by Brett Savory
You have many such pictures yourself, don’t you, Gronky Boy. Sure you do. Except you don’t frame yours; you cut them up and move the pieces around like a jigsaw puzzle, ’cause you’re a fucking spaz.
Gronk frowned, shook his head. He bent down and put the photo against the wall. Straightening up, he leaned in close to Swanny’s bedroom door and said, “You’re beautiful, Swanny.”
No reply.
Gronk quietly left the apartment.
Four hours later, Detective Fintner rang the apartment buzzer located beside Swanson’s Knife Shoppe. Swanny came downstairs, ready to listen to Gronk’s apology. When she opened the door and saw that it was not Gronk, but a detective, her expression hardly changed a bit.
“Sorry to bother you on the weekend like this, Ms. Swanson, but I’m Detective Jeremy Fintner. I’d like to ask you some questions about a murder. It involves someone I believe you know.”
Swanny shifted her weight a little, stared down at the detective’s shoes.
“His name is Marcus Gronk.”
Swanny lifted her eyes a little. Behind the detective, she saw dime-sized blood droplets on the sidewalk. Neither she nor Gronk had thought to clean them up when he came in last night.
“Why do you think I know Mr. Gronk, detective?”
Swanny’s voice remained steady, sounding almost bored.
“I came across some photos in his apartment. One of those photos was of you. I remembered seeing you around the neighborhood with your knife-sharpening cart, ringing your bell, trying to drum up business.” Fintner attempted a smile, trying to loosen up Ms. Swanson.
Swanny continued staring at the blood on the sidewalk. She didn’t look behind her, but she knew there’d be more blood on the stairs, leading right into her apartment.
“And that’s the only way you connected us, detective?”
Fintner cocked his head to one side, scratched his cheek and grinned. “Should I have connected you in some other way, Ms. Swanson?”
Swanny raised her eyes to meet Fintner’s. “How about the trail of blood leading from the sidewalk right to the front door of my apartment?”
Fintner looked behind him tentatively, peeked around Swanny, then turned a deep, dark red. His hand crept to his holstered gun. “Shit, is he—”
“He’s gone. I can take you to him, but you have to promise me you won’t hurt him, detective. Do you understand?”
On the bus, Gronk thought for the millionth time about all the places he should have been, could have been, would never go. Looking at all the other people around him, he wondered if any of them ever felt the same way. Surely they must have. But what do they do about it? How do they deal with the lives they never had?
The bus rumbled along, bouncing over potholes, inexplicably blasting heat out of what was supposed to be its air conditioner. Deeper into the suburbs, deeper into the kind of place where half-built, forgotten subway lines languished, affording failed teachers and historians like Marcus Gronk a glimpse into a life that should have been.
Gronk had written about the abandoned subway line. He’d tried to sell the article to magazines, websites, even to just the local newspaper, but—as with most everything else he created—no one wanted it. So he shelved it, along with a dozen other articles about interesting, lesserknown parts of the city.
Factory Road. Time to get off.
As he stepped off the bus, he wondered briefly if the guts were now too warm to use. He generally assumed it didn’t matter much, anyway. Not really. Not for his purposes. Slightly warmer guts would probably work as well as cold guts, but you just never knew. Maybe whatever magic they contained when they were cold leaked out when they got warm. Maybe whatever remnant of the soul was in the organ realized it was no longer attached to its owner and promptly fled the scene.
Sometimes Gronk tried to feel bad about what he was doing. He really tried to feel the indignation that he knew others would feel if they knew what he was trying to create. Sometimes he’d get a very small twinge of it, but as fast as it appeared within him, it was gone.
They’d more likely just be jealous, if anything. Taking control of my life is what I’m doing. Giving myself a second chance when no one else will.
Life is made up of scenes. People create their own scenes, their own realities, every day—through their choices, skills, talents. In the abstract, they work towards the life they feel they deserve, trying to create a mirror in the physical world of what’s in their mind’s eye.
