I hope I drown.
Bed tilted up slightly. Bald doctor with a clipboard.
“Vitals look good. If you don’t get hit by a truck, there’s no reason you can’t live another twenty years.”
“Some doctor you are,” Mr. Burke whispers. “I’ve got—”
“I know what you got,” the doctor snaps. “You got your transplant, is what you got.”
Mr. Burke blinks. The doctor hasn’t looked at him once. “You had a bullethole in your liver. There was a DNA match. The paperwork was right there, all in order. Your doctor told me why you’re not on the lists.”
“I like my scotch.”
“Like it less. I put half a perfectly good liver in you.” Bangs the clipboard into its holder, hard. Takes a videotape from a large manila envelope, drops the envelope on Mr. Burke’s legs. Something’s still in it. “When you’re done with this, I’ll bring the cops in.”
Gives him a remote. Slides the videotape into the slot in the wall-mounted TV. Stops at the door.
“It was a blood clot.” Halfway out the door he stops, finally looks at Mr. Burke. Looks like he wants him dead.
Then leaves.
Mr. Burke lolls back fogged and disoriented in an empty room. Mechanically he tries to comprehend the remote. Arrows and icons on rubber buttons.
The TV screen lights, the tape already playing, started rolling when the doctor inserted it.
The blonde is familiar but he can’t place her.
“Hi, Daddy.”
Toying with her crucifix necklace.
“They say we’re a match.”
She knew him on the stunned second look, the tray falling from her hands, and when Tina knelt to help, she whispered, That’s my dad!
Oh my God! Tina whispered. He’s leaving! Standing. Sorry! Need any change? You gonna be back tomorrow? Coffee’s on the house.
Tina wouldn’t leave her alone about it. She went home to find the old photo.
She holds up the photo of Mr. Burke, dark-haired and young. There’s one of Mom, too, she says, and shows him the lost photo he hasn’t seen in twenty years. They could be sisters.
(Was it the free coffee or did you come for something else?)
“She left me her diary,” slipping the photos into it. “She only used your first name. Grandma and Grandpa told me you were dead. They didn’t mean badly…”
(My girlfriend. She’s got this guy who won’t talk to her.)
And then it came back to her that she was a practical girl. This was silly having her friend speak in her place. She opened her mouth but before she could get a word out he dropped a ridiculous amount of money on the table and bolted.
She searched for an hour. Still carrying the stupid coffeepot. Went back to work, and then Mohammed, blasting in from his deliveries: Show me that photo! Two cheeseburgers! Couldn’t get his money right!
She got the address. Found the apartment door ajar. Took a breath, steeled herself to dress him down.
Called an ambulance, applied pressure. Practical girl.
“If you’re watching this, I guess something went…” She toys with the crucifix again. Tries to smile.
“I believe God wouldn’t have let me save you before if I wasn’t meant to save you again now. Maybe it’s why he kept me in this town all this time.” No more smile. “I’ve always missed you, Daddy. I love you. I hope you love me too.”
The tape goes to static.
In the manila envelope is the diary, two old photos inside.
He lowers his bedclothes, raises the hospital gown.
Touches the staples.
Wails like a child.
“One last thing and I’ll leave you alone.”
The detective is in a chair by the bed. The bald doctor hovers. Gloom outside the gray hospital blinds.
The old man under the bedclothes doesn’t respond. The detective unfolds two photocopied sheets, reads from the top one.
“Please don’t kill me.”
Waits for a response. Reads from the second page. “If you kill me, I’ll never see another sunrise. I’ll never be kissed by another sweet woman, never drink another fine scotch. If you kill me, I’ll never eat another good steak, never breathe fresh air. If you kill me, I’ll never know my son.”
The detective waits.
The bedclothes stir. “Letter I wrote.” Voice rusty. “Mailed it to myself. When I came here.”
“Why?”
“Stop me from shooting myself.”
“You have a gun?”
“No.”
“You have a son?”
“No.”
The doctor clears his throat. They’ve covered this. The detective ignores him.
“Why did you come here?”
“Just looking for a reason not to die.”
The doctor moves closer. The detective glances at him, nods reluctantly, rises.
Hesitates.
“Did you find one?” he asks.
Gunmetal clouds moving outside the diner window. An unfamiliar redhead floats by with the coffeepot.
Diary in his inside coat pocket, photos clipped inside. Videotape in his outside pocket. Envelope, stamp, sheet of paper on the table.
Takes up his pen. In his draftsman’s hand, he writes:
IF YOU KILL YOURSELF,
YOU KILL THE LAST PIECE OF HER.
In his coat and hat, carrying his small suitcase, Mr. Burke stops at a mailbox. The envelope is addressed to BURKE. He mails it.
Personal Space
by Jerry Sykes
Copyright © 2007 by Jerry Sykes
Jerry Sykes is a two-time winner of the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s Short Story Dagger, the most coveted award for short crime fiction in the U.K. Early in 2007 he will be making his debut as a novelist with the book Lose This Skin, to be published by Five Star Press. A true devotee of the genre, Mr. Sykes has also edited a book of crime stories. See Mean Time (Do-Not Press/1999).
