anywhere. A last click, cramp to my legs—someone else could've shown up, those wet footprints in the lobby, anything, anyone, anywhere, anything, anything.

-I shouldered into the door, saying quite flatly Ginette?

***

The television was on, flicking half asleep grey toward the drawn curtains, curtains two layers of gauze, green and something else, in the dim it was hard to tell. It was light enough to see that no one else was there, and this was reinforced by the knocks I made to the walls, the kitchen counter when I crept in.

Oddly, I felt comfortable in the kitchen, in my dragging head I almost felt I should just lean there, have some water.

I noticed, numbly, a bit irritated it took me so long to focus, to get anxious again, a bag from the drug store, slightly crumpled on the counter next to some various mail. It contained a box of condoms. I held the box, staring, turning it over a few times, narrow eyed. The receipt showed that this'd been the only purchase.

Jittery, now, a surge through me, coming to my senses and feeling the close of time, I made my way haphazard around the apartment.

Nothing to indicate that a man lived there. The photographs, what few there were, seemed to be of Ginette, some of her girlfriends, family. I ducked into the bathroom, no sign of shaving razor, only one toothbrush, only soaps that seemed feminine, and the particular dinginess to the place wasn't thick like a man's, was just there, present, like it was kept generally straight so that a bit of dishevelment didn't matter.

Like my apartment, it was one bedroom, so I imagined the bedroom would be where some sign of a male inhabitant might be.

Not touching for the light switch, I took the two paces down the squat hall, touched to the bedroom handle, felt it turn, but when I gave pressure forward, it didn't budge. I stepped back to have a better look, saw the two heavy padlocks in place, the odd, excessively screwed to place mountings forced into the blunt of the wall.

***

I'd struck my flat palm to the door a few times when it occurred to me that even if someone was in the room, they couldn't open the door.

I started to say Ginette, but my stomach lurched, bored into itself, I doubled over with the cramp and felt bile up my throat. Doing my best to keep it in, I moved my hands to cover my face, but despite this, a burst, I vomited, felt the thick and hot of it in my nose, took an awkward step backward, eyes soaked from the effort, coughed freely, hard, uncontrollably, another blurt of liquid and muted solid spraying like a sneeze as I turned my head.

Breaths like jabs up my ribs, I swiped at a thick string of saliva that strung from me as I got to the door, to the corridor—another sharp singe, headache, I coughed violent, saw a slop of grime hit the lower part of the corridor wall, the carpet.

I squirmed back into my apartment, crying, dropped forward and, not thinking, put my face to the inside of my raising elbow like to stop a sneeze, hissed more vomit, breathed it in, swallowed wrong.

A moment or two later, I was at the toilet, fast to place, vomiting thoughtlessly, intense pain up my neck, pressure at the sides of my head. I couldn't think, felt a grinding behind my eyes, teeth to concrete, the eyes themselves felt rung flat and dry, crisps wrapped in wet cloths.

The vomiting passed. I could tell all at once it was over and done, but I stayed where I was, more and more aware of how much I was crying.

I pulled a folded bath towel from off of the tank of the toilet, rubbed my face dry with it, got to the mirror and glared at myself. The residuals of the cramps teased me, made my body feel like a fallen asleep foot. I gritted my teeth, spread my lips to see the grimace, but a layer of phlegm, paste brown, covered the opening, a sour little gauze.

***

On my way to the kitchen, I saw that I'd taken the bag with the condoms from thirteen, the rumpled plastic sullied in odd lines with my filth. I set the bag on the counter, opened the refrigerator for something with a taste, the water and antiseptic wash not ridding my throat of the feeling of sicking up, glanced at the stove where I saw the little red light indicating the oven was still on. I shut off the dials, drank half a bottle of limeade down, regretting it immediately, a tightness to my bowels, the first lurking of my next cramp.

I had shivers, but shook my head, getting the thermometer to place, sure I was somehow exaggerating matters, that I was not deathly ill, was just shaking from agitation and a rightful sense of panic that I seemed curiously to not be experiencing correctly.

One hundred one degree fever.

I hissed, not believing it, shook the thing down, cleansed it, reinserted it under my tongue.

Already it seemed forever ago—being in thirteen, Ginette's apartment, the padlocked bedroom. The same peculiar calm I'd felt in her kitchen was a mouth around me in my own, behind my door, away away away away away away.

I muttered the word Away, touching my forehead when the thermometer again read one hundred one.

Like a handclap, it occurred to me that he must have keys to the room in order to've gathered the laundry. I'd no idea why I cared or what this proved, but connecting him to that door, connecting him to that door being fastened tight seemed appropriate.

But no. It wasn't even true.

I deflated.

I wanted not to care, or to settle on something, anyway. I was delirious, but couldn't be, my fever was even lessening if the thermometer was to bet trusted.

She could've left the laundry in the hamper for him to do, asked it as a favor of him, fair exchange for letting him stay the night or whatever.

No, I protested, pointless, already agreeing with myself, agreeing my own argument against myself.

-You're right you're right, I said, wet hand over my sore face, a single hiccup, painful, causing my eyes to shut.

***

The odd reverie passed, an abrupt change, I crumpled, thinking that I needed to leave the apartment.

What was he going to think when he got up with the folded laundry?

I'd vomited all over my neighbor's apartment, it seemed silly to remember, but it was true. Actually, I didn't exactly remember it, had no image of the trail I'd left, but knew I'd vomited on the door, the carpet, in the corridor, everyplace.

Leaving wasn't going to do anything about it, I said. Then stopped, empty of thought again, not doubting the correctness of what I'd said, but also not seeing the direction it should lead me.

I turned out the few lights that were on, laid to the sofa, wrapped my face in my arm and kept my eyes open, made believe I could stare through me at the ceiling, liked the pressure of my arm on my vision.

Why would the guy think I'd done it? And even if he thought it, what was he going to do about it?

I became interested in this.

What was he going to do about it? Call the police?

I moved my arm, let it limp over the couch side. Any normal person would call the police, there'd been someone in the apartment and the apartment was not even his.

I started to sit up, but the pressure behind my forehead pitched up so violently it was as though I'd struck something. Lowering, I let myself relax completely, could feel the bulbs of pulse at my fingertips, at my throat, in my ears.

I couldn't really hold any thought, my drowsiness returned, the word Drowsy making me wonder if I should take more medicine, if the vomiting cleared out of me what had been bringing my fever down.

I had my one hand pincered around my forehead, forcing thumb and middle finger down to both my temples when I thought I felt something scraggle, crawl up onto my side from the cushion. An image of the missing insect, I bolted up, gritting eyes closed against the pain, was to my feet, rubbing myself, slapping, backpedaled, hit my bookshelf, tried to get balance, slumped to the wall, involuntarily bristled, could feel the hissing of air out of my skin. Wheezed and growled for however long.

Then got control. Breathed.

***

I decided on taking a few more ibuprofen pills and another dose of the cold medicine, though this was difficult to choke down, brought up the thick of my upset stomach, made me smell me on my breath.

If he called the police, there would be no reason I'd have to answer the door, of course, but it seemed better that I be away from the apartment, entirely.

I thought about cleaning up any traces of vomit from my own apartment, but certainly the guy telling the police that he suspected me, writing this on a scrap or a torn napkin, wouldn't be enough that they'd be allowed to enter my apartment. They'd have to wait for me to come back or else wait for me to wake up.

-So, I muttered, there was no reason to leave.

Regardless, the guy would now know what was going on, there was no way around that.

I strained to listen, but didn't guess he was back from the laundry room, something would've already occurred if that were the case.

Idiot, I considered there might be time to clean up his apartment, or the corridor at least, but I'd get caught out at either of those things.

I simply had to wait.

Why padlock a room? I suddenly asked aloud, why double padlock a room?

They'd seemed so dead and heavy, the locks, like animals damp and strung from fence slats.

Why would Ginette have padlocks, obviously self installed, on her bedroom door?

It made no sense.

I just lolled around and around, sticking what I considered the pieces of some puzzle randomly this way, randomly that, a lullaby focus to it, a meandering no place.

Why would this man install locks? Install more than one hard lock?

If someone wants someone out of their room, they get a thick latch, sure, they don't trust the flimsy door locks, want something a bit extra, that's all true. Locks like the one in thirteen, though, those are always meant to keep something inside, always, or at least much more than they're meant to make the outside stay out.

***

From the sofa, again, I heard the shush of him getting to the door, thirteen open, thirteen close. The dull clack of the door shutting through my wall spread thin and final in the dark, felt the same thing as the dark. Distanced, my eyes were lolling in my head, mind as much concerned with fleeting thoughts of television programs as anything else.

The dark made it worse, I felt indelibly nowhere, nothing to do with anything.

I listened and listened, got up, moved slowly, pointlessly slowly, to the kitchen, got out a plastic drinking glass, crept back to the parlour, put it against the wall.

Nothing.

I smiled, in the dark the smile just a noise, a breath down my nose, didn't even know if a plastic glass to the wall really worked—I suspected it did, in principle, but really had no idea what part of thirteen my ear was up to.

I was startled by the glass hitting the top of my foot, snorted, my knees catching stiff, shook my face, carefully tapped around until I felt the glass, knelt to pick it up, just left it, moved back to the sofa.

He must've noticed it all by now. I didn't really know, but it seemed it'd been ten minutes. Even had he overlooked it, been caught up thinking, everyone has a look around enough to notice such disarray, it's instinct, more than even automatic. He certainly would've checked the door locks.

So what was he doing?

I stared at the wall.

How would he call the police?

If he had a cellular telephone, I supposed he could text message them, but that seemed peculiar.

What else?

Dial the number—emergency or nonemergency—hit keys to cause beeps until the dispatcher got the idea the caller was mute or hearing impaired or something?

Just leave the phone off the hook, I suppose, I said, but that didn't seem appropriate, would just be a weird thing to have to do.

A moment later, I heard the thuds at my front door, insistent, definite.

I made a bubble of my spit pop on my lip, waited the interval, heard five more thuds thud thud thud thud thud fast.

***

Some period of time passed, two minutes, five minutes, with me standing in the dark, eyes adjusted as well as they could be, enough to make out the fixtures familiar to me, the knocks coming quite regularly.

He hadn't called the police, I thought, then thought he may well have, then thought if he had he wouldn't be forcing this confrontation.

But what did he want?

Not to talk, I probably whispered to myself, wanting to see the expression on his face.

The knocks were too direct to even consider it was just a passing idea to him that I'd been behind it, there was a trail of vomit from there to here.

I heard the door knob touched, heard it turn, a wave of nausea clambering all over me, like feet scraping in my gut, slipping, catching, slipping, catching, and a shiver of dizziness up my neck.

The knob had turned all the way and had been let go, snapped back. He'd be looking down at it, wondering if my bolt was to place, my chain, even as I wondered that, unable to remember, slinking into my bedroom, closing the door most of the way, face creaked into what I'd left open.

He entered the apartment, not making much secret about it. I heard him running his hands along the wall, slapping his palms, finding out the light switch, just the dull brown bulb above him coming on.

He was making odd gurgles, a purring, deep breathing behind his shut face.

I saw that the kitchen light went on, heard his feet, in shoes, on the tile, back and forth, looking, shuffling, a long breath out his nose ending in a pinch.

I swallowed at the sound of the drugstore bag crinkling open, being closed in a hand, the condoms stuffed into his pocket.

He used something, one of the dirty drinking glasses, to make five knocks on the counter, then a strange sound I couldn't understand, like a mewling, a whine, something a dog might make if kicked in its sleep.

***

I backed up toward my bureau, leaned on it, head heavy, chin buoying in pats against my chest. I was letting my nose stuff up from not wanting to snort in, accidentally make some whistling sound, my mouth was getting bloated with breath and spit just left there unswallowed.

There was a little bit more sound of him shuffling around, touching some things, getting my name from the mail left around, probably, then I could hear his feet on the carpet.

Then nothing.

Nothing. Nothing.

Then it was as though he pounded his foot four five six seven times on the carpet in one spot, stamping like an animal, trying to echo me out, get me to scurry.

I knelt, unplugging the clock radio, gripping it in both hands, moved in the direction of the door.

I heard the overhead fan in the bathroom go on, off, noted the slight change to the carpet of the light switch being hit, pulled my bedroom door shut, almost locked it, then just took a step back.

As soon as he started with the knob, I stepped forward, gripped my end, pulled fast toward myself, tensed abruptly, pushed forward to cause him to stumble, pulled the door open forcefully, staggered two or three odd stutter steps and brought the clock hard into his face, the clock jarring from my fingers, ears aching from the jolt up my arms. I gripped his head, thumbs in his ears, battering the base of his skull against the door frame. Doing this, again, three times, quickly, until he slacked and dumped to the floor.

He was groaning, writhing slowly on his back, bucking oddly for air, face squirming to the side, cheek to the carpet.

I brought the heel of my foot down on his chest. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. He hardly seemed to resist.

Lightheaded from the effort, I sneezed, ears ringing, then got to my front door, locking it, testing that it was locked in compulsive rattles and tugs.

I started moving as though for the parlour, as though for the telephone, stopped, not knowing why I'd do that, checked the front door again.

Then trembling, senseless, I took a step back toward the bathroom and stopped, a slap, looking down. The remains of the insect were mashed into my carpet, a rancid, wet little blot, the damp flattened into the fibers from how many times he'd struck down his foot to the thing.

***

I just stood, knuckle of my bent thumb softly chewed by my front teeth, looking at the wall vent, listening to the odd snoring he was making, clogged snorts, an odd warble to the hiss of air through his nose and the churn like wet rocks inside him.

I couldn't understand how it'd come to this, how he'd gotten there. I puzzled it back as best I could.

But, no matter what'd gone before, he'd come into my apartment. He'd purposefully come in, looked for me.

What could he have wanted?

I gave a look to his unconscious form, the curve of his torso.

He'd already known it was me. If I'd answered his knocks, he would've forced his way in, there was no other thing to imagine. He'd cornered me into my bedroom. There was no excusing it—the fact that I'd done what I'd done didn't change the fact that he'd known it was my bedroom, known I was there, had turned the handle of the door.

No police.

No police.

I found my breathing was matching his, wasn't quite sure if I'd been trying to do that on purpose, if I was still trying to do it on purpose, it just seemed the tempos clicked, nothing to do with anything.

My eyes were leaning backward, my thoughts drifting around words, simple strings, no reason to them, waiting for a melody.

No police.

Opened the door.

Knew it was me.

That locked door.

I'd moved toward the kitchen, let my eye sink to the flat of the counter top, vaguely stared at the plastic bag that'd held the condom box, flicked it to the ground. My hands slipped to my pant pockets, my left one coming out with Ginette's identification, a few of her dollars, her credit cards, receipts.

***

It was out of the question, my calling the police. There was no way to twist it into This man broke in and I attacked him. Even if there wasn't ample evidence that this wasn't true, even if I manufactured some way to make it seem this is what'd happened, he'd wake up, he'd write down everything.

Something about that was horrifying, that he'd write it down. Or he'd pull the stitches from his mouth, explain, stitch himself shut after it was all out of him.

The clock showed it was just after four-thirty. The building would be waking soon, some of it already was, I was no longer some entity all alone.

I put Ginette's things into the man's pant pockets, got my cupped hands under his arms, tried to drag him, had to hump him along in awful tugs, back stiffening, cramping, the slithering of my bowels becoming too much to deal with.

Everything collapsed, everything.

I couldn't begin to understand any of it. I was furious, kicked him in the ribs with my heel, this causing a squeak to his snoring, nothing else.

Abruptly, forceful, making me stop thinking about whatever I was about to think about, I went through his pockets, extracting Ginette's things I'd just put in, then found her apartment key, some used tissues, a used Band-Aid, some receipts.

No key to the padlocks.

I stuffed everything back into one pocket, a sudden pang of needing to urinate, went into the bathroom, ran the water, slapped some to my face, undid my pants front and voided myself standing there.

When I was through, I absently flushed the toilet, then ran the water, soaped and washed my hands, looking at my face in the mirror, watching myself pretend, keep myself distracted, do things while I was doing other things.

***

The corridor was awful, nobody in it, the knobs of closed doors stationary, the light a stale breath, not even noticeable, just there.

I was more aware of myself and how uneasy I was. I couldn't imagine there was a way to make the operation quick, to just swing him the ten paces, twelve paces, fifteen paces to the next door—less than that, more than that—get him inside.

Would it take five minutes?

It couldn't take longer.

I tried to imagine some way to explain myself were I witnessed, but it was idiot, even if I could explain myself there'd be no escaping I'd been seen.

I discovered that he had locked the door to thirteen, which for some reason was more off putting than anything else. Likely, it'd just been a principle thing, there was no way someone who realized their apartment had been entered by a stranger wouldn't lock the door, next time out.

It wasn't his apartment I reminded myself, but was bored with it, bored with reminding myself about him, it was tiring.

I retrieved the key, propped the door after briefly peeking around the apartment, assuring myself it was vacant, returned to my door and stood with it open, resting pressed into my ribs.

I heard the ping of the elevator, jerked back so quickly my head, behind my ear, struck the thin of the door side, my hand striking the door, too, as it raised to press the sore.

Grimacing, face clenched, I watched in the direction of the doors, heard them open, close, nobody stepping off.

I swallowed heavy, infuriated, shut my door and smacked myself in the face a few times, made shoving motions at the air, panted, sneezed, growled as I wiped my hands of the mucus that had issued on the sides of my shirt.

Looking down, I saw his nose was bleeding. Not his nose. A long scratch to his cheek. It hadn't been there before. I stared, about to kneel to examine it, then saw the blood on my untrimmed toenail, into the hairs behind it, the rise of the joint.

I hadn't even noticed stepping on him, again, kind of smiled, then stopped—or didn't feel like I was smiling, my thoughts tense, but probably still was.

***

In shoes and socks, I jogged to the elevator, called it up, hit the button for the basement, jogged back to my door. Using the fact that I was already winded to urge me on, I bent down, curled my elbows under his armpits, waddled backward with him, six seven eight nine ten eleven waddles, his body halfway out the door, six seven eight waddles, his feet out, my door clicked shut.

The rest of the length to thirteen was feverish, hardly seemed to matter, squeals of cramp, sweating, thought I'd wet myself but had no idea, really. I could only move him in quick tugs with three breath pauses between after the first few efforts, let my head loll around, really felt I could pass out, no blood in me, no air in me, felt myself tensing against the empty behind me as though the empty were made of fingers made stiff to tap to halt.

As soon as the door to thirteen was shut, both of us inside of it, I broke down crying, wheezing, hands and knees, my forehead boring into his chest.

I couldn't stop.

I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop.

I pulled myself up halfway, still on my knees, now with my shoulders against the wall, opened and closed my hands in front of me, found they were shaking so much they never quite got shut all the way or open, in fact they moved the same, in and out, whether I meant them to be shutting, opening, nothing.

Kind of standing, doubled over, elbows to the center of my thighs, hands crossed over each other, limp at the writs, neck arched, peculiarly, stiffing taut as I held it, I got to the kitchen, ran the faucet, drank from my blubbering hands, using the wets of them to wipe at my face, poking my eyes over and over while I did, because they just wouldn't close, were stained open, indelible.

***

In the main room of thirteen, I breathed in tugs of my gut far in, enough my ribs would show through my bare skin, out in a blunder of my gut a mound over my waistband.

I was trying to get any sensible line of thought to catch, sensible just meaning any three consecutive sentences having to do with one another. Time felt long and all finished at once.

What must have been the dozenth time I looked at the recliner, I took note of the duffel bag, moved toward it. It was his, which got me oddly excited, like it proved something, something about how he shouldn't have been there, gave him again this sense of interloper, of tourist, of the thing out of place and I urgently needed to keep him framed in such a way, the force of how garish he'd been was not foremost in my thoughts, anymore, I was slipping into fatigue, fatigue making me feel guilty of everything.

I unzipped the thing, found a change of clothes, a paperback novel, a plastic bag with toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste, a stick of deodorant.

I was arguing whether this made it seem more like he didn't belong or more like he did—on the one hand, it made thirteen seem like a hotel, a destination, on the other, made him seem he'd returned home. The clothes had a musty scent, everything seemed used, specks of chalked water to the plastic bag—then I uncovered the three sacks of liquid.

Like in a hospital.

Fluids.

There was also a pouch of supplies—needles, tape, something to secure the line to him intravenously.

He snored a series of moaning hiccups, squashed bleats out his nose.

I took up a bag, read the side, felt it flaccid, heavy in my hand. I dropped it, disgusted irrationally when I thought This is how he drinks and in the same thought knew it was also how he ate.

***

I was gripping his ankles to bring him further into the apartment when the voices of two people passing in front of the door jarred me, just a quick sound of them, voices in good humor, half of a laugh and they were gone.

I moved to the peephole but didn't put an eye to it.

The clock on the microwave above the stove showed it was past five in the morning.

It was morning. Had I killed him an hour later than I had, I never would've been able to have brought him back to thirteen.

-He isn't dead, I whispered, not even regarding the remark, it hung there. Then I scratched my ear, nodded, made Hmn sounds, agreed that he wasn't dead.

I hadn't meant Dead, hadn't meant Killed him or whatever I'd thought, whatever I'd whispered.

More unsettling though, I realized I was actively considering Ginette dead. And it comforted me. It made me feel safe. Ginette dead had been somehow my driving focus, what was holding things to place. If she was dead, there was every chance I could go undiscovered.

-But she'd not dead, I said, a slower whisper than I'd done about him.

She isn't dead.

-Ginette isn't dead, but I hope she is, I said it, swallowed it, then paced to the padlocked room to distance myself, drift to a new consideration.

I returned to his duffle bag, emptied it, went through everything, checked for small pockets I might've overlooked, but there were no keys. I emptied his wallet of everything, thinking the keys might've been slipped into one of the slots, but there was nothing.

My attention drifted back in the direction of the door. I tensed, thinking I'd heard the sound of another door shutting, waited for more voices, but if someone passed, they did so without a word, with nothing.

Glancing back to the floor, I saw his identification, picked it up.

Dimitri Livenst.

He was smiling in the photograph, his lips unparted.

***

I stretched out my lower back, a turn of my torso, my vision darkening, taking a long time to come back to normal and I felt light, like I was a dent on the back of my skull looking out at what I could see through my eyes.

