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

by KUBOA

  I cleaned myself off using the one hand towel that was left, thicking it with soap, scouring over my body, everyplace. I wetted my hair, then scrubbed the soapy towel through it, soaked the towel, roughed it through my hair, soaked the towel, roughed it through my hair, took palmfuls of water, scratched my fingers along my scalp—I got stuck in this pattern, thinking nothing, eyes closed, listening to the hiss and tunks and spratting taps of water.

  I dried to some degree by using the bed sheet, then carefully moved back over toward the door, to the closet, meticulously peering around for any sign of blood.

  I needed to leave. It became an ache not to just run, scramble down the corridor, the stairwell, run and run, get home, no matter that I was naked, wet, anything, I just wanted to scream myself out of the room.

  I wondered what I was doing, what I thought I’d accomplished in the time since Lecia had died. I was just moving things around in an empty room. I wasn’t changing anything, not making a difference, was probably just making things worse.

  -You are, I mumbled, told myself that everything I was doing was just reinforcing what had happened, everything I was doing now was making it more apparent I’d already done what I’d done—what had happened was just happening again and again, each time I made a circuit of the room, moved a body, washed my hands, ate a cookie, wetted a towel.

  I needed to leave.

  I opened the bureau drawer and took out the guy’s clothes. I dressed in them, found them loose, which surprised me—for some reason I’d thought I’d need to force myself into them, squeeze the waste of my body in, misshapen, bulbous.

  No socks, I didn’t know where the socks were, probably wrapped up in the blanket with the bodies. And shoes—I saw one over in the corner, needed to find another.

  Or could I wear my shoes?

  I covered my face in both hands, wriggling my fingers in my ears, rubbed at the front of my teeth with the knuckle of my thumb. I started to undress. Stood naked. Folded the clothes up and put them back in the bureau.

  ***

  It was the hiss of some trash truck somewhere outside—the invective hiss of it and then some dulled clatter of hydraulics, the dumpster being lifted, the hollow, dull mess of it being poured out—that made me realize it was too late. I’d been laying on the bed—the same as I might lay thinking about putting off showering in exchange for ten more minutes sleep, going to work still dirty from the previous day—likely been lulling into sleep when I recognized the sound.

  The clock on the nightstand showed it was six minutes past five.

  What did I think I’d accomplish by the time I had to vacate the room?

  A Do Not Disturb hanger to the outer handle of the door would only stave off a knock from management or housekeeping until eleven o’clock, noon.

  For a few minutes, I thought I should just go to sleep. I did know I’d just killed two people. Two people were dead, piled without ceremony in the bathtub. My limbs were exhausted, I couldn’t think.

  I started to teeter, gritting my teeth when I saw the guy’s coat was folded in the chair by the writing desk—I’d not even seen it, not even thought to wear it when I’d dressed as him. Lecia’s purse, a pack of cigarettes, a glass bottle of flavoured iced tea on the window ledge by the recliner. It was as though things were appearing.

  I fixated on her purse.

  I took up the room phone, dialing for the front desk, a female clerk coming on straight away.

  -Good morning, I was wondering about extending our stay, is there some way we could do that?

  -She asked You’re in room six eleven?

  I paused. I’d no idea if I was in room six eleven. She wouldn’t be asking unless I was, so I coughed, apologized, said that Yes, myself and my girlfriend were, repeated the room number, felt my mouth dry out, bile start to squirm like dissolving cackles of soap all up my throat.

  -We’d just like to extend it until tomorrow, if that’s alright.

  -Overnight?

  The line sagged, I heard her breath, knew I should say something, but the question didn’t mean anything.

  -Overnight, I repeated, then said Yes, overnight until tomorrow.

  -You want a checkout of the fourteenth of December?

  Without any confidence, I flatly said Yes, then, getting a feel for the thing, I chuckled, apologized for being a bit groggy, said I’d been a little bit busy all night, wasn’t quite awake, asked what the date was.

