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

by KUBOA

  ***

  Sleet had started, was just getting into its throes by the time I was taken out of the car. I’d not even registered that there were two officers in the car with me until being stood straight, I noticed the driver was opening an umbrella, coming around to hold it up over his partner.

  A dozen or so last, wretched little steps, it was all that remained before I’d be nothing more than a thing in a box, left in room, or else just the box, empty, closed tight so not even dust got inside me.

  I should’ve run. The thought recurred and recurred, up the steps, through the vestibule, into the station, up more steps, narrow, stopping a few times to be held to the side, allowing more room for some people coming down.

  None of this would’ve happened had I run. I’d have been free. If I’d run the moment I’d seen Montgomery, I would’ve been safe, he had no plan for that.

  Or he did. The same plan he’d had the entire time.

  I should’ve run when Gavin folded to the ground, shouldn’t have even covered him. Run then.

  Those four months, Gavin burned, in jar up on some mantle, four months of him rotting in a flimsy casket in flimsy soil, Gavin someplace, no place, Gavin not Gavin not anything, those months were what had doomed me, brought me so low, spoiled, curdled thick every breath I thought I’d have left to make.

  I should’ve killed Claudia, it occurred to me. A true mistake. She was the one I wanted to touch, to have buried, a keepsake, a memory, something I’d have touched last, nobody else would’ve ever have had a moment with, again.

  -I should’ve killed her, I said, clear, plain, four words to the officer.

  Like he’d been waiting for it, like the statement didn’t phase him at all, he asked Who should you have killed?

  I hung my head, was led on a few more paces, sat to a bench some people seemed to quickly have stood from.

  I looked up, found the officer waiting.

  -You said you should have killed someone else?

  He just waited. I wasn’t even certain I hadn’t already told him this from the look of placating patience on his face, the same kindness that had tied my shoe, said You’re welcome.

  -I should have killed her, I whispered, then repeated it loud, a squeak of clearing my throat, repeated it again.

  -Who is she?

  A dwindle of a sigh, shoulders back to the wall, my eyes rolling, going out as they raised to the ceiling, lowered halfway to a clock face I was too bleary to read.

  -Claudia, I said, but might just as well have said Nothing.

  i poisoned you

  There’s a little boy with a spider in his hand

  Hello

  -The White Stripes

  Damp with groggy, standing unwashed at my brother’s bathroom mirror, wondering would I use his toothbrush, I remembered how sunken he’d become the previous night, buried under drunk, telling me he was certain he could bring himself to kill Lecia. His lover. His girlfriend. He used the word Girlfriend, but it’s an idiot word to me.

  He’d been drunk past the point he’d remember any of it—how he’d gone on, bemoaning, blubbering in every way except actually crying, slurred and helpless. He was certain she was having an affair. Multiple. That she’d seen some other man, still was seeing another man, on and on, on and on. He was sure.

  I’d known after the first few drinks he was depressed. This sort of emotion, this instability, it was something he never showed outwardly during the normal course of things. Or it was something I’d never recognized. He adored Lecia, never seemed to have anything but good to say about her. And they, together, seemed to seem happy—she seemed in love as well as he was, for all I could tell.

  I really didn’t understand it, the idea of her cheating on him, of him thinking it and thinking it but being with her, despite it. I didn’t understand what sort of weakness she had or what sort of sour thrill he got from having it all going on in his head.

  I’d started the shower and standing there naked, waiting for the water to warm, sore and getting used to the first blood of the day flowing, stretching my calves, neck, going on tiptoes, I didn’t focus on the fact my brother had told me he felt himself capable—if not on the verge—of murder. I thought vaguely about Lecia, how she’d make stabs of direct eye contact when saying something wry. And I found myself slightly erect, rubbing my eye, wondering how she might’ve reacted, in some moment I’d been alone with her, had I touched her side, or told a joke and then, on purpose, touched my forehead to her shoulder, like a shove, but not a shove, immediately leaving the room. I tried a few times to get myself fully aroused, but it didn’t go far. I soon felt ridiculous and perverse, so just washed, stood there, water luke warm, the air a shrinking chill when I stepped out onto the spongy floor mat.

  ***

  Before straightening up the apartment—something my brother wouldn’t expect of me, certainly, but something I felt would be proper repayment for the amount of alcohol he’d let me down—I took another half glass of bourbon in my mouth, swished it, swallowed. Setting the glass down, I decided I’d use some of his pomade, even though it smelled thick of peaches and I thought about getting a hair cut, getting rid of all of my hair, except I’d been growing it out to get just this length, should wear it awhile even if it no longer pleased me.

  I set the television on while I straightened.

  Poking around on his desk, opening the small drawer, I decided to leaf through one of his spiral notebooks, vaguely curious if he still kept them as meticulously as he had growing up—doodled cartoons with little notations, ideas for television commercials, for strange billboards, for music album booklets.

