by J. A. Giunta
“How I said ‘nigger’ gave me away?”
He laughs. “Yeah. You flinched. A small thing. A thing you’ve been programmed to do.” He laughs again. “Look man, I don’t care that you lied. I do want you to know that shit won’t fly here. IF you want to stay. And I think you should.”
He leans forward now. Intense. A small smile on his face. “Put aside what you thought we were about. I’m talking about preserving something that’s truthful. That’s honest. For everyone. This is the best thing for everyone.” He leans back, delivers the line that I’m sure he’s said a hundred times. “We can’t coexist as one. But if there is enough to eat, a cat and mouse will eat side by side.”
So many times in my life I’ve been told philosophies. Or religions. Or judgements. Fuck, we all have. People of little backbone are always trying to recruit people to their personal cause. To give them assurance. Purpose. A point to their existence. A chance to have discovered something, a color for the blind.
But there is always an exception. Every time. That’s the problem with trying to outline a grand scheme. A divine plan. Or even biology. There will always be an exception. Everyone fits the mold until someone doesn’t. And wouldn’t it be boring if that wasn’t the case?
“We can teach you how to fight. Defend yourself. And we need hands in the fields. Winter is knockin’. We’ll need hunters. We’ll need people like you.
I stand up. Drink the rest of my drink. Walk to the sink and put the glass in it. As if there is still running water. A dish to wash and not something more.
I turn to this man. Still watching me. It’s odd now, knowing his hubris. How little he thinks of me. How sad he can see through my deception but not to the heart. I feel for him.
I do.
But I think of Beryl. Who, by joining in my journey, has intertwined herself with home. With my trip to home. I think of what that means to me, and what that death, what all of those deaths would mean to me. And I let the grim, grim, cold take over.
There is something in me, still, that won’t just stab this man and be done with it. Not yet. But a shameful part of me whispers that I waited until I was sure that he would be surprised before I faced him.
“Erik. I’m here to kill you.”
The words sit in the room. And Erik doesn’t move. Or say anything. His head tilts, confused, and then… Nothing. Because why would a man say this and not try to murder you?
But then I do. The knife comes out from my sleeve and I advance on him. He lifts his hands, the hands that know more than him, and they grip my wrist in their steely grip. They control my right hand. The knife, inches from his throat, is turned away.
He propels himself up out of his seat and clutches at me, our bodies circling in a slow, awkward dance. A wheel of willpower and flailing arms, a swirl of activity around the knife gripped by two hands. The eye of an unnatural storm.
He is a hard man. A hardened man. But part of him lingers in our former life. He hasn’t walked the precipice of despair. He isn’t willing to go to the depths. He isn’t willing to slice his own hand to allow the other to go free. He thinks that, once arrested, I’ll stop. Plead for forgiveness. He still isn’t at that point where you are chained in a room. Chained and beaten and it is all, or nothing, and nothing is absolutely not an alternative
I take his empty glass and slam it into his face. I push the remnants deeper, shards scoring deep into both his cheek and my hand, hot blood and sweat and both of us gasping with pain. And when he lurches backwards, trying desperately to get away. I force the knife into his throat.
“I’m sorry.”
I’m not sure if I mean it. For him, I guess. I’m sorry that I had to do it. And I’m sorry for Ann.
No…
He bleeds out in front of me. And I can’t move. His head is turned to the side, the gill on his neck gasping blood with every passing second. His hands try to reach up, but stop, as if they know that this is the one thing they can’t mend.
And I’m sick. I’m sick in my head. Still gripped by the cold darkness that allowed me to get to this moment. To murder.
Haunting is explained to me in this moment. I don’t know if my mother is dead, if Jessica is dead… But I see myself through their eyes. I see myself. And maybe that’s how everyone perceives themselves, or fuck, has morals. At this moment, right now, I’m thinking about how I’ll lie about killing him. To people I don’t even know are alive. Because they’ll know how far I’m gone…
You signed up for this.
