they say the owl was a baker's daughter: four existential noirs

by KUBOA

  I dawdled over to the curb, giving up. The only chance I had was a taxi, the situation so decayed that I’d not be able to stop Montgomery from getting right in with me.

  What could that matter?

  It was that or he’d follow me. That or I’d make a scene, cause some trouble, ruin any chance I may still have had of escaping.

  I glanced behind me, saw Montgomery still at a distance of twenty, thirty paces, the distance he’d been maintaining. The smoke rising from his cigarette seemed weighted in perspiration, sagging even as it rose and disappeared.

  My hail got the attention of cab and by the time it had wended its way across the three lanes, was nearly to me, Montgomery had closed the distance between us, touched at my arm, softly, courteously. I kept facing the taxi, turned my head just a bit, met his eyes a moment, turned away. My hand to the door handle, he halted me by leaning in, whispering long and damp in my ear.

  -You’re worthless, you know? Pathetic, weakling, sick kitten, absolute filth. You deserve nothing. You have nothing. You deserve nobody and nothing and have never meant anything, never nothing, never regarded at all.

  As soon as he’d started whispering, I’d frozen, tensing against the blubbering that was squirming to begin.

  -And you’re stupid, he went on. You’re pathetic, ugly and stupid, Kaspar. You’re as stupid as nothing, Kaspar, you’re just as stupid as nothing.

  On that word Nothing he moved away, was already half a block gone by the time I winced a look around, hand still on the taxi.

  ***

  The bus depot I was dropped at was the same large facility as the train station, was the Train Station, properly, I supposed, the area for buses just an offshoot to one side.

  There were crowds of hurried people, crowds of people lingering in waiting, the restaurants and shops bustling, plump with everyone. I glanced over at a restaurant with a bar, packed almost to capacity, promised myself I’d get a drink as soon as I had a ticket. I’d no idea where I would go, hoped that my bank account had enough to cover it, doubted it, suddenly felt I was down to my last five dollars.

  The worst that could happen is that I couldn’t afford a bus. I couldn’t think further than that. I could think I might not be able to afford a bus, and then abruptly, all sentences stopped. I couldn’t even think of some nonsense to mutter after it, it would just be the blunt, flat end to things.

  The line I waited in went quickly and the old man who attended to me was pleasant, conversational, apologized for having to wait for his supervisor to come do something with his computer, explained he’d gotten locked in on some screen and could not process me yet.

  I didn’t care.

  Would he delay it delay it delay it? Would I just stand in line until they took me?

  The thought sort of comforted me.

  Kaspar, you’re under arrest, they’d say.

  No.

  Mister Traulhaine? they’d ask. Mister Traulhaine, you’re under arrest.

  Or something else. I didn’t know how it worked, didn’t care how it worked.

  I was able to afford a ticket, bought it for a trip that had stops everywhere, all the way across the country, though I honestly couldn’t see myself ever leaving the bus. For the first time, though, I could see myself boarding it, riding it, languishing in my seat by the window, sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping.

  I drank a glass of bourbon, ordered another, thinking about the trip. I couldn’t even remember if I’d given my right name to the attendant. I must have though, and I seemed to think I’d shown my identification.

  I’d have to leave the bus, eventually. It might be best to do so early. Early. I imagined myself doing it at the first wide mouth of field and trees stretching away overgrown and fat and swallowing. But I realized, also, that I was picturing myself stepping down from a train, walking away, entering the gulp of the woods.

  -I wouldn’t be on a train, I whispered, I wouldn’t step off of a train.

  ***

  I berated myself, scoffed myself, couldn’t let myself alone. I was sitting in the boarding area for my particular bus, which I still kept calling Train, calling myself a buffoon.

  Why was I sitting when I’d ought to be running?

  It was the most insane gesture of all, transforming motion into static, giving up. I’d given up. I’d given up.

  Eventually, this created enough of a slime of paranoia that I stood, decided it was pointless to wait there, that it would be best to wait a distance off, keep an eye on the bus as it started boarding, see if police took post, detectives in plain clothes.

