Henrik yelled out loud. His chest filled with adrenaline. He yelled again.
He stomped his feet and crashed into walls until his neighbors on all sides told him to shut up and go to bed.
The next morning, Conrad, Billy Bones and Alfred met over breakfast at the retirement home. Conrad had woken up in a particularly surly mood. For days, he’d been growing increasingly frustrated with their inability to murder that devious super spy. He declared that by sundown tonight, they would either kill Henrik Nordmark or die trying. Alfred didn’t like this idea at all. He scribbled down his objection on a piece of paper and handed it to Conrad, who in turn told him that he was blind and could no longer read. Alfred showed the paper to Billy Bones and motioned for him to tell Conrad what it said; only Billy Bones had lost most of his cognitive brain functions and completely ignored anything put in front of him, with the notable exception of the twenty-six-year-old nurse’s breasts.
“Damn that Machiavellian man with his trickery and cunning,” Conrad said, referring to Henrik.
He stood up from the table and insisted that Alfred and Billy Bones come along with him. From inside Conrad’s room, the three assassins grabbed the crossbow and a quiver of arrows. Together they donned long black overcoats and marched down the hall. Alfred thought it strange that they were heading down the east wing rather than toward the main doors. When they arrived at the office door, Conrad whispered in Alfred’s ear. Alfred gave him a look of concern, a look which Conrad couldn’t see. Conrad whispered again. This time Alfred’s expression turned cold. He nodded his head.
The door opened.
A swoosh cut through the air.
The elderly assassins turned and left the premises.
Three minutes later a scream sounded. The receptionist had entered Abraham Arnold’s office to finally demand a raise on her weekly paycheck and was shocked to discover the retirement home director’s body lying face down on the floor, an arrow sticking straight out of his back. A pool of red had formed on the carpet. Frantically, the receptionist picked up Abraham’s phone and dialed 911. Before she could reach the operator, a large bang sounded. The receptionist took cover under the desk and didn’t look up again for half an hour.
Outside, Alfred’s foot pressed down on the accelerator a second time. The old LeBaron fired a second torrid blast of smoke out its tailpipe. This time the engine roared and the vehicle peeled out of the parking lot.
Conrad, Alfred and Billy Bones were on their way to find Henrik Nordmark.
In the alley behind the Safeway near his apartment, Clyde was crying and slowly bleeding to death. Last night he reloaded his gun and ditched his car before taking refuge here behind a pile of wooden packing crates. Knowing the police would search his apartment and the local hospital, Clyde slept overnight on a stack of phonebooks. The only thing that kept him warm was the torn car bra he’d managed to unhinge from his Honda Civic. During the wee hours of the morning, he dislodged the arrow that had entered his shoulder, but he couldn’t unfetter the one from his thigh and the original arrow was still stuck deep in his chest, making it increasingly difficult to breathe.
The wound in his shoulder didn’t hurt so much but the arrow in his chest felt like a hundred bee stings and the one in his thigh was like the bites of a thousand hornets.
Clyde wasn’t crying over the pain though. He was crying over the loss of his beloved Bonnie. In all his previous attempts to kill her, he’d never once imagined what life would be like without Bonnie. He expected to be gloriously happy once she was finally eliminated. This wasn’t the case at all. He found he missed everything about her. He missed the soft skin at the nape of her neck and the gentle caress when she ran her hand through his hair. He even missed the way she used to yell at him and then apologize by saying “I’m sorry you had to act that way” which was not an apology at all but a further indictment of his actions.
“Dear God! What have I done?!” he cried. From nearby, a couple of stock boys were close enough to hear him and Clyde had to keep his wailing to a minimum in order to avoid detection.
He no longer wanted to live. And judging by the amount of blood he’d lost, he would be dead before nightfall. What a joyous death it would be, to be reunited with his beloved Bonnie. But first he would seek vengeance for that kiss he witnessed at the hospital.