Erik is dead. His last breath seconds ago. Minutes ago. How long?
Now. The final task. I push his body over onto its stomach. The candles flickering and guttering and making this altogether too sinister. I wish it was pitch black. I wish that I was puking or crying. I wish so many things.
I take the knife and, not knowing any better, stab into the top of his head with the point. I maneuver it along the skull, under the skin, sawing around the tattoo that is Beryl’s passport.
The grimness has embraced me. And I, it. And I’m dull and yet far too sensitive. I feel the stickiness of the blood on my face. I feel the tough, elastic tension of skin separation. I feel, I feel the gruesomeness of what I’m doing.
But I don’t hear the soft patter of feet approaching. I don’t hear the sudden silence of someone who walks in on something that, for the rest of their lives, will be a starting point. This moment made me do this, or do that… Or become this.
“Daddy?”
I turn. Because jacked up on so much adrenaline you can’t help but whirl around. Face a rictus of fear and regret.
A little boy stands looking at me. Pajamas covered with trains. A teddy bear. A little blue blanket. Looking at the form on the ground. Uncomprehending.
What have I done?
My breath is coming in labored gasps. Exertion and the build-up to sobs. My stomach up by my chest and my chest empty. I feel sick. I have to reach out a hand to the table to steady myself. I close my eyes.
“Daddy?”
I take in a shuddering breath. Open my eyes again. Wipe my face with my forearm. I hope I’m not as scary as I probably look. As I feel. I kneel in front of the kid.
“I’m sorry. You need to go back to bed now.”
“Why?”
It sounds like he’s asking for the reason behind being ushered back to bed. But he’s not. He’s as lost as I am.
“Go. Now.”
I am gruff, almost mean with my words. It’s that or start to cry, beg this little person for forgiveness.
He turns and goes, muffled whimpers as he totters down the dark hallway.
I stare down at the body at my feet. The murdered corpse of a father. The back of his head a bloody mess. Finish it.
I bend over to finish the job when there is a pounding on the front door. Whoever it is doesn’t wait to be greeted, the door swinging open and heavy footsteps coming down the hall.
“Erik! We got him! We got the fuc—”
I can’t wait for him to take in the scene. It’s survival now. I rush him, tackling him back into the darkness of the hall. My knife goes in his stomach at a bad angle. Slides along ribs. He is squealing, high-pitched moans of distress. Hands claw at my face and hair. I’m on top of him, trying to stab him, and he brings his knees up around his stomach. Hands still trying to push me away. And it’s his hands that suffer the most. If my murder before was the essence of wrong at least it was quick. This one is torture. He yells out in pain. He begs me to stop. The knife breaks when I stab him in the shoulder. We wrestle. He is bigger, and my strength is fading fast. The only thing that allows me to prevail, I think, is that the man is too frightened to fight back, he thinks only of defending himself, never seeking to leverage his weight against me. And eventually, after far too long, my hands find his throat.
I squeeze his neck for a long time. And I stay there, knowing that if I’m not sure about this, then it’ll mean my death. I think these thoughts and am disgusted by myself. Truly, what have I
become?
Theo.
The man had been yelling about capturing someone. It can only be one person.
Fuck.
I roll away from the body. Hands cramped, throbbing with pain, the cuts on my left palm and fingers still bleeding. And there is a feeling of something foreign underneath my fingernails. Blood and skin and death.
I’m tired. Exhausted. I stand up and lean against the wall. The distant sobs of a child and the flickering of candles keeping me company as I try to regain my breath. My senses. My sanity.
You need to move.
I feel like a savage. Hunched in some primordial cave. The first man to kill for something other than survival. The first man to kill for someone else.
I dry heave, bile burning up my throat and into my nose, a small spit-up onto my chin and into my beard. I need to leave. I need to find Theo. But running from here feels wrong. Fleeing a heinous crime. There is no system for justice, not anymore. If I run from them, and get away… That will be it. I will just be a monster that disrupted the life… The lives… Of these people without offering any explanation.
