Now They Call Me Gunner

by Thom Whalen

  * * *

  On Sunday morning before work, I went to the address that Randal had written on my paper. It was a small building, two stories, stucco walls painted dark green, and hallways with carpets so badly worn and stained that I couldn’t tell whether the pattern was flowers or butterflies. There couldn’t have been more than five or six apartments in it.

  When I knocked on the door to Apartment One, the man who answered was short with spindly limbs and a protruding gut that strained the fabric of his sleeveless T-shirt. “Yeah?” The word wafted on breath redolent of stale beer.

  I showed him the note that Randal had written on the back of the receipt. “Randal in Apartment Three needs me to get some stuff for him.”

  “Why don’t he get it himself?”

  “He’s in jail. He was arrested for murder on Friday.”

  “That guy they pulled out of Smoke Pond?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t surprise me. That Randal gets right wild sometimes. I hope they fry ‘im. Can’t have murderers living in my building.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “Says you. Cops came here a couple weeks ago with a search warrant. I had to let ‘em in. If they say he did it, then they must of found sumpin’ that proves it.”

  “I need you to let me in.” I nodded to the note. “That says that I got permission.”

  “I’m gonna keep this so’s I can prove that I was just doing what I was tolt.”

  “Okay.”

  “You wait,” he said and slammed the door in my face.

  I waited for a time – long enough for the super to take a shower and shave – but he had done neither when he finally re-opened his door. As nearly as I could see, the only thing that he had done in all that time was slip a pair of unlaced sneakers on his bare feet. Most likely he had drunk another beer. His beery breath didn’t smell quite as stale now.

  I followed him down a short hallway to a door with “3” painted on it.

  He unlocked it and I entered.

  He hovered in the doorway, watching me as I walked to the desk and pulled open the middle drawer. As Randal had said, there was a checkbook lying on top of some other papers. I tore a check out of the book and slipped it into my wallet.

  “You takin’ money out o’ that desk?” the super called from the doorway.

  “Nope,” I said as I slid the drawer shut.

  “What you takin’?”

  “Business between Randal and me,” I said. Then I remembered the truck key. I opened the drawer again and dug around a little. It was attached to a rabbit’s foot keychain. That hadn’t brought Randal as much luck as he needed.

  I walked back toward the super. “I’m all done here.”

  He stepped aside with ill grace to let me exit, and then locked the door behind me.

  I wondered if he were going to come back after I was gone and search the desk for spare cash.

  “When the cops execute a search warrant, they make an inventory,” I said. “They’ll know if anything is missing.” It wasn’t true, as nearly as I knew. I couldn’t imagine Albertson or his flunkies taking the trouble to write out an inventory. But maybe it would make the super think twice before pillaging Randal’s possessions.

  Not that he appeared to be the kind of man who thought even once about anything.

  That evening, I took Katie to the A&W for a root beer float, as promised.

  “I want to see the mountains,” she said between sips of creamy root beer.

  “We were up in the Adirondacks last week.” What was her agenda? Why was she forcing me to remind her of that horrible experience?

  “No. Real mountains. The Rocky Mountains. I got a picture of them on the calendar on my wall. Up in Canada, they got a place called Banff that’s got lots of jobs for waitresses. It’s real pretty up there. I been thinking that I should go get a job up there when the summer is over.”

  “I don’t know if there are many waitressing jobs in the mountains in the winter. It gets cold in the Rockies in Colorado and that’s a lot further south than Canada.”

  “Skiing,” she said. “People go there in the winter to ski.”

  Right. I should have thought about that.

  “I’d like to learn to ski. Shooting down mountains, snow flying everywhere. It looks like a lot of fun.”

  “I’m sure it is.” I took a sip of root beer. “But you’d have to immigrate to work up there. They got laws about that just like we do for people coming here to work.”

  “I guess I wouldn’t want to be an illegal immigrant in Canada.”

  “It’s better to be legal.” I thought about all the illegal stuff that I’d been doing with Randal. “Much better to be legal.”

  We spent the rest of the evening chatting about inconsequential things. She didn’t suggest going to Makeout Hill and I was happy with that. I wanted her as badly as ever, but after the way she’d been treated by the Road Snakes, pushing her seemed wrong.

  The next step had to be her idea.

  When I dropped her off at her house, she asked me to walk her to the door.

  We stood on her front step for a long time, holding each other and kissing, first gently, and then with greater passion as we lost ourselves in the joy of being with each other.

  That was more satisfying than taking half her clothes off up on Makeout Hill.