Clyde only had one thing left to do on this earth — kill Henrik Nordmark!
When he finally returned to his apartment above the market-place last night, Roland found a yellow Post-it note attached to his front door. It was from his former supervisor Chad. Apparently, Chad had given a second thought to some of the things Roland said.
The note read . . .
You disrespectful punk! I’ve been taking Jiu-Jitsu for seven years and I’ve never once had to lay a hand on anyone outside the dojo. But I’m going to find you and when I do — I’ll rip your head off, spit down your throat and grind your balls into a fine paste!
Chad
Roland was a little surprised that Chad had all of that in him.
He cast a nervous glance down the hallway and then entered his apartment. It was just as he’d left it. Clothes scattered across the floor, a half-eaten burrito from last night’s dinner on a plate in the kitchen sink, the same beige carpet, same $400 imitation suede couch against the far wall. He closed his eyes and imagined how a millionaire playboy would decorate this space. A giant flat-screen TV would take center stage and behind that would be red lights and a fully stocked bar to chill the mood. The couch would be replaced with a heart-shaped bed decked out in purple cushions and crimson velvet sheets.
Roland opened his eyes and his ordinary, mundane apartment stared back at him. Nowhere was the opulence of his dreams. He tossed his coat on the counter and slumped down into his computer chair. There were three emails waiting for him. The first was a spam message offering Roland a gorgeous Russian mail-order bride at Serbian-level discount prices. The second alerted him to the 20% worldwide death toll incurred by the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the 100% chance such a catastrophe will repeat in the new millennium. Only the third message was real. It was from his former colleague Mason.
It read . . .
Roland, you’ve ruined my life. I thought we were friends. How could you be so cruel? I don’t even want to get even. I just want you to know that I’m really disappointed in you.
Mason
Roland felt like a block of ice had fallen into the pit of his stomach. If Mason had planned some underhanded scheme to get even, if he’d cursed his name from the rooftops and sworn revenge, Roland might have been able to justify what he’d done. But the tone of defeat lurking behind the sans serif font in this email was too much for him to handle. Roland banged his head into the keyboard. He banged it again and fell down in a heap on top of his desk.
There he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the brass penholder his grandmother had given him for Christmas last year. Like a funhouse mirror the metal warped his image, twisted his forehead and elongated his jaw. “Am I the bad guy?” Roland asked out loud. “Was I wrong this whole time?” Roland could barely look at this distorted picture of who he used to be. Moments ago he thought it was impossible to ever feel worse. Now in addition to being buried under mounds and mounds of self-pity, Roland despised himself.
That night he went to sleep with one eye on the door.
The next morning, Roland woke up with a splitting headache. A lethargy overwhelmed him and it was difficult to even move his arms, let alone get out of bed. He ate a bowl of cereal with bits of banana and found it impossible to stop crying. Once he’d finished every last bit of his breakfast, he picked up the phone and called his ex-girlfriend to make amends. She wasn’t home so Roland tried her cell number. It rang three times before she picked up.
“Hello?” Kara said.
“Hi Kara, it’s Roland.” He could barely hear her over the noise in the background.
“What do you want?” she said.
“I’ve had the w
orst day of my life,” Roland said. “I had the wrong numbers and I didn’t win the lottery. I quit my job and alienated everyone at work and then my grandmother exploded. And now some guy in an orange golf shirt is coming to grind my balls into a fine paste.”
“Wow,” Kara said. “How terrible for you.”
Roland couldn’t tell from her tone of voice whether or not she meant that.
“Hold on a second,” Kara said. Roland could hear a man’s voice in the background. “Just wait right here and we’ll walk up and hand it to you,” the voice said.
“Where are you? What are you doing?” Roland said.
“I’m at the television studio. There’s going to be a presentation in the next minute or so.”
“A presentation?”
“Yes, a presentation. Listen Roland, you shouldn’t be calling me anymore. You broke up with me, remember?”