I went to the kitchen, touched around for something to eat, couldn't think of when I'd eaten, figured I needed something in me. I devoured three slices of cinnamon bread, spitting out the last bite when I tried to swallow but found I'd not chewed it enough, couldn't get the mash right in my mouth to chew it more, my throat kept rising to swallow, impatiently.

There was a cork board mounted next to a wall telephone, and on two thumb tacks were keys, one long, fat, the other small, a green sticker about the size of a medicine pill on it, halfway peeled up and dirty from fingers touching the adhesive.

I moved with the stickered key to the padlock after one last handful of water, only catching it in one palm, lapping it twice then slurping.

A headache that'd been rising worsened right into my eye, I brought the top of my wrist to it, then was startled by the sound of a vibration, something rattling along a hard surface.

It sounded again, just as abrasive.

I found a cell phone, Dimitri's I imagined, on one of the bookshelves, jittering along to an incoming call. It stopped and I watched it lay, jittering, the intervals peculiar.

I felt a grab in my bowel, like a hand closed up around my insides and tugged down, something hung like a weight from the base of throat.

I opened the phone, found that six text messages had just come through. I hit the button to read the last, the phone shivering with a new message as I stared at words I couldn't decipher. I checked another message.

Another. Another.

Gibberish. Strings of letters that didn't even resemble a language.

Not gibberish, I hissed, suddenly struck myself in the leg, hard fist, pressed and pressed. Just a foreign language.

I'd no idea what any of it said, but every message, every of these last seven, had at least two question marks in them.

***

Both padlocks came open easily, I pushed up on them, they slipped through their loops, hit the floor, were quiet.

The room smelled of the rain outside, both of the windows open a crack. It took me a moment to focus on it, but there was a clock on the far side of the bed, a radio, the volume humming just loud enough to register. The bed hadn't been made, but was not overly disheveled, not undone, mixed into the folds of the turned up sheet and blanket were a patterned camisole, one sock, a pair of panties on the floor by the bureau and two more and something else, some cloth I couldn't tell what—a scarf perhaps, leggings—stuck out the lip of the middle drawer, just slightly opened.

The light switch activated a tall lamp, the shade to it decorative, made to look like painted glass but plastic, the bulb inside soft wattage.

The sound of my breathing was so distinct it felt I knew how it would be spelled, like it enunciated itself in its hush out its hish in, the congestion behind it distinct breaks in syllable though no interruption to the sound.

It was just a room.

There was no sign of anything out of place. There were drinking glasses and two cookies on a plate—I broke one in half and it was obviously not stale, just out of the package that day, that afternoon maybe.

I checked under the bed, saw some random sheet of paper, a coin.

The closet was immaculate, the inside of the drawers perfectly orderly.

I didn't understand it.

From the open windows I became aware of the noises from the street, starting to become regular, car doors, shifts of traffic, burbles of talk, laughter, sneezing, coughing, the still present shiver of moisture in the air.

As I backed out of the room, I noted that there were two other padlocks hanging from two other mounts, amateurishly affixed to the wall, a thumb tack there for hanging the keys.

***

The reality of the night beginning to grip me, I paced the apartment, moaning a little bit.

It was irrelevant at this point what'd come before, it was irrelevant.

I couldn't help but argue that, tilted from a certain perspective, there was a clear chain of events, something not understandable, perhaps, but certainly discernable. Absolute events, an absolute sequence to them, regardless. I was in no semantic situation and whether this was true all of a sudden or true as the result of a slow progression, it simply did not matter.

But still, I writhed at the sensation of unfairness, inequity, the drift that certain moments were charged more fiercely, made heavier, blundered with so much more weight than others.

There simply did not seem to have been enough time to have changed so much, but this is not what I'd been before. It was not. But a result couldn't be so immediate.

A result of what? What was I a result of?

I growled, as though there were somebody putting these questions to me and as though I was putting the questions to somebody, having them mocked, stared at bewildered in response.

It remained that it was no metamorphosis, no birth that'd happened, so how did it go from this, I pointed at myself, to that, I pointed at Dimitri.

After a pause, a grip of nausea, like greasy hands gripping the wet bones of my wrists and ankles and jangling them, making my breath bubble, I said the word Irrelevant, again, but it had a different tone, seemed much more comforting.

Irrelevant. Irrelevant.

But one more time saying it, this no longer sounded like a word, it became a singsong sound, a child mimicking another child's unintelligible giggle.

Irrelevant. Irrelevant. Irrelevant irrelevant. Irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

***

I dragged Dimitri into the unlocked room, tried to hoist him onto the bed but couldn't, gave up, couldn't catch my breath from that particular effort.

Panting, humps of my chest, I collected his duffel bag, anything else that seemed to be evidence of his presence, tucked his telephone into my pocket, looked around to see that apparently he'd scrubbed up my vomit.

He must've done it before knocking on my door. I was struck with curiosity, wanted this explained.

Had I not directly, immediately occurred to him? Had he just seen the mess, started cleaning, as though there was some honest explanation?

No.

I took one of the covers off of a bed pillow, arranged it over Dimitri's head.

He'd cleaned up, angrily, scrubbing with me in mind, just didn't want to leave the filth to stain and harden, had maybe shot off a message to the person on the other end of the line. As soon as he'd had enough, he'd wiped his forearm across his mouth, flapped his open palm again and again against my unlocked door.

I propped his body up, like I was a chair back, titling his head so I could look down at what would've been his face were it not just a pillowcase faintly warming, cooling in a tiny little spot.

I shifted my shoulders in practice tenses, unsure of how to apply the pressure, the torque, what would be enough to break his neck, then all of a sudden I had my arms wrapped on him and squirmed my torso obscenely, fell over, heard an easy shift of bone and skin, crawled forward, tried to stand, too woozy, disgusted.

I checked his chest, didn't trust myself that his heart wasn't beating. It seemed peculiar, peculiar that the neck would act on the heart so quickly, like there should be something else to the death of him—the neck made it a fact, but there should be some passage of time, an interval, a way to decipher life from death more than I'd fallen over.

The veins on the back of my hand were bloated, looked like lizard tongues, looked like I'd been growing someone else's skin in the middle of mine.

For a moment, I realized that I wanted to feel his heart beating, wanted it to beat, wanted him to be alive. But in that moment, all I did was stare at my hand, knew the pulse I felt was my blood pushing against my fingertips like it wanted out.

***

The room. Everything happening reduced to the length it felt a breath out of me reached, an arm length, a slight touch further.

A rush of thinking, sudden, violent, unwelcomed got all over me, cramped me up to the door, my back to it.

Obviously, what'd just happened had just happened, as had each thing prior to it, which had origin in which, which touched on which, which meant which, there was no room anymore for that.

I was checking and rechecking the locks to the door when it occurred to me I wasn't in my apartment—I was still in thirteen, the last place I should be.

I started unlocking the doors, stopped, put them all locked, again, stared.

Blinked.

Ducked my both hands up under the front of my shirt, started wiping with it, jutting it, humping it all over the door front. I did this until I was wheezing, nose clogged to the point my eyes stung.

Was there any way to think I could remove traces of myself from this apartment?

I looked round, fixated on things for no reason in particular—the arm of a chair, the glop of light on the desk corner, the darker patches of carpet, the light switches—no idea what I was looking for.

Touching my pockets like I might find my cigarettes, I knew there was no use in that. There was no use.

Dimitri's phone vibrated in my pant pocket, the noise and touch of it causing me to strike at myself, to brush up and down, hands over my head, hands over my head, involuntary, trying to clear myself of an insect even though I knew it wasn't there.

I opened the phone, fumbled at the button to show the message, a long line of incomprehensible letters, a question mark in the middle, in the exact middle, in a lump of garble.

Ridiculous.

I squinted at each word as though one might remind me of something, have enough to it I could get a context, decipher the thing, even choppily.

Then I noted that below the message there was information about the it—the number the message had arrived to, this phone, labeled Dimitri, and the number the message had come from, some number, labeled Ginette.

***

The earlier messages had come from a number that had no name labeling it. I dotted back through old messages, found that these two numbers—Ginette, unnamed—and only about four others were archived, in any way.

Then I ducked the phone back into my pocket, rubbed at my eyes, moved back to the front door, tottering, unable to go through.

If I left the apartment, I was leaving myself at the mercy of anything, I was behaving like a child hoping that pretending would carry enough weight to get myself overlooked.

There was no possibility that I wouldn't be connected to what'd happened in this apartment and the most vicious reality of this was that I could no longer, even flimsily, construct what my rationale for anything had been.

That Ginette might've been in some sort of trouble.

I nodded.

It was only natural.

To find out if something had been going on.

This was a line that separated things from things, this willingness to act on what was observed. I remembered thinking that, but had no strength in the remembrance, it was a though I'd thought that to myself at one point, but nothing else I'd done had anything to do with it. It remained a fact, I couldn't argue with it, but there was nothing beyond that, nothing in how I'd proceeded—I'd just strung along through guilt and shyness, through fatigued anxiety, embarrassment, and now I was left to defend myself of the results of these things.

Dimitri was dead and locked in Ginette's little bedroom. In the span of an overnight, I'd shifted awake from nobody into a murderer and there was no reason for it, it was as much a catastrophe for me as it was for Dimitri.

***

Another pacing around the apartment, I realized I was looking for someplace to hide. The front door just stood there, my apartment was just through the wall, looking at the wall was an inch off of looking at my own rooms, but the cringe of nausea that overcame me if I even thought of going back there was incapacitating, bent me forward, had me clenched and sweating against the roils in my gut.

Finally I gave in, used the toilet as hurriedly as I could, flushed still sitting, got my pants back on without wiping, started to move again for the main room but another rubbing of heat stopped me, I back pedaled, lowered my backs, voided myself, ran my knuckles over my lower back to try to ease out anything that might've remained, again stood, flushing, pants closed, was back in the main room two minutes before the urgency returned.

I laughed three breaths, completely miserable, staggered to the apartment door, unlocked it, let it close behind me, was through my own door and locked in before I could even consider it, like shoplifting a soda by opening it hidden behind a magazine, realizing the one action didn't have correlation to the other.

In my bathroom, without the lights on, inhaling myself, moaning at my exertions, I heard Dimitri's phone vibrate, again, barely heard it, flushed still sitting, a blunt cough unclogging my ears, sounds coming in like toy train whistles.

I'd killed someone less than twenty minutes ago, I thought, like it was still a curiosity, still something debatable, or like it was something I might mention in passing, have someone correct me on, something I'd overheard wrong, misinterpreted through some sly mistake of dialect.

-I said it aloud, I killed someone, bewildered by the fact that I was doubting it. I said it, again. Then said You killed someone? a purposeful tilt to the accent that made it a question. I killed someone, I said, perfectly uncertain, but not of any of my recollections, uncertain of something semantic, of some subtlety of definition.

Maybe that Dimitri wasn't a person.

-So I said, I killed Dimitri, removing the quirk of definition, making it more a flat fact.

Still it sounded peculiar, dissonant.

Maybe that I wasn't a person, I sniffled, but didn't seem to think that the sentence necessarily indicated that I was a person, just that I was I—a talking frog, a pile of wet paper, anything that existed and could be referred to.

I was something, regardless of what it was.

I'd killed someone.

The sentence stood inarguable, factually, but nevertheless incomprehensible to me, a poem, something that only sounded like what it said.

***

I poured some water from the tap into a cup I'd pulled from the basin, poured six or seven ibuprofen tablets into my palm, swallowed them, a bit of water dribbling to the counter that I wiped at with my hand, my hand then through my hair.

It was six thirty-seven, by the oven clock. Morning, unerringly morning. I just looked at the numbers while they changed—thirty-nine, forty—then set the thermometer under my tongue, looking down at my feet while I waited for it to record my fever.

No fever. Or so slight it didn't matter. Ninety nine three, ninety nine four.

I shook the thing down, set it under my tongue, but just as quickly removed it, knew it was correct, that I didn't need to be ill to explain myself at this point. No sleep, hardly any food in me, medicine running its course, the sound of creaking leaning from me however I tried to relax, there was no telling what I actually was.

It seemed absolutely horrifying, the sudden finiteness of it all, not even Finite how many minutes until someone was bound to go into thirteen—not Finite. Inexorable. Absolute. Everything had moved from erect to collapsed-years-ago without the count of three.

At the same time, though, I mumbled, didn't it seem I could just stay where I was, that everything going on without me would keep on going that way, might not seep in through the door?

I touched my hand to my forehead and the skin ached. I repeated this, fixated, even smiling. It was the skin of my palm that ached when the palm was on it own, held up, held away from me, but when it came to my forehead, even when it wasn't in contact, just the heat of it bearing down on my brow, the forehead took the ache on, sagged under it. Or my forehead ached, first, and the palm spooned the ache away a bit at a time, a bit at a time.

Or neither, I said, exhausted, humiliated, like I'd been actually telling this to someone and they'd caught me out on my half formed stupidities.

***

I tried to keep focused on a thought—that the incoming message from Ginette didn't mean that she was alive. It could've originated from her phone, someone else doing the sending.

But this was ludicrous.

Unable to focus any better on an alternative, I pawed at the idea, each thought ridiculing the notion more and more.

The phone showed messages nearly every day for a month, other saved messages from months prior, from Ginette.

Had the deception been going on so long?

I had a last little flare up, a last courage in myself, that perhaps the majority of the messages were genuine, they'd only just recently changed, maybe even over the course of the night—a simple tool to have around, an easy appearance to make.

Then I'd had enough, laid to the sofa, immediately sat up, laid to the sofa, immediately sat up, automatic, like I was making the incorrect motion, my body sensible enough to retch me up from down, still awake from attempting to sleep, but only that, not offering an alterative, a broken little doo dad, I was a button that fit fine through the hole but fell right off after.

My stomach knotted up, I flopped in two, catching myself on the sofa arm, twisting at the neck, lips an obscene snarl tugged around to one side of my head.

Leaning there, suddenly, I brought my fist down, as hard as I could manage, to the fabric of the arm, felt my wrist sizzle with numb and it recoiled, striking me square in the nose, my legs giving out, a blunt collapse to my knees.

I stayed there. On the floor. Stayed there. My hands were halfway through the motion of cupping, blood streaming from my nose, palm butts to either side of the throbbing flow but not touching each other, making a hole I was dribbling out through.

***

I made my way over to my telephone, took the receiver up, pressed the button for the dial tone and listened to how I could barely hear it, let the line go dead, hung it up.

The phone did something to relax me, though, and I again hit the button to dial, keying in the number to the store where I worked. Whoever was opening would be there, prepping shipment.

A supervisor I hardly knew called Leanne answered and I told her I was calling because I was ill, scheduled for the afternoon but was sure I couldn't make it.

Obviously busy with something else, taking her exasperation out on me, she said I'd have to get coverage, that someone else had called out already and she wasn't going to work alone until four when the early crew left at noon.

I stammered politely that I honestly had a high fever, that I wasn't playing around, I couldn't make the shift. She got a pointed little tone, said that she had to come in when she wasn't feeling well, everyone did, that I should find coverage and she snapped that she thought Samantha or somebody wanted hours.

I stood, listening to her doing paperwork or something, felt uncomfortable that she was being so quiet, just letting me stand there, just keeping the phone to her ear.

-Can I have some people's numbers? I finally asked, leaned to the counter, a droplet of blood from my nose again over my lip hitting my bent knee.

She asked me if I could call back awhile later and I, confused, said I'd probably pass out, actually, and could I just have some numbers.

Another two minutes of her working—maybe two minutes, I didn't know—my nose stopped itself up or at least stopped dripping to my knee, stopped clogging in the hairs of my shin.

She cursed at something unrelated to me then whipped this into telling me to forget it, she'd find coverage or would deal with it and as I tried to both apologize, say Thank you, explain myself, she hung up.

***

I cleaned myself at the bathroom sink, brushed my teeth, went through little ritualized motions I'd collected, things that constituted the part of my morning I largely paid no attention to. Now I watched them, clicked my tongue into the sponge of my cheek as I ticked off each one, the sound of observing appalling.

I loitered at my closet and bureau, knelt to examine the floor where Dimitri had attacked me—started to argue with myself about the interpretation of this event—but saw such clear indications of the violence, an ugly tug of his dingy hair just laying there, cakes of dandruff still moist mixed in it.

I looked away, put on a new shirt, new pants, my shoes without any socks. I had a cigarette and looked at the cupboard of the kitchen, the wall beyond the stovetop, held my breath to see if I could hear even a creak of sound from thirteen, some evidence someone had gone in while I'd been in the throes of anxiety, remorse, feeble panic, whatever it could be called, but heard nothing and I let smoke a long time through the clot of my nose, tasted blood, smoke, soured old breath, new breath just as sour.

I took Dimitri's phone out, set it down, probed around my pocket a bit more because I'd felt something that turned out to be the padlock key. It was likely the only one, I thought, and this put a strange creep back in my thoughts, but just as quickly I shrugged, got a new cigarette going, said aloud It doesn't mean that, there could be ten million of these keys.

My eyes fastened to it, though. I touched it with the smolder of the cigarette I was about to discard and as I ran the faucet to extinguish this, set the key back to my pocket.

I moved to the door, face to the peephole, the lit of the empty corridor there, waiting, a bored little mouth going dry.

***

Between parting the curtains, not really looking at anything, stepping to the bathroom mirror, moving to the apartment door, to the kitchen, cigarette lighting cigarette, I tried to work up the enthusiasm to leave, even if just for a walk, nothing final. It was mostly the looseness of my bowels and an irritating pinprick of sensation of needing to piss every two minutes—two drops or nothing coming out if I did move to the toilet, the sink—that kept me in and I gave up on my notion of leaving somewhere in the nervous loop, the sitting to toilet, the standing.

Peripherally at first, I became aware of voices outside in the corridor, not people passing, voices unnaturally there.

I felt stung all over, heated in pain to the point of numbness.

There was an evenness to the tone, a private quality to the speech though the voices didn't keep hushed at all.

I took a quick peek out. There were two uniformed policemen there, between my door and thirteen—more toward my door, more toward thirteen—warped cups of two policeman in the corridor.

I shrank down, cramping, immediately perspiring under my arms, an ache to it, the hair stiff of old deodorant, it roughed into me decrepit.

I closed myself in the bedroom, sat to the mattress, running hands over my face or looking at the ceiling.

I couldn't quite understand the presence of the police, but the first time I even tried to give myself an explanation of their presence having to do with anything but me, anything but Dimitri, I bounced on the bed, laughed a burp, jittered there and growled at myself to shut up.

***

The officers had discovered that the door to thirteen was unlocked. I could hear them through the wall, voices like furniture moving, like distant television.

My breath was shivering and I tried to get an idea of if they'd both gone into the apartment, or if they one of them was standing in the door frame, eye on the corridor, on my door.

If there was some way I could slip by, it seemed too oppressive, nothing I was capable of enduring.

I assumed that either Ginette or whoever else it was sending messages had asked the police to check on Dimitri, hadn't been able to get him to respond to messages, these officers were just there to investigate that, nothing else.

What else could they investigate?

I was upset, felt invaded, like nothing that could be known over the telephone could justify this.

If they knocked on my door, I wouldn't have to answer. Maybe it would better to just walk out my door, say I was heading off to work if they stopped me and if not just keep walking.

I mulled it over, softly gummed the butt of my palm.

I couldn't leave.

It was better to stay, at least have an idea of what was going on.

-You're behaving curiously unlike a murderer, I whispered, had a handful of tap water, felt good I'd said it, waited for the thought to go stale, decay.

It's what I was, a murderer—whatever I was doing was what a murderer was—so it calmed me that I was so unlike a murderer, couldn't find myself in myself.

If there were consequences to anything, I knew they would be long, would just become words, soon enough be referential only to themselves, explanations and interpretations would replace Dimitri, replace me. Already had.

***

Not prepared for the knock, the ordinariness of it, I faltered where I stood, turned to the door by rote, had to exert force to curb the motion.

The knock did have a clap to it of casualness, like the officer might just be giving it a try, shrugging at his partner, nothing odd in thirteen so just seeing if a neighbor was home.

It occurred to me that maybe I hadn't been mentioned.

Maybe not.

Why would Ginette or this other person have concluded that I'd had anything to do with it?

I'd no idea what Dimtiri had written—even though he obviously suspected me, maybe none of that had come out to the others, he'd just thought to look into it, hadn't even mentioned the vomit, the stolen condoms, the laundry room, the drugstore, any of it.

Another knock and the door knob was also attempted, so there was no chance it was casual. Or little chance. The officer could've been checking just because when he'd checked thirteen thirteen had opened, just a little associative tick, something to do while he waited.

Like a grade-schooler, I made my face puffy, play smacked my lips, realized I'd taken off my lounge clothes, had dressed, cringed, ducked into the bathroom and wet my face, moved some things around, idiotic, straightened at myself, some sort of idea to make it like I'd been in the bathroom getting dressed, hadn't registered the knocks.

I flushed the toilet as a pathetic little delay, flapped the lights off, looked at the dark of me reflected, the apartment over my shoulder.

Everything was the matter—there was something the matter with time, with circumstances, with me, with the length of everything, the inertia, the sense of absolute, because nothing seemed absolute and everything was, absolute and ugly, leering, every moment and thought leered, groping me, lecherous.

The door just was there, just was there.

I waited, listening to the murmur of the two of them talking and after hardly a moment they knocked again.

***

I more nodded Hello than said anything, turned to get a cigarette going, probably just an excuse to look away, face going plump with an urge to hug the officers, start crying, make them wrongfully console me before I snorted out a confession.

One officer asked me if I'd been home all night, a pleasant tone to it, like the more cordial Good morning, how are you today? had just been mispronounced.

I'd been home, I said, nodded, bobbed, the officer nodding with me, eyes set, friendly, a tilt to them that made me let a long breath out my nose, bob one more time, take a drag from my cigarette.

-But? the officer said, a long way of saying it, off putting.

-I cocked my head a bit, said But? myself, heard my lips part, the officer shrugging, eyes on me, saying it'd looked like I'd been about to add something.

I couldn't hear, understand, so chuckled, made a gesture of cigarette, focusing on my hand, infantile following it as I spoke, stammered and eventually got out that I'd been home all night, but had gone out to the drugstore at one point, said I didn't know when they meant by all night.

