by Tim McBain
Huh?
I kneel, pick through the garments. Ah, yes. The gun. The stupid gun that digs into the small of my back all day long. I guess I was too tired to put it away last night. That’s when you know you’re lazy. You step on the gun you left on the floor the night before when you disrobed. At that point it becomes official.
I pop open the drawer of the nightstand, wrap the firearm in the dirty t-shirt I found it with and shove the bundle in, snugged right next to the tiny Gideon’s bible. It’s a tight squeeze. I have to press the fabric down with one hand to ease the drawer closed with the other, but it works.
I head to the bathroom and crank up the shower. This might be the best part of the day lately, though I’m not sure why. I like the sound of the water hitting the ancient porcelain tiles in this shower stall. I like the way the pitch of the running water changes as it gets hotter, growing more shrill. I like the way the steam billows out and fogs up the mirror. I like that first scalding feeling when I step in and it’s a little too hot, and all of my nerve endings scream in tune with the sweet high notes the hot water sings, and I have to dial it back a notch.
I like that.
I run through the bathing process, all things going as usual. I lather. I rinse. I repeat. And I stand in there a while after the soaping and scrubbing is over, water verging on too hot spraying into the back of my neck, connecting right where the skull slopes inward to become flush with the spinal column. Warmth spreads from that spot all through my body, seeming to pulse down my back, over my shoulders, onto my chest. And in some weird way I feel like I’m at home.
Safe and warm, at least for the moment.
This place may be a dump, but there’s plenty of hot water, and the shower itself is nice. It’s almost a miracle that it’s not crawling with seven kinds of mildew. I think back on the sack ripping shower at Glenn’s and shake my head. Without thinking about it, I cup a hand toward my groin, which makes me laugh once I notice it. In my head, I whisper, “Sh... It’s OK. The bad water can’t hurt you here.”
But as Glenn’s home passes through my thoughts, my smile dies. The images open in my head in rapid succession, like the flash on a camera lighting up over and over. It’s jolting. Blinding.
I sit at the snack bar in his kitchen. Glenn stands, his back to me, making food, but I can’t tell what. His hair floofs out from under the back of his hat, ruffled in such a way that it sticks out funny on one side, splaying from behind his ear.
I sit at the couch, and I can hear Glenn in the bathroom, his electric toothbrush whirring in his mouth. A thud rings out as a cat knocks something over somewhere down the hall. Glenn peeks out and makes momentary eye contact, eyebrows raised in concern, frothy toothpaste wetting the corners of his mustache so he looks sort of like a berserk Doberman Pinscher.
And then I see the body face down, shoulders slumped forward, arms pinned underneath. Ten hilts extend from the corpse, the tips of their blades buried in the body below. All of this in front of a landscape swathed in snow, windswept, severe. It looks like it should be a drawing on the cover of a fantasy novel or a comic book, but it’s real. It really happened.
And my brain jumps to a vision of a possible future, as it often does of late. I see Farber walking out of some store, and our paths cross on the sidewalk, we’re right next to each other, but he never sees me, never takes note. And I shove the barrel of my gun into his gut and fire, pull the hammer back, fire again, pull the hammer back, fire a third time. The muzzle blazes and pops three times. His shirt rips open. His skin rips open. He staggers back, clutching his belly. At first I can’t see the blood against his black shirt, but when he crumples to the ground the red all drains out of him, a pool expanding outward on the concrete like fruit punch on linoleum. And even then, he never looks at me, and that’s fine. It’s perfect. I don’t care if he knows who killed him. I don’t care about credit. I don’t care about making him scared. I don’t care about making him suffer. I just care that he’s dead, erased, snuffed out.
Forever.
That’s all.
And the water seems hotter now, the steam too heavy around me, like it’s fogging up my actual eyeballs, putting a layer of cloud between the lens and the retina, so I can’t see quite right. Doesn’t make sense.
Shit.
