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

by KUBOA

  I laughed when I saw I’d left Bertram right where I’d need to step past him to get to his closet, turned around, surveyed the parlour room, but there wasn’t a full set of clothes among the various garments he’d left strewn over however long a period of time.

  It didn’t so much matter, I supposed, if my feet got dirty—socks and shoes would make it irrelevant, I could scrub my feet in the kitchen if I couldn’t bear it.

  I selected a pair of nice brown pants, a t-shirt with some design on it in faded splotches of grey, moved across to the bureau for underpants and socks, then turned, squinted at the hanging clothes. I found the blazer with the panties in the pocket, the wrapper from the condom, slipped it on, the fit a bit large, but nothing so much, not enough to make me look a clown.

  ***

  In what I knew were my last roils—circling the rooms like a toilet flush—I rolled a new joint, took four deep inhales off it, extinguished it gently by dapping the tip in a spot of coffee that had fallen in three droplets over my chin to the countertop. I did up my coat, noticed Bertram’s wallet, took what cash there was in it, then saw his key ring, jagged, crooked, set on a rumpled shirt on a box in the entranceway. There were eight keys, six of them regular, two of them nubs—the odd keys having to do with his job, I imagined, trash compactor, supply room, something. The normal keys I fondled, knew one of them would be to Lecia’s apartment, wondered what the others were for—his apartment, Mag’s apartment, perhaps. I’d no idea. He was just a pile of keys, a void of ways to get in rooms, ways to spread himself.

  It was ghastly that he was my brother, suddenly, made me feel deformed, like there was some grotesque slant to me I’d never recognized, some resemblance to a disease.

  I pocketed the keys, left the apartment, dwindled down the elevator, smiled in the lobby when I realized one of the keys must work his mail box, one of them was my apartment key, but shut myself from thinking about this.

  I stepped outside, met with the scrape of various people shoveling the walk clean—the snow everywhere already rusty piles of damp grey, grit from the pavement wound up in it, a tangle of something half melted, debris, the weight of sodden boots.

  I walked a block or two before milling on the curb, trying for a cab, five or six passing by, the driver of one motioning me over through two lanes of loitering traffic but I shrugged at him, his insistent hand rolling and rolling, wanting me over. I took a step down the curb, retreated, saw him exasperated, rolling his eyes, face puffing almost green with emotion. I turned my head down, continued walking, didn’t want to bother with him, didn’t understand what he could possibly care about it.

  Two blocks later, I held up my hand at a man milling against the front of a doughnut shop—coffee lazily set to the window ledge, some magazine folded around itself—when I saw a taxi parked at the curb. His eyes met mine quizzically and I thumbed a gesture at the parked vehicle.

  -Off duty? I asked, felt idiotic, the guy turning the page of the magazine, nothing to say.

  I was wiggling a head nod of I’m sorry when, at a trot, a fat woman glugged her way through the shop door, asked did I need a cab and could I wait just two minutes, she was just having a quick break. The tone of the whole moment was senselessly aggressive—I drooped my brow, mumbled that I was fine with waiting, I’d have a cigarette, she should take her time, but none of this registered with her, she bubbled her hand to her mouth, the back of her wrist wiping at something, said she’d be right out when she finished a drink of her soda.

  I looked at the guy with the magazine, but his eyes were down to the page, a warbled grin to his face, chuffs to his breath then his tongue left and right, a wipe to his front teeth.

  ***

  Unable to recall Lecia’s address, exactly, I timidly asked the woman to drive me along to the general area—asked her to head toward the library, apologized when I didn’t know the name of it, exactly. She kept making breaths out her nose, turned down the radio, asked and asked and asked questions while I tried to come up with a better reference for her. But I couldn’t think of any, finally laughed, gave the name of Lecia’s bookstore, which also didn’t help. Her questions finally stopped because, plumping out her cheeks, she said she thought she knew the library, I’d have to let her know, though, and if she went the wrong way awhile, I needed to keep in mind I wasn’t giving her any address exactly so I had nothing to complain about.

  I sat poised, nose to the window, felt I needed to show I was on top of things, trying to be an aid as much as possible. It actually didn’t seem so long before she lulled the car to a stop, the library there, the steep cement stairs up to it—a trodden mess of slush and the contents of an overturned trashcan all down them, some attendant taking his time, his trash bag caught up by every little spec of breeze, to gather things up, a broom resting against the hand railing.

  I left the driver with more that double the amount of the fare, but she still lobbed some advice at me that I should get an address, that a lot of drivers might not’ve known their way around, driven me all over to get the price up. I shut the door, stepped away, heard the choke of the exhaust out the cab’s back.

  Up a block, I sagged down to a bench, moisture seeping up through my clothes, sat shivering, biting at my wrist, unable to remember if I’d followed Lecia and Kevin onto a train.

  I hadn’t.

  A bus? Something?

  It seemed the library was removed miles from the two of them.

  I sat, chewing on myself, depressing teeth marks in, looking at them, trying to fit my teeth back to the same spots, always without success. Then I laughed, recalling I was thinking of things backward. I flicked my index finger to my chin, ticking it there with each bit of the sequence I started getting to place. Lecia had gone from the bookstore to her apartment, met Kevin at the library, I’d followed the two of them to the hotel. I’d not followed Kevin to the library. I’d followed Lecia, Kevin had come later. I was confusing the bookshop with the library—was confusing what I’d been doing, was confusing things.