The officer, after coughing into his sleeve at his wrist, like coughing onto exactly the button there, asked when I'd gone to the drugstore and I said I thought it'd been shy of midnight, maybe even eleven or something, heard myself saying I might have a receipt around then shook my head, involuntarily, adolescent, caught, awkward, made a blah sound, said that actually I'd just got the cigarettes and medicine, remembered I'd waved off the receipt.

As though what I'd said had been inconsequential, even off subject, the officer talking asked if I knew my neighbor, ticked his head toward thirteen.

-Ginette, I said.

-Ginette?

It was question, but I couldn't understand it as one.

The second officer looked at the door to thirteen, bottom lip stiffening like a point, huffed miniature cough or something and I stammered A girl named Ginette lives there, I thought.

***

Aware it was happening as it happened, but at the same time somehow helpless at reasonably finding a way to stop it, the officers had made their way into my apartment, both were through the door, as far as the kitchen entrance—it really may well have seemed to them that I was inviting them, or had conceded to their telegraphed motions.

The thing was, they weren't saying all that much to me, sort of half remarks, little gestures of One moment, talking to each other, seeming caught up in looking at something they'd written on some papers attached to a medium size clipboard. Either way, I couldn't think of any real reason to—all of a sudden, from their perspective—object to their presence. It even seemed were I to ask them what they wanted I'd come off as abrupt, suspect.

I stood by politely, testing to see if they'd venture further than me if I stayed put, and the one officer, giving a polite but rather unnecessary pointing gesture off past me whispered Excuse me, entered the kitchen, leaned the clipboard on the counter and made some few indications on the paper—it didn't seem like he was writing, maybe ticking boxes, maybe nothing, tapping the pen while he read something back.

I could feel my stomach cramping with filth, a trickle of moisture up the back of my neck, noticed Dimitri's telephone on the counter, couldn't even remember putting it there, ate my breath, went to my tiptoes to disguise my brief fixation on the off chance I was being peripherally observed.

The stretching made the imperative sensation in my bowels hiss. I had to lean forward a bit, breathing in stupid swallows, knew I was being looked at, groaned that I would be right back and slipped past the officer who'd remained in the hall, closed the bathroom door, ground teeth, clicked the overhead fan on, the light switch hit, too, but I shut the lights off, locked the door, the room neither dark enough, loud enough, nothing.

***

For what must've been five minutes, ten, I could hardly get a thought just for the cramping, the physical exertion, my focus more on the fact that even this was betraying me.

I chuckled, groaning into hands covering my face, at the simple realization that I needed to flush the toilet, but that I was not through defecating, that if I wiped one more time, added any more paper, tried to flush it'd clog, but at the same time, if I just kept flushing the toilet, there was no telling what the officers would begin to imagine. Even if everything was baseless, just giving them an odd fixation, something flatly bizarre, would tint the impression, sepia me, alert focus where otherwise I'd be banal.

It was impossible. I hated every inch of everything.

If I just stood, flushed, stoically rinsed my hands, left the bathroom, I knew that inside of two minutes I'd need to return and this would be all the more devastating, could easily take on umpteen interpretations.

Or maybe I could use this to excuse the officers out. I pretended saying it, I'm sorry I've been ill, I'm not feeling well, if you could excuse me.

Except it might just force the issue.

No, they might say. We'll wait.

And then they'd wait. They'd be waiting and I'd be in the same position only knowing they were waiting.

I already knew they were waiting of course.

I let my head hang flaccid, flapped it side to side.

If they weren't here having anything to do with me, they wouldn't be in my apartment, wouldn't have knocked on my door.

I just didn't want to admit things to myself, didn't even want to admit this to myself, didn't want to process it.

They didn't know anything, though, except something someone had told them and there were only so many things someone could've told them.

I heard, I thought, one of them running water at the kitchen faucet, laughing, a clap at something.

I didn't breathe for as long as I could manage, the idea being to listen, but when I let the breath out I really couldn't say if I had been, if I'd just been thinking about holding the air from leaving.

***

I playacted a bit more distress than I was in when the second officer, looking up at me before the first, asked if I wasn't feeling so good. Standing straight had cleared something, so I regretted having to pretend I was cramped, knew I was likely to actually cramp because of it, but it seemed better than showing relief only to have it collapse as suddenly as it might, go sour at the first wrong tension to leg or stretch of lower back.

The first officer pointed to Dimitri's phone, said it'd been jittering. I nodded, but again with an almost kindergarten game play. The officer didn't really stop pointing at the phone, let his arm and finger go slack, a bit, but their positions not really altering.

So I took up the phone, kind of turned away, had no idea if it was a ruse or not. I flipped it open, made a sound, saw that there was a message from the unnamed number, felt relief and nausea at once. I looked at the glyph of the message, closed the phone, set it down, said without prompting that it was friend finally getting back, letting me know they'd cover my shift. I added that they were probably just waking up, really, since I'd sent the message at three in the morning or something.

The officer, like I was getting back onto a subject he was keen on asked, but it sounded more like he was suggesting it, if I'd been awake all night, in my apartment and awake all night.

-I answered more or less affirmatively, said the phrase Little naps, shrugging my hands.

Then silence, the blunt of the second officer sneezing.

The phone still could've been a trick. Supposing more than one message had come in, they could've checked the first, seen the number, seen the foreign language.
Ridiculous.

I opened my refrigerator.

It was ridiculous.

But they might've known that the unnamed bastard was going to send a message, had it arranged that way.

It seemed absolute.

I took out some fruit juice, shut the door, looked at the burnt pizza on the stove top, a click of my eyes to the time.

They'd told him call at such and such time.

The time.

***

I explained, when asked, that I'd not heard anything very strange all night, but that a lot of the time I'd been incapacitated, locked in, nodded at the bathroom door.

-Or standing in the shower, I added.

I ventured to ask what was going on, it seemed unnatural not to. I admitted—underneath listening to myself, to the response to me from the second officer, though he seemed to be saying it to the first officer, spot checking every other word for correctness—that maybe my phrasing was wrong, I should've worded the same generally inquiry better, but couldn't think what could be done about that.

I was told that over the course of the night, two separate calls had come in regarding the apartment next door. The first had been rather inconsequential, but then someone had called indicating they'd overheard an extended argument and sounds of violence.

-From next door? I asked.

I didn't understand it. Such a call was impossible. If there'd been sounds like that, they would've been hours ago—but there'd been no argument, no raised voices.

-Or from here, the first officer said, lifting his nose in such a way he might well have meant the apartment above us, might well have meant the inside of one of the light bulbs.

I swallowed around the question When was this? or When was this said to have gone on? just made a glitch of my face, felt weight shift down in my bowels, warmth spread from my bladder into a pinprick, kept quiet.

Dimitiri's phone vibrated, again. I glanced to it, turned my attention to the officer, opting to seem engrossed, deflect from the phone, likely both actions equally as damning.

Midway through my first word, the first officer asked me if I needed to use the bathroom. I felt caught, had to say Yes, apologized, he and the second officer turning vaguely away like to allow me some dignity while getting past them through the door.

***

Leaned forward, I dug my knee up into the cup of my closed eye, moved my toes around in my shoes, didn't even remember having put shoes on, why I'd put shoes on.

The calls had been lies.

Or the officers were lying now.

Or the first call, the inconsequential one, that might've been straight, but the second call was a goddamned lie. It would've had to have been made inside the half hour, the hour at the longest, had to've been since Dimitri was already dead. Ginette or somebody had called, concocted a story about hearing all of this just to get the police out to investigate. Then the door to thirteen had been unlocked.

Whoever had called probably said something about me, particularly.

Or maybe it was a combination of the truth and supposition—some information from the messages back and forth, they'd made the leap that I'd done something based on stories from Dimitri of me pretending to live in another apartment, pretending to do laundry.

I shriveled out of myself, flushed without sitting up.

I'd more or less been pretended into a murderer, that's what their story indicated—loud argument, sounds of violence, unable to reach their friend.

It wasn't true, but it was.

It was a lie, but reality would prove it out.

I tried to get calm, explain that now I was the one inventing, didn't know any of this, just thought I knew it.

I needed to behave just like I'd behave if the police showed up and I'd done nothing. I hadn't done what they thought I'd done, so it should be simple.

I could trust myself. I had to believe that. I'd only been a murderer an hour or two, for the most part I wasn't one. I needed to forget about myself, just act how I'd act under different circumstances, let the murderer be someone else, me be me, or else let the murderer be me, but me pretend to be different.

***

Like stage acting, I reentered from the bathroom, the officers having already moved into the main room, standing one over the spill of blood from my nose, the other over the smear of the insect.

-Is this your blood? the one asked, just as ordinary as that, no misdirection to the question, eyes as on me as they ought to be.

I sucked on the inside of my cheek, miserable, explained about my nosebleed, but left out that it'd been because I'd struck myself, just said it'd been off and on with the illness.

-It's a lot of blood, the officer said, still pinpointing me.

I explained that I'd been in a state, very tired, had finally been getting comfortable when it'd started, elaborated for some reason a narrative of stubbing my toe when I'd stood up then how I'd just remained standing there, bleeding, giving up.

The officer nodded, volleyed his eyes to the other and I prepared to explain about the stain from the insect, but the first officer spoke, again.

-If it's alright with you, we'd just like to have a general look around, just a look around the apartment.

The strange tones again, the reiteration of Just around the apartment, like I was some imbecile who couldn't have inferred that. But involuntarily, even despite my disgust at the snideness, I found myself saying Around?

-Just around the apartment, the officer repeated, explaining that my neighbor's door had been unlocked, it didn't seem anyone was there.

I nodded despite the fact that the two parts of the statement didn't, of necessity, clarify why my apartment needed to be gone through, but I was also not about to raise my voice, start insisting on things.

Let myself get caught or get myself caught, I thought to myself, the officers each in a different one of my eyes until I just looked away, moved back to the kitchen, all the more anxious that neither of them even bothered to keep an eye on me.

***

At one point, both officers wound up in the bedroom. I just tried to breathe through it, didn't think the signs of my bludgeoning Dimitri in the doorframe would be anything to make particular note of, nothing that could be done anything about. Then I sort of worried they were taking little samples of things they saw, slipping specks into thick sacks, but it wasn't as though my standing near them would lead them to not do so out of propriety, embarrassment, they'd just also ask me about the stuff, then and there.

Then I thought about the clock radio. I didn't even remember where it'd gone after I'd brought it into Dimitri's head.

Had I looked for it since?

No. I hadn't done anything since.

What have I been doing? I suddenly felt like demanding of myself.

I hadn't so much as run a cloth over anything, Dimitri had cleaned up more of my filth than I had, had done more to scrub tell-tales of me away.

The officers exited the bedroom, one moving toward the window, touching the curtain but not moving it aside to look out or anything, the other almost twitching a smile at me, almost nodding, moving into the bathroom. As he entered, I said to his back that I apologized for the state of the room, said it to indicate I meant any odour as well, he just saying it was alright, squinting into the water of toilet bowl, touching the click of his pen to the raised seat, a soft tick tock of the tip either being drawn in or stuck out.

The first officer asked me, from a distance, over at my desk, if I knew the man who'd been in the apartment. I said I really thought that a woman lived there, the officer sniffing, brushing at something, a crumb on his chest, absently saying Ginette.

He looked at me, held the look. I knew my eyes were held wide, couldn't shut them, felt my tongue working out through the corner of my closed lips, pinched my teeth to it.

-Ginette, I nodded, said Yes, Ginette.

-He squinted, almost seemed upset. Ginette, he said, yes. Did you know the man who was there, tonight? the question a fist holding something, a threat, I felt weak from it, lost.

-Wriggling, I said No no I didn't no sorry, shrugged my shoulders four times while I did.

***

I was told that a call had been made to the police concerning someone having entered apartment thirteen sometime during the night. The call had been made by a third party on behalf of the man staying in the room, who apparently was handicapped in such a way that he couldn't use the telephone and was a foreigner, beside.

I nodded.

The caller had said that the man had found that the apartment had been entered, soiled with vomit—on that phrase, either as an odd emphasis or a genuine result of having to sneeze, the officer curled his lips in, closed his eyes, let a whistled pop down his nose—and had been generally tampered with.

I didn't believe this story, though I'd no reason not to, became seized with the impression this was a cobbling together of information in a manner meant to have me slip up, say something peculiar, so I just nodded, again.

The caller, the officer went on, said that the man had not asked the police to be called, the caller was concerned, however, just wanted it on record, had emphasized that the man in the apartment said they'd felt in a safe situation, imagined the mess could have been caused by some acquaintance who had a key and who likely had been over in their absence.

I swallowed and the officer pricked up, leaned in, seeming to take it that I was going to interject something, so I said No, I don't know, I wasn't going to say anything.

-Say anything?

I smiled, even breathed like the sound of a little Heh heh and shook my head never mind.

-Were you in the apartment next door, at any time tonight for any reason?

-No.

-Was the man from next door in your apartment tonight, for any amount of time, for any reason?

-No.

-Not that you are aware of, the second officer added, like he'd spotted a word in a puzzle printed backward, diagonal.

-I said No, but so much under my breath that might just be what it was taken for.

***

Expansively, I just asked what it was exactly was going to happen, emphasized my fatigue, asked if I needed to give some statement, finally all but cringed What are we doing? used-car salesman, as though we were all acting like idiots, like I wanted the officers to be fed up, bored with it all, wanted them to rather be elsewhere, aggravated that I even existed.

I was told that the man who'd made the initial telephone call to the police was on his way, a friend of the man who'd been staying in the apartment and who also sometimes stayed there, the explanation furthering that this man would be in a position to know with some exactness if anything was missing from the apartment.

I could've mocked up an innocence, been astonished at the implicit tick that something might be in this apartment, but the whole thing was probably only half true, was bait to squirm me further out.

Purposeless, the second officer said the name Jarding, Dimitri Jarding—no context, let it hang.

I puzzled over whether I should respond, say something like Is that the man coming over or the man who was in the apartment, the missing man? My impulse was that it was alright to ask, but my impulse was also to second guess this. I wondered how to behave like myself, didn't trust myself, realized I'd never trusted myself, always fundamentally reconsidered my every action, thought four or five permutations of everything I did, no more fond of the choice than the choices, no more committed to my actions than my thoughts. I could just as well turn to the officers and say some other name—say my name, Jervis Tidmouth, ask them their names—I had as much impulse to do that, obviously, as I was standing around thinking it, thinking I wouldn't do it, but in thinking that I was thinking about doing it.

The silence of the room surrounded me. I found I was standing at a bit of a swivel, mouth open on some half-formed subvocalization, the officers looking at me, concern to their mouths, their brows.

-I really haven't slept, I said, rubbing my face, nodding the comment out to both of them.

I opened the faucet tap, filled my hands with water, let it spill over, couldn't make myself drink.

***

After a moment or two of going through the papers on his clipboard, the first officer asked me would it be alright if he used my toilet and I shrugged a wiggle of my fingers, indicated it was just behind him, though of course knew he already knew that. The door shut, the fan went on, as did the sink, a slight whisper of water, more than a trickle, a steady line, exactly a line, stiff, not a flow.

I picked up the burnt pizza and went to drop it in the waste basket, paused, looked to the second officer and told him—he looking down at the clipboard now—that I was going to do so. He nodded and his tongue slipped across to moisten his lips while he did, didn't quite retract fully as he glanced back down.

I was about to ask if it was alright if I sat on the sofa, prepared a sentence or two about how I felt poorly, but as I thought about it I drifted past the officer, not even getting a glance, a flick of eyes as far as I could tell, found myself on the sofa, leaned forward, shoulder top rubbing an itch on the side of my face, clicked the television on, the volume set low.

There was a flush of the toilet, the overhead fan went off, the intensity of the faucet water increased for half a minute, a minute, shut of. The officer came out, rubbing a spot on the side of his head, making a quiet remark to the other officer how it was not getting any better.

My eyes transfixed, bore into the images on the television screen—I felt I was witnessing actual flesh and cloth, nothing glass, nothing harsh illumination, old recorded, inane. I hardly even thought about what else I might do. There was nothing else I might do.

I briefly calmed down when I realized the message that had come through on the telephone likely wasn't a set up, it couldn't have been known I'd stolen Dimitri's telephone, that wouldn't even be reasonable to suspect.

So no one thought he was dead, maybe. Yet.

Even if someone thought I'd killed him, it was odd—they might think I'd killed him, but not really even think he was dead.

***

I heard some stirring from the officers, but didn't want to look up, even scratched at my forehead with my left hand so that my palm obscured any possibility of getting a look at what was going on.

My apartment door opened, closed.

I'd still not glanced over, was having some debate with myself about when I should, couldn't hear any movement, when the first officer, generally, explained that his partner was going to the lobby to meet the man we were waiting for, I was to remain in the apartment. There was a delay of a few moments—due to my getting a dryness in my throat, clearing it, this building into a crisp cough—in my saying I understood.

I leaned back, the stretch to my lower back immediately raising the sensation of a coming bowel movement. I folded forward quickly, the officer asking if everything was alight. I grunted some affirmative, face practically between my knees, got myself standing, asked would it be alright if I took a moment to use my thermometer. He nodded with near enthusiasm, glad to help, vaguely doodled his index finger around, grazing points at the cabinets and drawers and I, still tense against the shrink of cramp, managed to say that it was just out on the counter, by the sink.

-It's fallen in the sink, he said, asked if he should wash it, was already running the water so I didn't answer.

I felt despicable, nonentity, the utter phoniness of this exchange grating. I was nearly startled by the glut of contempt scampering in me, bloating, my ridicule for what was about to happen to me and the people involved in orchestrating it. These were games, their ways of approaching the world, half questions, tiddly-winks.

If they weren't right about me, I thought, thermometer slipping underneath my tongue, how would they ever condone their thoughts, their methods, the perversions they so obviously felt like they felt the weight of their tongues waking from poor sleep?

***

I remained in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door after hearing the sound of the first officer's voice moving down the corridor, past my door. I could make out the burble of movement even through the yawn of the coolant, the cold even amplified it as I made the whole thing fiction, elongated it, sharpened it in my thoughts.

I settled on eating a few more pieces of bread. Finishing the first, I instinctually went to drink water from my hands at the tap, but this suddenly struck me as an odd thing to do in front of the officer. Just as quickly, it struck me I'd already done it, before. I opened a cabinet, got down a plastic cup, filled it slowly, moved it to my mouth, no longer wanting it, letting the water lap against the outside of my lips. I faked a few swallow, dumped the water all into the sink, just in the off chance the officer had either somehow noted how much I'd filled the glass with or else might just see how much was there, get in his mind it seemed a lot.

-A pathetic little squeak, I did my best playacted curiosity, asked the officer Aren't they going to come over here?

Only the sternness, the rigid cage door of him apparent now, the officer said they would, added It depends, then like a scribble scrabble over this remark, a little louder, said They will.

It'd been a reasonable enough question, there was no cause to think anybody wouldn't ask it. But still, it was another mistake. I wanted to laugh, just hold my hands up, kindergarten, say I surrender, Christ, forget about it, I surrender, do it with a smile on my face, one last chance that it might be taken as a joke, as an absurdity, wanted to believe the action would seem out of place if I took it.

***

A feeling of ink spilling, spreading, consuming the space of a paper warmed me, I felt dizzy, my mind violently biting on the words The padlock key is in your pocket. It was as though my mind was reminding my body, like I was still neither, just something near enough to overhear the alarm.

I was confined, absolutely wrecked, no thought of movement or charade of normalcy.

The key was in my pocket.

If I so much as tried to conceal it somewhere, I could never disguise the attempt, something would make it stand out, any motion glaring.

Beside which, if it was discovered hidden in my apartment—which it would be—wouldn't that somehow be worse?

I squeezed my nose shut with both fingers, blew out, let the pressure fill me, then brought my hands to my thighs and collapsed out a blurting sigh.

The officer asked me if I needed anything. I waved him off, friendly, turned and leaned forward over the counter.

The necessity of being rid of the key was overwhelming. I couldn't face the scenario of simply being told Turn out your pockets, had as easily as that.

Carrying on, only even slightly exaggerating, with my display of feeling ill, I massaged my ribs, as casually as I could getting my hand into my pocket, gripped around the key, got the key into my mouth disguised as touching at a wet sniffle, breathed burps out my nose. Then I refilled the glass I'd just pretended to drink from, brought it to my mouth, slipped the key out into the liquid, had an actual swallow, another, hardly could stop drinking but did.

I coughed into my hand, started running the water like to get more, but once a bit had filled the glass I dumped it out, wanting to cough but for some reason making a hiss instead to help cover any possibly sound that could overpower the rush of water.

Then, all at once, a thought of the officer's face looking at me, his hand about to touch my shoulder, I tightened, had a sensation the back of my head had been jostled, smacked, bent forward from the nonexistent blow and vomited into the basin, horribly, moaning, the first retch liquid and sweet mash of bread, the following three like perverse ribbits, obscene, nothing but air out while at the same time it was like I was gobbling the same air in.

***

The officer had walked me to the sofa against my dull protests, I sat shivering, listening to him running the water at the faucet to force the mess down the drain, was certain he'd hit the switch for the disposal, the clatter would sound, he'd casually go to clear it and the key would be extracted.

Instead, the door to my apartment opened, the second officer entering, remarking something quietly to the first. Then, the sound of another voice, a wheezing like words, falsetto of a cowed animal. For two minutes a conversation before I slowly hobbled my face around to observe.

The man, shorter than both officers by at least a foot, shorter than me, had no nose, it was as though it'd been raggedly, purposefully removed, the gapes that would've been hidden by cartilage, curled up into nostril, seemed exaggerated, as though fingers had been plumbed and plumb through them, maybe scissors inserted and opened to pry the openings wider, make them mush into one flat hole. He was dressed in fine, tailored clothes—stripped shirt, fitted vest, no coat on, his trousers sleek down his legs into well weathered boxing shoes.

I was slack jawed, the apprehension I felt rending me from myself, I was nothing but my drained expression, the wides of my pulpy eyes.

I was being addressed, casually, and responded something—it seemed of no consequence that I didn't know what I said, it must've been correct, elicited no odd reaction.

My attention had been so on the lack of nose, I only after several moments noticed that there was some deformation of the man's left eye.

I was motioned to stand, the first officer helping me, soothing some words as I let most of my weight on him.

