by Stan Rogal
I feel those blows, feel those rough hands grabbing and tearing at me.
What else? I see the revolver. I see the fist holding the revolver. I see my fist holding the revolver. I see my fist raising the revolver to eye level, aiming the revolver at the Prime Minister, pulling the trigger. I hear the shots fire. Boom, boom, boom! I feel the cartridge empty. I see the body jerk spastically and drop heavily to the ground. I smell the burn of gunpowder and see the final trace of smoke exit the barrel. Next, in order: the Zapruder cameras, the flying suits, the rough hands pinning me to the pavement, the solid, punishing blows to my face and body, the sight of a dozen puzzled question marks twisted on a dozen broad foreheads.
Horse out of the gate and hindsight being 20/20, Boomtown Rats nail it all the way to the bank: “What reason do you need to die?”
What reason indeed?
“This livens up the day.”
I’d asked for a radio.
Would you please get out of the pool? Please? Please?
THE STALKER’S TALE
In which a woman becomes the unwitting object of desire and intimate study by an un-named, unidentified and unreliable narrator.
He waits for her to get off work. Plants himself on the busy street corner propped against a government mail box, one arm curled over top, the other bent at his side, hand hooked in his jacket pocket, back curved, shoulders hunched. The short beard hairs on his jaw scrape a bare knuckle of the free hand. He eases a cell phone from the jacket pocket and checks the time. Any minute now. He tucks the cell phone away. His head bobs to a tune pulsing through a set of ear buds: “Crazy mama, where you been so long …” He mouths the words. “Crazy mama …” J.J. Cale, he thinks. Rock on, motherfucker. “Crazy mama …” He shifts the position of his legs. Any minute now.
A few things he knows: her name, where she works, her line of employment, how much she earns per hour, her social insurance number, her bank balance, where she lives, who she lives with, where she shops, her age, her birthday, the fact that Tuesday night is movie night, Wednesday night is Pilates, every other weekend or so is the train ride to Guelph to visit mom and pop, that she has recently stopped eating red meat, gone organic, her laundry soap is eco max, she’s allergic to cats — which is a big drag ‘cause sometimes she thinks she’d like to have a cat, oh well. Other more personal (even intimate) information includes: her dress size, her shoe size, her bra size, the fact she listens to Country Western music, dyes her hair, drinks dry white wine, irons her underwear, has a rose tattoo on her belly just below the navel, keeps a box of Trojan lubricated ribbed condoms in the night table beside her bed ‘just in case,’ also a vibrator with dying batteries. And that she weeps when she masturbates.
There’s more. Much more. He rubs the tips of his fingers together and gives them a sniff. He tugs his beard. “Crazy mama …”
And there she is, right on schedule. She descends the stairs, pushes through the glass doors into the crisp autumn air. She stops momentarily, gazes up for signs of rain, weather reports having indicated. There’s a bank of rolling dark clouds and that’s it. Perhaps later, overnight. She gives her hat a slight tug, adjusts her shoulder bag and makes her way along the sidewalk. He drifts casually behind, not so much ogling as studying her.
No great shakes, really, if you tend to judge by current Hollywood standards. Five foot four in heels. Chunky legs. Wide hips. A bit broad in the beam. Could afford to lose a few pounds. Wait a minute — who said that? Someone. Words in a song. No. “… a little too tall, coulda used a few pounds.” Bob Seger. Night Moves. Different thing altogether. Whatever. Something in the way of tits, though nothing remarkable here either. What do they say? More than a mouthful’s a waste? Maybe. Thin lips, largish somewhat pointed nose, narrow eyes, troubled skin masked by foundation, conditioner and rouge. To be completely frank and honest, overly made up. Lipstick, eye liner, mascara, powder and so on. Blame the job. Otherwise, luck of the draw. That, and the infernal gene pool. At any rate, nothing to write home about from any vantage point. Not that he’s anywhere near a prize catch himself. He’s not. Not by a long shot. Not that any of this matters. It doesn’t. What matters is, they have each other.
“When you’re given lemons, make lemonade.” He believes this.