I try to turn the knobs, try to shut the water off, but there’s no strength in my hands. No articulation in my movements. My motor skills fail me. My fingers slip off of the divets in the chrome that are supposed to house them, supposed to make this act a convenience. All I manage to do is turn the heat up a touch, so my skin screams angry red wherever the water touches it. The pitch of the running water grows even more shrill.
But maybe that pain wakes me up a little. Maybe I won’t get sucked down into the black hole just now. I have managed to stave it off a couple of times on the highway. I always figured the adrenalin of being poised to pass out at the wheel going 53 miles per hour in heavy traffic shook me out of the descent.
I stagger a single step toward the back of the shower stall, the searing spray no longer contacting my skin directly, though I can feel the heat in the water pooling underfoot. It feels like a pain switch gets flipped off. That quick turn, the sudden absence of blistering agony, fills me with bliss for a moment, a flood of intense pleasure, a release like a sigh where all of your muscles let go at once.
And I breathe. In through my nostrils. Out through my mouth. And I blink a few times, that fog clearing from my vision. I wipe my hands over my face, fingers massaging at my forehead and eyelids, the heels of my hands brushing beads of water free from my chin and jawline. And I close my eyes for a beat, and the sound of the water hitting the tile comes back into focus, filling the room. I like it. It’s a good sound.
And then the black comes over me, and I am falling.
Chapter 5
Something feels different, but what is it?
Hm...
I’m a little cold. I wasn’t cold before. I can’t remember much, but I know that.
Cool air touches my face, the humid kind of cool air that clings to your skin when you walk through a basement in the summer. It reminds me of a fall day, just after the rain, wet leaves clumped along the edges of the sidewalk, a damp chill hanging in the air all around. And sure, it’s dreary in many respects, but it’s not winter, at least. It’s wet. It’s not frozen.
No, wait. It reminds me of something even more than a bleak fall day. It reminds me of the alley. My alley.
Yes.
Of course.
I open my eyes. Imagine my shock when I see the alley before me. Wet asphalt? Check. Brick facades? Check. Pot holes turned mud puddles? Check. Gray tint all about? Check. Dumpster? Check. Dead dog? Status unknown.
This puzzle piece snapping into place brings a surge of memories back all at once: I feel the scalding water on my skin, see the steam rippling in the air, hear the spray slapping at the porcelain. I fished out in the shower, so I’m probably getting steamed like a pot of mussels about this time. Or maybe drowning, face down in two inches of water.
So that’s good.
Though I can’t say for sure why I bother, I fold at the waist to undo my bonds. I guess my hands are nervous, fidgety. Anything I can do to speed up the process of getting back to the real world and dragging myself out of the shower will be a bonus. The time differentiation between here and there is weird, but who knows? At some point, one second is the difference between life and death, isn’t it? Better to err on the side of hustling.
I grip the rope and let my newly free legs swing under me. Then I drop to the ground, keeping my feet. I’ve gotten better at this in time. Practice makes perfect.
I shuffle forward, avoiding the water holes. As I reach the end of the alley, I hear the scuffing of feet on asphalt around the corner. Here we go.
I run toward the sound, and there it is, rounding the corner - that familiar hood. The arms of the robe flap in slow motion, hands held rigid as they pump in the air, doing a s
eries of little karate chops in a row.
Hooded being? Check.
“Can’t stay long,” I say, giving a wave.
“Why not?” she says.
She throws back the hood as she stops short of touching me. It’s Amity, of course, but she looks a little severe, her eyebrows all crushed together.
“I blacked out in the shower this time, so I’m probably drowning right now,” I say. “Or possibly being boiled, I guess.”
“I don’t think that would happen,” she says. “Makes no sense. It’d make sure you woke up before you died.”
Ah, yes. Amity remains more of a true believer than me. She thinks it all happens for a reason, for a purpose. She thinks something sentient lies behind it all. But I don’t know. I’ve seen too many things, too many ugly things.