The man didn't have an eye. There was a cavity there. Stitched into that cavity, pressed in, crammed, filling it, was what seemed a piece of cloth filled with rice granules, in felt-tip pen, dulled with time, a large black of ink dotted on, a few odd scraggles of lines away from it which were just how a talentless adolescent would doodle bloodshot.

***

There was no resistance to excusing me once again to the bathroom. The man held his gaze on me as I moved from the main room through the door.

Outside, I knew his sack eye kept its stuffed tight skin fixated on me. The three of them would just wait or would go about their business while I sat, breathing in whimpering quivers—likely I could be heard, was being listened to.

How could this be the man they were waiting for? How could this be the person who had telephoned them, whose word they were taking to traipse in and out of people's apartments?

There was obscenity in it, yet the officers seemed unphased, treated this as a man concerned with the disappearance of a friend.

I wanted to drag them to the locked room, hammer at it with my arms until it fell open, remove the cloth from the dead man's head, seize his hair, present his face, scream at them, scream pointing at the face of the corpse to the face of the man now strolling the carpet of my rooms, squinting, looking.

I was gripped with panic that just the evidence of the dead insect would be enough, the presence of such a detail, but got a hold of myself, knew that Dimitri hadn't been alive to relate that—it'd been, for all intents and purposes, the man's final action.

Still, there would be something. Not that what the police had already seen and knew wasn't enough. They were just walking this perversion around, a cretin on a leash, their mongrel to use as they pleased.

I found no way to rationalize the way the officers behaved toward such an entity, to a man who'd done such a thing to himself, stood wheezing rags of speech out holes he'd carved in himself, looking to accuse me with evidence verified by one eye and as much by cloth and grain.

It was impossible to reenter the apartment without accepting it, accepting that such a thing was happening and it was the more impossible to confess, coward away behind what I'd done, make it simple, finite. I'd wandered into a world comprised of intestine and was being judged by digesting remains.

***

The three of them were in the bedroom when I caught up, the man touching his foot to my laundry, an action I didn't understand should be allowed. He breathed at me, able to disguise it as just breathing, but faced his body in my direction so I'd know it was being done at me.

The second officer moved me a bit to the side, explaining that it would be preferable that I just answer any questions, allow the investigation to move along, but at the same time advised me that I at any time could request them to leave and maters would be investigated in another fashion.

Anger—genuine, something I understood but at the same time felt unaware of—had me snapping at him a demand to explain what it was he meant, was I to be arrested, was I being informed of my rights?

He explained that there was nothing to arrest me for and that it would be preferable if I could calmly answer some questions, the emphasis pointedly on Calmly, as though he was reminding me.

-Were you in the neighboring apartment at anytime during the night or early morning?

-No.

-Do you have anything in this apartment or on your person that rightfully belongs in the neighboring apartment?

-No. Does he say I do?

I crumpled on the words, disgusted I'd called the man He—I felt I was being ridiculed, that they'd stood a road kill on stiff hind legs and dawdled it in jiggles, stuck it in a hat and glasses or that they'd brought in a pile of excrement they held in their hands, blew kisses to, guffawed each time they'd finally get me to go along with their insane.

Both officers were facing me now, the man behind them by my bureau. He was watching, with his thumb and third finger pinching the sack of his false eye, massaging some of the contents as though an ordinary a thing, nibbling a finger side, stroking a beard.

***

The officer said that a key was missing, a key to a room the owner of the apartment kept securely locked, reinforced.

-Reinforced?

He repeated the word, it almost odd that he was explaining so much, a rottenness of polite.

-This gentleman claims that Ginette, your neighbor, is somewhat neurotic, and has installed locks to the doors of her bedroom, interior and exterior, that the key to these locks is normally hung in a place in the kitchen while she is away, that it was there as early as this afternoon, when the gentleman himself claims to have been inside of the apartment and he further claims that he can produce evidence that illustrates his friend also saw the key, as late as midnight.

I stood, listening to every word, neither understood why I was being told this, the manner in which it was being explained, or how the man could be referred to so offhandedly as This Gentleman.

I seethed the expression, said This gentleman is lying and I do not understand what is happening or why any of what you're telling me has brought him into my home.

This calmed everything.

Everything stopped.

The first officer approached, taking me into the main room, moved me to the sofa and told me it would be better if I sat, considering my condition.

I sat.

-Did you steal the key to your neighbor's bedroom?

-No.

He knelt, parental, and though he wasn't touching me I felt the weight of his hand, the molesting warm of it on the top of my legs in grips and pats.

Certain elements of the narrative we've had delivered to us this morning seem consistent with evidence we've come in contact with both in your apartment and the neighboring apartment.

I covered my eyes, absurd, but I did, literally like a three-year-old first learning they could instigate a peek-a-boo.

He paused.

I listened to him breathe.

-Is there anything you'd like to say to that?

I moved my hand from my face, clasped it to my other, let these limp over on one of my knees.

***

Again, I was left to myself on the sofa. Someone had turned the volume on the television down, but hadn't shut the thing off. Some advertisement I knew the tune to, knew the idiot dialogue to, showed—tick tick tick tick image image longer image longer image image image I supplied the sounds quietly along behind my face.

By this point—and well before this point I sniffed, affirming the truth of the interjection—it was futile to ask anyone to leave, to make them leave. They'd just come back. Or other officers would. Or the man would just smoke a cigarette downstairs, come back up.

My apartment had become wholly irrelevant, as had my participation. They were going to unlock that room in thirteen, there was nothing I could do about it.

I whissed some thoughts about arguing with them the legality of such a thing, some rhetorical construction about how it would be tantamount to being able to break and enter by simply saying I think my stuff is in that house—anyone could steal into anyone's life if they were liars, could pout their faces concerned.

Anyway, they'd probably point out that the door had been found unlocked, that their initial investigation had led one thing to the next to the next to the next, that they wouldn't just have gone into the apartment on someone's say so.

Even pointlessly, in ancillary degrees, this was my fault, the very construction of the situation. I could've locked a door, could've refused to open mine. None of it would've mattered.

I wondered about Ginette, vaguely. Didn't care. Just blinked a few times in silence, wondered the name and nothing about it.

***

They exited the bedroom, an air to them of having agreed to something—I'd barely been able to hear anything except for the sips of Ss, the few coughs or throats clears for whatever emphasis.

I made no gestures of argument when it was explained that I was to remain in my apartment, that one of the officers—they didn't make any indication of which at that moment but I assumed it would be the second officer—was going to stay in with me, the other would accompany the man to thirteen while we waited for someone who could remove the lock without causing damage to arrive.

I tried to understand if this had import, if it seemed more like they thought there would be a dead body in there or less like it because they weren't going to break down the door, pay some bill for it later or something.

I didn't understand why it wasn't just being assumed that the missing person had the key with them, but also didn't ask, didn't want to hear the answer they would be able to give, simply, hear and know how obvious it was, face that I'd failed to arrive at it myself.

I abandoned everything, wasn't even waiting.

As they were turning to go, I cleared my throat, directly faced the man with the sack for an eye who had just stood, bearing himself down on me, his shoulders leaned to the wall.

-Why did she put those locks on her door?

I regretted the question, felt the weight of myself, offal, when he answered, a sadness even in the inhuman wheeze of his voice, She's afraid.

In that moment, the officer and the man leaving, I felt the movement of what was myself, like a coin I'd swallowed, knew I couldn't bear this man to whom I was so obvious, so infantile, ever knowing he was correct. He left my apartment as I understood I was regarding him as a corpse, nothing more to me than that—everything else was nothing, he was a corpse and I was a thing that hated him, too late for it to matter.

***

I'd just stood up again when my telephone rang, the beeping tones of the ringer muted from the handset being on my desk chair, face down. I frowned, didn't want to pick it up, let it go to the machine, listened to my voice explaining I wasn't at home, to the line shutting dead.

I breathed out my nose, felt it on my wrist as I squeezed my hands, cupped around each other, in front of me, almost touching against one of my cheeks.

I asked the officer I'd been left with—the first officer, the fact I'd been wrong actually making me happy—what it was they thought they were going to find in that room if they hadn't found anything in my apartment.

He said that he didn't quite understand the question, but I couldn't think of a way to rephrase it, didn't want to just repeat it, thought that would be miserable to endure, his saying I heard you, but I said I didn't understand. It was as though I kept making myself the imbecile to everyone. I began to wonder what I'd actually said, if I couldn't even recognize this from that.

-Has anyone heard from Ginette? I asked, the officer looking up from having just started to return his attention to his thoughts, his milling glances.

-Nobody has heard from Ginette.

There was something to his face, I didn't sense the hostility I had before, but was wary because a moment before he hadn't understood a simple question—I'd no idea what he thought I meant by what I'd said, if he was even following me.

-Why hasn't that man gotten hold of her? I said, just to see the reaction.

-He's tried.

We stopped looking at each other, returned to how we'd been away.

There was no bottom to anything. Or there was no fall. Just the endless prolong of impact.

***

While the officer made a telephone call, I walked back over to the sofa, didn't care to play with what I could make out of his half of the conversation, wanted alone with my thoughts, but didn't want to seem hiding.

The police thought they'd find Ginette in that room. The man knew they'd find Dimitri. I knew they'd find Dimitri. I knew someone would find Ginette elsewhere, someday, sometime, completely irrelevant and by then connected to nobody.

I didn't understand what it even mattered to the man with the sack for an eye. He just wanted me caught. It was strange, I didn't even think he wanted me dead, just caught, punished. That was the only way it could be, because otherwise he could've slaughtered me anytime he wanted, today, tomorrow, ten years from now.

There was such an ugly cling to thoughts and ideas that meant nothing, we just humped at each other, waited to hear something, see what sound came from our barking into the empty air.

Maybe he just couldn't reach Ginette, I sighed, not even able to keep list of what I was thinking about, driving at.

The police didn't seem like they thought they'd find dead anyone in that room.

He knew they'd find Dimitri.

I knew they'd find Dimitri.

Then what would happen?

I'd be arrested, at least. I'd have to make some statement.

How would it look if I gave the actual narrative of what had happened, revealed the man as a liar?

It would be irrelevant. He was everything I was not—had done everything I'd thought about doing and hadn't—and so it was irrelevant, the consistency shifted, his lies were fine, mine outrageous, my truth perverse, his reasonable, even somewhat admirable. We'd done the same thing, behaved when there was no reason at all to behave.

***

-I was in apartment thirteen, tonight, I said.

Immediately I wondered why, felt myself go light headed, lost sensation in my hands, my head titling, eyes glazed to the ceiling in a spot, soiling it almost.

-When were you in the apartment? the officer asked, changing his posture, I think trying to find a way to leave the kitchen, approach me without me moving out of his line of sight.

-I held up my hand to stop him, said The key to that room might still be in the sink, there, in the drain. I don't know if it is, but I put it there.

The officer now eyed me, like he was almost dismayed by this—he seemed hurt, but I could also have no idea what he seemed like.

I listened to him move his fingers around, a hollow scrape of the key—a toe scraping cement, drawing blood, the grind felt in your ears, at the pit of your mouth.

-When were you in the apartment? he asked, again, and I answered him that I didn't know what time, during the night, the early morning.

While I said this he was taking out his telephone, hit a button, said just a few words, quietly, closed the thing and ducked it back in his pocket.

A signal to his partner who'd would come in from thirteen, the other man left alone in there.

-What's that man's name? I asked, knowing I was beginning to grin, felt myself licking the undersides of my top teeth. I repeated the question, the officer still not answering, his head moving slightly like he wanted to glance behind him, a quick flit to the apartment door, but felt I'd think it a weakness.

I sat down on the sofa, curled forward, covered my head in my arms, breathed through my clogged nose against the tight of my pant fabric over my knee, closed my eyes but they stung and so I opened them.

***

The was a cake of sunlight through some space in the curtains to the carpet, it lasted a moment, two, I was glad when it was gone, when I could tell from the tone to the shade that replaced it the morning was remaining dominantly overcast, hardly different than the night, just the spread of the sun a stain somewhere behind clouds instead of the weight of the moon a dull sag.

Even though I was not showing any sign of moving, felt no intention of moving, the officer was not approaching me. I only noted him peripherally, he asking me if I still felt ill at one point, at another point if I had used the key, if I had taken anything.

I made gestures, mumbled, none of it seeming disconcerting, aggravating to the man.

He just kept to the kitchen.

It must've been ten minutes from when he'd called his partner, I couldn't think why the other officer hadn't joined him. It seemed the officer was unsure of how to proceed left alone, edgy.

The content of the call, I supposed, could've been He's starting to talk, let me have a few minutes.

It could've been, except the officer wasn't talking, wasn't trying to get me to talk.

It didn't make sense.

There was nothing suspicious to them about the man with the sack for an eye, there'd be no hesitation in leaving him alone.

My stomach began to unspool. I stiffened but didn't straighten up.

There also wouldn't have been cause for the officer not to mention something to the man, offhand, after the call, either freely or as unguarded response to What's going on? The man might even have intuited what I was doing, pinned me down, saw what was happening in me before I even realized it, have foreseen my confession, but had no choice but to go along with being segregated, writhing in the confinement of our separation, wondering if I'd go through with it.

Something he could never allow.

The officer in my apartment seemed alone, nervous, covering it in gauze of quiet, of inappropriate nonchalance.

***

I stood, didn't feel that it'd be difficult but the compression in me refused to slacken, I kind of wheeled in the direction of the kitchen, caught myself on the outside of the counter, lifted my chin, neck outstretched but not raised, knew how feverish I'd appear, purple enough to seem grey. My mouth dried out, my throat, my words creaking with a quality of wet chalk on painted walls.

-I killed Dimitri.

It came out a whisper, so I repeated it on purpose as whisper, this coming cleaner, louder out of me that the first attempt to declare it.

The officer looked at me, his features altering from the set they'd been taking of concern—likely he'd been about to insist on helping me to the toilet. He withdrew a step, his hands automaton to his sidearm.

-Please, you have to take me out of here, I whispered, beseeching the way a feeble dog would growl desperate to back someone away. Please, I killed Dimitri. Dimitri is in that room.

He was taking his telephone from his pocket and I waved fingers at ends of hands hardly able to raise from flimsy wrists begging No no no no no don't tell him. Please, you have to take me out of here, downstairs, take me out of here.

Not because I'd said so—my voice a trudge through wrong letters, breaths where there shouldn't be—he held off on dialing.

-I pointed to the wall repeating the words That man. That man that man that man that man, I said. I don't think your partner's safe in there, I don't think he's safe.

It was anguish. Nothing I said had reference, there was no explaining myself, the air turned molting hair.

I could hear the knife the sack eyed man had pulled from a kitchen drawer, slit the officers throat with.

I had my hands up, little child asking his shirt to be pulled off, mouthed Please please, turned my back to the kitchen, moving my mouth to myself.

***

The handcuffs, though heavy, didn't seem to clasp firm to me—even when I gave timid tests at them, found they pinched and that I couldn't budge my hands from each other, they felt pretend somehow.

The officer moved to stand in front of me, touched my face, my eyes recoiling from his if they happened to lock, darting every way as though they were a man drowning, gnashing for someplace to breathe. He touched my face, held me fast, told me that I was under arrest and I nodded, shivering whimpering I know I know I know I know each time making it twenty syllables long, trying to fit the words Thank you into it, likely sounding like nothing.

I heard the apartment door open and wailed, the sound stuffing in me from congestion, from cramp in my lungs.

The other officer approached, alone. I hyperventilated, was left to flap, twist, squirm, need out. I couldn't get my bearings, couldn't calm myself, just wanted to be inside of a locked car, away from this place, knew that I was in danger, that I'd waited too long, was exposed to whatever the man in thirteen wanted to do.

He could already be in the corridor, brandishing something, could've closeted himself in the elevator, waiting to stick me when I was brought there.

-What did you tell him? I asked, not getting a reply. We have to leave right now, I blubbered, broken, tensed all of my body like I was tugging against restraints.

I felt giddy when I was finally moved toward the door, helpless, felt intoxicated beyond the pain of any of it.

I counted how many opportunities the man still had to kill me in the space from the door to the police car, felt them crawling over each other, lurking behind each other, slobbering over each other, groping, fingers inside each other, knew I'd started to drool, felt it cold then warm as it got in through my shirt front.

***

Only a short distance along the corridor, I could tell that one of the two officers had turned back in the direction of the apartments.

Over my sniffling to clear enough room to breathe and the shudder of my feet dragged along the carpet roughing up along my body, I could hear the officer telling the man to stay in the apartment.

I looked at the shins of my pants and the tops of my shoes, found they had new wets of vomit on them, tried to get my chin in toward my chest enough to see if I'd made a mess all down myself, tried to see was the officer dirtied, but my eyes just up down up down up down started looking at the carpet, looking at the carpet, looking at the carpet, at the change when there was a light fixture and when there wasn't.

I gagged, sounds of dry heaving, pulled ahead like an impatient mule on a lead when the officer still escorting me stopped, probably looking back to see what was happening.

It took a moment for my progress toward the elevator to be allowed again, by this time the voices from outside thirteen had intensified, shouts to calm the man down and odd tangles of things likes words, high pitched out of the man, old steam from a locked kettle.

The officer with me, now holding me very sharply—my body thrashing, but not at all under my control, just wanting in the elevator, not wanting away—hit the summon button while flailing down the length of the corridor came peals of the man croaking, senseless calls of the name Dimitri, meaningless sips of train whistle and wet gravel, opera song sunk in an ocean bed.

I turned my head, impossible not to, screamed for him to shut up, a demand, something said from a position of superiority, a squeal that he should shut up, concede that there was nothing left, and finally this collapsed into an incoherent screesh of I'm Sorry and I don't care and Leave me alone.

***

The elevator, inside, smelled of day old drying rainwater, wet paper, worms, the perfume of the last woman to ride it.

The officer at first pinned me to the wall, stabbing at the button to close the door, but I quickly realized this was only because I was still panting, struggling. As soon as I went limp, he completely released me and I flopped against the warm of the closed door, top of my head to it, the toe of one shoe tip straight into the ground, the other foot skewed out funny.

I spit a few times, little tiffs of mostly nothing, one last spasm of my stomach that amounted to a schoolgirl belch, went to my knees, fully sat, crumpled over onto my side.

The officer made no attempt to get me to stand. I heard him cursing to himself, roughing his shirt sleeve against the wall, rubbing at the side of his face, his neck. He gave me a kick, no place particularly. It hardly hurt, but I lowered myself a bit more to give him a sense of satisfaction.

-I think he killed her, I started to say, voice cracking immediately.

The officer, with real disdain, scoff, belted at me to be quite, grabbing at me, trying to get his hands under my arms.

I saw the elevator door opening on the wet lobby, lit like early evening, the traffic hardly visible through the dirty reflection on the inside of the building's entrance door.

I made myself heavy, humped myself into the corner, burying my face behind myself and could hear him cursing more, taking a posture of violence.

I refused to stand up when he told me to, didn't even listen, felt him trying to get a decent hold of my ankles. I kicked and scramble, knew I was muttering oh no no no no but it didn't even sound like anything to me.

***

I was made down the sidewalk perhaps only twenty paces before the police car door was opened to close me in.

Rain fingered at the windows, veins trying to get into me through the holes of my face. I watched my breath blow grey against the glass and vanish a few times before just blowing, no grey, no vanishing, the car taking equilibrium with me, accustomed to my flavor.

I didn't look out to see what the officer was doing, didn't care. I just sat, facing directly against what was probably a thin of my reflection that I just couldn't make out, knew people passing outside wouldn't see me, even a suggestion, would see a smear of the building front in reflection, see themselves, and water in lines, dots, a lot of nonsense on the glass.

I hoped they'd been forced to shoot the man, that he'd revealed himself, that maybe the confrontation with what I'd done had exploded him, driven him to do something he shouldn't have, no different than had been done to me.

I wished and wished him dead, but knew he wasn't, impossible he would be. In fact, he was probably being consoled, soothed, left to pretend he wasn't what he was.

I wondered if they'd let me sleep, maybe even just to be cruel, maybe just to let me wake up and find myself still what I was, still what I'd done, what had been done to me— it seemed if I could stay awake I could bear it, but if forced to wake to it I'd disintegrate utterly, whatever crumb of me was left moistened, pulped, mawed and gone.

The car was just silent, terrible, getting its teeth settled into my bones before sleeping, itself, forgetting me.

man standing behind

She saw the barkeep, said 'O God, he can't be dead!'  
Stag said 'Well, just count the holes in the motherfucker's head.'

-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

It wasn't as late as I'd thought it would be, I'd only wound up kept past shift by an hour. Still, I was walking briskly, thinking to get the train, get home as quickly as possible. No real point, but why not? I glanced at storefronts and had my head down from the din and the eyes of the wet pedestrian traffic, things too bright and blurry, too noisy to focus right.

I caught sight of a cash machine and remembered I wanted to have some money for going out later, new resolution, stick to a budget, this would be the best way—drinks with friends, the debit card could get abused.

I waited in a bulge of people at a crosswalk, looked at some of the boots and stockings some of the women were wearing, kind of wished I worked in an office building with them.

When I got into the little alcove with the machine, I took a moment to clean my glasses with my shirt, inserted my card, coughed into my hand. A man walked right up on me, said Hello and while I screwed my face to ask him what he thought he was doing I noticed he had a blunt little gun in his hand, fingers loose around it. I started to meet his eyes, then turned my head down, the man backing up a step, moving in behind me.

-Hey, finish what you were doing, he said.

-Look, I'll just put in my pin, alright? I'll walk away and you can take whatever you want, there's a few hundred I think.

-Just finish what you were doing.

I tapped my pin number, went through the options on the screen, selected Deposit instead of Withdrawal, reset.

-The gun's real, just so you know.

-I know, it's alright. How much do you want?

He lifted up my shirt a bit, put the metal of the weapon to my skin, moved it away.

-It's a real gun, it's a loaded gun, don't think that it isn't.

-I know it's real, I believe you. Look, my code is in, you can empty it out, alright?

-Just get your money, whatever you were going to get.

There was three hundred eighteen dollars and change in my account, I hit to withdraw three hundred, collected it, handed it up over my shoulder.

-Look at me. He didn't touch the money, told me to put it in my pocket. Look at me.

-I don't want to look at you.

He chuckled, like he was getting bored, said if I didn't look at him he would shoot me.

-I don't want to look at you, just please, okay?

-Turn around and look at me, man.

