The Locals

by Jonathan Dee

  “Or we could try again tomorrow?” I said.

  “Or you could try again tomorrow, though I would definitely call first. I’ll be here, that much I can promise you.”

  He walked us to the elevator. He was acting like a funeral director. I was just like, buddy, do you know what kind of horrible shit happens to people you don’t know every day? But then he gets even weirder. “Do you,” he says, “have a dog?”

  “Hell no,” I said, but he was looking more at Mark, who was nodding.

  “I just get overcome,” the guy says, “thinking of all those thousands of pets, dogs especially, waiting by the door. Just waiting. I know it’s crazy, what happened to those people is so awful, but I get fixated.”

  The elevator came, thank God. Mark and the guy did that thing where you shake hands but then you put your other hand on top of the pile of hands. Then we were in the elevator, going down in silence.

  “Dogs!” I said finally. “What a fruitcake.”

  We walked side by side through the giant lobby. I saw my security-guard pals and waved, but they were looking at something else. We stopped on the sidewalk and looked up, and just then some kind of military fighter jet went over, the only planes that were flying then, those first few days. It happened a lot, but you never quite got used to it. Every time one went over, you’d see people on the sidewalk freeze.

  “It just feels like nothing will ever be the same,” Mark said.

  And for some reason I felt it all come spilling out of me right there: all this hate, like it had been building for days. Why at this guy, at fucking small-town Mr. Clean? I don’t know. I could mention that he looked an awful lot like the guys who used to kick my ass all the time for no reason in high school. Stick my head in the toilet and what have you. And now he’s pretending we’re brothers. Not pretending—he believed it. He believed that that was what he thought. He was just so clueless about himself that it fucking pissed me off. Or maybe what I was really mad about was thinking that I did have something in common with him. Look at him. He’s a rube, a sap, a greedy fucking imbecile, and I’m just as bad as he is. And he’s just as bad as I am. There’s your fucking brotherhood of man, am I right? Anyway, I suddenly had had it with this Mark guy. I wanted to restore the distance between us.

  “We’re all New Yorkers today,” I said.

  He nodded, like I had said something very wise. He put his hand over his eyes to look down at me, like a visor, like a salute.

  “Are you hungry?” he says to me.

  Yeah, I’m hungry, you condescending douche, but I do know how to feed myself. Some people look at me like I’m some kind of unfortunate. Because maybe I don’t look a certain way. I have a job, I have my own place, I live a life, fuck you, you know? That well-meaning sympathy is the worst. It makes me crazy. You be you, and I’ll be me. You know damn well it’s just about making yourself feel superior anyway. Like in case the building you’re in falls down and it turns out there really is a God or something, you want your ass covered, you want to be able to make your case. Good luck with that.

  “You know, this is silly,” I said, “but everything just seems like—it could be our last day on this earth, you know?”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He was fucking strong, this Mark.

  “And we’re sort of thrown together by fate, you and me, and this is such a bizarre time, it feels like the world might be ending—”

  “I know.”

  “What hotel do they have you in?”

  “What hotel?” He jerked his chin in the general direction of downtown. “The Marriott. Right on Times Square. Just a few blocks from here. Do you know it?”

  “I’ve seen it,” I said, “from outside.”

  “It’s quite something.” He paused. “They evacuated the whole hotel. They made us all go stand in the street. Just stood there for a couple of hours, watching the news on that giant video billboard, and then at some point they just said we could go back in.”

  “This is going to sound kind of gay,” I said, “but I don’t really feel like being alone right now.”