It’s done.
It’s done.
I go to the body of the father. Of the man who took me into his home. A man who, though I did not want it, laid bare a part of his soul to me. And I finish sawing off the tattoo. I wrap it in paper towels and stuff it into my back pocket. Just the action alone almost makes me retch again.
It’s done.
I take control over myself. Steel my will. I will have the rest of my life to agonize over the last twenty minutes.
I cast one last glance around the room, memorizing the details of the carnage. My wake of destruction. A permanent image for my masochistic soul.
The man had a gun. A gun he didn’t remember to go for, such was the essence of my attack. A monster from the shadows, stabbing and clutching with a ferocity for which he couldn’t fathom the reason.
I take the gun and I leave by the back door. Even if I wasn’t worried about being seen, there is no way I could take the front door. The door through which I had been invited. And given succor.
The darkening sky is twisted by incoming clouds. Black sky mixed with dying blue. Brightness around the edges. St. Elmo’s fire left unattended.
The town is six blocks by six blocks. The wall is connected to houses at some points and running free around others. But it’s complete. And absolute. And that makes me nervous. Makes me feel trapped. Even as I skulk from shadow to shadow. A heartless animal. Here to fight, in order to have flight. A predator that wants nothing more than to run away.
But I won’t.
It’s not hard to find Theo. The town itself is like most towns. The main road running through it home to the businesses; banks and post offices and taverns. The surrounding area is the homes. Homes that are dark and silent. Or flicker with small candles, the homes containing families waiting for their men to come home after a night’s dark work.
Hoping they come home. Though not as worried as they should be.
Theo is just off the center of town. Main street. In between an ancient looking movie theater that simply reads “MAIN.” A shop advertising coffee and bait and tackle on the far side. And in between them is an antique store. A flat-faced building of dark brown wood illuminated in the headlights of a large truck parked in the intersection. Heavy beams of light that make every shadow a giant. Every man in the road a pale apparition or demonic shadow.
A large metal arm protrudes from the antique shop. But there is no sign. Only a rope looped through the steel triangle where the arm connects to the building. A rope stretched taut around the neck of Theo. He stands on the tips of his toes, alternating between one foot and the other, desperately trying to raise himself up enough to keep gasping in air.
He is bloody. His nose still streams red, making it even harder for him to take a breath. His hands are bound behind his back, his shoulders straining to break free. One man approaches him and, without warning, plants a fist in his gut. The punch drives the air from Theo’s lungs and causes him to lurch forward. It almost brings me out of the shadows.
I grip the gun. Do I shoot them? Which one?
The men stand in a rough semi-circle. Waiting. Waiting for their leader to come and direct them in their justice. Twelve of them. Although I think there might be one or two sitting in the truck.
They’re happy. Excited. They were given a tough job and they came through. And it means more, I think. It justifies their fears. The wall. It is evidence that they were right to be afraid. Especially of this man and everything he represents.
I should’ve started a fire. Driven a car through their fortification. Made some sort of commotion. A distraction. I had hoped, foolishly, that I might escape here without causing any more destruction. Yet here I stand, wondering which of these men I should kill first.
Damn this place and damn Cyrene and damn myself most of all.
There is a discussion. One man grabs another and points down the road toward me. Towards Erik’s house. Two men tromp in my direction, brightly illuminated and then gone. I ease backwards around the corner of the house, pressing my body into the doorway of the small home I peek around. The scratch of boots on pavement.
“He’ll come when he’s ready. Don’t know why we gotta go fetch him.”
“I’m tired. Sooner we be done the better.”
“You’re always tired.”
“I’m just… the older I get…”
Their voices fade away. Fuck. I’m out of time. The moment they enter that house is the moment this place goes on lockdown. And I doubt they’ll bother keeping Theo around.