“You’re not still mad about that trading up comment, are you?” he said.
“Oh no, I’m not upset at all.”
“Then help me. Tell me what I should do. I’m thinking of jumping out my apartment window.”
“But you live on the ninth floor,” Kara said. “You’d probably die.”
“I know! That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Roland said. “I’m thinking about killing myself.”
There was a pause in which Roland thought Kara had hung up. “Hello? Hello?”
“Turn on the Channel 5 news right now,” she said.
“What?”
Kara hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
Roland labored over to his fake suede couch and sat down in front of the TV. He clicked the remote to Channel 5 just as the news was exiting a commercial. A scattershot of images promoting the next hour’s stories flashed across the screen and then a female news anchor in a pink pantsuit appeared behind a desk.
“We go now to our affiliate KPLN for breaking news,” she said. “I believe congratulations are in order for one lucky lady today?” The screen cut to a local news studio in which Kara was standing beside a reporter. On her left was a representative from the lottery corporation, one of the same men Roland had shown his losing ticket to just the other day. The lottery official was holding a large novelty check with Kara’s name emblazoned on the front and the amount of four million dollars in big black bold letters. That block of ice that had fallen into the pit of Roland’s stomach now leaked down toward his toes.
Kara had a big smile on her face. She reached out and shook the man’s hand.
The lottery official handed over the check and a small round of applause sounded in the studio. Then the reporter asked her the important questions — “What are you going to do with your winnings? What do you have to say to all your friends out there?”
Kara appeared to think about it for a moment and then said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I guess you just have to realize you can’t control the actions of others. All you can do is control your perspective in this world.”
The news cut back to that same anchor in her puffy pink pantsuit.
“Well, doesn’t that story just warm your heart?” she said. “Now to our local zoo where the beloved orca whale Mika is due to give birth any day now . . .”
Roland turned off the television and staggered to the center of the room. He fell to his knees, let out an agonized wail and wished he was dead.
When Henrik Nordmark awoke the next morning, he felt like a pilgrim who had traveled thousands of miles across barren lands only to discover there was no trace of the messiah waiting for him at the end of his journey. His quest to become unique had left him feeling even more ordinary, even more generic. He closed his blinds and sat in the dark, intending to pine away hopelessly in his apartment all day. Henrik moped for exactly three minutes before he realized he could simply no longer live like this. He couldn’t be plain and boring — not for one more day. This contemptible world had cursed him with a tedious, mind-numbing existence of wearisome days and uninspired nights. Since the moment he was born, Henrik had been waiting to die. He just hadn’t realized it until now. His journey led him right back to where he started and he didn’t have the strength or the courage to embark on another one.
And now Henrik, armed with the realization that for forty-two years he’d done nothing but drearily wait out the end of his days, decided he could wait no longer. He couldn’t live another day in a world where no one noticed him, where he hardly took notice of himself. Henrik Nordmark would take his own life.
But first, he would go to the market for one last plum.
twenty-four
Henrik trudged down the street in a dreary daze, his every step an added torture, his pace mimicking the dismal march of the condemned. He circled the corner onto the street where the market was located. Once inside the market, he dug through the plums with his fingers until he found a truly moist plum, one bursting with thick red juice. He paid the cashier and then walked out onto the sidewalk where he dug his teeth in. Henrik’s teeth penetrated the plum’s skin and he felt the sweet sappy liquid against his tongue.
He was planning to take two more bites and then step into oncoming traffic when someone screamed his name. Henrik turned around and saw the injured Dunkin’ Donuts employee shuffling zombie-like toward him, his uniform stained with blood and a frenzied look of rage in his eyes.
Clyde raised his gun and shot it in the air. The sound of bullets stopped traffic and sent pedestrians fleeing in all directions. Clyde was still too far away to get a clean shot. He fired the gun a second time and screamed Henrik’s name.