  Nothing so much in the book, I kept snooping.

  In a box that’d once held little decorative envelopes and cards, I found some photos of he and Lecia—pornographic, more than a dozen. They must’ve been a few years old, my brother looked young, same age as I was, now. Lecia had her hair short, tight to her head, singed curls of slight red.

  A little dribble of anxiety, wondering if my brother knew the exact order of the pictures, I just sighed and walked with them over to the kitchen for a little more to drink.

  Lecia was more attractive, now, far more attractive as her body took on more and more of the tone of adulthood. The difference was extreme, like I was looking a photograph of her as a child—mouth around my brother, his penis between her breasts, her laying face down, buttocks raised pertly as though to better showcase the semen that darkened a few lines into her panties.

  I spent awhile looking for other pictures, wondered if they’d made any videos, but soon returned to straightening, finishing up and resting on the sofa, my head plump and warm from the new bourbon.

  I didn’t have to be anywhere, had taken the night off to attend the concert with my brother and Lecia, some band he was forever going on about, a band I vaguely remembered having heard before and disliking. I sighed at the thought of Lecia taking little glances at some guy through the audience. I wondered if she kept the whole thing separate or if she crossed everything together, pretended my brother was another guy when they were in bed, talking, whenever, pretended another guy was my brother, my brother being the guy she was going behind someone else’s back with, if she permuted it every way possible.

  There was a page taken from a magazine stuck to the wall by the bookshelf, some film actor I didn’t know the name of posing against a ratty telephone pole. The actor looked a lot like my brother, at least like my brother from a few years ago. It made me realize how attractive he was, made me wonder what the germ was that was in Lecia, wonder what way my brother had failed her, how he’d earned her easy deceit.

  ***

  Another hour had drooled by, I’d not felt like leaving, watched some documentary programme about deep sea life which I mumbled my fascination about the whole time, a little bit drunker than I’d intended to get.

  The telephone rang a few times, to the point I w
ondered if it was my brother needing something, hoping I was still there, but I didn’t feel like taking the risk that it wasn’t, of having to take down some message I’d probably get wrong.

  I continued to poke through his things, checking all the usual sort of hiding places where we’d put stuff in our house growing up—behind books on the shelf, inside some box in the cabinets—and I found a little bit of marijuana, found some keys I didn’t know what to, didn’t really find anything.

  There were no boxes of any kind in his closet, so I sat on the bed, stared at the hanging clothes. Looking through the inside pockets of some of his blazers, ones that seemed set back, no longer used, I found a pair of panties. It made me chuckle, such an odd surprise—they were soft yellow with some orange embroidery around the waist band, a bit of a design to them in mint blue. I looked at them, holding them variously, trying to figure out were they Lecia’s panties, maybe some pair he’d absently put in the pocket after fucking her some time, some pair he’d put there on purpose, some strange sentimentality.

  Or were they another girl’s panties, maybe someone he’d been with because he was so convinced about Lecia, kept them around out of guilt and pride?

  I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me, straight away, exactly what they were. It wasn’t until I checked the other pocket, then rechecked the first and pulled out the opened condom package.

  -Oh Christ, Bertram, I whispered, you are far far gone, man.

  They were Lecia’s. Maybe he’d found them in this very apartment, maybe someplace else, I didn’t know. He’d likely found them someplace strange, but superficially explainable, didn’t even think twice until he’d checked around and found the wrapper.

  -Christ, Bertram I said, regular speaking voice, touching at the crotch of the panties as though to see was the fabric stiff at all, then realizing, no, of course not, a condom had been used.

  I actually rechecked the photos in the box to see if the panties were the same, no point in doing so, as I clearly remembered those panties—deep blue with a lighter blue design of stars all across them.

  It was unsettling. It had taken me—not counting watching television—twenty minutes to find all of this. If I kept looking, I’d find everything else there was, whatever it was.

  I thought about the way Bertram’s face had vanished last night, how he’d been speaking things he didn’t even know he was saying, wondered how often he paced around saying them to himself.

  -You’re an idiot, I halfway said, looking at the door, thinking how he must take pains to not let Lecia stay in the apartment alone.

  ***

  I waited for the bus in a cold not as curt as I’d remembered from the previous night, staring at the squat coffee shop down the opposite corner of the street. My day was going to be rather empty, I saw myself doing little more than dropping in on my brother at work to see how he was feeling, going home to my own bed, passing out.

  By the time the bus left me up the street from the shop my brother worked in, I decided I’d go ahead with the haircut, spend the day out doing something—something, a film, a lazy stay in a bookstore, something—just felt I’d get depressed if I went home and slept.

  None of the sales staff working the floor knew me by sight, so I had to go up to one of them, shyly ask if Bertram was at work today, explain I was his brother and just needed to give him something. After a few minutes, Bertram came out of the backroom, done up like he was leaving for the day, smiling, pointing at me with an unlit cigarette.