I’m no different.
Heading toward the bread bakery under which the forgotten subway line ran, he saw etched into a badly dented and faded sign the familiar logo he’d grown up with as a child. His mother had always bought the same brand of bread. Even now, picking it up in a grocery store and thumbing the logo felt like slipping on a comfortable T-shirt, one that felt smooth against the skin. It brought back memories of a time when he felt his choices still had the power to decide his path.
The pills he’d taken this morning were already wearing off, the pain in his leg far worse than before. He stopped walking and sat down on a wooden bench someone had placed near the graffiti’d sidewalk in better times—perhaps when the factory was still open and there were more businesses on the street. He lifted his pant leg and confirmed his suspicion: his wound was bleeding again. Blood soaked through the sodden gauze. The bullet hadn’t hit the bone, but was still lodged pretty deep. Blood came from his hand, too.
Gronk picked up the sack and continued toward the bakery.
Twelve blocks away, Detective Fintner and Swanny got into the detective’s car and headed to the same destination.
Gronk limped the final few feet to the bakery’s side entrance. The crack in the rotten wooden boards through which Gronk had entered the factory back when he’d been researching it had needed to be significantly widened. Originally, it had only been large enough for the skinniest of men to get through—clearly not a problem for Gronk’s 130-pound frame—but the sacks and the portable generator had posed the difficulty. He’d broken off a few more boards and brought the wood inside, hoping no errant beat cop would notice and start snooping around. He realized very quickly that his reservations were unfounded: he’d only ever seen a handful of vehicles pass through this part of town on their way somewhere else, and only the most serious cyclist or jogger from the city ever dropped sweat on this sun-blistered asphalt.
Gronk stepped inside.
The grayish light coming through the hole created more shadows than it dispelled. Fishing around in his pocket, Gronk retrieved his Zippo, rolled the wheel with his thumb, squinted his eyes against the sudden flare of light. When the flame died down, he looked around. With his leg next to useless, he waited a few minutes for his vision to adjust. If he fell with no one around to help him, he worried he’d never get up again.
In addition to baking bread and cakes, the bakery once doubled as an ice cream shop, so Gronk had his choice of several sizes of cooling units. He had settled on one of the larger ones—a walk-in freezer measuring about thirty-six square feet located near the back of the bakery. It was a good fifty or sixty feet away from the entrance. He headed there now, carefully picking his way through fallen bits of drywall, broken glass, and overturned chairs in which sons, daughters, parents, and grandparents once sat lapping ice cream and gnawing on cones from 1910 until the business closed down several years ago.
Sometimes when Gronk crossed this stretch of floor, he imagined he faintly heard The Subway That Never Was running beneath his feet. Echoes of his life, of his loves.
Fighting off dizziness, nearly tripping over debris more than once, he finally reached the cooling unit. He set the sack down beside the freezer’s door, then moved around back of the unit to power up the generator he’d installed—more research done, more articles no one bought.
Stumbling around to the front again, he picked up the sack and opened the door. When the foot of his bad leg came down lightly on the cool,
smooth-steel surface, he felt something warm squish between his toes. He tried to concentrate on the new information, tried to generate concern about his shoe filling up with blood, but the vapor-proof light overhead showed him his creations in such stark clarity, he immediately forgot what it was he was supposed to be concerned about. His mind drifted, swept away in the icy new climate. He closed his eyes, wavered where he stood. Dropping the sack at his feet, he reached his right arm out where he knew his little wooden chair to be and eased himself into it.
After a few minutes of soaking in the cold, the thrill of possibility threading its way through his body, he opened his eyes, leaned over, opened the sack.
And got to work.
Detective Fintner’s car turned down Factory Road. He stopped a good distance away from the abandoned bakery, but close enough that he could see most of the building.
“That’s the place?” he said. “You’re sure?”
“Definitely,” Swanny said from the backseat. “I’ve driven him out here quite a few times over the past couple of years.”
