by KUBOA
His bedroom door was open, so I knocked, repeating his name, stepping through after counting down from ten.
Sighing, I sat to the sofa, got my phone out and dialed him. I was startled by the vibrating whirr of his phone being jittered along the kitchen counter top. The second time it’s vibration shocked me just as much, even though I was looking at the thing, watching it wriggle about a half inch along at time, lazy in the direction of the toaster.
I hung up, took up his phone, saw the display said he’d missed several calls, saw that all of these were mine. I called out his name, one last time, pointlessly, then went through his phone looking for his work number.
A girl called Dorie answered—I could vaguely picture her, thought I’d met her at some party once—and I said I was Aldous, Bertram’s brother, this not eliciting any response in particular, so I just added that I was trying to get in touch with him, if he had a moment. She said he wasn’t at work that day, double checked the schedule to be sure he wasn’t in later, so I apologized and she hung up without saying anything, kind of just making a Mmn sound.
I reached for a coffee cup I saw, paused when I saw another, touched the outside of both trying to gauge which was newer, then dumped both out, refilling the second one. Cigarettes and a lighter were on the counter, so I took one and lit it, leaned against the counter, glancing around, slowly blowing smoke, scratching at my eyes.
It was half past eleven, so there was every reason to think he’d already gone out for the day, absentmindedly left his phone, and he wouldn’t be back until evening. But I couldn’t bring myself to start moving around, just sipped coffee, dragged from cigarette, anticipatory that he might be through the door any moment, entering with his mail, a hamper of folded laundry.
***
Bertram’s marijuana was on the floor on top of a book. I rolled my own joint, rather than using one of the ones in the bag, sat down, but got too antsy, stood and paced around, inhaling deeply, lounging into the sensation of soft half-asleep.
I smoked the first joint down quickly, abandoned rolling a second when I found I was giggling too much to concentrate—kept rubbing my eyes, explaining the appropriate method to myself, speaking it aloud as a list, saying Step one, but never explaining what step one was, rolling my hand around clumsily, saying Step Two, eyes tearing from the amusement.
I opened the drawer to Bertram’s desk, taking out the stack of photograph’s of he and Lecia. I found the one where she was laying on her chest, head cocked to one side, hands folded under her cheek, just the suggestion of the raise of her ass, enough to know she was arching into a half pose. Her eyes were dulled purple from how she’d been sated, her look sort of amused, like she found the photograph at once silly, but liked to know it would be there. It seemed she knew that eventually other eyes would fall on it, that she wasn’t letting the shutter fall so that Bertram could get himself off to her some other time.
Another photo had her pressing her breasts together—obviously positioned on her knees—Bertram leaned to move his cock between them, the photo capturing the line of saliva she was letting slowly from her mouth to her chest, the skin of her breasts and the skin above them wet from this happening once or twice already.
I turned back to the first photo, set the others back in the box, took them out and, feeling guilty, turned to the one with Bertram’s semen in three lines across her presented ass, the panties bunched a little, showing more skin of one side of her ass that another, felt myself become erect, shut the box, returned it to the drawer, moved to the counter for a cigarette, setting the photo I’d kept down.
I looked at it, careful to exhale smoke away from it, then grinned, moron from my high, leaned in close like I’d kiss her face, slowly let a flat line of the smoke out onto the picture, saw her bemused grin, her eyes suggesting she’d allow it, that she had her mind on other things, but liked that I liked that she’d let me be so purposeless.
I carefully set the photograph to my inside coat pocket, reminded myself to be careful with it, sort of grumbled that I should get an envelope, hold it until I got home, sort of snarled that Bertram would probably not even recognize it’d gone missing—not even after I was incarcerated, even after years and years, even when he roiled in remorse, when he clawed at his face every night unable to sleep, wondering what I’d done, why I’d done it, forced to remember whatever make believe he’d sat up nights imagining, dissolving himself in his old fantasies of cuckold revenge.
***
I took the elevator down as a last chance of bumping into Bertram. It really didn’t matter, when I came to think about it, if I told him first or not, and every moment he wasn’t around was a moment I’d no control of anything. In a way, by going to the police I decided when and where people would learn things. Maybe it was best to keep Bertram out of it—he was likely going to be prodded with questions, going to be put through all manner of groping, of blame even if just for his blood association to me. Beside which, I knew I would have reminded him about his own desires, which would be unfair and cruel.
It had started to flurry snow outside, hardly anything, but a weight to the flakes that fell, splotched to water on contact with pavement or glass, metal of streetlight, of trashcan. I watched through the door, finding a cigarette, getting ready to light it in case it was too difficult once through the door.
Bertram might not have ever thought those things he’d told me before he was saying them, it may have taken that deep an intoxication to gut them from him—who knows if they even represented the truth, if he even had emotions so desperate.
I stepped through the door, a whine to the air, the breeze hardly perceptible except as the sound it made, a hungry dog in someone else’s house, starving but starving not to do with them, starving in a life no one else knew. I made a mocking snuff at the poetics I was trying to force, then wondered if Bertram had tried to go see Lecia, today.