  -Right now it’s the thirteenth.

  Then I wanted a checkout of the fourteenth. And I asked if it could just be added to the bill, or did something else have to happen.

  She asked me to hold. Some music came over the line, seemed to go on forever. Then the line went silent, a few seconds, and then a man’s voice came on, a recording explaining some of the amenities the rooms offered, where to find discount coupons, this ending in abrupt silence, music starting again.

  I shifted where I sat due to an unpleasant sensation of moisture, glanced down, found I’d wet myself, clenched my jaw and had to hold my free hand around my throat to keep from sobbing.

  The woman came back on after a moment, apologizing, asking if I was still there. I managed to say Yes. She told me extending the room would be no trouble, I’d just need to come to the front to present them a credit card. I wanted to protest, ask what this meant, but was overwhelmed, had sat back into the wet I’d left, said I’d be down in an hour, to which she said there was no hurry, but it’d be best if I could by eleven.

  ***

  I’d put one of the cigarettes from the pack on the nightstand in my mouth, started pawing around for something to light it with, but when I found the booklet of matches, got one struck, I extinguished it with a breath, setting the cigarette back into the pack, tossing it across the room.

  Lecia’s were the cigarettes on the window, the one I’d almost smoked must’ve been his.

  I shook my face, went to the window, took one of the last three in Lecia’s pack, dug through her purse for a lighter but couldn’t find one. My shoulders raised up and down like I was amused by this, by all of the trouble I was having, kept doing so while I went back to the nightstand for the matches, just a booklet provided by the hotel.

  Taking in the first smoke, tersing it out my nose I said, openly addressing it to the stripped bed A cigarette’s a cigarette, a cigarette isn’t anything to worry about, it isn’t anything that matters.

  My gut tightened, moved like it was being probed, groped inside out by animal’s snouts.

  There wasn’t any reason not to smoke this guy’s cigarettes—I’d killed him the same as Lecia, Lecia the same as him—he hadn’t done anything wrong, there was no reason to dislike him.

  I didn’t want to think about it.

  The chance of extending the room had just allowed me to scurry into my few last hours without feeling that’s what they were. I could go present a card, there wouldn’t be a problem with that.

  But then how would it go?

  The fellow who was actually in the room would be dead, the clerk would be asked questions, it would come up that someone, obviously the murder, had come down to extend the room.

  -And what did this man look like? I said, sarcastic, said it over and over, as though the clerk might be having trouble remembering. You didn’t get a good look?

  Well, I supposed, getting another cigarette lit, so she didn’t get a good look, what difference did it make? That wasn’t even the problem. I couldn’t go on extending the room forever. I didn’t even know why I’d made the call. Extend the room for what?

  In a rush, I knew I needed to get rid of my fingerprints, traces of me, wipe everything down, scrub everything up, something that would take a day, something I needed the extension for. So it was worth the chance. It was worth chancing it. Maybe they’d let me, maybe not. It wasn’t something that could be avoided, something I could hide under the bed ab
out, climb out the window to change.

  Remove all traces. Leave. Hope the clerk couldn’t describe me.

  -Hope, I added, aloud—smart-aleck, as though someone else entirely was butting in on me—that I wasn’t on camera anywhere in the hotel. Front desks often had cameras up. If this one didn’t and the clerk couldn’t describe me, I’d maybe be in the clear.

  And if the clerk could describe me?

  I wanted to know, but refused to concentrate on an answer.

  I lit a new cigarette from the last smolders of the one I was smoking. I needed to remember, I remineded myself, why it was I was in the room, to begin with. These weren’t strangers. Lecia was my brother’s lover, his girlfriend. My brother would be the first person who’d be asked anything. Christ, I knew they’d think it was him well before they thought it was me. It was almost funny to see it, a humourous little paradox really—they’d have every reason to think it was him, yet it absolutely wasn’t, and they’d have no reason in the world to think it was me, yet it absolutely was. The world had disjointed, its fingers had entwined incorrectly, gotten broken and jammed, wouldn’t add up to the right thing.

