Flee

by Evan Dara

  Ezra?, he says, bending into the doorjamb. He knocks again, twice, three times. Ezra, how you doing, my man?

  He now knocks more sharply, with the side of his fist. The door’s boom darkens. Ezra?, he says. You in there? Ezra …?

  He stops, looks around, peers inside. Ezra?

  Marcus pushes his shoulder into the door, once gently, another time braced. He digs his rear foot into the ground, then starts thrusting at the door with the full weight of his body, picking his front foot up. He shoves once, twice, grunting then growling, and the door gives under his heavy third shunt. Wood crunches and metals tinkle before he can arrest his forward lunge.

  Marcus straightens up and walks directly into the home. He hears the lisp of the plastic floor-sheeting under his steps, sees the outlines of the model airplanes hanging overhead, in window moonglow. He proceeds to the room at rear, finds a wall switch, turns on lights. The room, illuminated, is quiet, tidy, same as always. But Ezra is not there. Marcus has never seen the room with Ezra not there.

  Marcus slams through doorways, caroms around corners, sees places – rooms, corridors, enclaves – that he has never seen, that he has never been in. But he can not find Ez. Not a single light burns elsewhere in the house, and the whole place is cold. It is not quiet. It is silent.

  Marcus, unsure, swatting fear, forces himself to return to the main room. And there sees – two on the central couch, one on the bulky wooden desk – the three suitcases, the stiff, rectangular, brown-leather travelbags that Ezra had been working to fill. They now sit squarely on their surfaces, motionless, closed. Marcus hups in breath, freezes mid-step. Then, slowly, after a minute, approaches the trunk that’s on the old-style desk.

  With his thumbs, he pushes, away from center, the two buttons near the edges of the suitcase. The bags little metal security levers spring up. Marcus breathes, then raises the wobbly-stiff suitcase lid. Inside the trunk, he sees, in balanced composition, immaculate stacks of shirts, pants, undergarments, and sweaters; loops of belts; piles of envelopes and other paperwork; linear insertions of pencils, eyeglass cases, and photos placed on their edges. All orderly, all snug.

  Quickly, he goes and opens a second trunk. But he does not finish lifting its top. Its contents echo those of the first suitcase, squared-off shirts and pants and such. With his fingers, he pushes, as much as he can, the front doors shards and splinters back into place, into the jamb, as he lets himself out.

  There is a shimmy in his step. His ankles, occasionally the entirety of his feet, waggle, twist. There can not be so many pebbles in this town! He continues walking.

  He is leaning on a tree. He grabs this willow with one hand, two. He is holding onto it, clutching onto its raggediness – its gruff tree-grain raggediness. He casts his insides over its verticals and horizontals – woodfaces, woodcrevices, unsunk roots – every one that will have them, leaving salt waters and sour porridges, long, knotted drips. He neighs and coughs and turns, he goes off.

  He moves through the familiar streets, past houses and crosswalks and lamplight throws. He does not need a map. He progresses straight, direct, sure of compass. No matter what, he continues forward. He must have been out for hours, hours – but he knows it is only fifteen minutes. His town is small.

  He walks to South Prospect Street, finds, directly, number 500. He turns onto the muddy footpath that borders the north side of this building complex, walks past the two-story structure’s angling woodslats, turns right onto a smaller footpath, again muddy. Here, around the side of the complex, he finds chained bikes, dark cars, refuse bins, mailboxes. There he stops. From his coat pocket, he pulls out a piece of paper and a pen; he always carries these with him, to catch inspiration. He folds the paper down to quarters, starts to write. Then he leaves off writing and follows his fingertip along the buildings row of mailboxes, looking for a name in their small windows. He finds the name on a tiny, white, horizontal slip. A sunflower bloom drawn before it, the name is written small, clandestine, in purple magic marker: Jost, Carol. Marcus returns to writing on his folded piece of paper. He finishes writing, folds the paper again, and again once more. He places the tiny-folded paper into the mailbox’s slot. The paper says: Thank you.

  He heads back.