  I entered a bathroom, one sink, one urinal, one stall which I closed myself in, my abdomen cramping viciously as soon as my pants were down and I tried to untense my bowels. I doubled over, sweating.

  It could’ve been part of Montgomery’s plan, actually, a last spit in my face, this paranoia, make me so afraid of my bus I wouldn’t board it, I’d walk out the front of the depot, get five blocks down, ten blocks, suddenly apprehended, realize I would’ve been clean away had I boarded.

  It didn’t matter. They could have detectives waiting at the first stop.

  The bus meant nothing and I still called it a Train.

  I was so caught up in my stomach ache, my plodding thoughts, that I’d not heard someone else enter the bathroom, the tip of their shoe creeping in under the side of the stall while they flushed the urinal to clear it. They didn’t retract their foot, it stayed more than halfway under the stall. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. I didn’t hear them urinating, though they could have a problem, take awhile, or their stream could have been weak, arcing into the porcelain soundless.

  I gently brushed the shoe tip and it moved away. I tensed for another attempt at voiding myself, eyes closing. They opened perhaps ten seconds later, my body relaxing, a thick stream of urine foaming around my feet. Letting out the breath I’d been holding in, I could hear the tinker, the slap of the man’s piss hitting the tile, the fizz of it surrounding me in a puddle.

  I just watched, but then, furious, slapped the side of the stall, unable to stand, stapled into place by the wrenching in my gut.

  The shoe, pulping through the still spreading urine, reentered the stall, a yellow post-it note now on it, in thick black ink a drawing of a peering, bloodshot eye.

  I slapped the stall harder, babbling half breaths, inarticulate threats of violence, this mingled with chugging coughs, pain gripping headache, stomachache, cramps up my side.

  Sometime while I yelled, the foot pulled away, whoever it had been left the bathroom.

  I couldn’t move at all, couldn’t unclench myself, just watched my soaked pant cuffs darken, inhaled the brine, closed my eyes, heard the still crisp snaps of the bubbles in the urine, warm, lazy, one by one pop, breath over everything.

  ***

  On the glass of the mirror there was a clean outline of a person, the ink thick, permanent, the inside of the outline pocked here and there with jagged scribble scrabbles.

  I approached slowly, expecting my own reflection to fit perfectly into the confines of the outline, but it didn’t. I was taller, slimmer, couldn’t manipulate my position to be anything near the proper fit.

  I’d never get on my bus. Not only would Montgomery never let me, it would never take me anywhere. If I got on it, took my seat, the word would come down to hold the bus, not let it depart. I’d be forced to sit, wait for the police, wait to be delivered exactly according to Montgomery’s specifications.

  I didn’t feel anything about this. I had no jolt of anguish, no sadness, nothing, not even an awkward giddiness, which I wanted, wanted to slip in to another delirium, wanted whatever was going to happen to happen without me. I wanted to just wake already buried in it, irrevocably, didn’t care that what was going to happen was going to happen, just wanted to be shut of the moment, before and aft
er could be what they would. I wanted anything anything anything but that moment when his hands would finally surround me, throttle me, hold me as if forever. I couldn’t bear that, couldn’t bear to allow him that power. It’s what I’d fed him and fed him, power, control of every mouthful of me. I was something dead, half cooked, picked at with the prongs of his fork and fingers. I’d let him take his time, pick my bones, and now he wanted his slobbering mouth to suck the last salt of me, the last grease, the last gummed down bone.

  I tried and tried to twist into the outline, tried to match myself to it, to the smears of jagged ink strokes, to find some direct correlation. I couldn’t. So I tried to get a look at myself in the mirror somehow with no line of the drawing touching me, at least not touching my face. I squatted, stood on tip toes, profile, straight on, tried to even see just an inch of my face unsullied, but it couldn’t happen. Either the clean of the outline or the doodling scrags of scribble, one of them, the other, one of them the other blemished me someplace.