“Henrik Nordmark! You’re going to die!”
Henrik couldn’t believe Clyde had found him. He turned to run in the opposite direction only to see three old men in long black coats standing in his way. The one in the center discarded his coat and swung a cape over his shoulder. Crimson satin settled dramatically in the wind. This man had a crossbow in his hands and looked like a supervillain.
Henrik didn’t know what to do or where to turn. Instinctively, he looked up, only to see Roland, the young man from last night, standing on the ledge of his ninth-floor balcony.
“Why, God?” Roland cried. “Why?”
It was all happening so fast. Henrik felt as though he was in the center of a surreal dream. He knew from the looks on the faces of those old men that they were coming to kill him because he’d refused to cottage with them at the retirement home. The supervillain had handed his crossbow to the tall skinny one and they were within twenty feet now, taking aim.
Henrik turned and looked the other way. The wounded man with the arrows sticking out of his body was directly behind him, only twenty feet away as well.
These odds were too much to overcome. Henrik knew he was about to die. And he didn’t run or hide. Rather, staring death in the face, he turned philosophical. He thought to himself, what have I learned? What is the most important thing in this life and why am I here? His gaze shifted to the plum bursting with juice in his hand. One look at that sweet nectar and Henrik finally realized his place in this world. He didn’t have to be exceptional. He didn’t have to be different. He was put on this earth just to be Henrik — no more and no less — and what Henrik loved most was to drink in the juice of life. He thought if I’m about to die, I’ll die experiencing all of what life has to offer.
Henrik took a moist, sloppy bite from his plum.
The evildoers advanced.
Henrik had one bite left. He swore to himself that not even imminent death would stop him from living life to its fullest. He was about to place the plum in his mouth when fate intervened. The slippery morsel fell from Henrik’s fingers to the ground.
As Henrik bent over to pick it up, all hell broke loose.
Alfred fired the crossbow but missed Henrik by inches and the stray arrow hit Clyde with a fourth and final blow, this one straight in the heart.
Clyde’s gun went off as he died, shot Alfred in the chest and killed the old man instantly.
Conrad
screamed at Billy Bones to pick up the crossbow, but Billy had been secretly suffering a series of silent strokes these past few days and the sound of Clyde’s gun caused Billy’s heart to stop. He staggered slightly and then fell over dead into a pile of garbage cans, a silly smile on his face. Undaunted, Conrad got on his knees and picked up the crossbow. He stood up and took an arrow from his quiver. Conrad struggled desperately to reload the weapon.
Henrik had righted himself as well and was standing like a deer in the headlights, watching the bodies fall.
Conrad left his two dead associates behind and screamed out for Henrik to identify himself so he could shoot him with an arrow.
“Goodbye cruel world,” a voice called from above.
Henrik looked up and saw Roland about to leap from his ninth-floor window.
Roland in turn saw Henrik and, hotheaded and suicidal as he was, decided to take Henrik out with him. He cursed Henrik’s name and then dived off the windowsill — directly toward the short bald man.
Henrik, in a moment of unprecedented inspiration, called to Conrad. “Here I am, sir. Do your worst.” Then he stepped aside.
Conrad stepped forward and prepared to fire. “Where are you?” he yelled, his English accent completely forgotten. “Where you at?”
Up above, Roland was suddenly wishing he hadn’t jumped. He screamed a bloody scream as he plummeted toward the earth and then crashed head first into Conrad. Both men died instantly. A stray arrow flew from the crossbow and landed inside the market among a stack of papayas.
Henrik stood in the midst of it all, dumbfounded and unscathed.
Twenty seconds passed before the cashier from the market ventured out into the street. Cautiously, the man who’d never taken notice of Henrik before approached. “My God, man,” he said. “You cheated death. I watched the whole thing. You cheated death not once, not twice, but three times. They’re going to write about you in the newspaper.”
The Three Fates of Henrik Nordmark: A Novel Page 16