Where would he have gone? The library, the bookshop, her apartment?
I drifted off in the direction of the metro, upset I hadn’t thought to keep Lecia’s key. I’d just go to her door, stand there—knock a few times like she would be there, like she might call me the baby brother, insist on a hug—then I would go to the police, fall over on their floor, let them carry me off, figure me out, decide on me.
In my wallet, I found the fifty dollar bill Lecia had given me. But what was the name of the bourbon I was to buy with it?
Nothing. I couldn’t remember. She’d put the money in my hand, I was to get drunk on her, drink to her, raise a glass to her name—would have raised a glass to her name, her eyes, her wrists, her voice, the way she stopped herself from saying something to better bluntly indicate what she had to say—and she’d touched me one last time or maybe hadn’t, I’d off through the door and could get no farther, tethered myself to her, a mistake she had no way of knowing she’d made.
-What was the name of the bourbon? I said, sang it like it was some part of a song because I couldn’t keep the words subvocalized, the marijuana making me giddy, didn’t want to seem a jabbering menace, just wanted to come off as some harmless guy, giddy from some memory that chipped him in to tuneless song.
***
I wasn’t sure it was Bertram, even once I’d crossed the street—the glare on the windows of the little coffee shop just showed soot and my reflection, the image of the interior no thicker, no more real than me outside of it.
I went inside, held up a finger that it’d be just one moment when the woman started getting a menu ready, craned my head and tried to find him. He was sitting with some girl, plates of food half eaten, just then gesturing for a passing server, overly politely asking if he could get a refill—the same shy way of requesting things at restaurants he had always had—then he tapped his head in the girl’s direction, she childishly shaking her head No, head a tick forward, chin brought in, nose pointing at her chest.
I took a step forward, stopped, said So
rry to the woman—though she was not exactly standing by, had returned to the little counter to chat with one of the other patrons—and I exited.
I’d never seen this girl. She looked younger than I was, so much so I really started to wonder if it’d been Bertram sitting there. I could understandably be imagining things, even admitted to myself that thinking back—though it had taken place less than two minutes ago—I couldn’t quite get it straight whether I’d seen anything, whether I’d actually confirmed it, all of it seemed a choppy sketch, scribble, like when a song is being played too low to hear and it sounds like some other song, like listening for a voice through a jabbering train station, not even seeing the hands being waved and waved, the laughing faces trying to get your attention.
There wasn’t any harm in waiting, in not causing some awkward moment. I’d just been on my way to the police, I reminded myself—then reminded myself I’d actually been on the way to Lecia’s apartment—then reminded myself I couldn’t even get into her building, so was, in essence, actually just on my way to the police.
Ten or fifteen minutes of waiting was not going to alter things.
I figured I could make the approach casual, like I’d just been heading over to see Bertram and found him, by chance, just leaving the diner, shake his hand, make it all seem playful. I really didn’t know why seeing him there made me so agitated.
Who was the girl?
She wasn’t anybody.
So why would he be having breakfast with her?
It could also be, I thought, nodding and nodding at it, that it was not just Bertram and the girl there—it could have been that her boyfriend or some other member of their party had just gone to the toilet or hadn’t yet arrived.
I’d wait to see, didn’t want to have to interact with Bertram in a group setting, but it wouldn’t be right to just pass him by like nothing, not when this was the last time he’d see me without having to tense against rising bile or his hands bucking to raise, to thrust from the ends of his locked stiff arms, to throttle me dead.
***
The two of them kissed, immediately upon stepping into the cold—like it was expected, automatic, a kiss as a result of the cold—and while he got his coat buttoned she straightened her purple hat around her head, turned him by the shoulder and gave his ass three pats, like she was dusting out an old mat.
Not caring at all how I must have looked to passersby, I was pressed flat to the corner of the diner’s outside wall, forehead against the jags of brick, very much aware I wasn’t hidden, that if he caught my eye, even if I ducked, he’d recognize me.
He and the girl just stood there chatting, he making some left right gestures with his shoulders, hands in his pockets, she rolling her head around elaborately, making a scuffing movement of her toe over the pavement, flapping her arms in a silly kind of shrug. He brought his elbows locked to him, brought his knees together, bent forward until his face was close enough their noses touched, returned the silly shrug and she gave his shin three or four kicks, shoved him away, he using the force to spin, start strolling in the opposite direction, she staying put a moment, play-pouting her hands to her hips and stamping her foot once. Then she trotted to catch up, gave him a spanking with her mittened hand, again.
I started to follow.
They walked.
At a crosswalk—me not even ten strides behind them—he abruptly turned to her, lifted her up, she squealing like an imbecile, then he turned her around, slapping her ass, the crowd on the corner, rolling their eyes, some genuinely smiling, the girl flushed pale with the attention, biting her lip, her shoulders raised to her ears, giggling with her eyes closed.
The signal changed. I didn’t follow, swayed over to the wall next to a cash machine, got a cigarette, just watched them continue on, the direction of Bertram’s.