  -All done? I asked, to which he just scoffed and said he’d decided to take a smoke break on account of my being his kid brother, said the girls thought it was sweet.

  During the smoke, he teased me about a brief infatuation I’d had with one of the girls in the shop who was generally considered dirty, a real nothing, all manner of derogatory things. I defended myself as I always did, saying I’d only seen her one time and never heard her voice. Really, I’d not even seen this girl ‘s face, the remark that had caused all of the teasing had been an offhand thing to say, months ago, a way to break an awkward moment’s silence one night, smoking pot, watching some lousy movie with my brother.

  He showed no sign of remembering what he’d gone on about the previous night, didn’t seem awkward or overly forward. I asked how he was feeling, he said not so bad. Then, snapping his fingers, exhaling smoke down his nose, he told me he apologized, but the concert was off that night.

  -Why’s that?

  He shrugged, said that Lecia had given him a call, her work schedule had changed, she needed to be at the library all night to finish some paper, the time she thought she’d be doing it now eaten up with evening shifts, her days already packed dense. He gave this explanation lighthearted, with a hushed respect for her, no betrayal of the slightest doubt.

  He didn’t remember what he’d told me.

  I asked him if he wanted to do a movie, then, said I was thinking to go to one during the day, but I could wait. He said he might, but really imagined he’d just get home and sleep, said he was a little bit the worse for wear from last night, could use the night off.

  ***

  Rather than cut my hair, I paid to have it styled, something I’d never done before, felt foreign about. It looked remarkable, when finished, and I kept taking long looks at myself in any surface that could catch a reflection, but at the same time figured it’d been a waste of money, didn’t understand how I’d get it to look the same after a shower—it wouldn’t just fall to place itself and I’d just towel dry it, pat at it with my hands, there’d be no difference.

  Nothing worthwhile was playing at the cinema, not even anything that would obviously be terrible but have some grim charm to it, something to mock later in pleasant company, so I started in the direction of the larger of the two bookstores in the vicinity with it more on my mind to listen to music than to browse for something to read. For a few minutes, I tried to convince myself I ought to stay downtown, go out to some club or bar myself, get into some adventure. I never did this, so started chiding myself for treating it like it was some exotic thing, something I needed an invitation to.

  This got me thinking about finding some little bar with live music, some band I’d never heard of—this got me, the segue hardly noticed, thinking about Lecia calling out. Obviously, there was every reason to trust the explanation she’d given, she had so much going on it was shocking to think she ever found time to go out. She did have a job that I recalled from previous conversations with not only my brother, but with her, that screwed her over with it’s scheduling all the time—she and I had swapped stories, griped about co-workers who seemed to have no qualms about calling out last minute, no consequence, in little cliques with the supervisors so there was nothing to be done about it.

  I bypassed the bookstore, because there was something pleasant in walking, braced to the cold, irritated by it in my ears, sharp in my nose, lost in my thoughts. I’d walk as far as the central metro line, I decided, and if I didn’t feel like heading home, yet, I’d turn around, walk back to the bookstore.

  I tried to replay my brother’s exact words, how he’d brought up Lecia changing plans. It came across as pretty genuine. He didn’t seem the least bit troubled by it, there seemed to be no playacting. He took it as reasonable, because it was reasonable. He was worried, but not to the point he’d show it.

  At the same time, it was odd that there hadn’t seemed to be much regret to it—as though he hadn’t even imagined it would have happened, anyway, didn’t care, expected it.

  ***

  The train so empty in the direction I was traveling, I kept drifting off, catching myself, looking around disoriented. The drifts into sleep never seemed to be more than two minutes in length, but I got increasingly agitated by them, simply because I realize I’d be thinking to myself ‘Don’t fall asleep, move, don’t fall asleep’ and then would wake with a grunt, find some bit of drool forming, ready to
lift over my lip.

  I paid for a taxi home, because I knew a bus ride would be just as awkward as the train, smoked a few cigarettes before entering my building lobby.

  I checked my mail, rode the elevator, entered my room and checked my telephone messages. One was from my brother, said he’d tried to catch me before I left his apartment, wanted to let me know that plans for the night had been canceled.

  I sighed, looked around the rooms, decided I’d take another shower, dress, head out, maybe call someone up once I’d gotten someplace.

  Before stepping into the stream of water, I carefully regarded my hairstyle, noted where it was parted, how it laid at just such and angle, then got frustrated, shut the shower off, decided I’d keep it in place for at least one night out—already it was made a little bit lumpy from how my head had slipped against the train window, the seatback.

  It bothered me while I dressed, the whole thing with Lecia. I tried to make a timeline in my thoughts about it, ticking the points off on my fingers. Bertram had been with Lecia before I’d met up the previous night—plans were intact then. The bookshop where she worked would have already been closed. When had she gotten a call about this schedule change if my brother had been calling me about it while I’d still been at his apartment? He’d left for work early, I’d left for the day before noon.