  I briefly followed the train of thought of trying to pin it on my brother—ridiculous, perverse, a cretinous dream. My brother wasn’t an abstraction, he wasn’t an idea on paper I could stack up evidence against. He’d say he didn’t do it. Because he hadn’t done it. So, this would be investigated. He couldn’t prove his whereabouts, would claim he was passed out drunk. So, the investigation would turn to other things. To blood, to urine in a mattress, to fingerprints, hair fibres, molecules, to interviewing random people on the street, interviewing me, interviewing people Lecia worked with—people like the woman in the shop who’d seen me, like some librarian—anybody, anything. Something would show that Bertram hadn’t done it.

  Bertram. I started pacing funny, slovenly, thinking about him.

  Something would show he hadn’t done it. And something would jar out of his head some memory of his little confession to me, his crybaby whining on and on. Something would. How he’d told me his jealousies, said to me he suspected Lecia of being a betrayer, felt capable of killing her. Even if he didn’t tell the police he’d told me these things—even if he genuinely didn’t remember telling me—he’d tell them he’d thought these things. Honestly. He would. Lay it down for them.

  Even without a clerk to paint a picture of my face I’d be asked questions, they’d get at me some way. And no matter what, Bertram would know. Bertram would know that I’d done it. It would occur to him like it occurred to me there might be blood in the corridor—it would occur to him like it was occurring to me it might occur to him.

  I felt belittled, smothered, felt a mockery, some piss-ant who’d been shoved on one shoulder then the other, the other shoulder then the first, jostled until he couldn’t tell the difference any more, any step a stumble, forever uncertain, timid, cowed like a dog with handclaps, I no longer even needed to be kicked.

  I couldn’t face the clerk to extend the room. She’d remember. Even if she couldn’t recall me up from memory, she’d at some point be shown a photograph of me.

  What difference could another twenty-four hours make?

  If I left without anyone seeing me, I could option it out, could find something to do. But there was no need to sit around, stiffening bodies through the half closed door, sucking corpses’ cigarettes one at a time, waiting for all eyes to fall on me, hands to pry my mouth from me, rend me into pieces.

  Even if I vanished, now, failed to exist, it meant nothing, didn’t change anything—what I’d done took dominance, didn’t need me to be anything one way or the other, it effaced me, swallowed me up and sat plump and slothful, grinning in it’s own rank.

  ***

  I could wait for the knock from housekeeping—the knock, the first knock, the one I knew would come, that I’d answer through the door with Not quite done or Still here or some such thing.

  Then what? I mumbled, turned on the television, stared at it—a weather man joking with a news anchor, no volume—turned it off.

  I wondered could I bear it better if I just went to the police, confessed, wondered if there was some way to have it all done with, get locked in a room, never have to open my mouth or lay eyes on anyone.

  I paced to and from the peep hole, squinted at the yawn of the corridor, the arc of it warped through the lens, air through a snoring nose.

  In reality, it couldn’t happen. I knew that. There would have to be some moment of facing it down, people would have rights to me, I’d be accountable to them and it would be a leering cruelty to not respond to their inquiries.

  Why is my daughter dead? Why is Lecia dead? Why is my brother dead? Why has this happened?

  I would be sat to a slogging parade of people who wanted whatever words I could manage, the anger behind their eyes so precise there was no explaining, no reason, all they’d be waiting for was some tone I’d not even have, they’d paint me as defensive, as trying to make their grief infantile.

  -In reality, in reality, in reality, I kept trying to jar myself past these first two words, rolling my hand as though to unfold a speech. But nothing in reality meant a thing, any longer, it’d been gobble up, spat out, picked at by beaks and mawing worms. Nobody needed the reality of it, just the description of it, and I couldn’t even give that, any first word seemed so incorrect.