So I did—he was rolling his eyes, like it'd been a little lover's annoyance, made a kind of was-that-so-hard scoff.

-Come on over here a bit, people might want to use that.

We moved down ten or twelve paces, I was leaned to the sooty window of some florist.

-Hand me your wallet.

I calmly gestured the money across at him and he got a wide, tense smile.

-Hand me your wallet.

-It's three hundred dollars. He gestured like he was about to talk again, so I fumbled over my words, said I didn't really have a wallet. I just keep my stuff in my pockets, I stammered.

-He nodded, said that he pretty much did that too. Let me see your ID.

I went through a few pockets until I found it, held it as well as the folded three hundred across, but he just picked the ID out, closed one eye while he looked at it.

-But this isn't a current address, right?

I still had the money held out and he handed me back the ID, told me to put them away.

-It's not a current address, on the ID?

I shook my head, said it wasn't. He blew a long breath out this mouth, then another out his nose, went into his pockets and produced a pack of cigarettes, handed it to me.

-There's matches inside. Start me a cigarette.

I looked at him.

-Jesus, man, start me a cigarette, this is going to get so trying on my nerves if I have to say everything twice, alright? Start me a cigarette.

I did, handed it to him, then tried to hand back the pack but he shook his head, told me to put those in my pocket.

The gun was in his pocket and so was his hand, I briefly wondered if with him standing as close as he was couldn't I risk giving him a shove, ducking into the pedestrian traffic just a little bit further than arms-length from the both of us. He knew my name, but I could get to the police—though maybe he would fire wildly after me, hitting god knows who.

-He gestured with his nose while he said We're going to start walking, you walk right in front of me.

-I don't have anything, I don't think I'm who you think I am.

I said this, it just came out, the words curlicue and pointless.

-I don't think you're anybody, Roger. I just need you to walk.

He looked at his cigarette, holding it up with palm facing him, told me to start him another one first. I said Okay, but it took me a moment to register that the pack was in my pocket, got one out, noticed my hands were shaking, which could have been from the cold, except I didn't feel cold.

I had to turn my back to him to shield the matches from the general stir in the air, looked at the wall corner, brick into brick, thought maybe if I spun around, maybe if I jabbed the cigarette at his eye I could squirm out—I even thought he might shoot me still, but maybe that's the thing, let him shoot me and he'll have to run off, I should just grab at him so I get shot in the leg, then he'd have to run off.

He gave me the remains of his cigarette and told me I could finish it. I held it, numb, idiot, said I didn't feel like smoking, just then.

-Then don't, he said, and he had an expression like he was stifling a sneeze. Then don't, he said, more clearly, told me to start walking, to turn to the left.

***

We walked for a few blocks—he didn't have the gun to my back, just his hands down in his pockets, we walked along just like any of the other pedestrians, I was even still moving in the direction of the metro station I'd been heading to.

It was odd getting a footing on my thoughts, there was very much the impulse to run or to do something to bring attention to my situation.

But that was my situation?

At best, I could scream out, flag over a police officer. But the man with the gun could just keep walking, what was I supposed to say to stop him? That man has a gun. That man showed me a gun, told me to walk with him? All he would have to do would be walk away and then I'd no idea where things stood.

Not that he could find me, why would he find me?

At worst? Well, at worst he would shoot me dead—at worst he could shoot me dead and maybe some other completely innocent person.

I kept my eyes opened for reasonable ways to give him the slip, but nothing seemed more or less reasonable than anything else. I was stuck in a numb moment of thought—I didn't want to die, certainly, I didn't want to look over my shoulder forever, who knows what in the world this man wanted.

-Do you have smaller money than you took out of the cash machine?

I almost didn't register the question was directed at me, he didn't lean in close, hush it at me, threaten it at me. I hadn't answered yet when he directed me into a small convenience store, we went down the aisles, he picked up a bottle of water, a small tube of breath mints, asked for a pack of a certain brand of cigarettes when we got to the cashier—not the same as the pack I had in my pocket. I paid without him having to make further indication to me and when we were outside he asked me to hand him the change which he skimmed three ones off of, gave me the rest.

-Sorry, I don't have any cash at the moment, I'll pay you back. He smiled, almost winked at that, then made a gesture like it'd been a dumb joke, I shouldn't worry I wasn't getting it.

We stopped at a moderately crowded bus stop, stood back a ways and he had me light him another cigarette, one of the new kinds, told me I could have the others. I lit one, thoughtless, wanted to ask him wouldn't he just take the money, again, but I just stood, mute, cigarette curling out smoke I didn't inhale.

A bus pulled up after a few minutes and we shambled in at the back of the line, plenty of seats, me at the window, the man with the gun sitting right next to me. I hadn't paid attention to which line we were on, but I wasn't directly familiar with it and soon we were in areas of the city completely foreign to me.

I tried to figure what would be a good way to attack him. Maybe when getting off of the bus—it was a question of getting the gun away, I imagined, though I started to even doubt this. So I struggle the gun away, maybe point it at him—I'd have to pull the trigger if he just came at me, then and I doubted I'd be able to do so, even with the swelling rage I felt.

I'd have to, because what would happen otherwise?

Again, would I say This man pointed a gun at me, told me to come with him?' I mean, I could prove that, I supposed, but then what would happen if he had a permit for the weapon or something or even if he didn't, it's not like he'd be arrested, thrown in a hole to rot.

And that all was just considering I could wrestle the gun away, that I could get the upper hand.

-Where are we going? I asked weakly, not thinking he would answer, not really understanding I had spoken.

-To Carlisle Street, he said, casual, then added it was a good fifteen minutes on the bus and then a little hike.

I couldn't imagine him killing me, couldn't picture it, should just run when I had the chance—he wasn't going to go nuts, shoot whoever was on hand, he'd just wander off, I could just run and I'd bet he wouldn't even follow me. Then I could report him, describe him—and here, without me wanting it to, I found myself thinking Hopefully before he grabbed somebody else.

I'd have to report him, what else was I supposed to do, just go home? It wasn't even reporting him so that he could get caught before coming to get me—which was still a possibility—he was obviously going to do something that needed to be stopped.

It was a lost situation, if I screamed, even, right here on the bus, even if I took that complete risk, nobody was going to hold him, he'd just walk away.

-What's on Carlisle street?

-He seemed to be thinking about something else, blinked, smiled with his tongue tip pinched between his lips. I live there.

I hated his leg touching mine, his side touching mine, hated I could smell him. And it almost made me chuckle that I wondered if he was going to take me hostage at his house, as though I wasn't hostage, already. It was strange, the shift in my thought of identity—it's exactly what I was, of course, there wasn't any other word for it.

Victim, suddenly screwed its way into my thoughts, there was the word Victim.

But I preferred Hostage, it almost relaxed me.

We were out of the city, on one of the blank roads that led to the smaller pockets of residential area, little towns, outlying specks of the city, very similar to the sort of area I lived in, except where I lived was further away—or I kind of wondered, which way were we going? Was it closer, further? I let myself stare at the warm inside of the cold window wondering about this little irrelevancy.

***

When we stepped off the bus, it seemed into the middle of nothing, just on a curved slip of road, tree lined, tall lampposts every ten paces but none of them lit, a long nothing that we walked and got to the entrance of a deep residential area. I lit my own cigarette, while I walked, the man behind me not asking me to light one for him. I wanted to chance a glance back over my shoulder, even if just to get an idea was his hand still in his pocket, was it out, maybe his coat sleeve brought over his hand, concealing the weapon.

If I was going to run, it seemed the best time, slam my elbow into his nose, in through the tree line, just run and not stop. But I couldn't bring myself to even turn, to verify if he was directly behind me, five paces back, seven, ten, a bit to my left a bit to my right.

It must have been a mile or two through neighborhoods of townhouses, then through a wide public park area, the lake water tight but not yet freezing, and once through this the houses became individual, stand alone, pockets of yard fifty feet or so long between each. We walked right up to the side door, by the garage, of one of these.

-A key landed on the cement just by my foot before the man said Go ahead and open the door.

Inside it was heated, warm, smells of a dishwasher having recently run, a television or radio somewhere, the sound of a woman talking on the phone. This woman mouthed the word Hi to the man and he said, quickly and quietly, that I was his friend, Roger, I'd just be there for a few minutes, he claimed it was something to do with work and she nodded, obviously not paying so much attention, responding to whoever was on the other line.

-You can have a seat, Roger, I'll go grab that for you, he said, motioned me to the long sofa, tossed me the remote control then moved off, behind me.

I stared at the television screen, uncertain, liking the warmth of the room, the relaxation of my seated body on sinking cushion. I turned to see had the man really just left me there, but saw he was in the hallway, just seemed to be milling there. I looked in the direction of the woman's voice but couldn't see her for the placement of the high kitchen bar counter. I stared at the television, didn't even know why I wasn't doing anything else, wasn't even thinking about what else I might do.

-Sorry, that was my brother, the woman said, loudly, obviously aware that the man had left the room.

I heard her stand and looked up as she entered the parlor area.

-Hi, I'm Gwen, Donald's wife. You two work together?

I even smiled a bit, said Yes and just then the man, Donald, stepped in from the hall, arm extended, fired a shot right into the side of Gwen's head and her body seemed to slump before the little smack of the shot, a handclap, even registered.

I stood, awkwardly, almost like one would if their date was arriving to the restaurant a bit late, stared at the coil of her body. I felt Donald touch my shoulders, he turned me a bit this way and that way, told me not to sit down, to just wait there. I honestly didn't feel like I understood what had happened, even had the vague thought that Donald had rushed off to get something to stop his wife's bleeding—I just stood, no idea how long, then Donald was handing me something.

-Change into this.

I saw it was a pair of pants and a pair of underwear.

-What? It was a peep, a genuine question, I didn't process what he meant.

-You can't go out like that, he said, pointing at me—I kind of noted the gun wasn't in either of his hands. These should fit, just get dressed.

I'd soiled myself, urinated and defecated, it was jarring to realize. I stepped backward as though I'd just stood in something or realized a bug had crawled on my shoe.

-I'm sorry, I kind of muttered, daintily started undoing my pants, now aware of the hot reek of the mess wafting around me.

-It doesn't matter, just get dressed.

He went to the kitchen, brought me a few hand towels, went back to the kitchen while I got myself cleaned up and into the pants—his I thought, maybe not, but probably.

He came in, smoking a cigarette, handed me a thick glass of what I thought was water but turned out to be vodka. It was after swallowing, gasping out, I realized how heavily I was breathing.

-Do you need another? He was leaning in, looking at me like I was his kid and he'd just felt my forehead. You need to breathe.

-I'm breathing. I'm alright. And then I asked, a mumble, Who was that woman?

He looked down, I assume at the body, looked back up, didn't say anything, asked me if I wanted a thicker coat.

-No.

-Or a sweater?

I shrugged, knew I was still breathing very heavily, saw he was sneering, but friendly, curling his lip up, looking down at the ground next to me. I glanced down—my pants, my belt—and then he told me Put your shoes back on and that we had to get going.

It was windy once we were back outside. He paused to ask me was I sure about not wanting another coat. I didn't answer and he closed the door, locked it, looked at me, blank, twenty seconds, smiled. I realized I'd have to start walking first.

We got to the park, again, but took a different path than we had come down, Donald nodding his head to a man who walked by.

-Stop and turn around he told me, after just another few steps. He looked at my face hard, stared, then told me to start him a cigarette. You're not thinking about anything are you, Roger?'

I scooped around the match, lit his cigarette, handed it to him.

-Don't think about anything, Roger. I know you are, obviously you are. But I wouldn't bother.'

He said something else, but I coughed at the same time and he made a motion for me to turn, keep going, seemed not to care I hadn't responded or maybe it hadn't needed a response.

***

When we came to a pocket of shops and restaurants, a kind of little downtown area, I was shivering, almost too aware of the cold. It was a relief to step inside of a bar, the place an echo of voices, none of the words seeming to match up to any of the moving mouths I'd glance at, down from, worried that Donald would think I was up to something.

-We'll get something to eat in awhile, he said, standing at the bar but nodding at a free stool, that I should sit there. You should get another drink, warm you up, get me one too, bourbon neat.

He took out a phone, other hand at the gun in his long pocket. When his call was connected, he looked at me, quizzed up his brown, made a hand wave to get the bartenders attention then tapped the leg of my stool with his foot, chuckling. It wasn't that he didn't want me to hear him, it seemed, because he just stood, talking to someone he called Greg, it was just, I supposed, that he actually wanted his bourbon.

When the drinks came, he told Greg to hold on, set his phone down, took the drink at a mouthful, laughed, pointing at me, then, still breathing heavily from the slug, went back to talking.

I sipped at my drink, bourbon, same as Donald's had been.

It was strange to think that I'd been right not to have tried anything with him earlier, not to have run—he would have shot me dead, no trouble, or anyway he would have made it a point to find me, gun me down. The verification was terrible, though—on the one hand I'd been correct, but on the other hand now I'd lost any chance of making an attempt, the only thing I'd had before was the doubt, something to niggle around with, now there was nothing.

But was that true?

I blinked.

I blinked.

Was he certain to kill me?

I recalled the woman, her ordinary pleasantness in having an opportunity to introduce herself.

I looked over at Donald, having a laugh into his telephone, couldn't really understand it.

If he wanted to kill his wife, that was nothing to do with me, but I was something to do with him. Maybe he wouldn't kill me, maybe I was just meant to be his witness.

But what did that mean?

Not that I could leave, certainly.

I watched him, hardly even looking at me, either so confident that I wouldn't try anything else or else confident that he'd be able to handle anything I did try—that or just out of orbit, entirely, off someplace where there was no certainty, no uncertainty.

I'd finished my drink so I ordered another, Donald noticed, made a tick with his fingers that he'd take a second, as well.

-Start a tab? the bartender asked.

I was shaking my head No when Donald cut in with No thanks, but do you have the number for a cab?

-You want me to call for you?

-Could you?

Donald went back to his call, I told the bartender thanks, mumbled how any cab would do, it didn't matter, but she wasn't listening to me or I wasn't talking loud enough she'd think I was talking to her.

The gun was in the pocket closest to me, he was distracted—I thought about it, about waiting until he set his phone down, went for his drink, shot it back, maybe if I seemed lost in my own thoughts, even looking the other way, I could pounce in that moment.

The gun was right there.

If he fired, would it hit me?

Say it did, then where? My leg, through my hand?

I could run, struggle, bite him. There would be a panic, a confusion, someone might try to help me.

Say the gun goes off, again?

Who cares?

Donald's drink went down, his telephone, he shot the bourbon back, swallowed, set the empty down, flicked it, while coughing a bit, picked up the phone, pointed at my shot.

-Cabs on the way, the bartender said.

I nodded, left an entire twenty dollar bill, Donald pointing at my drink again, stern, but more like a pal goading me on, not letting me back out of a deal. I drank it in three swallows and he closed his phone, put it in his pocket.

-Let's wait outside.

I wanted to, but didn't want to, just stood and adjusted at my coat, looked at my hands, the first of the bourbon clambering up my back, my head lofty and dense.

-You'll like Greg, Donald told me while I got a cigarette lit, then while I lit one of his he said that Greg had once been arrested for stealing a fish. I waited for something else to the statement, but that was it.

Donald took his cigarette, moved a few paces away and looked up and down the road.

I remembered my phone, almost made a sudden move to my pockets.

Where was it?

My inside coat pocket. I made as subtle a touch there with the side of my hand as I could.

Donald waved and a cab lulled up to the curb. He held the door for me, let me get in first.

It was warm, I wanted to close my eyes, closed my eyes, but when my thoughts disjointed, when I couldn't keep to a single sentence, I opened them, looked at the cars around the taxi, all of us stationary for a moment.

Donald chatted with the driver about nothing, not even keeping an eye on me. I squirmed, the warmth making me aware that I needed to urinate, the sensation, a hot point, took all my attention, I made controlled breaths, stared at the unlocked lock of the inside of the door.

***

I mentioned to Donald that I had to use the toilet, he smiled. This was another residential area, townhouses, I imagined we were going into one of five in the row we'd stopped in front of, the lights out on all of them, freezing cars parked along the curb.

-Here, we'll go around back this way, he touched my shoulder, a friendly pat, and we wound around, down a lope of hill, to the shared parking area behind the houses.

It was pitch dark and even in the cold I could smell the dumpsters we were approaching. He slowed his pace, didn't say anything and I entered the enclosure, the gate swung halfway opened, stuck in that position.

For a moment, I wondered would I be able to relieve myself, wondered if I should look for something, maybe something blunt to get the drop on Donald with, but as soon as my pants were undone I began to urinate, the sensation so complete, bracing, I was absorbed in it, eyes closed, bobbing, listening to the stream froth in the random debris that cluttered the pavement.

I closed my pants, knew there was nothing to do but go back out to Donald—he knew I was finished, I didn't want to give him any reason to think I might be trying something, it might put a worm of doubt in him, undo any chance I'd have if I did think of some way to actually get out, get help.

My telephone.

We walked back up the hill, walked to the stairs of the third house in the row, Donald knocked.

What was I going to do with my telephone? What was the best thing I could hope to do with that? Call the police?

A man who looked a lot like Donald, dressed in just lounge clothes, opened the door and made an effusive gesture.

-You're Roger? he asked, shaking my hand and touching my shoulder as I moved past, to which I nodded, Donald telling Greg—or I supposed it was Greg—that we'd bumped into each other and that I'd bought a few rounds. Good man, then, good man. Next rounds are on me, of course.

Donald laughed, said Too kind and we got into a living room area, fairly well appointed, but oddly not put together, no thought really to the layout of the sofa and the small tables, the books were partway lined on the shelves, partway in odd side turned stacks.

Donald said I should have a seat, indicated the big plush chair, and he sat on the sofa, somewhat diagonal to me, while Greg went around to the kitchen, returning with a bottle and some shot glasses.

-Unless you want a glass? he said to Donald, both of them laughing, clearly an in-joke.

Donald's hand wasn't on the gun, he was behaving freely, but I supposed that made sense—there were two of them, now, and even if Greg didn't know about the gun, if I tried something funny he'd obviously follow Donald's lead.

I took a shot when it was offered, wanting to make it obvious to Donald that I wasn't going to clam up, that I wasn't lost in some scheme against him.

Greg and Donald touched shot glasses, made some toast I didn't understand, then while Greg poured more bourbon Donald said I told Roger here about how you stole that fish that one time.

Greg made a playful ugly face, pointed at me.

-That was my fish, he said, I was stealing it back. Fish are property and that one was mine.

I said I agreed, not to go fooling around with a man's fish and this made Donald laugh, push down on this thighs with his hands.

Were we going to sit around getting drunk?

If I could dial my phone, dial the police and leave it on, tuck it in my pocket, the call connected, that would be traced, the police might show up.

No.

I took another drink, figured I should stop, that it wasn't helping my reasoning, but then thought to the contrary, it was keeping me fluid and, moreover, it was keeping Donald—or seemed to be—completely off his guard. It was as though he was convinced I was with him, one of them, with he and Greg.

The police, no. They show up, it's clear how they got there and Donald tucks me away someplace, has Greg whisk me out the back—or even he just keeps the gun trained on me, chats the police away, then once they go he'd end me without even blinking.

And could the police track a phone that precisely, or would they just know I was on X block versus Y?

I sank into my chair, took one last shot because it was thrust at me insistently and Greg, pointing at the television screen a moment then waving at it dismissively, started in on telling Donald some meandering story about something that had happened at the store where he worked and midsentence, two minutes in, mid-word Donald pulled the gun from his pocket, thrust it toward Greg, pulled the trigger, hardly a flash, the crisp slap of the shot, Greg's body going an odd step, like a cartoon slipping on ice, then the room was silent, even with the pointless burble of the television going.

Donald stood, gun at his side. He picked up a shot glass, seemed to think the better of it, turned and stared at me, gun going back into his coat.

I was taking purposeful breaths through an O-shape push of my lips—long breath out, stop, count three, suck in through the nose.

Donald sat down, turned up the television volume a bit, looked over at me every few minutes for a half hour that I counted off on the stereo clock one number at a time.

It was too much to keep thinking, especially with the alcohol, I kept tensing myself, trying to gauge if every shot of the bourbon had hit, yet, if I had peeked, would start drifting back toward sober. I was leaning with my head to my chin, the breath out my nose obstructed, a whistle. I was pretending to be asleep, the same trick as I'd pulled in middle school, trying to miss the bus.

I heard Donald stand and without needed to be told, I stood up, too.

***

Donald called for another taxi from just inside Greg's door, patted me on the shoulder, told me to start him a cigarette and that I should have one. When we walked outside, he turned and did a playact of saying Goodnight to Greg and I even did a fake chuckle, completely lost, no idea who the show was for.

We sat on the bottom stair, my eyes immediately starting to water from the cold. When I rubbed at them, it made it worse, one eye especially, I rubbed and rubbed.

-What's the matter? You have something in your eye?' he said this with almost a friendly tone of mocking, like we were just pals who'd be drinking, on our way home, bored humor.

I kept rubbing, Donald not pressing for an answer to his question. I almost wanted to ask if I could go back inside, throw some water on myself, but there was no way this wouldn't sound off. I got tense, worried now that in my loose state I'd just say something unguarded and then—pop—a bullet in me, left in a lurch on somebody's front stairs.

-We're going back to town, first, get something to eat, I'm hungrier than I feel I should be, so we'll get something to eat, first. That alright?'

I nodded, knuckle pressing at my watering eye. The tone of the question—that it was a question—threw my equilibrium way off, I hardly knew what I was thinking about.

First.

He'd said First we're eating.

It turned out to be the same exact taxi driver, he rolled down his window as he pulled up, waved with a laugh like having the same fare twice in one night was something sensational to him.

A few minutes into the ride, taking on a very purposeful tone, an expansive, disguising tone, Donald touched my leg, once, nodded very sincerely.

-I'm very proud of you, Roger, I'm very proud of how you've been handling things. I think you really get it.

I gave a casual look to what I could see of the driver's face in the rearview, but the driver didn't seem to be paying particular attention. Still, I knew that a performance was necessary, to indicate I knew what Donald was doing and could act on his decisions quickly.

-Thanks, man. You know. Something new. But I'm coming to understand it.

He laughed, turning his attention to the view outside his window.

-You're a sharp cookie, a sharp sharp cookie.