  —

  Rounding his corner, Marcus hits the intersection of the many lights. Loomis and Weston Streets are again speckling. From house-windows on ground floors, upstairs, and attics, from sculpted lamps and thrusting bulbs, the sprays and clasps of electric glint knock against the night.

  Marcus stops in his steps, takes the apertured panoply in. The dozen-plus homes, and their simple rhythms spun complex. Messages sent, then ramifying. Single signals going multiple. Positives yielding negatives, and negatives turning contra. Giving and withholding.

  And a new impression: the windows are so small, he thinks. Tiny, even. When measured against what they say and what they protect. What they understand, and what they seem to miss. What they give out and let in.

  He continues to look. The flares and extinguishments continue without letup, an automatic chorus of silent keening. Who could ever write such a piece?, Marcus thinks. What machine could generate an algorithm to capture it? And all the activity necessary to bring this sham business about – all the inventing, planning, building, wiring, buying, executing, maintenance – is in itself something. Is, in itself, an accomplishment. Cleverness has many fathers in its single-parent home.

  He continues on.

  —

  Inside, he takes off his gloves, hooks up his coat, goes to make coffee. Puts on water, pulls his mug and sack of Peruvian close upon the countertop. Blows his nose vigorously. It was cold outside.

  He waits for his kettle to whistle, becomes aware of Dakota Staton, doing Misty. Again, maybe ongoing, it’s neighbor Baker cranking his machine, his good ear unrefuted by two walls and the night. The song is a sinuous wallop, lyrical and knowing, irresistible.

  But Marcus hears another tonality. Maybe, he thinks, the songs are Baker’s version of the Loomis/Weston intersection lights. His one-home equivalent. Signals sent to keep intruders – burglars – away. Signs of life intended to scare life off. Prevention as cure. Beauty as repulsion.

  It is impossible to know. Or, rather, impossible to find out. Which is, in itself, proof.

  It’s like the old saying: good defenses make good neighbors. But Marcus knows another phrase, and it comes unbidden: action at a distance. The mutual influence of entities that cannot be so influenced. One of the unexplained – perhaps inexplicable – mysteries of physics.

  Staton makes it through two choruses, before her accompaniment – Marcus’ kettle – takes her away in a crescendo. When Marcus lowers the flame, the voice is gone, too.

  Marcus sips his coffee slowly.

  —

  Bryce Canyon.

  The ozone layer. (Those poor Aussies!)

  Raspberry confiture.

  The word confiture.

  The Set-Up – in fact, most movies with Robert Ryan. Measuring equipment that functions down to the Angstrom unit.

  The resilience of kindness.

  That work on the Center is going so damn well.

  Women’s shoulders.

  Obstacles.

  The fact that this list will never, can never, end.

  841

  Ho. Here. Give me a hand putting this up here. ’Ll be a nice storage space for the blankets and the bedlinens and such, these shelves up top here in the closet, doncha think?

  —But which, do you think, which has the best price for paper towels?

  —And a dish washer. And wainscoting in the TV room …

  —’N now Angela sick too? I recognize that cough. I recognize that sniffling. Something goin’ round—

  —OK, now. So, Googling: vermont anderburg ski lessons…

  —Wait. Which is for the living room. This one – that’s the vestibule. This one’s the hallway. So how, how do I turn on the lights in—

  —And it was time,
it was time for us. Janie just got her ACTFL certification, so she’ll be able to use her Mandarin anywhere – teaching, interpreting, anything, really. And I … I really had enough of Skadden, Arps. The hours. All the nonsense, the hierarchy. The commute. And, well, with so many people filing for Chapter 11 here, there were some very fine oppor—

  —And I mean today, they got me hauling sacks of gravel from one side of the yard to the oth—

  —But, like, I had to, I had to accept it right away – because if I didn’t, if I even so much as …! You gotta jump, or someone else’ll – even while you’re thinking about it, even for one minute! And they know that, they know that perfectly. Yes, it’s an OK place – it isn’t one hundred percent what we we’re looking for, but, you know, we’ll be able to—