❖
As soon as I turned the corner I could see that he was there again, the third time this week. Sitting at the curb in his battered red Sierra, just staring out across the street.
I had first noticed him a couple of months back, flipping between the A-to-Z on his lap and the terrace houses on the far side of the street. He had been around a number of times since then, as much as three or four times a week, but he still seemed to be looking for that elusive something. It was clear that he wanted people to think he was looking for a particular address, referring to the map and then squinting up at signs and numbers, and it might even have worked for that first week or so, but after two months I was sure there was more to it than that.
Give or take a car-length or two, he was often parked in the same place, sometimes with the engine running, sometimes not, just a couple of doors down from the house where I lived alone.
I had never seen him get out of the car and so I had no idea of his potential, but from what I could make out from just walking past, he was in his late thirties with pink jowls that suggested he carried a little too much soft weight and was therefore not too much of a threat. At first I took him to be a sad sack of a man who couldn’t handle a change in his circumstances, his girlfriend ditching him for someone with a bigger wallet or something, but the longer he kept on appearing at the curb, the more it dawned on me that he might be some kind of head case looking to inflict serious retribution. I knew that it could not be me he had in mind because he had seen me often enough and still not made a move, but the more I saw of him the more I began to resent him being there and encroaching on my personal space.
Personal space is a strange concept. Subjective and elastic and the one thing that if it is not quite right can nail me to the ground in righteous anger just as sure as if I had been struck with lightning. I just cannot bear to be in too close contact with someone other than through choice.
I don’t mind pushing onto the tube in rush hour because that’s what it’s like, that’s the space, and it’s not a
s if there are one or two people down at one end of the carriage while the rest of us inhale each other’s odours at the other end. But if I’m out walking in the park and the sole other person for miles around is close enough for me to be able to hear them breathing, then as far as I’m concerned that’s tantamount to stalking.
Back when I still used to go to the cinema, I would sit and wait until the film had started before I took a final seat, moving as far from the munchers and chatterers as possible. But no matter how careful I was, a few minutes into the film, without fail, a small group of people would enter the cinema with their loud voices and their loud food and sit right in front of me. No wonder I can’t remember the last film I saw at the cinema.
And this kind of behaviour is not just confined to customers, either. In restaurants I often make sure that I am the first person there, taking a table in a far corner where no one can intrude on me. But as soon as someone else appears, each time the waitress will sit them at the table right beside me, ignoring the rest of the clear tables in the place. As if not understanding that having them so close to me and having to listen to their conversation will do nothing but irritate me.
And no matter what time I leave home for work in the morning, someone from down the street will have stepped out of their front door just in time to be able to trail me down to the tube station at a distance of no more than a couple of feet, the sound of their feet and their breathing polluting the air.
None of this is natural, of course, this cramming people together, this people wanting to be crammed together. No, the need for personal space is one of the most basic laws of nature.
I remember an experiment concerning Brownian motion back in school, Mr. Burke lighting up a filterless cigarette and blowing smoke into a glass-topped wooden box. The smoke particles didn’t gather in one corner of the box, or in clumps, but spread out evenly to fill all the available space. This is a law of nature, a lesser one, perhaps, and one akin to nature abhorring a vacuum, but a law of nature nonetheless. Simple and logical. So what’s the problem with human beings sticking to it?
Coming home from work one night a week later, the sight of the red Sierra at the curb again filled me with such a raw frustration that I knew it was time to confront the driver.
A little warmth had leaked into the spring air and the driver had his window wound down, his forearm resting on the lip of the door. I slowed a little as I approached, and as I came up close I stopped short and took out a pack of cigarettes. He glanced at me for a fraction of a second and then returned to the A-to-Z. I put a cigarette to my lips and then made a point of tapping around my pockets for some matches. After a couple of moments I stepped up to the car and leaned down to speak.
“Sorry, I don’t suppose you’ve got a light, have you?”
He turned to look at me with a blank face, folding the open pages of the A-to-Z into his chest as he did so. “You what?”
“A light,” I repeated, the cigarette bobbing in time.
“I don’t smoke,” he said.
“All right, thanks,” I said, removing the cigarette and pointing to the A-to-Z with it. “You looking for somewhere?”
“Just… y’know,” he shrugged, peeling the A-to-Z from his chest and glancing down at it. I could not see what page it was open to but I would have put cash on it not being the one for the area around here. “I was looking for a friend,” he continued. “He lives around here and as I was in the area, I thought…”
“You know his address?” I said, leaning forward a little.
He smiled a grim little smile. “That’s the thing,” he said. “I know it’s around here somewhere, but as soon as I turned off the main road I remembered that I didn’t have it with me. I thought I might be able to find it with the A-to-Z, but…”
I straightened and looked up and down the street, being helpful. “You at least remember part of the street name?”