  ***

  Waiting behind a cup of coffee, cigarette ready behind my ear, certain I’d see something to prevent my boarding the bus, I watched the other passengers all stand, form a line, have their tickets checked, the clump of them tottering with their luggage out under the long awning where the buses lulled, coloured the window outside a stale urine tone of exhaust.

  I didn’t notice anybody else who seemed to be keeping an eye on things, nor did I notice anybody paying me particular mind, which I was worried about because even though I tried I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the boarding area, couldn’t just glimpse it now and again, I lapped it incessantly, poked and poked and poked.

  The area emptied, the passengers were all seated, the driver was finishing out his cigarette with the others.

  I saw nobody watching.

  -Liar, I whispered, but didn’t know if I really thought he was. Montgomery could’ve wanted me on the bus, could’ve wanted one more little moment. It could be, I thought, this was how I’d finally shook him off.

  I should run. I should go find some dumpster to hide behind, somewhere in the gut of the city, ride the metro, get lost, see if I could last a week that way.

  Futile.

  Futile, futile.

  If I was supposed to be on the bus, if that was what Montgomery had told the authorities to expect, any search for me, when it turned out I’d never boarded, would begin with the depot. It wouldn’t be difficult to trace me, especially if I never left the city.

  He likely wanted me to have second thoughts, run, reduced to a child hiding from the monster under the bed under the bedcovers. Just something else he could have over me, that I’d just huddled, coward, pathetic, some cur without presence enough to run from his hangman, the cell door left wide open since the sentence had first been pronounced.

  Run.

  I should run.

  I tried to goad myself into it.

  -Run run runrunrunrunrun, I whispered, tucking the cigarette back in the packet, taking it back out, putting it to my lips, taking it in my fingers, rolling in around, pinching first one end then the other end then the first end then the other end.

  ***

  Grey, braying grey when I stepped out of the depot, the white of the circular cement leading to the long steps down to the sidewalk matching the gaze of the filtered sneer of sunlight down on it.

  I was smoking, moving to the stairs when I happened to notice someone in front of me, a look of concern, of sick, morbid disgust mingled with confusion, uncertainty crossing their face. Another person shared the expression. A half circle of people reaching the top of the stairs all slowed, took sidesteps, eyes transfixed on some point behind me.

  The glare was worse with the glass of the depot redoubling it. My eyes shut almost entirely, crept open the sliver enough to make out the awkward, hobbled form of Montgomery making his way in my direction. Eyes adjusting, I saw that his one leg was limp, a slop of blood trailed along behind him, the fabric of his pants loose, draggling under his feet, sloshing the blood in short zigzags like mop water. There seemed to be a deep wound under the shirt over his left side, that whole weight of blubber seemed sagging, a droop compared to the thick waste of his other side. He held one hand out in front of him, like a tray, it gripped some gore, I couldn’t make out what, something pulpy, jittery with the unsteady of his arm.

  He approached me and I didn’t move. When he was near enough, a sudden snarl, he rubbed whatever it was in his hand in my face, bloody, rank of long decay, screwing his hand as though to drive it though me, make certain I was stained, enough force that I fell backward, desperately rubbing at my face, slapping my hands around.

  I got to a knee, trying to force down the vomit that was rising and it was then I made out that he was screaming, high pitched, rusted yarls, screaming and shaking where he stood, pointing at me, stabs of pointing at me with each repetition of his yelling That’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar that’s Kaspar.

  In horror, I wheeled away from the grotesque of him, the gibbering, infantile giddy of his slathering mouth, his jabbing my name out at me, everyone around stock still, dumbfounded.

  I jiggled my head left and right, after one step unable to move in any direction. Two men who must’ve been struggling through the crowd in the direction of the depot finally got to the front of the cluster of bodies, stopped, stared at Montgomery, their faces livid, breathing heavy from their effort.

  I could see the moment they registered what the words out of his mouth were, the click of reason, the irreversible finality of it. Their eyes shot over to me, motionless, bloodied, urine warming the front of my pants, stammering drool being weighed down, a wet trail to the pavement from the top of my shoe, by the mucus flowing over the ridges of my open, screaming mouth.