She turns left off Yonge onto Isabella. He hovers at a distance. A safe distance. No chance he’ll lose her. She’ll march into Rabba’s Fine Foods and grab something to nuke for dinner: a small vegetarian pasta or casserole dish. There are salad fixings in the fridge. Plus a bottle of chilled white wine, a gift from her parents during her last visit. The wine is Narcissist Riesling purchased at the aptly named Megalomaniac winery. The parents had recently returned from a bus tour in the Niagara region. They figured she’d get a chuckle. They did. They also hoped she’d like the wine: clear, pale, straw colour, floral and peach aromas with a touch of lemon. She’d have to let them know. He hopes she’ll crack it tonight. He expects she will. She isn’t what some might call a heavy drinker, enjoying a glass or two each night, perhaps more over a weekend or at a party, though she does sometimes worry if she shouldn’t cut back. A glass at least tonight, with dinner, if only to report back to the parents, as they’ve been asking. Followed by a curl up with a fat romance novel and a shower before heading off to bed. She had been well into one such novel — one which he was really quite enjoying — when she suddenly slapped it shut and tossed it into the recycling bin. No reason given, which had him scratching his head. He retrieved it, finished it on his own and still can’t comprehend what the problem was as it read like countless other romance novels she’d begun and always completed in the past, cover to cover.
She approaches the register. The cashier behind the counter hits a few keys, says go ahead, she inserts her debit card chip first into the machine. “I-M-1-2,” the man outside goes as she punches in the pin number. The transaction goes through. The woman exits the store and walks east toward her apartment, the man dogging her. He weaves in and out of darkened doorways, alleyways, store fronts. He fancies himself a shadow among shadows. Invisible and silent. Right. She enters her building, crosses the carpeted floor of the lobby, presses the elevator button. He huddles outside the window, waits and watches as she disappears behind the sliding doors. Second floor, he goes. Third floor, fourth floor. Down the hall. Room 404. Key in the handle. Turn the key. Push the handle, remove the key, kick the door shut with her heel.
Now, where’s that white wine, hmm? Slip out of her shoes and pad barefoot to the fridge. Ah, yes.
She’s at work early the next morning after a quick breakfast of coffee, high fibre cereal, almond milk, lo-fat yogurt and a banana. The banana eating always gets to him, despite Freud’s “sometimes a banana is just a banana” dictum. He doesn’t know why, it just does. The evidence rests scattered on the synthetic granite countertop: empty Tassimo disc, empty yogurt container, spoon, bowl, banana peel. She sips at a second coffee grabbed along the way and stored on a shelf behind the display counter. Cosmetic department of the Bay. She rubs a spray of perfume between her wrists.
He roams the apartment bold as a brass balled monkey, as his good old mother used to say, god-rest-her-soul. Does she have any idea he’s there? The woman? Any inkling? Why should she? When she left the apartment she locked the door and that was that. Or so she thought. How did he get in? A limited number of possibilities include: the front door, the balcony door, the bathroom window; he used a key, he jimmied the lock with a credit card, a hairpin, the metal clip from a ballpoint pen; he crawled through the ventilation shaft, the heating duct, a hole in the wall, a secret passage; he smuggled himself inside the hollowed-out form of a large wooden horse; he slipped through a fissure, a crack; voodoo magic, sleight-of-hand, telekinesis … whatever. He’s in. That’s what counts.
He surveys the scene. There’s the usual disarray. Delicate, hand-washed personal items drip-dry over the curtain rod. A damp terrycloth towel hangs from a hook on the wall. Glass and plastic make-up containers, cott
on balls, Q-Tips, foam applicators, mix and mingle with vitamins, dietary supplements, sprays and tubes, waxed peppermint flavoured dental floss, the torn paper wrapper from a Tampon on the porcelain sink. A few drops of menstrual blood stain the white floor tiles. He touches everything. Picks objects up. Shakes them. Sniffs them. Bites them. Licks them. Puts them back. He doesn’t worry about fingerprints. Or DNA. Why should he? He’s not a criminal. He fingers his iPod. Settles on The Hip: “New Orleans is sinking and I don’t wanna swim.”