The conversation ended without my having to add anything else. I glanced to the rearview again, the driver still not looking.

I wanted to believe that Donald's statement meant that I was going to be alright, but it couldn't possibly mean that—it couldn't mean I'm not going to shoot you if you try anything, it couldn't mean Go ahead, walk away, you've done enough and I trust you.

That stopped me up. I felt I was somewhere different than I'd been before, inside of me, felt I'd had these same thoughts but now they'd taken new shades.

Could he trust me? If I walked away, if he let me, what would I do? Did he mean I was cowed enough, that was why I was sharp, that he saw I was just a broken set of eyes, nothing by way of fight in me, nothing by way of justice?

I repeated this sequence of questions, repeated it, repeated it, not even sure what I meant, just sure my conclusions were worthless, sure it didn't matter if he could trust me, because he wasn't going to let me go, anyway.

He paid the driver and I shuffled out the same door Donald had exited through, definitely not sober, head swimming, thoughts plush.

-Please don't shoot me, I said, in close where I was sure nobody would hear.

-Donald looked at me. That's not what I meant in there, Roger. He made a bolstering sort of cheering gesture with his free hand. I meant you're doing good, you get it. Really. Then he smiled. I know we're not buddies, I know that. Then he took a long sigh, leaning in close. I can't tell you I won't shoot you, Roger, it wouldn't be true. Don't make me shoot you. Stepping back, he finished by adding Don't give me a reason to, alright?

Maybe as some kind of show, he lit his own cigarette right after this, stood there, occupied, the gun a weight in his pocket, both his hands away from it.

It was almost more harrowing, his saying what he had—what would be a reason?

But that was nonsense, pretending it put anything tangibly in my control. Even if there were some standards, some rules, I had no choice in the matter, he'd shoot me or he wouldn't.

Why had I even said that?

Because I was afraid, something in me was starting to unspool, thoughts were crawling their way into vocalization without my wanting them to.

It had been a warning, what he'd said, a reminder, a second chance, even. Making that plea, that would count as reason enough to shoot me, I knew that—making it again or anything like it would be the last straw. I really understood it, my role—my role was not to really have any role, to shut up, to walk, to understand when some random pantomime began and how I should proceed.

You get it, he'd said.

Don't give me a reason.

It may have been my inebriation, my memory of inflection, tone, expression may have had no accuracy to it, but watching Donald smoke it occurred to me I might not have been the first person to walk with him. You get it—You as opposed to Someone Else who hadn't gotten it. Don't give me a reason. Don't make me shoot you. Like Gwen did. Like Greg did. Like some other person he'd approached at a cash machine had.

He flicked his cigarette stub toward a trash can, made a quick frown when it fell short of making an impact, just dwindled on the pavement at the foot of the receptacle.

-Okay, he said, not to me, probably not to himself. Just said it.

***

We entered the restaurant and I, unconsciously, started moving toward the bar, but Donald tapped my side, smiling, nodded in the direction of an empty booth along the far wall. He was walking in front of me, or rather we were walking almost side by side, I clenched my teeth, closed my eyes, in that moment got ahead of him by a step, turned to see him leaning in at the bar, having a laugh with a man there who, also laughing, gave him a crude gesture.

I sat down, Donald joining me after just a moment.

-That's a guy used to date an ex of mine, he said, a memory of something amusing brightening his eyes, a chuckle to himself about whatever it was. He's a good guy, good guy.

I glanced over, couldn't pick out the exact person, anymore, from the clot of people, was startled by a waitress approaching the table, quite suddenly, kneeling down, arms folded on the table, the booth elevated enough she could rest her chin like this comfortably.

-Vernon didn't quit, she said, pouty eyes up at Donald who flicked her forehead, leaving a brief mark of fading red.

-Where else is he gonna go?

-I can think of someplace he could go.' She made a breath out, her lower lip up over her upper, slowly stretched herself back, got standing straight. I can definitely think of someplace else he could go.

Donald touched at her hip, just quick, brotherly—maybe this was his sister, I kind of wanted to ask.

-This is Roger, I met him earlier. You want me to tell him to beat up Vernon for you?

-Yes, she said, nodded affirmatively, sharp, at Donald then, her face melting into flirt, turning to me. Will you beat up Vernon for me? He's a shift lead here, really gets out of line.

She was really quite lovely, I hardly listened to her, just watched her, felt so far away, so far far away from everything.

-I could do that.

-You'd be my hero, she said, schoolgirl, trying to coax me into giving her my favorite eraser.

-Well, sold then. Anything to be your hero.

Then, pop, her attention back to Donald, telling him he'd made a good choice, that I seemed a real gent. She looked over her shoulder at something, left us with some menus and moved off.

-Don't go getting a crush, Donald said, taking a menu and handing me the other, she's happily married and everyone gets the wrong idea about her, which is fine, flirting, but everyone goes too far, I hate it when she has to deal with a headache.

-Sure, I said, drowsily, eyes half closed. Sure. Like Vernon.

He made a face like he was considering if that was the same thing, then stood, told me he had to use the toilet, that I should order for him, that the waitress—he called her Whatshername—would know what he wanted.

-And just coffee this time, for me, but you get what you want.

I watched him, wondering what the thing was, watched him cross the establishment, get to the toilet, go right through the door without even looking to see was I still there.

I stared, fixated, could feel he was going to pop right back out, but the door didn't open, didn't open. I started to stand, tensed, sat, perched on the edge of the booth.

At the bar. That man at the bar.

I felt my stomach cramping, my ribs pinching me.

I could get to the door, there had been no better opportunity. Even if I just had a long enough lead time to get around a corner, another corner—he'd know my name, but that suddenly felt ridiculous to worry about.

No.

My phone. I touched at my pocket, then placed my hands on the table.

If he were to so much as open the door, I'd be done, I couldn't breathe to take the chance. So, run to the door, dial and run—I could clearly identify this man, he would be arrested before he could do anything to me.

I started to breathe heavily, slunk into the booth corner to get a grip.

He wouldn't have just left me in the booth myself—he'd picked this place, knew the wait staff, knew someone at the bar, who knows what he'd said to that guy—If he tries to leave, stall him, hit him, slow him up.

I tensed, turned as causally as I could toward the bar, the swarm there, hands and arms, heads all mashed in with each other.

Watch him, let me know what he's acting like.

I still had no idea what was going on, who was involved, Donald wasn't just going to let me walk away—if I'd taken out my phone then tried to hide it, Jesus, even if I hadn't dialed the guy would tell Donald what he'd seen.

I looked to the toilet door. Closed. It opened, a different patron exiting.

Maybe there was another door in there, an exit out the other side—I try to get out the front door and that would be last of me, Donald just waiting there, nonchalant, to see if I'd chance it.

Was I actually just sitting at the table, waiting?

The waitress came up to the table.

-He ditch you?

-He's just, I gestured, shrugged.

-I know that, hero. He wants his burger, right?

-Right. He said you'd know.

She was jotting on her ticket almost cartoonishly, I figured she was more writing a joke or making a dirty sketch than she needed to write out the order.

-And I'll just have one, too, I guess, just a cheeseburger.

The toilet door opened, closed, no Donald.

-And he wants coffee, I'll have coffee, too.

She said something, but I hardly heard, just nodded.

It struck me that maybe I could go into the bathroom, too, while he was still in there. Inside a stall, I could call for help, especially if he went back to the table.

I stood up once she'd left. Stood there.

I should go up to the bar, just to order a drink, just to see if I could gather anything from that.

But what would that look like?

He wouldn't think I was getting a drink—I knew he would shoot me, here, in this booth, I almost felt the whole place would break into applause if he did it, too, he'd just Aw shucks, slink out, everyone thinking it was a big joke, forget all about my slumped over body, just assume I was waiting for him to come back.

***

The waitress had brought my coffee and I was a few swallows into it, wishing I'd asked for bourbon, as well, when Donald finally came back. He sat, scratching at his neck deeply, absorbed in the sensation, then seemed to notice his coffee for the first time, thanked me, started adding crème.

I overacted how tired I was feeling, an excuse to sit there, doped looking, trying to gather my thoughts. I just wanted to live—I felt there was someone chiding me, that I needed to defend myself against accusations, against this or that argument at what I should be doing—all I want is to live, guaranteed, and Donald is a maniac, he's out of orbit, I couldn't trust that anything I did that could appear against him wouldn't put him off, push him over. It isn't a game, I don't get two chances—or rather, I still felt this was my second chance, that the shows of faith he was giving me were to be understood, acted on. I wished I could get him to verify this, wished I could say You see, I didn't leave, weren't you testing me? Had I tried, wouldn't the waitress have stopped me, wouldn't your friend have stopped me—don't you see you can trust me? but that would be the most suspicious thing in the world to say. I even thought I should do a little game of pretending I'd just remembered about my phone, give it to him—but then this would seem crazy, he'd think it was a trick or that I'd already used the phone—or even just knowing that I'd been thinking about it, that I thought about the phone in terms of escape, this would put thoughts in his head and the next place we went or right in this booth the handclap of that little gun of his would burn through me.

-What are you thinking about? he said, nothing accusatory in his tone, an idle conversation prompt.

-I guess I was thinking about your waitress friend, I said, guess I was thinking would she really be happy if I beat up whatever his name was.

-Vernon?

-Vernon. But then you say she's married. I don't know, I'm just thinking.'

He shrugged, said he didn't blame me, no worries there.

-She was married when I was with her, you know? So there's nothing in this world written in stone.

I considered that, actually drifting into the make believe of the conversation.

-But I think she knew I wouldn't give her any trouble, Donald went on, that I wouldn't jeopardize my own marriage, et cetera, didn't want a headful of noise, myself. I don't like to give people trouble.

-Sure.

I couldn't think of anything else to say, but just then she brought the food, started saying something to Donald, stopped herself, left in a hurry, clearly busy with something and knowing she didn't need to be at her professional best with us.

Donald started in eating, straight away, but I just picked at the thick fries, chewed them slowly.

My goal was to live and there was nothing to defend about that, I could no more save these people than anyone else being murdered, any time. And even if I could, why should it be at the expense of my life? Gwen would be alive, but I'd be dead? Ridiculous. Even if such a thing could be guaranteed, there was no balance to that—it made just as much sense that Gwen should have willingly died to keep me from having to die for trying to save her. Or I suppose I should think the best thing would be to be dead along with everyone else?

No.

No.

I knew I was showing all of this on my face, tried to lose the train of thought, Donald buried in his eating.

-I have a phone.

I just suddenly said it, neither with relief or with shame, just as flat as the words could be folded.

He chewed, swallowed, had some coffee.

-Alright.

-I just thought I should tell you.

He looked into his empty or nearly empty mug, then around for his waitress friend, set the cup down.

-What does it matter to me that you have a phone?

My stomach knotted, loosened, a nausea rising I tried to subdue by shifting my position.

-I just didn't want you not to know. I don't know why, it just occurred to me, I hadn't thought of it and it just occurred to me.

The waitress brought some coffee and he asked her how things were going.

-It's been alright, actually, I'm just seated with a lot of big parties, sorry to be so here and there.

He smiled, touched her hip again, she lightly gripped his hand, held it until she had moved far enough away it just gently, naturally came away.

-Well, Roger. I have a phone, too, you know? I don't see what it matters. Then he grinned, made a pistol shape at me with his fingers. If you had a gun, though, I'd think now would be the time to mention it.

He didn't lower his hand, like he had drawn on me, was waiting to see if I'd put my hands up, which I actually did, halfway, forearms out at angles, my elbows tucked to my side.

-I don't.

-Still pointing at me. Well that's good. You already know I do. Still pointing at me. You remember that, right?

I nodded, noticed my coffee had been refilled as well, took a swallow, then another, Donald finally lowering his hand, returning to his meal. I tried a bite of my own burger, but the texture didn't seem right, I chewed it for five minutes, finally needing a mouthful of coffee to force myself to swallow.

Donald had a long nose, I focused on it, focused on the oddness of the length, like it was something else stuck to his face. His eyes were tired, obviously tired. He took the last of his hot coffee in his mouth, swished it cheek to cheek, told me to go ahead and pay, that the air would help, the air and a cigarette.

He wasn't human anymore. The next time he slept, right before it, he'd kill me—it was impossible for me not to know that.

***

Donald let me duck into the space between some closed shops and an apartment building to urinate, he kept at the opening of the alley, I heard him lighting a cigarette as I moved into the dark.

My head was damp and heavy, but my thinking was getting less muddy, some anchor of sobriety was getting itself dug in, again. Two people had been shot dead right in front of me, so I wasn't trusting myself to be clear headed, exactly, but I was tightening down on thoughts having to do with my particular situation.

Donald wasn't getting distracted, wasn't taking more chances with me, he was just coming to the end of whatever tether he had left, whatever his plan with me was, it would play out, one way or another.

I walked back to him and fell into step, it was no longer a matter of him holding the gun on me, our march was established, nothing to shame myself over or debate. If it came down to a struggle, I would die, I knew that I would—unless I got the upper hand and killed Donald, if it came to a confrontation, I would be dead. The eerie thing was how the fact that he lit his own cigarettes now, even standing three steps beside me, just left the gun in his pocket, indicated that he knew this too, knew that I knew it. As long as this didn't come off as aggressiveness, though, it didn't matter, as long as he knew that I was skittish, kitten in a corner, nothing mattered.

I imagined there must have been someone else before me, some other random stranger he'd approached, forced on this march at gunpoint. When he'd first approached me, all of his insistence about not wanting to repeat things, all of his reinforcing the rules of me getting him cigarettes, that was no longer the thing, he didn't need to be strict with me, I'd gotten further than whoever had come before—they were dead someplace, there was no other way to imagine that outcome, they were dead someplace and I was them, now, whatever the role was, I was it. The pretense had fallen away and I didn't know what it meant.

Did the fact that Donald seemed under the impression that it was utterly outside of me to see a handful of sharp broken pavement, grab it, smash at his head with it mean that it really was beyond me, that it wasn't a possibility?

I didn't know, just knew I wasn't looking for opportunities.

We walked and walked, taxis moved by, we didn't summon any and soon we were on those odd twines of roads leading to housing areas, parks.

-What time is it? I just wondered aloud, just said it, no reason not to.

-It's almost one, maybe past one. It was about one when we left the restaurant, anyway.

And how long had this all been going on? Suddenly it seemed absurd. It was one in the morning, he'd accosted me just shy of seven o'clock in the evening. Maybe there had been nobody before me—how long could he have been walking around shooting people? How many people could he have to shoot? Or maybe if he had kidnapped somebody else, that had ended poorly, that had had nothing to do with this killing jaunt he was on, maybe he'd just wanted to walk, wanted something else and they'd made the mistake of trying to get loose of him.

Mistake.

Mistake. I couldn't shake the word. I characterized that a mistake, trying to get away, but at the same time I didn't fully admit that my plan was no plan—just walk, just walk and watch. If it came down to it, if the last moment was evidently upon me maybe then I'd get up the courage to take some action.

Maybe.

How could that only be maybe? Was I just hoping I'd be so worn down by then I'd not fight it, let it take me, a cold body vanishing into a warm bath of water?

Donald's gait was now getting strange, automaton—he wasn't zombie, not just a click clack, there just seemed to be no give to it, nothing natural, his thoughts focused on whatever it was taking us place-to-place.

He glanced at me, walked ten paces looking at me, let me get a yard or two ahead, watched me looking back at him, made a heaving up and down of his shoulders and started up after me.

There were stand alone houses, again, spread here and there, a neighborhood of hills and playgrounds and in the distance a community building with a high fence around what I figured was the pool, the pool or tennis courts. We got closer to this. Closer to this.

Donald sat down on a bench and I stood by, watching the ropes on an empty flagpole move in twitches from the wind, tight twitches, cold, ropes that would much rather be limp and still.

While he sat, he dug his heels in the ground, sometimes turning up a rock and when he did he'd take it up, rub it along his pant thigh, give it a halfhearted toss into the empty of the grass between us and the community center's side wall.

There wasn't any moon I could make out, but with my hands down in my pockets I craned my head around, searching the same spots of sky for it again and again, thinking stupid things, thoughtless poetics, how it was so weird that looking at the sky was seeing an area so vast it should stagger the imagination, but that the mind reduced that space to a single object, the sky, the space between that spot of trees in the distance and that, the distance between facing this way and seeing some wall and turning around and seeing a house vaguely off in the dark.

The sky.

If Donald told me I could walk away, what would I do? If he just fell asleep sitting there, would I try to do something to him or would I just leave?

No.

I didn't want to think about doing something to him. But what would I do were he to say Leave. Go. Leave.

I looked at him, felt dead.

***

I'd sat myself on the grass, then laid out, the cold felt wet but I didn't really think it was. I tried to have a cigarette while in this position, had to prop myself up on an elbow, get it lit. I could picture myself running, taking off across the field, picture myself falling from a shot to the leg, another shot to finish me soon to come. I looked at the rise and fall of my chest, my abdomen, imagined that laying out in this dark field I could take my last breaths.

Just because it was quiet, I knew nothing had changed, the situation was not humbly altering, my position and Donald's had not shifted, rearranged.

I heard him get to his feet and call out Hey you, give me all your money, and I heard something in response, a voice getting closer. I lazily sat up to see Donald getting a cigarette lit as a man dressed in uniform approached.

A policeman?

The thought gave me a sudden headache, my breathing got rough, immediately resettled. Just a night security guard, probably patrolled the neighborhood, maybe sat at a desk or in a little sub-room of the community center in between rounds.

-You in the doghouse, Donny? the guard asked, making a very purposeful blow of smoke this way and that, head lolling around.

-Naw, friend Roger's in town, he pointed at me, the guard just noticing I was there for the first time. We're reminiscing, used to walk around here, get high.

-I'll put that in my report, the guard said, then asking if Donald happened to have any Certain Substances on him just then, the particular phrase said with a funny accent, something in-referenced between them, the way they words were said in some movie somewhere maybe.

-We're working off a drunk, actually, probably go get another one going in a bit.

Donald's hand went to his pocket. I stared a moment, then looked at the grass, but the conversation between the two men just went on for another few minutes.

-Why are you sitting out in the cold? You wanna come in? I got coffee in there, lemonade mix, snack machine.

-You want a snack, Roger? This guy says he's got a snack machine.

I labored to get standing, the guard giving me a hand.

-I'm Curtis, by the way.

-Roger.

He laughed once I was standing, I tottered, stiff, aching.

-Where are you in town from?

He flicked his cigarette away while I said The coast and I didn't see it, just heard the shift of Donald's fabric, Curtis' head turning as Donald shoved the muzzle of the gun right into his chest, a muffled thump of the shot going right through the body. I knew I'd started to drool, could feel the flush in my face, wiped at my mouth and held my eyes wide open, knowing if they closed I'd start crying, needed to wait out the sensation.

Donald crouched with the body, going through the pockets, stood, shaking his head. He tapped the side of my arm, jostled me.

-We need to duck into this place, come on.

-What?'

The question was pointless, not even a question and I was following him even while he didn't answer, around to the front door of the community center, Donald touching a magnetic card to a sensor, the pop of the doors unlocking, a little light from red to green. He was talking to me, generally, while I followed him down a corridor, made a turn.

He used the card to get in through another door. It was what I imagined was the security room, where they sat between rounds, a nice sized television on a filing cabinet with some program playing, volume on at a normal level.

Donald went through the pockets of a backpack, coughed as he put some keys he found there into his pocket. He glanced to the television when I glanced away from it.

-You want to watch this or something?

I blinked, looked at his pocket, both of his hands in front of his face, he was rubbing them, blowing into his palms, rubbing them, insect.

He waited at the front door to the place, a moment, not looking to see if anybody was coming, just probably not looking forward to stepping back into the cold.

I'd imagined we'd head off in a different direction than we'd come, but instead we passed by Curtis' body in the field, got out to a road and started walking along it. I really didn't want to walk anymore, didn't want to keep it up, my mind, I knew, back to not registering anything properly—I wasn't even following him because I knew what would happen to me if I stopped, it was just walking, it was just thoughtless.

He stopped and I kept moving past him and soon he was catching up to me at a jog.

-Give me your phone, he said.

I hesitated, not because I was resisting, just because the tone of his voice was peculiar, the words neither statement nor question, but I shook myself out of it quick enough I didn't think he registered the beat, scratching at his eye, spitting off into the road.

He opened the phone, tapped through the menu, his other hand going into his pocket, coming out, gun dangling. He looked up at me, putting his gun away, breathing out his nose in huffs of coloured air. Once his gun down in his pocket, he used that hand to hurl the phone in through the tree line, I didn't hear the sound of it impacting anywhere, it might as well have evaporated, been some soot on his sleeve he'd decided to finally dust.

We walked. I stared at the back of his feet, not having noticed before he was wearing boots, decorative, either cheap and found second hand or quite expensive.

I spun the little scene with my phone around in my head—did it mean something good, something bad, anything at all? The only way I could imagine it was that his thinking was only just now catching up, logically, to the implication of my having it, to what I might possibly have done with it or have had it in my mind to do if an opportunity presented itself. I wanted that to mean something comfortable, like eluding the police was a concern he had, that this was not a suicide march—but instead of thinking about that, I started pouring over every other tiny behavior I'd made, everything I'd said, either meaning to or not, wondering what his reaction would be if any of that struck him the wrong way, all of a sudden. Had I said anything to anyone that sounded like a coded plea for help? Had I wade some gesture he'd recall and get suspicious of? What had I done, what hadn't I done, what had it meant, what could it seem like whether it'd meant anything or not?

***

We entered a neighborhood of split houses, took the side stairs up to the front entrance of a top level and Donald fiddled with a ring of keys until he got the right one. I was puzzled a moment, but as we entered and he turned up the light I realized they were Curtis' keys.

He closed the door behind us, locked it. I wondered if he intended for us to stay in the place, but this seemed ridiculous. Curtis' body would be found and the police would come here, straight away. Or I thought they would. But not caring to finish this consideration out, I took a seat, Donald paying no attention to me, dialing a telephone number on his phone, milling over by the kitchen.

Had the other bodies been found?

I doubted it, why would they have been?

If Gwen was Donald's wife, he'd have killed her like that knowing nobody would be showing up. We'd sat around at Greg's long enough that it was obvious no one had heard the shot, or at least not registered it as something to do anything about—what would that sharp crack sound like through a wall, across a street? Even if it had been reported, why would it be localized to Greg's house?