  He invited me over. I knew he would. What everyone in New York was suddenly trying to act like—neighborly—this hick was actually like that 24/7. Probably he was a churchgoer. He had a lot of wrong ideas about himself, you could see that. Anyway, it was only like a five-minute walk and we were there. The Marriott has this rooftop restaurant that spins around while you eat, which sounded awesome to me, but of course that had been closed since Tuesday and was unlikely to be up and running any time soon. “Room service?” I suggested. He seemed reluctant but I asked at the desk and room service was technically back in operation but not fully staffed, so it might take a while, is what we were told. So many of the kitchen and hotel workers were illegals, and there was no easy way to get ahold of them to tell them to come back to work. They’d come back when they felt it was safe, I guess. Mark’s room was all the way up on the nineteenth floor. The lobby elevators are made of glass, so it’s like watching yourself go up in a rocket or something. Revolving restaurant, glass elevators—the whole place is designed to make you piss yourself.

  I could tell he was uncomfortable. He handed me the room service menu and then called down to the front desk to ask if all the trains upstate were running on their normal schedule, and I guess the answer was yes. Maybe he wanted to pack up and go home right then, but he was Mr. Polite, and brother, I wasn’t budging. This place was sweet.

  The second he hung up the room phone, his cell phone rang again. “Hi, honey,” he said. “I was just about to call you back.” He looked at me for a second, without meaning to, and I understood he wanted some privacy, but I didn’t really feel like giving it to him and anyway where was I going to go?

  I smiled at him and mouthed, “It’s okay,” which seemed to puzzle him.

  “Just came back from there,” he said. Little pause. “Well, sort of. Towles wasn’t there.” Littler pause. “Nobody seems exactly sure.”

  I looked at the art on the wall, which was abstract, like a picture of nothing, like they were afraid of getting sued for accidentally reminding you of something.

  “No, for God’s sake, no, he wasn’t killed or anything. He was nowhere near all that. He’s just taken off for the suburbs somewhere. His family’s there. Just to be safe, I guess.”

  “I’ll just go into the bathroom,” I said, like it was to be nice to him, but I didn’t close the door all the way, so I could still hear him.

  “I am safe,” he said. “I’m perfectly safe, as safe as you, that’s not what I meant.”

  Sometimes you can learn a lot from snooping out a person’s bathroom. But he’d only been living there two days. He had this grungy leather toiletry kit like a kid would have, a kid at camp. The only interesting thing in there was a prescription bottle of Vicodin, which I was like, what? I had it halfway into my pocket—not for me, but stuff like that might be valuable to Yuri or to someone he knows—but when it shook I could hear that there was only one pill left in it. So I just put it back.

  “They did?” he said. “Well that’s—I mean that’s sweet, but—”

  The bathroom itself was nice. So clean. I don’t want to say why I was so struck by that. Huge mirror. Huge tub. People live lives where they stay in different rooms like this all the time. That’s got to be the best. Anonymous and cleaned up after.

  “I know, but who would organize a thing like that? What did you tell them about why I was here?”

  I wondered why he didn’t tell her I was right there with him, especially if he wanted to get off the call, which it kind of sounded like he did. I walked back out and lay down on his bed. I just smiled. I don’t know, there was something about the guy, you just wanted to provoke him. He looked like some reformed bully. It was like drinking in front of somebody who’s in AA. Part of you is curious to see what he’s like drunk, right? How bad it would get.

  “I should go,” he said. “Room service is here.” A lie! I hadn’
t called them yet! “No, if she’s outside, just let her play. Tell her I love her and I’ll see her tomorrow.” Little frown. “I’ll just have to come back here another time. No, I know. Me too. I love you. Me too. See you tomorrow.”

  He looked at me sheepishly, that’s the word. I think he probably wanted to lie down too, but he wasn’t about to stretch out next to me. I make people nervous, I don’t know why, so I just try to enjoy that quality about myself when I can. He stood by the window. All day long I’d been way higher up than I’m used to being. It didn’t feel that different.

  “My wife,” he said. I nodded. “She was telling me that they had a candlelight vigil at the Town Hall last night. For me. For my safe return. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  He stared out the window at all the neon and the blue, and he dropped his head.

  “Everybody was totally shocked to hear I was in New York City, because I hadn’t even told anybody I was coming here. I mean Karen knew, of course. But we agreed not to mention it to anyone else. Because I actually haven’t told anyone, not even the rest of my family, about the whole Garrett Spalding disaster. Because I was ashamed of what they might think of me. And now they’re all out there holding candles and praying for me. I feel like kind of a low person right now.”