  ***

  While the detective led me over to the officers at the squad car, I kept my head down, saw that my right shoelace was undone, a trickle of discomfort at this, fixated, couldn’t think.

  -Can you tie my shoe, please? I asked, mumbling, didn’t even think I’d been coherent, but the officer asked me What? and the detective, just turning away, must’ve heard the officer or just remarked that we’d stopped, because soon he was in front of me, leaning in, trying to get my head to stop doddering away from his eyes as he tried to get my attention.

  -You want your shoe tied? he asked. You want me to tie your shoe?

  He touched my face, repeated the question, my mind biting down on it.

  -My shoe?

  -You want me to tie your shoe?

  He was old, thin and old, an untrimmed scruff of beard growth everywhere, all the way up over his cheeks.

  I nodded, letting the first clear nod tremble on, turn into a doddering tremble, seep through my whole body.

  The detective smiled for some reason, turned away from me, said something to the officer, the officer nodding deep, a look of considerate admiration to his mouth, then started walking me the rest of the way to the car.

  I sat down, wriggled to find balance from my hands cuffed behind me, the officer cautiously kneeling down, asking if my left shoe felt loose, also.

  -No.

  -Did you understand the rights that detective explained to you?

  I shrugged.

  -You understand me, right now?

  -I understand you.

  -Well alright. I’m going to tie your shoe, but I need you to listen. And then I’m going to need you to sign something for me, alright?

  I sat motionless, then sighed into a slump, nodded my head oblongly and said Fine.

  I was under arrest for the murder of Gavin Turlen. I had some various right. I said that I understood.

  The officer tied my shoe, asking me if it
felt tight enough. If there was a snort of admonition to the question, some curl of disgust masked in the politeness, I couldn’t tell. It seemed genuine, the least he could do so he hoped I appreciated it. I wriggled my toes, my ankles, nodded and said Thank you. He said Your welcome, the detective approaching from behind him, some sheets of paper folded softly in one hand, the other hand brushing the air of some insect.

  ***

  I scootched around until I could get my head against the window comfortably, my only real concern that when the officer stopped talking to the others, when he got in the car to drive, he might tell me I had to sit straight.

  I tried to sleep, but if my eyes closed there were chattering thoughts waiting, a head full of dirt caked shards of glass, nothing to retreat in to.

  The whole world was Montgomery’s whining little pet, everyone his minion, every breath of everything was the pulpy sigh from over his unwashed tongue, the sip of belch into his hand. I half expected him to be my driver, to look out the window and find that he was my detective, he to be my cellmate under some perverse pretend coincidence. But he wasn’t going to prison. He might be questioned, might even be held on something, some illegality in what he’d done, but I doubted it. Back to the hovel that was his throne, the clogged toilet of his life, he could have his ugly gloat with everyone in the world, all of them patting his back admiringly even if they weren’t. He owned every particle of everything, the obscenity of it absolute, so large it no longer mattered or meant anything.

  I thought about Claudia.

  Did she already know about all of this? Had she been given a call, assured I was in custody?

  The car door opened. I could hear the last of the officers’ conversation, didn’t listen, little chuckles from one to the other about something that had nothing to do with me.

  As if for the billionth millionth time, I remembered, the click of the thought still a stiff smack to my face, a hand to my throat, fingers gripped relaxed gripped relaxed gripped relaxed, that Claudia wouldn’t be called, she had nothing to do with it. Nothing more than she’d had her mouth once on the man who I’d squeezed dead. He’d had his hands over every part of her, felt her breath as she’d lost herself to ecstasy over him, had heard what she’d had to say, would have gone on and on and on with it, even if she’d left him, never touched him again, he’d have had her forever. Even dead he probably still could be said to have her forever, some smear of thought in her head always, some speck of him left. The most I’d managed was to bring forever to an end a bit more quickly, forever to forever.