Fintner turned and looked at her, brow furrowed.
“Do you know what he does in there?”
Swanny dropped her eyes. “I don’t know what he does; I’ve never asked. I don’t want to know.” She pulled her eyes up again to meet his. “I prefer it that way.”
Fintner nodded. Through the windshield, he quickly assessed the building. Lots of places to hide. He called for backup.
“The cuffs too tight, Ms. Swanson?”
She shook her head. “They’re fine.”
They passed the rest of the time in silence. Three squad cars arrived quietly. Fintner moved to stand, but then turned again in his seat, his left hand gripping the roof of the car. “Look, I want you to know I really appreciate your cooperation with this.”
Swanny stared straight ahead out the windshield. “Remember your promise, detective.”
Fintner got out of the car, slammed the door, told one of the backup officers to stay behind with Ms. Swanson.
Drawing his gun, he walked toward the bakery.
He passed the decrepit wooden bench on which Gronk had checked his wounds. This time, he did not fail to see where the trail of blood led.
Not expecting company, Gronk hadn’t bothered closing the door to the walk-in freezer. When Fintner’s eyes adjusted to the relative darkness inside the bakery, he had no trouble seeing exactly where Gronk was.
Gronk sat sideways on a wooden chair near the back of a walk-in freezer unit. Something gleamed in his hand. Fintner moved slowly closer, motioning the other officers to get out of view.
Gronk calmly sawed into something with a large knife.
“Drop the knife and put your hands slowly above your head,” Fintner’s voice boomed in the enclosed space.
Gronk turned in his chair. He squinted past Fintner, saw the backup officers behind him. For a moment, Gronk thought it had worked, thought his creations were finally moving, that everything had been worthwhile. His second chance come to life.
Then he heard the sound of shells sliding into shotguns. He blinked, frowned. Looked around the freezer, saw everyone from his new life sitting right where they were a moment ago.
“The knife, Marcus. Put it down. You’re under arrest for murder.”
Gronk’s eyes swam in his head. He found Fintner’s face again, but was unable to piece everything together.
“Put the knife down or I will shoot,” Fintner said.
Behind him, one of the officers bent over and threw up on his shoes. The others shuffled uncomfortably, but held their positions.
Fintner had been so intent on Gronk, he hadn’t really taken in his surroundings. When he did, his mouth opened just a little bit, his gun wavering ever so slightly from Gronk’s midsection.
“Jeremy?” Gronk whispered, his knife apparently running on automatic, separating layers of cold flesh while he spoke. “Jeremy Fintner?”
Fintner’s eyes watered as his brain finally interpreted the scene. “Stop sawing, Marcus! Jesus Christ, just stop!”
Gronk’s hand slowed, slowed, stopped. He glanced down at it, as if it weren’t his own. “Long time since high school, huh, Jeremy?” Gronk mumbled. The blood in his shoe had spilled out and pooled around his foot. His face was chalk-white, his cheekbones sunken. Breathing shallow.
“Yes,” Fintner said, his mouth dry, stuffed with cotton balls, stuffed with memories from well over twenty years ago. “Long time.” His gun hand shook.
Spread out on a small, beautifully sculptured round oak table in the middle of the room were knives of all different sizes. Some covered in blood, others showing no signs of having been used. A sewing kit also sat nearby, all sizes and colors of thread spooled out in disarray. But what kept everyone at bay was the handgun nestled in with the knives. Both the knives and the gun were easily within Gronk’s reach.
“Hell of a mid-life crisis, huh Jeremy?” Gronk muttered. “But it’s okay. It’s okay, Jer, ’cause there’s magic in everything.” His eyes closed and his head swung side-to-side slowly from his neck like a sunflower too big for its stalk.
“Marcus Gronk, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an att—”
“Jeremy, be quiet. Listen to me.” Gronk’s eyes cleared up just a little, sharpening enough to actually look Fintner directly in the eyes. He put down the knife and held up his one good hand in surrender, said, “I’ll come with you wherever you think we need to go. But just wait a minute, okay? Just listen to me.” Gronk’s gaze wavered again, his face scrunched up in pain. “I promise not to be long.”