I need to be bold. I retreat backwards before darting across the street. Running across grass and gravel in a loop that will take me around to the other side of the intersection. To an alley. To hopefully the back of the antique shop.
No one suspects anything right now. Right now, this is the safest place on earth. Walls. Numbers. Flush with victory.
You’re running out of time.
The alley I was hoping for is more a rough dirt road along a ramshackle fence. As quiet as I try to be I’m still making a lot of noise in my haste. My boots crunch on gravel. I slip in the dark and fall into a chain link fence. It doesn’t matter. They are far louder than I am. And any small noise outside of their circle could only be one of their own. The threat is tied up in front of them. You don’t expect a bull, tied up and surrounded, to have a friend. At least, a friend idiot enough to come after him.
Entering the antique store requires breaking a window. Or finding a way to break the lock on the absurdly thick door in the back. Or picking the lock. Or doing a number of things that would be entirely too time consuming.
I’ve entered a point of no return. At least in my brain. Time is gone. Any minute this sad, abhorrent jig of mine will be up. All that is left is recklessness. Or maybe I want to be caught. Punished. I want someone to say, “just tell us why.”
So I can explain to that little boy.
I stare at the building. Each second a large grain of sand filtering through an hourglass. There are bars on the lower windows. But above, smaller than their brethren below, are windows of some office.
A breath. A foot on a doorknob. Hoisting myself up until I can just grip the edge of the shitty little tin roof. Hanging free over what is, after jumping from a bridge, a truly laughable distance. Swinging a leg up. Cringing at the noise. Trying to use the caulk around rusty old bolts to keep myself from falling. Scrambling. Cursing. Frustration causing me to punch the window upon arrival rather than using the butt of the gun. Or my elbow. Or anything logical. Blood from my fist and my forearm patters down onto the tin roof, a different kind of rain than it’s used to.
There is only a momentary lull in the noise from the front of the building. Only the smallest moments of confusion before the sound is dismissed.
Doesn’t matter. The window is so… so fucking small. But apparently I’m in a mood for punishment because I
haphazardly scrape the glass out with my gun, barely taking a breath before diving in. Small blades cut into my shoulders and back, a self-flagellation that is a grimace and a smile. And fuck me, but I pull myself through that hole and inside, savoring every moment that I am in pain.
I ignominiously wrestle my way into a pitch black room, bruising my face and elbows on a desk centered beneath the window. I can’t see anything. Every movement sending something toppling or my knee into something.
But I keep moving. Fuck stillness. Fuck silence. Every laugh that I hear outside, every jeer, somehow seems directed at me. At how stupid I am for trying to get home. What a fruitless venture. Instead of finding your family you’ll ruin one.
What a monster.
I crawl. Casting about in the absolute blackness until I find stairs and I crawl down those too.
Light at the bottom. I turn a corner and it turns into brilliance. The light from headlights creates a burst prism into the lower level of the store. A playground of knives and stuffed birds, animal pelts and grandfather clocks; odd sundries in a dark room that would make Poe jealous.
Muffled voices echo through the glass, the voices high and fast even as their shadows slowly slide across the wall. And I move slowly, too. Crouching and crawling. Slinking in the shadows as I do my best to avoid any light, cursing the dusty mirrors intent on blinding me.
I move behind the counter, avail myself of their knife collection. There is a blade that’s bigger than the rest. An easy choice. Oddly shaped, it goes out straight before taking an odd curve forward. Like it wanted to be a hook but then gave up. A penitent knife begging for forgiveness. Thick and heavy.
And then there’s nothing but the door. Nothing but to walk outside. And I do take a second. For the first time in this horrible new world I don’t think of Jessica, or Beryl, or my family.
I think of a little boy. I think of him and I hope that, since forgiveness is off the table, that he might be made to forget.
I push the door open and it jingles, the comical intrusion of our past life. One last customer departing a store devoted to a time long gone, and it’s as if I were truly leaving some semblance of myself behind.