“No, it’s all right,” he said. “Some other time, perhaps.”
“You want to tell me his name?” I said. “I’ve lived around here forever. I might know him, know where he lives.”
“No, it’s all right,” he repeated, firmer this time.
I stared across the street for a long time, making a point of just standing there, remaining there. I could hear him fidgeting with the A-to-Z and muttering under his breath. After a couple of minutes he fired up the engine, put the car in gear, and pulled out from the curb. I waited until he had turned the corner and then continued on home.
A couple of nights later I rounded the corner to see a traffic warden in the middle distance walking towards me. It was also the first time the red Sierra had been back since I had spoken to the driver. I do not own a car and so most of the time I do not notice these much-maligned creatures, although if truth be told I have a sneaking admiration for them and the blind rage that their pens can inspire. Mightier than the sword indeed. But as soon as I saw this particular one peering at permits in windscreens, a fat man in his late forties dressed in a uniform that looked as if it belonged to his much slimmer brother, an idea that had been formulating for some time became clear.
I increased the pace so I met the warden before he reached the red Sierra.
“Excuse me,” I said, putting on the flustered breath.
He looked at me with lowered lids, disinterested.
“Me and the wife live just up the road here,” I said, pointing over his shoulder. “The house with the blue door right there. We’ve just been to Homebase, the DIY store, to get a stepladder to help out with the redecorating, but we haven’t been able to find a parking space down here and so we’ve had to park up on the main road. She’s up there now, the wife, waiting for me to call and tell her she can come and park nearer the house.” I paused and took a deep breath. “Thing is, I don’t want to make a fuss, but there’s a car without a permit down here that’s been there over fifteen minutes now. I wouldn’t ask, but the wife…”
It was enough to get him going. He gave me a thin knowing smile and nodded once to let me know that he had understood. I stood aside and watched as he approached the red Sierra. As he stepped up to the driver’s window, the man looked straight ahead and caught me looking back at him. A crimson tide coloured his face and the muscle along the side of his jaw pulsed in anger.
Back upstairs I watched the street from the kitchen to see if he would return, but even after the warden retired for the night there was still no further sign of him. I remained at the window looking out for a long time, thoughts adrift on the night. I had seen enough TV cop shows to know that the police could trace people from the time and place of their parking tickets. That it was almost as good as CCTV in pinpointing someone’s location at a particular point in time. I thought of those TV shows where the lead character had a contact in the force and could find out in minutes the owner of a car and his address from the registration number. I wondered for an idle moment if I knew someone with those kinds of connections but knew as soon as the thought appeared that it was a rhetorical question… I thought of all these things and, watching people walking up and down the darkening street with their mobile phones clamped to their ears, or held out in front of them, thumbs working overtime, of how the world was getting smaller. Of how people could no longer bear to be alone, apart from others, different from others, forever checking their mobile phones or their e-mail to see that their crafted character was still on the radar. Wanting to be running with the pack, in constant touch, part of the global village. Afraid of being themselves, of being an individual.
What had happened to create this dull mass of humankind that struggled to maintain a cultural pulse? Where were the flashes of colour, the sights and sounds that lit up the heart and fired the blood? Where were the individuals capable of creating a neon orchid in the darkened swamp, something that could send our lives into glorious freefall for a few minutes upon just hearing or glimpsing it for the briefest of moments? What had happened to the things that made life worth living?
&nb
sp; At the first door there was no answer. At the second an old man shouted at me through the door to leave him alone. The third one opened on a woman in her late thirties with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. I said hello and then pointed down the street to the red Sierra. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed him before, but that man’s been hanging around here for a few weeks now,” I said. “I don’t know, I might just be being paranoid, but I don’t think you can be too careful… You don’t think he could be a burglar, do you, checking on people’s movements to see when they’re out?”
She looked at me with a curious frown, and then took a step across the threshold and looked over towards the Sierra. She squinted a couple of times, and then stepped back into the house. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”
“You’re sure about that?”
She nodded, uncomprehending.
“Yeah, all right, thanks,” I said, and turned to go.
I followed this routine for a couple more houses, each time doing the best I could to make sure that the driver of the red Sierra could see me pointing at him. Of course, I could not be sure that he could see me — I could not see his face for the bright reflection on his windscreen — but it was not difficult to imagine him getting angrier with each door that I knocked on.
Ten minutes later I was almost at the end of the street and he had still not emerged from the car. It was clear that I had not connected with his target. I was beginning to think that I had misjudged the situation when I saw a woman in her late twenties pushing through the last gate in the street. She was not striking, small with mud-coloured hair, but she did look familiar. I was sure that I had seen her before, but not enough for her to have made a lasting impression. Thinking that she could be the last chance, I raised a hand and called out.
“You mind if I have a word…?”
She gave me a flutter of a smile and shuffled further up the path. I noticed a little scar on the tip of her chin.
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007 Page 15