Fintner kept his gun trained on Gronk; Gronk took this silence as agreement.
One of the younger officers said, “Sir, shouldn’t we—”
“Shut up, Officer Garrett.”
“Do you know what Scenario A is, Jeremy?” Gronk said.
Fintner shook his head.
“Scenario A is the life you’re living right now. The life based on the choices you’ve made from the day you were capable of making them on your own.”
Fintner’s eyes shifted to the cadaver to Gronk’s left, the one he’d been sawing at when they came upon him. It was one of five poorly sewn-together corpses seated around him with its mid-section exposed.
“Scenario A is the half-built, forgotten subway line that runs beneath our feet—intended to be useful, but never having the chance. Discarded. A failure.”
“I’m not really following what you’re—”
“Do you know what Scenario B is?”
Outside the freezer, Officer Garrett fingered the trigger of his shotgun. Wound tightly, he weighed his options, looked ready to act where the other officers just looked ready to run. He spoke again, perhaps morally unable to keep his peace. His words were hard, clipped: “Sir, we really should—”
“Scenario B is the life you think you should have had. The one you were denied. Either through the stupidity of your own choices, or . . . ” Gronk coughed, swayed in his chair, looked as though he might fall right out of it. Fintner and his backup tensed, ready to pounce on him if he did. “Or through the fact that you’re just plain useless, and any choice you could have made wouldn’t have made a single bit of difference anyway.”
Pausing, Gronk looked up at Fintner. Beneath his feet, he thought he felt the rumbling of non-existent trains.
Inside Officer Garrett’s head, a decision was made. He was unaware of it, but he had started to cry.
“I’m forty-three years old, Jeremy.” Gronk continued, the delivery of his words very deliberate. “By thirty I was supposed to have been a successful novelist or screenwriter or teacher or historian or hockey player or husband or any fucking thing at all. But I’m none of those things. None of them. I just fuck everything up.” He nodded toward the piecemeal cadavers. “But this . . . this is my Scenario B, Jeremy. This is the starting point of the life I should have had. These will be my loved ones and my
friends. When I get the combination of pieces right, these people will come to life, surrounding me, proud of my achievements. They will love me exactly how I deserve to be loved.” He moved his good arm in the general direction of the table. “They’ll be there for me when—”
Officer Garrett stepped forward, lifted his shotgun, and fired at Gronk. The blast scattered a spray of lead across Gronk’s chest, blowing him off his chair against the wall. He slumped there, silent.
Garrett, red-faced, tears streaming down his cheeks, screamed down at Gronk’s corpse: “You fucking sick piece of shit!” He shuttled another shell into the chamber, raised the barrel to fire again, but Fintner lifted it in time, and the shot sprayed into the ceiling. Fintner ripped the gun out of Garrett’s hands, and then the other backup officers stepped in and helped Fintner hold Garrett against the freezer wall.
“He was going for the gun!” Garrett shouted, hysterical.
“Bullshit!” Fintner countered. “He was just—”
“How could you just sit there and listen to that, Fintner?” Garrett was inches away from the detective’s face. “Look at this fucking place—it’s disgusting!” He pointed to the mix of male and female cadavers propped up at the table. “Do you see what those are? Those are dead people cut into pieces and stitched back together with other people’s parts, Fintner. Why the fuck didn’t you do something? You just sat there listening to his sob story, like you were sympathizing, like you understood how—”
Fintner grabbed Garrett by the head with both hands. “Calm down, Garrett,” he whispered through his teeth. “Just calm. The fuck. Down. He was dying anyway. He was dying—and I had him covered. You didn’t need to do that. He was just talking, trying to explain his life.”
Fintner turned and walked out of the freezer.
Detective Fintner walked back to his car, opened the door, slid inside. Took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.