I rubbed at my face, wondered why I cared about it, one way or another. None of it had anything to do with me, the bodies found, the bodies left forever. I lit a cigarette, smoked with my eyes closed.

-You can take a nap if you want, Donald said, snapping me to attention.

-I'm fine. I'm just relaxing.

Another phrase I hadn't intended, another meaningless, pleasant string of words, automatic, unthought.

I finished my cigarette, started another, Donald drifting out of the room a moment. I heard a light switch go up, come down, go back up, Donald re-entering.

I didn't look up again for another minute or two, numb, didn't look up until I realized the little clicking sounds I heard from where Donald was standing were caused by him having unloaded his gun, set it down. He was reloading, causally, putting the little bullets into the thing daintily, clearing his throat softly every five seconds or so, then setting everything down, using his knuckles to massage a spot of his side and then a moment later putting everything down again, massaging a spot of his lower back with both hands.

If I attacked him, it would be just a matter of the physical struggle, just two fatigued bodies grappling, tearing, gnawing. I figured he must know I was watching him, maybe was listening to me intently, back behind him, maybe he'd set something within easy reach on the counter, a knife, a heavy bowl.

No.

No, I doubted it.

I looked around for something myself, something heavy, a solid swing of it enough to incapacitate him, then another, another, bludgeon him dead. I was clearer now than before, now with everything that had happened, clearer that he had no confederate, nobody was on his side, he was desperately alone. If I did attack, it would be the only moment, the thoughts of consideration leading up to it very likely my final.

I sat back down.

The gun had become somewhat immaterial sometime back, this only reinforcing it. The gun had been needed to initially coax me and after that had become irrelevant, just a flat fact, but nothing defining. Whatever his trajectory was, I had become component—if I didn't kill him or didn't incapacitate him long enough for the police to show up, he would kill me, he would kill me, not a question. Even if he didn't do it right in that moment, he would, eventually. If I'd attacked and he'd gotten the upper hand, maybe he wouldn't have shot me, here and now, maybe he'd still make me walk with him, but I'd have made it certain how things would end.

He had the thing loaded, into his pocket. A change that changed nothing, everything changed back to what it had been and always was.

He went around into the kitchen and started himself some toast, poured himself a glass of water, took a popsicle from the freezer.

-Are we staying here?

He nodded, running his teeth along the length of the popsicle, then dropped the thing into the sink.

-For just a bit, I need to think about something.

-What do you need to think about?

He told me I didn't have to worry about it, said Thanks, absently, like he'd registered my question as an attempt to do him a favor, to advise him.

He spread peanut butter on his toast, leaned to the counter, chewing, clearly absorbed in a calculation—who we would kill next, where we would go next.

We.

I felt sick to my stomach.

We. I hadn't meant to think it, it didn't mean anything, I didn't feel it appropriate, but just the fact it had been thought made me ill.

We.

I got another cigarette started. Almost like considering the construction of a mediocre film, I wondered if the idea was he wanted to pin the killings on me. I chuckled smoke down my nose, this getting no reaction from Donald. Ridiculous to think about it, like such a thing would be possible. Framing me. I almost wanted to confess the thought to Donald, but he wouldn't care, wouldn't even understand it, maybe he'd get it after a few hours, suddenly, belt out a laugh or say I agree, that's silly, but right now it wouldn't mean anything to him, to anyone. If only something so pointlessly contrived, melodramatic was going on, if only what was happening had such a simple functionality—he kills who he wants, leaves a few of my foot prints, a few of my cigarette stubs, kills me and wraps my fingers around the little gun and presto, he walks away whistling.

Maybe that would be nice, because I'd understand what it had to do with me, at least.

I heard Donald munching toast. When I looked over, he was staring right at me.

No.

Past me. He only looked at me when he registered I was looking at him, and then all he did was look back away.

***

The apartment itself was tightly comfortable, clean, well laid out. It was easy to imagine somebody living in it. It was easy to imagine Curtis—I almost called him Chris, almost thought about him as a Chris, corrected myself in my thoughts, sharply, cruelly, that I should at least not lose his name so quickly—relaxing here.

I stood, stubbing a cigarette, the last from my pack, moving to the shelves next to the television, lines of films and a few books, a few knick-knacks. I reached toward a framed picture, startled by Donald running the garbage disposal a moment, my attention clicking to him, then as the grind of the sound kept on another few seconds I turned back to the photograph.

Curtis with the waitress from the bar.

Maybe not.

Certainly.

Curtis with the waitress from the bar.

I put the photo down, tried to casually see if there was another, another image to verify things with.

-I said what do you do? Donald said as he was drying up some spots of water on the counter with a cloth, draping it over the sink spout.

-I'm sorry?

-He looked at me, child-face curious, What do you do?

-Do? I was blank on how to answer, couldn't see another photograph anywhere.

-Where do you work, you know?

-I nodded, swallowing, hesitant between staying standing and sitting down. I work at an art supply store. Work at an art supply store, don't really do anything.

-You're an artist? he said, a look on his face like he didn't see that as a real possibility.

-No. I just work there. I'm the one guy who works there who isn't an artist, I think. Or a wannabe.

He chuckled, attention seeming to wander.

I looked back in the direction of the framed photo, then back away.

-Don't you think we should get out of here?

He looked at me, eyes blurry from thought, like he was genuinely considering my point.

-I don't know. I don't think so. I think we're alright. I don't know how this is going to work, exactly.

If he was thinking to wait for the waitress to return home, kill her, what was the timeline? Was she out with some other guy, have to be back by the time Curtis would be off shift?

This didn't completely make sense, not with Curtis living so close, but it also made as much sense as anything.

Or was it distracting Donald so much because she should have been here, now he didn't know where she was?

My impulse was to try to shoo him out the door, to get him to skip this bit, move on to something else, drift even out of his own loose orbit, whatever it was. Now that it was clear to me he was a mechanism, ticking off points, now that I understood he wasn't operating randomly I wanted to turn him free roaming, make him senseless.

But then, just as much, if she was somewhere else, somewhere he hadn't expected her to be, perhaps keeping him in the apartment was in my best interests. If we stayed, once it was daylight Curtis' body would be found, the police might show up. If she was out all night with someone, maybe she'd given herself enough alibi to not have to be home until later—or maybe she wasn't with another man, just staying with a friend, going someplace the next day and Donald hadn't known that—and if she wasn't coming back and he was jammed up, staying here would keep anything else from happening.

No.

He might kill me. If it got unglued, he might kill me, himself, he might kill me, walk away.

I couldn't even see a clock to know the time.

Donald was looking at me hard.

-What do you do? I asked.

-He kept looking. What do you mean?

If we stayed, he'd kill me, her, himself. If the police showed up he'd kill me, himself.

-Tell me about yourself.

He shook his head, kept shaking it, more a wobbly, fatigued tick than a proper dismissal.

-No. Then he took a big breath in, up on toes, out, pushed his arms in front of him, fingers intertwined, palms facing me, got back to standing proper. I don't do anything, Roger. This is all I do. This is all I've ever done.

-Okay.

-Do you like it at the art store?

I shrugged, and he frowned, just kind of turned away.

Even I could figure out a way to make him leave, I couldn't decide if it was the best thing to do.

What did I care about the waitress, when it all came out? Why was I acting how I imagined someone should act, when anything I did was just as reasonable and understandable and correct as any other thing?

If she did show up and he did kill her, it was probably my best chance to live. It made no promises, our staying assured me of nothing, her dying made nothing absolute and I had no idea how I might eventually slip away, but Donald was certainly in no headspace to me toyed with, the moment he got it in his mind I wanted him to do one thing particularly more than another he could kill me—killing me was irrelevant by this point, he had no reason not to other than maybe he kind of liked me, maybe he kind of didn't want to.

-Why do you work there if you don't like it?

He didn't even look in my direction when he asked and so I didn't answer, at first, waited to see some gesture he was in the moment.

-Why don't I quit? I don't know. I guess I've been there awhile, I like it as much as anyplace else. I don't feel like learning something new, I suppose. And I riffed on this, kept repeating variants on the same sentences, and he kept nodding, as though following points of logic from origination to destination, some complex web of point and counterpoint.

-But you're not an artist right? Didn't you say you were the only one there who wasn't?

I nodded, couldn't think of a way to answer.

-Did you ever want to be an artist or anything like that?

I actually thought about it, or pretended I was thinking about it enough that I did consider it to be what felt like the truth when I said No. No I never did. I just took a job at some store, nothing to do with wanting anything.

He said he'd never wanted to be an artist either, then told me I could take a nap if I wanted, like he was embarrassed he couldn't think of something else to talk about.

***

I began nodding off, despite myself. Donald had brewed coffee and I drank two cups, one on top of the other, but it was past the point this did any tangible good—I was jittery, but not in the sense I'd stay awake, it was the way I'd gotten many times in life, fatigued, up too long, filled myself with caffeine only to sweat and kick fitfully, asleep but not sleeping.

Donald seemed in slightly better shape than I was, but he was on a more direct line, I supposed, then right away got worried by what I meant by that.

Shouldn't I be as alert as him, not lulling into sleep?

But it wasn't a lull, no, I hadn't turned fatalist, accepted things, this was me being wound down, exhausted into a malaise—I wasn't going to do anything here, so now I was just awake, still had no idea the time, sitting on a sofa, nothing to do but hope someone didn't come home and at the same time hope that they did.

I wondered if there was any suggestion of light to the sky yet. The curtains were drawn. I'd lost all sense of what it looked like, exterior. I thought about how that sometimes happened when I'd go to the movies, walk in from bright sunshine, out into dusk or overcast, in from rain, out into humid sunshine, that moment where I'd know something had changed but there was nothing quite unnatural, it would take thought, memory to identify the shift.

I heard the sound of a car door closing, tensed, didn't want to, didn't want Donald to think I knew what was going on, wondered if he'd heard it, should I distract him with some comment—but what difference would it make?

He tapped on the kitchen counter lightly, got me to look over, was waving me in the direction of the bedroom, gesturing for my silence.

I shook a little bit as I stood up, could feel some blubbering emotion welling in the unsteadiness of my legs, a shudder in my stomach. There was nothing to do, no way to send a warning. It was outside of anything I could manipulate—not only could I not will somebody not to return to their home, even if I ran to the door or waited for her to come in and screamed she should run, Donald would just kill me, kill her, do whatever it was he was going to do after that.

The bedroom had the lights on and Donald didn't close them, he just moved me along with him so that we wouldn't be seen until someone fully entered. He even leaned against the wall, idle, the gun out in his hand—in his hand closest to me, no effort at all made to keep distance between us.

A key undid the front door latch, she entered singing some pieces of a song had maybe been on the radio, had maybe just been in her head all day, all night. Then a horrible stretch of time, sounds of her going about her tired morning, saying a few things to herself, maybe she wondered about the dishes, the thick of seemingly recent cigarettes, but there was no reason for her to be concerned over that, really, nothing to give away our presence, make her understand, make her know, make her run. A clatter of the refrigerator, the freezer, a microwave door opened, closed, the high beep of buttons and then the whir of something being heated and the television coming on, going right back off.

Maybe she would just eat and leave, had some reason to go right back out.

I wanted to look at Donald, see if he was growing impatient but didn't, couldn't—I needed to think it was just a matter of her not coming into the room would keep her alive and if he seemed antsy I'd have to understand she was dead, already, it was just a matter of Donald wanted it this way instead of that, that way instead of this.

When she came in through the door she had the shirt she'd been wearing at the restaurant bunched in her hand, barefoot, a lemon camisole. She startled on seeing us.

-Oh, hello, she said, the Hello very much two words, a friendly tilt toward sounding like a question to the second beat, then a quick breath. She was letting out a relieved, awkward chuckle, let her shirt go. I saw her notice the gun in Donald's hand still by his side, saw her look at him, but she looked right at me when she said Is everything good? her brow a cartoon of hopeful perplexion and she was looking at me, making herself smile when the gun went off.

I turned, still standing, to the wall, forehead to it, grinding my head, rolling it back and forth, tapping my knees against my shadows, was pressing my balled fists oddly into the base of my skull and I was saying something but nothing. I could taste the salt in my breath, pulled my glasses off, put them back on, turned around, sinking to the carpet.

Donald was sitting on the edge of the bed, looked back over at me once or twice, but didn't seem particularly concerned.

He went over to her closet, opened it, seemed to poke through it, then half closed it, sighed, sat back down, above me, looking at me, gun dangled in both hands dangled between his spread legs.

I looked away from him, thought I felt his eyes on me, had the sensation that he was about to say something, was sitting there choosing the words, but after a few minutes, ten minutes, it didn't matter how many minutes, I looked at him and he was looking straight up, eyes shut.

-Did you know what her name was? he said, not changing his position, the words oddly, tightly formed for the strain of his neck.

I didn't know if I did, tried to remember had he introduced her, had I looked at her name tag. I wanted to lie, to say I knew her name, but then if he asked me What was it? and I couldn't say he'd know I was lying to him, he'd know something, whatever there was to know.

-She never told me. I don't know.

-It was Cynthia, he told me, or said, the words might not have been directed at me because in the next breath, to the tune of some song, he whispered Cynthia's a Synthesiz-ah then went silent, then stood.

***

Donald was having a last cup of coffee, taking it in large mouthfuls, but not drinking fast. My jaw was shivering, I couldn't focus.

-I need to use the toilet, I kind of mumbled. I did need to, could feel my insides thinning, like something had burst, leaked, something warmer than the rest of me. Not sure he had heard me, I spoke up, Donald, I need to use the toilet.

His eyes widened, a face like what did that have to do with him, a little jiggle indicating I should feel free.

I shut the door, turned the lock, put on the overhead fan, fumbled with my pants, got them down, sat and bent as far forward as I could, squeezing down against the cramping, sick that nothing happened, a tight gurgle stuck just at the bottom of my throat, sharp. I bobbed, rocked, stood to see if anything loosened—but maybe it was just tension, nothing else.

I stood at the sink with my pants down, stared at the mirror, disgusted at how ordinary I looked—a slight gloss of settled perspiration, my hair the way hair looked before bedtime, other than that pristine, myself.

I shushed some mouthwash around, just for something to do, a little distraction, then absently reaching for a hairbrush I saw, my eyes settled on a pair of thin scissors, sharp, shears for trimming hair.

I looked at the face of the closed door. Donald had a loaded gun, of course, but it was probably in his pocket, his mind wandering—his grip on everything had slipped, or at least I felt it had, that shooting Cynthia had altered something, caused a shift he'd not expected, if he'd been expecting anything one way or the other.

But maybe not. Maybe it was me roiling in whatever had happened to me. I felt drained, vanished, I was considering Donald's plan, whatever it was, all over and done, but nothing really indicated it was.

If he found the scissors, he'd kill me. Without blinking. Just like before.

But, I didn't necessarily have to go out and attack him. To the contrary, I could just conceal the scissors, like my phone had been concealed, as simple as that, have the option—a better option than a telephone—something I could slither out of my coat cuff, remove from where I'd tuck it in my pants, drive it home, through his ribs, the back of his neck, shove it up into his spine.

I wasn't looking at the scissors anymore, but at my own face, except I didn't realize I was, just caught the expression in my eye, squinted at it, understood it was me.

For all I knew, Donald was leaning against the wall, just outside the door, drifts of cigarette, gun already pointed—he might very well just start firing through the thin flat of wood at any moment.

It was too much of a risk to conceal the weapon—he'd never shown concern before, but I'd never been out of his sight before, not like this, left to myself.

Why wouldn't it occur to him to search me, make me disrobe?

Or maybe it wouldn't go that far, he'd just see it in my features, know it.

Was I stable enough to conceal it?

The idea of wanting to know was it morning, dawn, was there light outside or still blank dark became a fever—I did not want to die out of time, did not want to die not even knowing where I was, in the stale, used air of some corpses' apartment.

There was no difference in this scissor plan than in my plan to look for a rock as I walked, or to bolt through a field—I might as well have thrown my bourbon in his face at the restaurant, grabbed his hair, crawled over the table and forced my whole arm down his throat, fingers clawing, gripping at anything inside him I could get them around.

I flushed the toilet, ran the water, shoved some into my face, through my hair, the sensation intoxicating. I used a bar of scented soap, then took a bottle of shampoo, lathered my palms up, lifted my sleeves, cleaned my forearms. I scoured my face, roughed it with a towel, enough force my eyes felt swollen, bruised, closing in on themselves. My ears began to ring from the scents and the temperature of the water and the awkward motions, head this way, that way, this way, that way.

My reflection hardly looked different than it had before, except now my skin was a bit flushed, raw, my eyes dark but not bloodshot, just strained from all the effort.

It seemed to me I'd been in the room a long time. Maybe Donald would be gone when I stepped out, would just have walked away, gone ahead, come to some understanding that I no longer mattered, that whatever function I had in his contraption was now moot, I'd performed my service, no point fussing over me.

The door looked the same as it had, I felt just as threatened by it now as I had moments before, imagining the apparition of him out there, a coiled gadget waiting to go pop, automatic, if I made the hinges creak for too long.

There was no reason he'd search me and by this time wouldn't it be beside the point? I reveal scissors, say I was thinking to kill you, it wouldn't matter, he'd just have caught me, stopped me, again—whether I had had it mind to do something or not made irrelevant by the reality that I'd accomplished nothing.

So why shouldn't I take them, then? Just because I couldn't kill him? What would bring me to that point, make me able? Would I have to be dead before I'd be willing to do that? Dead before I'd even be willing to prepare?

Donald was still drinking coffee, looked at me over a half asleep grin.

-Don't you look nice.

I walked toward the door, touching at my coat, bracing for the cold, heard the tick of him setting down his mug and then the shush of him striking a few matches before one took long enough to get his cigarette going, heard the tip tap tip tap of the little sucks in of the flame.

***

It was still dark as we walked down the steps. At the curb, I glanced at the houses, at the dark windows, looked at the cars parked, thought about the people asleep. Donald handed me a set of keys, told me it would be better if I drove.

What I supposed was Cynthia's car was an old green thing, squat, very used, bumper stickers for several universities I doubted she'd attended worn and made filthy with time. Donald tried at the passenger door, seemed genuinely happy that it just opened, waited until I'd gotten around to the driver's side to sit down.

His gun was out, at the end of his forearm rested along his thigh.

The car started fine, air rushing out of the vents not hot or cold, Donald touching at the dials but not adjusting any, satisfied, though he did turn down the volume of the radio, not all the way, just enough that nothing distinct was audible, sounds, tuneless, the shavings either percussive or high pitched enough to register.

He directed me out of the neighborhood.

This change had me more alert, I wanted to ask him what was going on, but he seemed odd, was sucking on his tongue, maybe his tongue fiddling with a tooth back in the side of his mouth, little slurps, rough breaths out his nose from exertion.

He directed me to take an exit onto the freeway, my arms tensing.

-Where exactly are we going?

He turned the radio off all the way, made some comment I didn't quite catch.

-We have to go see a few more people, Roger. You know.

Those last two words not a question, not a pleasant suffix.

You know.

I know.

I knew.

But was this going to be a cross country thing, now?

Donald shuffled around, slumped comfortable up into the corner made by his seatback and the car door, was tapping the hand that held the gun on his knee, only holding it by the handle, the trigger like a loose tooth, a sharp one, it seemed so tender, delicate, like the gentlest touch would make it yowl.

We drove ten minutes, twenty minutes. I asked a few times should I just keep going and when I guess he got tired of saying I'll tell you if we need to turn, he told me we were to drive until the Muller Parkes exit.

It hit me in that moment that we were not going to be driving through the night, nothing long distance. I deflated, cringed where I sat.

If we stayed on the road, if we drove until Cynthia's body was found, this car would be looked for—again, I didn't know if I wanted that or not, what it would mean for me—but if we weren't doing that it meant this was just another breath between violence.

I scanned the road for police cars, emergency vehicles, but it was just us, like some random thought nobody was considering, just us and the shush our car caused.

Our car.

His car.

Her car.

Cynthia's car.

I'd heard the name Muller Parkes or seen signs for it, but I didn't know anything about the area. As signs began appearing saying it was coming up in ten miles, eight miles, five miles, the area surrounding us became more rural, long fields with patches of trees or blunt lengths of forest, small areas of field pocking them.

We actually took an exit call Grover Commons, a long curve off the highway, it felt like the turn was a corkscrew, four circles, the road going down and the road it emptied out onto was one surrounded high by trees, thick enough for two lanes but no markings on the disrepaired pavement.

I took the left as I was told to, driving slow, hunched to the wheel, a thin of cold mist caught in the headlights and the windshield slowly creeping over with grey. There were mailboxes every so often, driveways dirt or pebble, but these driveways just seemed to lead to other snakes of roads, the houses not visible from the car, maybe miles back.

We passed a little café with two gas pumps in front, a number of cats crossing along under the light post, the sight of them making me turn my strict attention to the road in front of me, anxious that any moment some animal or another might appear.

-You're going to see a kind of broken up old fence just up here in a bit, just park along in the grass there, okay?

I nodded, but oddly he repeated Okay? and only seemed satisfied when I repeated Okay.

Just from what I could sense of him peripherally, I could tell this was different—he seemed angry, seemed terrible.

I saw the fence, kind of saw out of the corner of my eye him point at it, but I was already pulling into the grass, he didn't say anything else.

He got out of the car immediately upon my shutting off the engine, came around to the driver's side, opened the door and said for me to stay seated. He urinated against the rear tire, closed his pants, told me to stand up.

The cold was worse for stepping out of the heat, excruciating for the amount of moisture, I felt like I was being bitten by ants, my ears felt warm they were so cold, warm and clotted, the sensations a mumble, I didn't feel like I could hear properly.

Donald directed me to walk, back in the direction we had driven. It seemed a long way, but I really don't know, I had no sense of myself except for my discomfort, the cramps had returned around me.

Eventually we turned at a mailbox, up a cold path, mostly dirt and crushed leaves, a mash of leaves, stones, dead pine needles.

I imagined we were coming up on a house, but if we were I couldn't see it in the pitch. I wondered about the illumination—there certainly wasn't light, wasn't moon—it seemed it should be so much darker. Darker. It should be impossible to see.