  —So I’ll put the saws here. No, I’ll put the saws here. No, I’ll put the wrenches here—

  —And I heard, yesterday, I heard there are people coming in from Sierra Leone. From Africa. Six whole families, moving in right around here. A government program, they took over a bunch of apartments on O’Dell Parkway and they’re giving them to them. Just giving them. To these refugees from Obamaland. I mean, nobody said nothing about that when we were signing our lease, and Jim was like … So what are we supposed to—

  —Um hm, and there’s a deli opening up around the corner, and, I saw the sign, a Pier 1—

  —Oh, you know, she grabbed the cart just as I was going for it, right before I could put my hand on the push bar. And, you know, it was really like … And I was going to say something, I really was, it was just so … And when she saw that I was just, like, standing there, just standing there looking at her, she just turned away … Shit. And then she apologized, you know. She turned to me and said Sorry, I …, and then went quiet. She didn’t offer to let me have the cart, but she had these kind of fun eyeglasses on?, dark purple and kind of rectangular-like …? And she lives on Cliff Street, it turns out, and …

  —Shoot, you know, I looked it up, I Wiki’ed it and … And damn. Those people, you know. You know, over there. You can’t imagine what they’ve been through … Their civil war and shit. Fifty thousand killed, hundreds of thousands forced from their – the British had to go in and get out all the foreigners … And the local people – what would they be called, Sierra Leoneans? – they burned these people’s horses—

  —And I noted it down on my map, you know, so I’d know where to find them again. In blue ink, so the image stands out, I put a little pitchfork for the garden-and-housewares store, and an oval like a capsule – you know, an oval divided shortwise by a line? – well, it looks like a capsule to me – for the CVS Pharmacy—

  —And you can just shake my hand, OK?, just grab it right here and give it one serious up and down. I mean, shoot, did we get a deal. Way better than we could have hoped for – way better than we could have dreamed … Guy was already asking four, five percent below what comparables are going for here, so we did the right thing, we did what we had to, we lowballed him. We offered the owner twelve percent under – four twenty-five, you hear that?, four twenty-five – and – and – he took it! Took it the next effing day. We got the call from Robin, our agent?, and Gina and I, we’d discussed what we were going to do, we were prepared to go to four thirty-five. Man. Break out the champagne. Throw it up on Facebook. Gonna take a trip to Michigan this summer on the difference.

  And the place is, like, nice, it’s real good for us … Three bedrooms on over half an acre, and wainscoting all downstairs and a big living room with bookcases and this big kitchen – with an island! It was advertised as a fixer-upper – a handyman special, that’s what they call it here – but we didn’t see much beyond some work needs be done on the rear porch and some leaking and flaking underneath one of the windows on the ground floor, a window looking to the side. Should also probably spruce up the back yard, the grass, could be better. Shoot, well deal with that with the money we still have when we get back from Michigan …

  We signed maybe forty minutes after the call, we ran right down to Robin when she told us its a go, before the tide could change. Robin says the owner’s split out west, but he gave his agent power of attorney and all the contracts can be sent to and from Chicago. FedEx it, and the whole thing is gonna be done in like two days. Two days.

  So, we did it. We got it. Didn’t even meet the owner – ahem, the soon-to-be-former owner. Hey: all the better. No chance for second thoughts. No chance for seller’s remorse. We’re hoping to go in there by August 1, time for the school year. For this school year.

  —Great selection there. You can enroll for a year for only ten bucks, and then you can take anything you want for a buck a title – and you can hold onto them for a week! Usually, at the commercial places, every box costs at least three dollars and you have to return them in one or maximum two days. First time in, I found Diary of the Dead and Horton Hears a Who!, exactly what I was looking for. Almost first-run titles. Shit, this Fletcher Library has an even better selection than Kim’s—!

  —And I have to—

  —I have to—

  —I have—

  —And once we get set up, once we settle in and Jerry’s found his rhythm and can get used to the idea of me being away one or two nights a week, I … I’m going to take some courses. Uh huh. Accounting, management, all like that. Maybe, dream, get me my Master’s degree. They say a MBA’s not like a law degree, it’s like a MD – you just need the degree to get a job, it don’t matter what college you go to, or how new it is, at least it isn’t online, you know what I’m saying? A MBA is always a MBA, and you’re good to go.