I picture the swords piercing Glenn’s skin, gliding through muscle, grinding against bone. I hear his final breaths rasp in and out of him, see the intelligent expression on his face as the life drains from his body.
No magical energy woke him up. Nothing saved him at the last minute.
“I don’t think it works that way,” I say.
I try to maintain eye contact, but my gaze shifts to the blacktop anyway.
“So you’ve said,” she says. “Anything else new?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m just lying low, like you wanted. Hiding out. Sitting around a little motel room all day. Eating crap food out of the vending machines. It’s been quiet, and I think it will stay that way. They don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them.”
So I leave out one small detail here: the truth.
We are quiet for a moment. She shrugs.
“OK,” she says. “I guess I will see you soon, then.”
She leans forward, standing on her tiptoes, and her eyes close, and our lips touch, but I only feel it for a split second before the world winks out around me.
Cold water laps against my cheek in rhythmic intervals as it circles toward the drain. I lift my head, the taste of soap on my lips, the lavender scent wafting into my nose. Something about the mixture, the perfume smell and bitter flavor coming together, makes this experience grosser than just tasting it alone probably would be. I swipe the back of my hand at my lip a couple of times, though this makes no discernible difference.
I sit up, examining my body. I find my haunches uncooked, at least. This pleases me. There’s a little redness near my ankles, which probably got the worst of it. I press my fingers to the colored spots. A little tender to the touch, but on the whole, the consequences prove to be quite mild. I expected worse.
I lean forward into the chilly spray, the icy feeling compressing my ribcage, constricting my breath for a moment. I twist the knobs, and the water cuts off. Once the waterflow noises die down, I hear a distant banging, like someone hitting a wall. Probably some poor bastard discovering the lack of hot water and throwing a fit.
Sorry, dude. You just got Grobnaggered.
In all seriousness, though, I feel bad. I respect the shower facilities in this establishment to a degree that I find difficult to express. It is almost sacred to me. Believe me, I hate to bring any shower-ers here pain.
I sit back on the floor for a second, tilting my head back and rolling it from shoulder to shoulder, letting the droplets of cold fall away from my hair and body.
In my mind, I can still feel that milisecond of Amity’s lips touching mine, that detonation of affection that I never get to fully feel. Instead of a hydrogen bomb of intimacy or passion or whatever you want to call it, I get more like a cannon firing way in the distance. I mean, I think if you added all of our micro-kisses together, it’d equal about one real kiss by now. Maybe.
See, I like her a lot, I spend time with her a lot, and the universe seems intent to put the two of us together, using my seizures to do so, which is great now that she quit murdering me. It’s just that I flash to another dimension as soon as we touch.
Is that a deal breaker?
Not sure.
I stand and get to work toweling off. You know how a shower is invigorating and feels like a fresh start? This feels even more true when you astral project in the middle of the shower. Refreshing.
I wrap the towel around my waist and move to the sink, flinging handfuls of water at my mouth. The external splashes, I’m hopeful, will help get rid of some of the soap still clinging to my lips. And the water that makes it into my mouth will help rinse out the soap invading my actual oral cavity. On paper, this seems a decent plan, but I watch myself hurl water at my face, and I can’t help but be reminded of a dog so dumb that it chomps at water to drink.
In fact, generally speaking, I find that the longer you spend gazing into a mirror, the harder it becomes to respect yourself. Maybe that’s just me.
After several minutes of water flings, though, my mouth only tastes like 67% soap content, a marked improvement.
So it was all worth it.
Chapter 6
I sit on the edge of the bed, sliding on a pair of socks, left then right. Once that’s complete, I’m fully dressed. Seems a little classier, I guess. No more sitting around wet and naked for this guy. No way. I like to think I’m a little more sophisticated than that.
I feel anxious. Not about anything in particular so far as I can tell. More of a directionless dread that I know I could only partially explain to myself, so I don’t bother trying.