  -I killed Lecia, I whispered, killed Lecia because I followed her, because I followed her and found her. I killed her because I said, swinging my arms, my shoulders, my head around, but it was impossible to find the prompt.

  -Because of my brother. I said it, but it didn’t mean what it sounded like. I didn’t mean Because.

  My brother. Bertram.

  A growl tightened through me.

  Bertram. Lecia. They couldn’t pry themselves from each other even when they knew together they were just a rotten limb.

  No. This didn’t have anything to do with it.

  What could I confess, then?

  Lecia’s pack had run out of cigarettes, so I started taking from the guy’s pack—godawful cheap cigarettes, I could feel the slivers of glass hitting the back of my throat, tongue going dry like I’d slept with it full of syrup.

  I regarded the room, spreading the curtains from the windows just a little bit, enough that the space spilled wide, tripled in size, became daunting, heavy, endless.

  Downstairs there were people aggravated, luggage to cars, leaving for the day, a shift change, a coffee pot, newspapers brought in, old ones taken out, telephone calls taking on more regular a pace. Lecia would’ve been leaving, off to the library, she’d have indulged in one last tumble—let the guy’s tongue in her, at least—or perhaps she wouldn’t, perhaps he wouldn’t have even broached it, sated, sprawled, agreeing that he would sleep in a bit, enjoy the room that was paid for already, have a while longer with the scents of them, tuck her forgotten panties in his pant pockets on the way out.

  I glanced to the bed, to where the pillows had been, climbed onto the mattress, squinted and groped around, finally found the panties where they’d slipped between the bedpost and the wall. Soft lemon yellow—reflection-thin of lemon yellow—a series of three circles, purple on the fabric that would cover the left side of her ass, hollow green around the crotch, half an outlined one of black curving up into the waistband.

  I slipped them on and lay there, tingling with an erection, then doubled up with cramps, brought my fists hard against my face and moaned, blubbered, disgusted.

  ***

  Throwing my head back, unaware exactly how I was oriented, I banged it into the headboard, hardly registered the impact, sat up, body lilting to the side a moment involuntary, eyes plodding into focus, drifting back up into my head.

  I’d fallen asleep. Panicked. But when I looked at the clock, it wasn’t even six, yet.

  Had I fallen asleep
?

  I had—my arm was wooden, tingling from where my weight had been vicing it, I slapped at it blunt and on purpose, the sizzle up my limb making me hiccup.

  When I stood up and got myself moving again, I happened to bring my hand over my penis, an absent gesture because of the tightness of Lecia’s underwear. I’d ejaculated while I’d slept, the semen bunched mostly to one spot, wincing it’s way through the fabric, enough that some of it came away, transparent slick to my fingertips. I brushed my hand along my side, then looked around for something I’d not yet touched, something I could begin wiping the room down with.

  If it came to it, I decided, I’d confess before anyone brought their hands to me, but there was no reason to leave an easy trail of my grime to follow. There was no reason my apprehension, when it came, should be any less haphazard and off-the-cuff, any less mine than the mess was. Whoever opened the door, whatever detective poked through things, they’d have nothing to make of it, because until I said so nothing meant anything, nothing true could be found. If they found my hair, they’d need a reason to discover it was mine, my fingerprints likewise. First they could test anyone else—everyone else—find it all the more befuddling each time somebody’s hand had never been in the room. But I wouldn’t just let them have my hair, my fingerprints, or anything else I could obscure. Let them hunt that down, find whatever crumb I hadn’t managed to lap up, start playing their idiot games with it.

  I opened the bureau, removed the guy’s underpants, and starting with the outside handle of the door began running the fabric over everything I felt I might conceivably have had contact with. There was so much. I didn’t even know if a quick touch would be enough to efface everything, but was comforted by the fact that it was a hotel room—alive with fingerprints, hair, with blood spots, semen spots, mucus and all manner of things.

  I abruptly stopped what I was doing, wobbled my head around, let my eyes run sloppy, dragging like a tongue over the space. There was so much, it just didn’t matter.