  It’ll be expensive – the place is really expensive – but everyone say it worth it. It the ticket, Jasmine say, and I’ll pay for it on my own. Uh huh. On my own. Make it so Jerry won’t be able to complain. I’m going to get a part-time job, three afternoons a week, at Tenext Hospital – they’re advertising – this is going to work.

  Shoo. Can you imagine that? Me a candystriper …?

  —Nice. Nice. They got this really big screen showing MHD videos – they had The Fray, man – over at Wendy’s.

  —You think it’s walking distance …?

  —And oh – the air here. Nothing like it – sweeping through you all clean and crisp and you just sip it in like cool champagne. Just to be able to breathe like this …! In the city, in Philly, all the buses and cars – millions, endless – and everyone now out there smoking in front of every single building, wide streets and you gotta pinch your breath just going down them—

  —Now I’m just gonna go sit in my backyard. Just sit there and look at the leaves. Drooping, waving … Couldn’t do that any more at my old place, nice yard and couldn’t use it, they don’t respect property lines, they come in and take everything no matter where it is. Hubbard Street was lost, they were all over there in all the diners and hanging around in the bus central, I used to sit down there in my soft chair in my front room at home with the front door wide open and my Kel-Tec P-32 tucked in beside me, right there hidden under the cushion on my right by the armrest, no one can see it, the P-32’s just about big as your hand, just let one of them try to come in, let them put one step inside my property, I’m waiting for you, end up blown back outside and never going in nobody’s house again—

  —Twelve thousand dollar just to set a broken arm. Yes, we went in there by the emergency room, Eli had fallen something bad, from up on the counter, his foot slipped into the sink, he was helping me hanging the spice shelf, he a good boy, but then we had to wait four hour and then I, I mean I – just an X-ray and a cast, twelve thous—

  —But put all that aside for a moment, OK? I just think we should do something, OK?, and that’s it. Memorial Day is a national holiday. And beyond that, it’s also a day. It is also a day.

  Wait – maybe a little backstory. So, OK, Memorial Day is just over a month off now, and about two weeks ago someone mentioned something to me, or I saw a sign up somewhere, that there was this meeting being held,
over in someplace called Trundle Hall. So, sure, you know, what else I got to do on a Tuesday night, could be interesting, so I head over there at seven forty-five and it was OK, you know. Trundle Halls nothing to sing about, old threadbare auditorium with hard old wooden chairs, maybe two hundred seats, but it was OK, it kept us covered, it kept us from the elements. And there were maybe twenty-five people there, mostly older men, a few gals, all new faces to me, but the thing started on time, you know, the spirit was good. People were riffing, people were bopping. Guy named Stefan seemed to be in charge.

  So pretty quickly, you know, were talking – and the question is, what to do about Memorial Day? You know, here, in this city. Isn’t obvious. But people started getting into it, amazingly enough. One guy, in a gray blazer, he was saying – oh. Wait. Hold on a second …

  What’s that, Linda …?

  Oh. Right. Yeah, they served us carrot-cake muffins. So this one guy, the one in the blazer?, he started saying we should find out if there are any national guidelines for Memorial Day celebrations. There’s got to be something online, he said, and we might work with that, base our own thing on that. Another guy said that’s the last thing we should do. Well, that stopped us in our tracks, the statement just hung there for seven seconds, but the guy who said it didn’t clarify. Nodded to himself and folded his arms and, well, the guy seemed to think it was enough.

  And then a guy came forth and said there’s no need for a Memorial Day celebration. And that’s precisely why we should have one, another guy said, a younger man. Celebrate our freedom, he said. The first guy started to rebut him, but then this really spirited young woman pretty much shouted him down, saying Do ’em both. Do ’em both. We should memorialize our new lack of a need for Memorial Day. Celebrate tabula rasa.