I felt sick that it was this girl I’d smelled in the room, had so readily accepted the odour of her as some element that belonged.
But my irritation had nothing to do with her, really.
What in Christ was Bertram doing? He groans like a little baby at the thought of Lecia turning her back on him, and he replaces her with some little kid? This child for Lecia? What could it possibly mean?
Automatically, some sort of justification started up, absurd thoughts, anything to excuse him, but it got stale, just a joke, just a waste of time.
I caught up to them because they’d stopped outside of the lobby doors for the girl to have a smoke. She had on green rain boots, a patterned scarf, a coat in grey and pink plaid—a falseness to the coat, like it was well worn when really it’d been paid for, bought just to resemble what it wasn’t. Bertram laughed at something she said. Big smile. Made me want to vomit.
There was a sound like a large droplet of water hitting the tip of my shoe, and when I looked down I realized I was drooling, brought the side of my sleeve to my mouth, tried to swallow, but had to turn to the side, spit everything out, the consistency of the saliva like mucus, a tinge of brown to it, some grime that seemed to be oozing from the roof of my mouth. A man passing by was looking at me, a disgust in the sympathetic crease to his brown.
Bertram was holding onto the girl’s arm as she playfully acted like she was trying to squiggle herself free.
***
I stared at the empty space in front of the lobby door, sort of holding my breath, then took out my phone and texted Hey man, give me a call when you get this, really important to Bertram, hit Send, knew his phone coughed a spasm on the counter, went still.
I moved to the door, watched my reflection bow its head, shield it’s cigarette under curled palm, cautiously let flame lick to cigarette end before making tittering puffs, smoke tufting, hardly even registering as reflection.
When the cigarette was nearly smoked down, I flipped my phone open—no message, no missed call—started to text another message, but decided not to. If he picked up his phone, it’d be the first thing he saw, added to which, there would be an indication that he’d missed calls from me. So if he didn’t call, it was because he was purposefully not calling, I’d no idea what else I could do.
I waited another five minutes, thinking they’d paused so many times on the walk over, they might still be in the corridor—or Bertram might’ve needed to have a piss right away, not checked his phone yet.
Another message would prove it out, one way or the other, I knew that, but got queasy thinking about it. I didn’t even need to be doing any of this, needed to turn my back, start walking again—back to Lecia’s, or to the police, I reminded myself.
I walked into the lobby, padded around in sloppy circles—my back to the wall, a few paces oblong, my back to another wall—checked my phone, checked my phone.
I began another message with the words Something’s the matter with Lecia erased a few of the words, started to type something else, flapped the thing closed and returned it to my pocket.
The elevator spread open and then yawned shut around me. It had a staleness, smelled like an elevator. I hit the button for every floor leading up to Bertram’s, closed my eyes and felt the inertia rise through my feet, make me bob, loll side to side, felt the soft stopping, listened to the whisper of the door ricketing open, sighing closed, playing my game with me. And I counted the floors off as One two three four Two two three four Three two three four Four two three floor, not opening my eyes when the door opened the final time. Not opening my eyes when it closed. Stood there. Didn’t move. Reached forward and depressed a button—then another, then another—felt the give of the floor descending beneath me, the ease to it going flat, the inertia lifting me up again, the breath of the stop, the sag of my weight pressing me down, following the elevator, legs ready to give out.
It was the third floor when the door opened for the last time, my eyes opened, a smile crossing my face, so relieved for the final delay. I pressed the button for Four, watched the door close, rolled my head and rubbed my face, snappin
g myself out of it. I jutted my arms out, raised my knees in high steps, cleared my throat and tested my voice.
-Bertram, I tested. Hi, didn’t you get my message?
***
I could hear the sound of them from three doors away—not loud, not some obscenity being foist on everyone, but just like anything else, like the sound of someone else clattering their pans.
I stood at the door, put my forehead to it, heard the girl whining fuck words, the sound of her being slapped, insisting that he slap her again—from him sounds more of his exertion, only a phrase every now and then when she told him to talk, to say something.
It was like listening through static, bits blaring, distinct, silence that never seemed to end anything—silence was just them slowing, him holding her to place, as deep in her as he could manage, jabbing himself with tension to his abdomen, her face a twist against the pain of it she in other moments would insist of him.
There was a longer silence and I listened to my breathing, stared at my fingertips—all of them where I’d put them, a pulping touch to the door. I hoped it was finished, but soon heard burbles, heard the give and shift of the sofa, something being moved, the rising intensity of her whining, her high pitch somehow getting guttural, profanities coaxing easily from her, a rising in the percussive undercurrent to her speech pattern, Bertram getting worked up, and she squealed, all of a sudden, lost in her exaggerated groans of witnessing him finish off, the chuffing laugh of him pulling away from her after, she giggling, something falling over and shattering, her giggling even more.
I retreated to the stairwell, had a seat, lit a cigarette, stared at the ceiling then started to take out the photo of Lecia I’d stolen. But then I didn’t. I rested my wrist on my raised bent knee, looked at the other foot at the end of the length of my splayed leg.