***

I asked for a cigarette, perhaps as a way of stalling, giving whoever was in the house a last few moments to notice something wrong, to fortify themselves, or perhaps just as a dragging of my own feet against the inevitable—Donald gaining entrance, death.

Me, doing nothing.

He gave me one of his cigarettes, lit his own as well. We waited off the path in a wet patch of ground between a cluster of leafless trees, Donald relaxing against the damp bark, me touching the toe of my shoe into a puddle.

Why shouldn't it be inevitable that I'd do nothing, especially now?

This was certainly not where I would choose to die, some rag tag property off a road I'd never heard of. And this was the most volatile I'd seen Donald, he wasn't just a friendly smile, an awkward, misplaced conversation—the gun was in his hand, brandished, he looked like he was sweating despite the temperature, despite the frost of the coming morning.

He rubbed his cigarette out harshly on the tree I was standing beside, spit a few times, said there had been something wrong with his but that I should finish mine.

I looked at the house front, neither dingy nor put together, probably looking as ordinary as it did for the dark—it just looked like a dark house out in the woods somewhere, in the light it would seem worn down, a blemish. Or maybe not, maybe it would look acclimated to its surroundings, what a house would prefer to be like if left to its own devises, not groomed to be an object.

I couldn't help smiling at the inanity my mind was shooting up, the off-poetics, anything to scuttle into a corner, cockroach thoughts.

Donald took the steps up to the front door at a jaunt, looked at me like doing a little silent count one-two-three-four, then kicked the door in, knocking it almost off its frame, a horrendous clang, like everything in the house had been kicked in all at once, everything everywhere. He pointed and I tottered in, not in any sort of hurry and neither was he, despite the violence. I wanted to stop, to let him know I'd even just sit and wait, but his focus wasn't so intent that I'd been forgotten—it seemed just the opposite, he took me by the wrist and we walked up the carpeted steps, turned down a corridor, the light seeping out from under a door, seeming fresh, somehow, it looked like a light just suddenly turned up, had a blinking quality to it, not yet sure it would have to stay, thinking maybe it could go black again, sleep.

He kicked this door in, as well, though it clearly wasn't necessary. Just two elderly people, man and woman, man and wife, the man halfway at attention, legs over the bed, the woman just laying on her back like she'd not be able to stand without aid.

Donald fired and I peeled away from his grip, coiled around myself, began sobbing, infant, uncontrollable yelps of strangled consonants, hugged around myself onto the floor, hands and knees, screaming at the wood floor, a stream of my mucus and my saliva all over my hands. I heard him fire four times, then there was a long period of silence, then another shot. I just blubbered, screamed, was even making sentences, saying who knows what, crumpled and worthless, driving my fists at the floor, at the wall, the side of a dresser.

I got up, looked at Donald as best as I could, my lip stiff but trembling, wheezes of high pitched nonsense burping from my throat. He was putting more bullets in his gun, looked at me while he did it.

My face screwed around itself like a hand, like it was trying to cover its own eyes, shrink inside of itself, burying itself in itself.

I didn't cower this time, stood, weak beyond falling, watched him empty five more shots into the carcass of the old woman, then one into the wall, then one into the ceiling, then another into the wall.

It seemed to go on forever.

He walked out of the room casually and I followed, immediately, like a chastised child, wiping my sleeves at my face, chest shuddering like I should say something, wanted to know where we were going, wanted to ask if I could just stay—I just didn't want to have to do anything else, be anywhere else.

When we were down the front steps, out in the cold, he shoved me hard and I fell over, easily, not even struggling, rolled more than I needed to from his force. He kicked me in the side and I bucked, closed up around myself, moaning like I'd moan if I were just playing a game of it. He kicked me again, stepped hard on my leg, on my calves, twisted his foot down, all his weight, then he used the toe of his boot to kick almost that same spot.

I crawled away a bit, enough to get into a sitting position, Donald with another cigarette lighting, the gun likely in his pocket. He took a stride in my direction and I involuntarily covered as much of myself as I could with my crossed arms. He stopped, crouched, took up a random handful of dirt and the mash of leaves, approached me, crouched again, grabbed at my cheeks to make me open my mouth, but I kept it closed so he just forced the mess into my clenched teeth, onto my eyelids, choked me for maybe two seconds then stood up.

For a long while, I thought he was gone. I was just left there, laid down on my back, rolled to my side, eyes closed, shivering until I stopped noticing. It was like sleep, very close to sleep, looking at the back of my eyes, listening to the frozen of the quiet, all alone, comfortable in that, the way an insect must feel if set down in a different field than it had been picked up from, no difference, no more or less lost than living where it had been born.

Donald was dragging his foot, the heel of it, along the bottom of the front stairs, a kind of odd little hop, a game of seeing how smoothly he could do it. When he saw me looking at him, he stopped, titled his head we had to go.

***

We were a good distance from the house, the ground seeming particularly uneven, when I looked up to see that we were not heading back down the path but into the thick of woods. I looked behind us, had no idea which direction the house had been, just followed Donald, looking at his pants becoming damp and soiled around the cuffs.

The trees opened up into a length of field, mostly mud, some swatches of tall stiff grass here and there, more trees waiting on the other side. It was where he was going to kill me—this is what I thought when we stopped, the only way I could understand why he had beaten me, yet looking at him, all of the violence seemed to have vanished, he seemed almost wistful, relaxed, looked at me, told me to keep walking.

About three quarters of the way into the field there was an arrangement of stones, some of them partway submerged, he went to his knees next to it and told me to help him dig. Not waiting for me to start, using both hands, humping himself into the motion, he scratched at the pulpy, half stiffened mud, strained at pulling out the first larger bit of rock he could, discarded it beside us.

I got myself down, hesitantly put my hand to the dirt on the opposite side of the rock.

-We're digging this whole thing up?

He stopped, pointed at where my hands were, nodding.

-The whole thing.

I began by scratching, but soon fell into Donald's rhythm, fell almost into a harmony with him, feeling out the size of the larger stones, always astonished when there would be another after one came free. We were both breathing heavily, worse for the cold, I was coughing and my throat felt awful, probably my insides raw and aching from my fit of crying which oddly, while I dug, felt far away, a relic.

At one point Donald stood, had himself a cigarette, looking off, looking at the tree line we hadn't come from so that I vaguely wondered were we heading off that way, next, but mostly I was just intent on my digging.

Two minutes after he rejoined me, Donald unearthed a little metal box, spent a moment trying to get it clean, the dirt of, but it was sullied to the point that even larger scabs were permanent, would need a bath in hot water to come away. He didn't open it, just put it in his pocket, dusted at himself, slapped at his filthy clothes and when this seemed to dissatisfy him he told me to walk with him and we made our way back to the house.

Back on the second level, taking the other turn, the broken door to the dead couple's room letting light and shadow seep out like a carelessly overturned cup, Donald told me there should be something that we could wear, something that would fit. I waited in the hall while he dug through some cardboard boxes stored in a large closet. As he found garments we would use, he'd toss them at me and I draped them over my arm, just looking down at him, the back of his neck. I imagined his body there, strangled, contorted into an unrecognizable form, imagined it being overlooked by investigators, at first, because it would seem the long dead corpse of some stray animal, looked at his hunched over back and imagined myself beating him with an empty gun, glad it was empty, glad he would feel his life dribble out a blow at a time, a sound at a time, that his death would be long and boringly percussive.

He had stripped down and was almost fully dressed, again by the time I shook off my reverie, immediately started disrobing, as well. In the moments I was naked, I felt peaceful, appropriate, I would have drawn out those moments, even let Donald run his hands over me sensually, let him beat me again if I could have kept all of my skin exposed.

-I'll just keep my own coat, I said when he nudged the thick coat he'd taken from the box with the side of his foot. He didn't argue and I was burying my hands in my pockets as we walked back down the stairs, back outside, down the path to the road.

-That really didn't have anything to do with you, Donald said, another statement I wasn't sure I was the intended recipient of. He didn't look at me when I didn't respond, just made distinct sniffles and wiggled his hands, fingers heavy cold rubber, out in front of him, put them back into his coat, one around the gun, one around the filthy old box.

Headlights illuminated a turn in front of us and soon a car moved past, the driver squinting at us. He slowed down, stopped, but he didn't say anything when we walked past him and once we were ten yards further on he accelerated past and soon there was no trace of his ever having been there, the gasoline smell of exhaust dissipated, the memory of it even seeming imaginary.

It felt a long time since I'd seen another person, but then images of the old man, the old woman, Greg, Cynthia came to me—I got hung up trying to remember the name of Donald's wife, tried and tried, eventually gave up, it didn't matter if I remembered her name, plenty of other people would—I'd been around people all night, as much as it seemed I'd been just with Donald, by myself.

There was something alive in the bushes across the road, some of the branches moved differently than the others which just had the normal uneasy stir of cold and slight unevenness of the moving air to them.

I wondered would the car be gone, but it was there, and soon I was sitting at the wheel, warm air grumbling from every vent, Donald instructing me on how to get back to the highway.

***

The sky began to colour, I noticed it as soon as we were out of the tree lined, narrow roads—a touch of orange, off-blue, not even quite a clean trace of the horizon line, like a blur of colour beginning from the center, slowly rising around itself.

Donald turned up the radio and several songs I didn't recognize played, commercials came up, he turned the volume down.

-You're going to kill me, aren't you?

The question hung there, Donald so unmoved I rather doubted I'd spoken aloud, couldn't bring myself to repeat it. The silence was answer enough, how else would it end? It again felt near the end, but how many times in the course of just this night had I thought that?

We were moving back in the direction of the city where he'd first accosted me, though, so this gave a particular sense of direness to things, a circle unconsciously closing itself, nothing left to do.

-I don't know what I'm going to with you, he said, a yawn starting with the last word. He excused himself, repeated it. I don't know what I'm going to do with you.

I tried to imagine myself opening the car door, rolling out, or just dashing out at a traffic light—now that so much had happened, now that things were so wound down, escape seemed as simple as this, like it would be impossible to think that death could follow such an action.

He put the gun to my side, the muzzle right against a rib, held it there, not even looking. I tried to get a view of him in the rearview mirror, just saw my own eyes, blank, no panic, nothing.

-Do you think I have any bullets left?

I couldn't look at my own eyes while I answered, just the few cars slipping onto the road, the smear of colour in the sky growing just a little bit wider.

-I think you do.

He tapped the muzzle against me in sets of three.

-You think so?

His voice didn't sound like he was looking in my direction, it sounded like he was idly watching something out the window, like he was talking down at his own stomach, into the folds of his coat.

-I think you do, yes.

He had a short bout of coughing, the gun coming away for a moment, but then he put it back, coughing, the strain of trying to stop himself evident in how much pressure he was pressing the weapon against me with.

-The coughing passed and he said I think I might, too, honestly, I'm pretty sure I do.

I thought of him firing into the woman's body, into the wall, into the ceiling.

Had I heard him pull the trigger to a click? And if I had, was I certain there hadn't been a moment he might have reloaded—while I was blubbering, while I'd been digging?

If the gun against me was a posture, then he really had lost his upper hand, had nothing—perhaps I'd betrayed something of what I'd been thinking and he'd figured this as the only way to keep me subdued, maybe he'd meant to reload but hadn't, needed me under his thumb until another opportunity could be manufactured. By this point, I really could run when the car stopped, he was too fatigued to do anything, there would be no wild spree of killing, nothing that wasn't comparative to what he'd already done, nothing that had any more or less to do with me.

The gun came away, a moment later the sharp slap of a shot sounding. I swerved, regained control, wheeled to look at him, shocked to see him looking at me, didn't even notice the muzzle was back against my side, right away, warmth from it sharp through the fabric of my shirt and coat.

-Do you think I have any bullets left? he said, using his free hand to point out the windshield, a gesture I responded to immediately, shifting into another lane, then back, just to feel certain I was not out of alignment. Do you think I still have any bullets left, Roger? The gun moved away from me, went off again, I tensed, staring hard at the few cars up ahead, none in the rearview. I need you to answer me, Roger, otherwise I think you're not paying attention. Do you think I have any bullets left, even still?

-Yes.

-Yes?

-Yes. I think you have bullets left, Donald. I know you have bullets left.

He put the muzzle back against me, told me to make sure not to miss our exit.

-How many bullets do you think I have left?

-I don't know.

He needled the muzzle into me harder, I could hear the sound of him clearing a slurp of excess saliva off his lips with the back of his hand, his voice still seeming wet when he said Well, think about it and tell me.

-I don't know.

-Don't speed up the car.

I lifted my foot from the pedal, but a glance to the speedometer showed I was well inside the limit. I kept my foot hovering just on top of the pad.

-How many bullets do you think I have left, still?

-Three.

-Are you just guessing?

-Yes.

-Don't guess, think about it.

I counted to twenty in my head, silently, watching the road, the appearance of thought.

-Four bullets. You have four bullets left.

He moved the gun from me, fired it, fired it, fired it, fired it, put the muzzle, hard, then relaxed it, back against me.

I mumbled that our exit was coming up in two miles, shifted the car into the next lane over.

-So now you think I'm out of bullets?

I didn't answer.

-You must, right? You weren't just guessing the four, right?

I didn't understand the game, it seemed like a trap. If I said No I wasn't guessing, he'd say Well then, I suppose it'd be alright to do this, squeezing the trigger, a bullet cutting through me and if I said I was just guessing, I don't know, he'd say Let's see if you guessed right, then, squeeze the trigger, a bullet cutting through me.

-I wasn't guessing, I said, knowing I had to say something. Then I tacked on, But I think I was wrong. I think you still have bullets.

He tapped the muzzle one two three, told me our exit was just one mile, now.

***

We parked the car on the street and I sat inside until he was out, when he was he kept the door open, I glanced over and saw his arm, part of his leg, his torso. It was certainly morning now, peach blue, my eyes stung and I could taste my breath, the flavor settled like skin all up my throat, under my tongue. He pointed in the direction of a coffee shop café, up the block, said we were going to get something to drink then we'd head to the train.

I walked, consciously avoiding the eyes of anybody who happened to pass, early pedestrians, shop owners setting out mats, opening shutters. It was odd how familiar it all seemed, traffic lulling at lights and people at crosswalks—this had all been still going on, had never stopped, these people all had just stopped for awhile, slept, didn't even so much start again as they just continued going.

The coffee shop had its door propped open, even with the chill, four people in line ahead of us. Donald had his hand down in his pocket and for a moment I wondered if it was in the pocket with the gun or the one with the little box. Pointless thought.

I read over the menu board, looked at the sandwiches and pastries on display, my stomach still sore, exhausted from cramp, but moaning.

I tottered where I waiting in line, looked at the shoulders of the people in front of me—man, man, woman, man—listened as best I could to the person at the counter placing his order, to the clerk taking it bellowing parts of it out for the staff member preparing drinks and fetching whatever food.

I just let my mind waft back and forth between did I just want coffee, a choke of espresso, or a breakfast sandwich, both—just a coffee espresso sandwich both.

I was rubbing my eye, sore so that it felt swollen from a blow, when I was jostled forward, didn't bother to stop myself reacting to the jolt, the man in front of me turning sharply, his eyes locking on whatever was behind me, face stiffening from shock.

I turned, saw Donald being pressed up into the open mouth of the door, a man in a pale suit readying handcuffs, getting them around Donald's contorted arms, two other men holding him in place though he didn't seem to be struggling. Then as Donald was straightened, being centered in the doorway, one of the men had crouched down and was pulling the gun from Donald's pocket, continuing to pat down his legs.

Some people who had been in front of me in line moved past me toward the door, in front of me again. I backed up to the counter, the clerk briefly meeting my eyes, then squinting behind his glasses as best he could through the clot of spectators.

Within five minutes, everything had settled back to normal. I was allowing the customers who'd been in front of me to take back their places, one of them insisting, for whatever reason, that I go ahead of them, making calm down motions with their hands, though I wasn't the least bit agitated, argumentative, was flat, as nothing as I could be.

When it got my turn at the counter, I actually felt confused, smiled a few times at the clerk dumbly before saying I'd just like an espresso, double, which he nodded to and barked generally, a high pitched clap to the elongated words.

I milled with the other people waiting for their drinks, took mine when it was offered and found, soon, I was sitting in a chair by a short little bookcase in an area designated for reading.

I tried a sip of my drink, but it was too hot, blew on it, stood and made my way to the toilet, irritated, but only for a blink, that the door could not lock. I shut myself in a stall, rubbed my face, started to shiver. I rocked, lifted my knees up and down like I was keeping a ball in the air, then went limp, folded over, straightened stiff, went to the sink and just let hot water run, wafted the steam toward myself.

When I walked out the door, someone would be there waiting for me. They'd have taken the seat I'd been in, would stand upon seeing me, taking a cautious stance, indicating with a look that I should keep at arms distance, a pace back from arm distance. You're Roger? they'd say.

I lathered my face in soap and scrubbed hard, hands stinging each time I'd put them into the faucet stream.

Donald would be out the door, gun ready, the people around him cowarded into whatever nooks they could find to use as concealment. He'd pull the trigger but it wouldn't fire and I'd fall dead, anyway.

Another patron entered, smiling widely, just milling by the sink until I noticed they were holding their tie in hand, had their collar up.

-Sorry.

They waved me off, said It's fine and I went back out to my seat, sat, tried the temperature of my espresso now to my lip, still found it too hot, shook the little cup in my hand, blew, but just in the air, not into the heat of the liquid, not into or at anything.

One of the other people sitting had been in line when Donald had been taken off, they were reading a newspaper—no, doing some puzzle in the newspaper, would unconsciously dab at their lip after each sip of their drink, they'd even dab at their lip if they just picked up their cup, set it down without taking the littlest sip, figured out something they needed to jot down, a refined grin of small triumph, ordinary discovery.

I already felt dirty again, most especially where I had scrubbed, was keenly aware of the accumulation of layers of old perspiration all over me, covered my face and breathed out long into the hands cupped, plugging my mouth, felt some breath get out over my cheeks, some up the curves of my nose, some warming my palm, moistening it, being sucked back in a moment, breathed right back out, again, new spots escaping, the same spot shuttled back and forth.

***

Up a few blocks, I glanced over my shoulder, walked a half dozen steps looking at what was back there, feeling that I was finally able to think.

When I found the metro line, I was able to figure out a fairly easy route home. One transfer. Three quarters of an hour and I'd be home. I fed money into the ticket machine, fed the ticket into the turnstile, collected it, rode the escalator down.

Standing leaned against the side of the stairs at the end of the platform, I began to get very tense. The approaching train meant a definitive retreat—thoughts got loose from whatever had been holding them back, I couldn't breathe well, nothing worked. The train meant I was walking away, it meant I was taking that option, one that had been presented me.

But then, even just sensing that I was considering not going, I became furious with myself.

Was I going to find a policeman, was that the thing? Was I going to explain to everyone who had no reason to know I'd been anywhere last night where I had been, what I'd been doing?

And this I hated the most, this sentence, this thought. I hadn't been doing anything—I'd been taken, smuggled away from myself, I'd stood places, followed someone, but really I hadn't followed, I'd been led.

It was apparent that Donald could be telling them all about me, he had that power.

A train approached, I stepped on, sat in the first seat I saw, stared at a seat I would have rather sat in.

He could be telling them I'd been with him, could be giving my name, describing me to an artist.

I actually burst out a laugh—yes, Donald describing me, I'm sure the police who had apprehended him would call an artist right in, insist that Donald give the description of the man he'd allegedly forced to witness his atrocities.

Donald wouldn't be saying anything—devoid of power, of weapon, of purpose, of chance, he'd shut up tight, as tight as I had, tighter. There was nothing to him but senseless apparition anymore and nothing about me had anything to do with it, him, last night, anything.

I was allowed to go home, it was not a right that had been taken from me—I hated how I was trying to convince myself, assure myself it was alright, so certain I'd have to explain myself, beg allowances from all manner of people.

I sharply turned to look behind me, down the length of the train.

Nothing.

I didn't know what there might have been, but there was nothing.

Donald?

I closed my eyes, knew I wasn't looking for him.

It was properly the morning, no longer a pale colour of dawn, it was day, the sun up, a day I would sleep through, wake at the tail end of, alone.

I was shuddering where I sat, positioned my body well enough to hide it, to just seem I'd maybe been out in the cold too long, something natural.

I decided I should go home, first, absolutely, then at least go to a doctor, have somebody assure me my injuries weren't so severe.

Gwen. It struck me that Donald's wife had been named Gwen.

And how often would this happen, names of carcasses popping into my head as though they meant something, were connected to me?

My witness to them had not been witness, it was something that if I didn't claim it, it had no right to me. So he tells them about me—maybe now, maybe later—he tells them a name, they find my prints, know I was walked around with him, did I think he'd add in lies, make me sound as much a monster as him, a participant?

I hadn't been and if he made up farcical versions of what had happened it would be all the more reason to believe me when I denied it—my lies equaled any he might tell.

But mine weren't lies.

He could say I'd done anything and it wouldn't be the truth—the only way I could lie would be to say I had.

But I'd done nothing.

I climbed the stairs of my apartment building, up to the fourth floor, hurried down the corridor, got in through my door and locked it, began undressing, the clothes falling to the floor—not my clothes, it took me a moment to understand their appearance. I buried them under the garbage in my kitchen receptacle.

There were some bills I'd been making notations on next to a plate covered with crumbs on the counter. I licked my finger, dabbed up the flakes of bread, looked to the refrigerator, then to the bottle of acetaminophen in the little orange bowl by my telephone charger, swallowed six, then four more, drank warm handfuls of water from the faucet.

I lay down, pulling the blanket I'd sometimes sleep on the sofa under up over me, over my head, kept it there only a moment because my breath was too warm and smelled too much like the taste that felt all over me.

I needed to be able to keep composed—if someone was going to knock on my door, stop me on the street, telephone me, it would be in the next few days.

I should go somewhere else, I considered, call in to work, take the rest of the week.

But not call in to work—if someone came looking and I'd called in to work, said I was leaving, unexplained, abrupt, what would it seem like?

On the other hand, if I just left without telling anyone, it would look just as bad, just as worse.

I needed to stay, to waste this day sleeping, hope no one came for me, and then the next day I'd have to wake up and go about things, ordinary, have nothing to me that made me seem like I'd done anything, no air to me that seemed altered, not so much as a glance, something buried behind my eyes that questions or curious looks could dig out.

I needed to be able to know that I had done nothing.