I try to sit still a moment, take a few deep breaths and collect myself, but I can’t do it. I fidget and twitch, a finger and thumb picking at a cigarette burn on the blanket, a little melted crater, and the next thing I know I’m up and pacing back and forth in front of the TV.
It’s weird how as soon as you try to not be all keyed up for something, it becomes impossible. Your heart starts beating like a techno song and progresses into speed metal. Your thoughts race in tangled circles, coiling back on themselves, trying to fathom paradoxes within paradoxes. You can’t sit still. At all.
My socked feet walk the same path, over and back and back and over. I trek through dense shag carpet, as thick as any jungle you’ll find and equally filled to the brim with organisms, though these are strictly of the microbial variety. Either way, it’s quite an adventure.
I try to think of what to do. I already know what to do, but some part of me wants to run it forward and back in my mind while I strut about. I don’t get the appeal, but pacing is hypnotic. It lulls you until your thoughts flip over into some other mode, until you’re lost in the abstract, just barely tethered to the physical world. And the thoughts devolve until they don’t even have to be words. They’re feelings that have more in common with colors and shapes than they do language. They morph in and out of each other, the internal scenery constantly shifting to some new background just like in a dream.
And then I realize that the drawer with the Gideon’s bible hangs open, and I’m holding a present wrapped in a red t-shirt.
I guess it’s time to go.
Back on the highway, the Taurus chokes a little as I press it into the range of speed that makes it uncomfortable. The fenders shimmy. The heating vents shake. The plastic facade of the dash rattles against the stereo like a snake about to strike, like the car is warning me to slow down.
OR ELSE.
I ease off of the accelerator, submitting to the vehicle’s warnings. Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just going about my business.
I’ve got my own trouble to look forward to.
Cars rush past to my left--trucks, sedans, SUVs, mini-vans. All of the people in transit, together but separate, going about their days in their own cars, in their own tunnels, in their own worlds. I drive right along with them, so close both physically and in the sense of this shared experience, but our worlds share little in common. We never connect.
Sometimes I think I might as well be on a private planet, driving along these vacant roads, working toward goals I don’t really understand. Would it be that much different? Alone is alone, I guess, whether
you’re surrounded by everyone or no one.
The cars in front of me all veer into the left lane, and then I see the police lights spinning on the side of the road. The ambulance isn’t here yet, but it won’t be long based on what I can see. The Range Rover looks like its front end exploded, and to some degree it did. Shattered bits of the car’s body and pieces of the grill scatter over the highway along with mini-shards from the broken windows. What remains of the hood and fender puckers and dents in the direction of the cab, made concave. The front left wheel is gone. It must have meandered down into the ditch or something.
You think that’s bad? You should see the other car.
Much worse. It must have rolled somehow, the roof as flat as a thin crust pizza, pressed down into the body of the car. With all of the crumpled and flattened parts, I can’t make out the model. It almost seems like someone tried to take a normal sedan and smash it down into the size of a smart car. Or maybe they put it in one of those machines at the dump that they always show on TV. The ones that crush cars down into a little cube.
Can a human being survive that? I don’t know. A cop strides up to the wreckage, one hand on the radio clipped to his shoulder, the other resting on the butt of his holstered gun. I can’t read his expression behind the mirrored aviator sunglasses.
But I won’t see the end of this story. I zoom past, onto other things, other places, other worlds. The highway never stops. It never sleeps. The people come and go. They rear end the guy stopping to avoid hitting an animal, collide head on with drunks going the wrong way, fall asleep at the wheel, get pulverized by semi drivers too hopped up on meth to notice that traffic is stopped, 38 tons piledriving into the rows of cars at 77 miles per hour.
They come here to die every day, whether they know it or not. They break their bodies on the road, mangle themselves, spill their blood out onto the asphalt, decapitate themselves on the guard rails.