The toilet bowl and tub are in need of a good scrub, a chore generally reserved for the weekend. She didn’t flush earlier, not wanting to waste water. He unzips, urinates in the bowl, careful not to drip on the rim. The mirrored door of the medicine cabinet is partially open. Same goes for the vanity and chest drawers in the bedroom which reveal glimpses of underwear, socks and sweaters. Further articles of clothing cover the bedspread, indicating a decision-making process around what to wear today. Or not. Shoes and boots litter the floor, either singly or in pairs. There is the already mentioned breakfast mess in the kitchen. He opens the fridge and sees she didn’t replace the screw top on the bottle. Too bad. The wine was very tasty, though he did fail to experience the advertised aroma of peach and touch of lemon. Would she notice if he was to put in a stopper?
He tugs a pair of black thong underwear from his pants pocket and twirls it around his index finger. Butt floss, he smiles. She never seems aware when any of these items go missing. Simply waits for the next sale and buys more. Or if her watch moves from the bedside table to the living room coffee table. Or her shoulder bag from the hall to slung over a kitchen chair. Or her cell phone which she knows damn well she returned to her bag and which she eventually discovers in her coat pocket or hidden part way under the couch or on a window sill. Or her gloves. Things like that which are simply part and parcel of everyday clutter, and so, susceptible to memory lapses, Freudian slips, brain farts and general confusion due to over-stimulated gray matter. Soup to nuts and where is that lovely lilac knitted wool scarf with the purple and gold-patterned weave I know it was in this drawer? Where indeed? Not to worry, it’ll turn up somewhere, eventually. Still, annoying at the time and a puzzle that eats away at the back of the brain.
The wine stopper is a whole other kettle of fish that bears considerable consideration. Pros and cons and so on. Benefits and risks. Give and take. To be or not to be. Rouge et Noir. Sartre’s Existential Angst visible in the minutest detail, prepared, as ever, to come back and bite you in the ass. The more things change the more they remain the same, all right. Comforting. Solace as well in Ortega y Gasset’s: “The fundamental biological nature of man and human consciousness has not changed since the late Palaeolithic times.” Woo-hoo! A time we drove the fabulous woolly mammoth plus other Pleistocene Megafauna to extinction through human disease and over-hunting. Old habits being hard to break, yes? Also a time of growing leisure and the genesis of Art, Music and Religion. The famed carved figurine Venus of Willendorf epitomizing the pursuit of the mother goddess. Also pornography. Also cannibalism. He (our protagonist) isn't aware of any of this, of course. His modus operandi is based solely on primal urges and gut instincts.
You is strictly from hunger, pal! No shit Sherlock.
“Ain’t got no picture postcards, ain’t got no souvenirs …”
He returns the thong underwear to his pants pocket, opens a drawer and fishes out a rubber stopper with a pewter top in the shape of a lizard. She used to collect this sort of thing — reptiles and other amphibious creatures — plaster frog doorstop, metal snake bookmark, wooden alligator bookends, jade dragon earrings, crazy popular photo of that Mexican woman with the several iguanas on her head. Not so much anymore. Grew tired, he guesses. He shoves the stopper into the neck of the bottle and shuts the fridge.
He stares at the front door. He imagines her walking in on him at this exact moment. Home early from work. A headache, maybe. Maybe cramps due to her period. Blood stains on the floor. Catching him there. Red handed. His first thought? “I’m a shadow among shadows, invisible and silent.” Nice try. She ain’t buying. She shoots him a look, like: Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get in? The usual questions.
He’s dressed in a sheer silver bareback teddy. The narrow straps are tight and dig into his shoulders and chest. Stuffed wads of Kleenex offer a semblance of breasts. There’s an obvious oblong-shaped bulge in the crotch. His feet overfill a pair of black high-heeled pumps. He sports a blonde wig, false eyelashes, rouged cheeks, a slash of cherry red lipstick and silver hoop earrings engraved with tortoise outlines.