  “What’s she look like, your wife?” I said.

  He was really making an effort to roll with it, with this whole particular interaction, you could see. And then he does exactly what I’m hoping he’ll do, he pulls out a picture of his wife and their daughter from his wallet. The wife is just like you’d figure a good-looking yokel like this would wind up with. Country girl. Great body, not fat but nice and curvy, lots of long, naturally shaggy hair. Great, full mouth. Outstanding tits. The kid just looked like a kid.

  “You have a lovely family,” is what I said.

  He smiled, a little sadly. He didn’t ask me if I had a family. He could probably tell. “I’ve been very lucky,” he said.

  So I did it up with that room service, man. The prices were ridiculous. I know Mark disapproved, but it was all free, right? I mean it was all on Towles the lawyer, and even then it’s not like it was coming straight out of his pocket, and did I mention that fucking office? You think a few extra apps or a bottle of cognac is going to break that place? Come on.

  We ate like kings. Once the food was there, and it was too late to do anything about it, he gave in and enjoyed himself a little. He even had a beer, while I had three and figured I could carry the other two home with me. I could tell he was worried about getting in trouble with Towles. But who knew if we’d ever see that paranoid asswipe again, unless we wanted to go out to the Island buddy-movie style and track him down. I started flipping around on the TV, still all just news, but then it hit me: pay-per-view! I’d heard about it but I’d never seen it. He was just sitting in the chair not saying anything. I looked through all the sad-ass vanilla porn trailers just for fun, but I wasn’t really tempted: porn is meant to be watched alone, not with another guy in the room, regardless of whether you’re beating off to it or not. That’s why porn was invented, to give everybody something to be alone with.

  “So where do you live exactly?” he says. “The subways and buses are running now, right?”

  “So was your wife pretty mad at you?” I said. “About the money. She looks like the fiery type.”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, it’s—not that I mind your asking, you know, but it’s kind of personal.”

  “Sure. You’re right. I mean, it’s just I don’t have a family myself. So I get curious. Especially now, right, when we’re still in danger, maybe, for all we know. So yours might be like the last new story I ever hear.”

  He went right for it. He told me the whole thing. He’s a contractor up in Massachusetts someplace. He restores old houses. It’s some kind of a summer town, where rich assholes from New York or Boston buy vacation homes. All that money in his face all the time, so he gets kind of envious and he starts to put his money in the stock market. And he’s actually pretty good at it for a while, or else just lucky, and his wife is all proud of him, just dropping to her knees and blowing him all the time (okay, I added that last part, but it’s his fault for showing me the picture). Then he decides he’s got to move up to the big leagues, and he starts shopping around for an investment manager—because he figures that’s safer!—and he’s looking around online and in some fucking chat room he comes across somebody raving about this guy Garrett Spalding. He gave the man everything. Didn’t even tell his wife he was doing it. Now they’ve got debts up the ass and they had to call off having a second kid.

  And get this: “Can I confess something to you? After everything happened on Tuesday, part of me was a little relieved, because Karen’s whole attitude changed, she was just like, forget about all that, forget about our problems, it’s just money, none of that seems important anymore, all that matters is that you’re safe. But I know that feeling might not last forever. I don’t know, maybe that’s why I don’t feel as scared about being away from home as I probably should. I actually feel kind of safe here. In a weird way. But it’s disrespectful to say so.”

  There might have been more than that. But the cognac was open and I was pretty drunk at that point.

  “Your daughter, though,” I said.

  He smiled. “Yeah, fortunately I think she’s too young even to be scared. No idea what everybody’s so worried about. I know they gave her the day off from school, and she was mad about that.”

  “What? They canceled school all the way up there? Why?”

  He shrugged. “School’s closed all over the country, I think. The country is under attack.”