She appears calm in the face of it; reaches for the hem of her skirt, raises it above her calf, above her knee, reveals a pink holster strapped to her thigh. She withdraws a small revolver and points it in the man’s direction. The revolver fits her hand perfectly. It’s a .22 or a .38 or a .45. It’s a 9mm Browning automatic. Or a Glock 19 semi-automatic. He knows nothing about handguns nor what the well-armed woman packs these days in terms of heat. He seems to recall hearing that a .357 Magnum high impact snubbie is a popular choice for a woman these days, though he can’t be sure.
What’s your game, buster? Do I call the cops or plug you where you stand? Make like a canary and sing before I fill you fulla lead.
She uses words and phrases like this: “game,” “buster,” “plug,” “cops,” “make like a canary and sing,” “fulla lead.” Dialogue right out of an old film noir. He has to admit, it’s pretty sexy and he wonders if it’s true, that when a man dies violently, he ends with an erection? He can’t deny a certain amount of excitement building down there even as she licks her lips, cocks the hammer and squeezes off a few rounds.
“My memory is muddy, what’s this river that I’m in? New Orleans is sinking and I don’t wanna swim, yeow!”
She enters the apartment, kicks off her shoes, hangs her jacket and bag on a hook in the hallway, crosses to the kitchen. The man freezes.
“I’m a shadow among shadows,” he thinks. “Invisible and silent.”
She drops a Styrofoam carton of food on the counter, opens the fridge, removes the wine from the door, grabs a glass and sets these items next to the carton. She stares at the stopper in the bottle. She doesn’t remember putting it in last night, though she must have. She remembers the twist top wouldn’t snap and she had to cut and pry it off with a paring knife. It was totally mangled and useless and she tossed it in the garbage. It only makes sense she put in the stopper. From inside the Styrofoam carton she rips a large BBQ rib and chews and sucks it clean. She drops the bone in the lid and licks her fingers. She carries her glass to the couch and curls up in the corner with her legs tucked under her. She picks up her book and opens it at the spot where she placed the metal snake bookmark. She sips her wine. Nice, she thinks. Floral and peach aromas with a touch of lemon.
He kneels on the floor beside her, his body pressed against the arm of the couch: “a shadow among shadows; invisible and silent.” Cat-like, he nuzzles her shoulder to get a closer view of the book. It’s a slim novel, Don De-Lillo’s The Body Artist. He reads along with her: “She thought of a man showing up unexpectedly. Not the man who was here now. Another man. It was nothing, it was something that came into her mind while she ate her breakfast, a man appearing suddenly, as in a movie …”
It was beginning to get interesting.
THE CRIMINALS’ TALE
“There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”
— Raymond Chandler
In which a group of petty criminals devises a foolproof plan to kidnap a star football player, only to discover the snatch is fraught with circumstances outside their experience and beyond their control.
Four of them met in a rented private room in the basement of Clinton’s Pub on Bloor Street. The space was old, dim, dingy, even dirty, sparsely furnished, with evidence of more than a few pitchers of beer and ashtrays spilled on the carpet over the years and the men preferred it that way. A favou
red spot where they were allowed to smoke cigars, drink scotch and talk without either interruption or interference. They were of a similar age — mid to late fifties — sporting ties and jackets, and carried with them that sort of been there, done that, bought-the-T-shirt attitude that comes with having achieved a certain level of monetary success. One of them held court while the others listened.
“With the win last night, the Argos have clinched first place in the east, that means they get a bye until the semi-finals in two weeks. Am I correct in saying this?” The others motioned and murmured a sort of tacit agreement. “Which means, we have a relatively short period of time to strategize and initiate a plan of action. To this end, I put the question to you: Who is the most valuable player to the team?”
“Gotta be the QB, what’s’isname?” Vincent snapped his fingers a couple of times. “Mankowski or somethin’.”
“Manikowski, I think. Yeah, it’s always the QB,” Sid said.
John rocked his head and surveyed the table. “What about you, Anthony? Do you know who the quarterback is for the Toronto Argonauts?” Anthony took a breath and blew through his lips, no. “It’s a black kid named Romero,” John said. “Second stringer barely gettin’ by after Marcuzzi went out a month ago with a broken collar bone.” The other three nodded like it was news they maybe vaguely remembered, though not really.