  “But that’s so fucked up!” I said. “I mean you live in the middle of nowhere, right, you said? Out in the woods basically?”

  He looked a little startled, like he didn’t get what was upsetting me.

  “Why would anybody want to attack you?” I said.

  He just sort of made a neutral face. “Who knows what they want,” he said. “Or even who they are. They just hate us. They hate what we stand for.”

  “What we stand for? Jesus. Why does everybody suddenly think it’s like Judgment Day or something? You know what most people’s judgment of you is? Their judgment is that they couldn’t give less of a shit about you. You don’t exist to them. But people would rather think that they’re hated. It makes them feel important. Anyway, to me it’s conceited as fuck.”

  I don’t think I was making myself too clear. “It’s getting late,” he said.

  He wanted me to go. It’s not like I didn’t see that. But I loved it that he couldn’t just say it. Who was this guy? Why didn’t he just throw me out? You know he wanted to. And you know he could have, even if I’d been sober. But he was being such a fucking pushover. Big handsome guy with his hot wife. I couldn’t let things go his way.

  “It’s crazy,” I said, “all the different things that had to happen to bring you and me together. All the coincidences, I mean. Because we don’t seem like guys who would normally be hanging out.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “It just goes to show you.”

  “I mean, the whole tragedy. But also what brought you here in the first place. The fact that the same guy ripped us both off. Different as we are. The fact that we still went out and showed up for that appointment, we still cared that much about our own money even while thousands of people were dying.”

  “Well, I guess,” he said.

  “Even the fucking lawyer pussied out of it. Not us, though. We want that fucking money back. You got to want it. You can’t let a terrorist attack stop you. That’s what we got in common, man. We’re selfish.”

  “I guess at a time like this, our differences don’t seem so—”

  “Selfish and greedy and naïve,” I said. “That’s not a winning combination.”

  “Listen, I’m getting pretty tired,” Mark said. I think I’d maybe fallen asleep myself. I opened my eyes. At the foot of the bed the hu
ge TV played silently. Same old shit, on a loop. Nobody wanted to let go of it, of what had happened. It made everybody feel important.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said. “But, Mark, I’m scared. I don’t think I can go out there. Not at night. Nighttime is the worst. It’s like ninety blocks back to my apartment. Do you know I walked to Towles’s office and back, the whole way? Both days. I just can’t deal with crowds right now, enclosed spaces. I can’t deal with not being able to see what’s coming out of the sky. The buses seem like prime targets. Like in Israel. And the subways? Forget it. I can’t even think about it.”

  I tell you, I got so into it I started crying a little. It was hilarious!

  “I’m so scared right now. I don’t know why I’m telling you. They’re talking about bombing, about world war. It’s just, you never know: is this my last night alive? We’ve been through something together, man. I don’t know why people hate us. Why there’s this kind of evil in the world. But I just have this feeling, like you said, like nothing will ever be the same. On my way downtown yesterday, I passed this playground, and it was full of kids, and I just can’t stop thinking about them. It’s like, they’re so innocent, and they’re going to have that ripped away from them. I want to find some way to stop it, you know? To stop them from ever knowing about what happened. But you can’t stop it. It’d be like turning back time. They’re not afraid of anything yet, of anything real anyway, but man, I’m so afraid for them right now—”

  And that is how I spent my first-ever night in a king-size bed on the nineteenth floor of a luxury hotel. For free.

  Best bed I ever slept in, but still, I tend to wake up early. It was dark. He was sleeping in the chair, his face propped up by his fist. The TV was still on, with the sound down. Very carefully I rolled to the edge of the bed and stood up and listened. Fucking quiet up that high. Can’t hear the street at all. That must be why people like it. His phone and his wallet were on the table beside his chair. I took his MasterCard and the photo of his wife and kid, pocketed them, and put everything back the way I found it. I knew he wouldn’t come after me. He could have gotten my address from the lawyer, maybe, but then he would have had to explain why he wanted it. Instead he’d just convince himself the whole thing was his fault anyway. Which it kind of was.