  I sulked back to the library, brought low by the fact that I’d have to recollect the path backward, wished I’d thought to look up the bookstore’s address, wished I’d found something with Lecia’s address on it at Bertram’s, wished I’d written the address down when I’d followed her to it.

  I thumped my fists in squeezes in my pockets, remumbled that I was confusing everything.

  ***

  Lecia’s building hung fat, stuck into the ground—there seemed something wrong with everything above it, the sky angled wrong, it made me sick to my stomach, it’s curve, the immensity of it.

  I checked the time on my phone more than a half dozen times before it registered with me, and when it did it didn’t mean anything to me—I couldn’t even gauge the distance from what I’d done to where I was standing.

  A last cigarette—a last outdoor cigarette. I thought this to myself, no particular emotion assigned to it, knew I didn’t even believe it, had some qualms about telling myself lies, but soon I was leaned gently against the alcove wall. I gave a tug to the locked door, looked at Lecia’s name on a buzzer, really hoped that hers was the apartment number next to the name.

  I fiddled around with Bertram’s keys, tapped the jags of one them against the spout of my cigarette, watched the ash from the tip loosen, fall, then started to try the keys in the insert I was hoping caused the building door to unlock. The second key was the correct one, but I tried the others, nothing else to do.

  The lobby smelled like it’d been heavily cleaned a few days ago, the polish now going stale, a moisture, ozone, dust, mingled with what would have been such a sharp clean breath before days of tenants passing through—their bags, their feet, boxes, their hair spray, deodorant, the sag of their clothes from their work days and the shifts in weather, their foreheads sweating under fevers held down by medicine pills.

  I felt intoxicated, free associating, playacting I was some b
astard poet making my way up to a party or something. I held the elevator door open for a middle aged woman who had the air to her she would have preferred I’d stepped out, let her ride up alone—a real garish disgust to the way she stood still, hands folded over her lap like pieces of broken plates.

  -You’re just a fucking goat, aren’t you? I said casually, saw that she tensed down on herself, lips stiffened, little cadavers. There was a kind of silence after that that made me have to keep from contorting in mirth. When the elevator door opened—the floor beneath Lecia’s—and the woman stepped forward away, I reached to tap her shoulder, had it in mind to repeat the insult, but she slipped away, unknowing before my hand could get at her, my arm just limped through an empty space, the door shutting while she cockroached her way along, likely ready to burst out into sobs, mortified that I could still be behind her.

  At the next opening of the door I walked into the corridor, had an odd pang of guilt, of trespass, found Lecia’s door and started probing it with keys. There were two locks, both fastened. Once the first was opened, I started trying keys on the other, no luck until I reused the first one. I thought it was sweet, pathetic—it made me regret myself, I kind of looked over my shoulder hoping that someone would be there, reaching to stop me.

  ***

  I moved right over to the dining table, shrugged out of my coat, left it over a chair back, started poking at a pile of mail. The name on the letters was Courtney Zenn—it sounded pornographic. There was a thicker envelope from a commercial photo developer I’d seen advertised—this also addressed to Courtney—but I opened it, started leafing through the pictures. No one I knew standing with no one I knew. Five pictures in, I’d deciphered who was Courtney, hardly recognized Lecia when she was finally depicted—a different setting than most of the other photographs, just a snapshot, probably the shutter had depressed by accident, Lecia in the kitchen I was standing right beside, fixing her hair, odd folded expression on her face, profile of her head creaked forward raising lines of her chin up her cheeks.

  Lecia’s bedroom was the first door I opened, the one all the way at the end of a rather lengthy hall, a laundry hamper affixed to the outside of the door, half full, a mangle of the leg of a pair of jeans burbling over the lip.

  Her bed was unmade. There were some playing cards on the floor—some of them left over in their positions from some game or another, the rest just there, no order, no purpose, a spill she’d have attended to later on or else leave that way for weeks, something I didn’t think she really cared very much about.

  I had a seat on her desk chair, picked up a piece of paper she’d been making a list on, tapped at some notebooks that were around, unwound a paperclip, tried to goad it back into shape—something I’d never been able to do.

  I sighed my shoulder up, head down a lump, reversed this, torso sagging into arms I let dangle, fingers feeling bloated with the blood flowing down, numbing, like there wasn’t enough spring to return the flow upward.

  There wasn’t any reason I’d come. The room had nothing to do with me. I kind of whined a moment, but this made me feel uncomfortable.

  I sat on the end of the bed, fell back, then tensed my abdomen, sat back up, stared at the poster she had up on her wall, framed—I’d absolutely no idea what it was, if it was something recognizable to anyone or just a design that meant nothing.

  She had her own small bathroom—no door, just a curtain, which I thought was strange until I saw it was just a tiny shower unit, a mirror not wide enough to take my whole image, cutting me off less than in half, a sink that had a few stains from toothpaste, from mouthwash, another deck of cards over by the soap dish. The cards had been sitting there awhile, pellets of chalk stain, colour drained from water sinking in, bloating the pasteboard of the top card—sagging it, stiffening it, blistering it, scabbing it.

  Catching my reflection in the mirror, I made my lips a pout, poked my stiff index finger against the reflection of my forehead, said You killed this person—tap tap tap tap tapped the finger, lowered my hand, made my features square.

  I mouthed I killed Lecia. Paused. Nodded my head I know.

  ***

  In the kitchen, I went through the cabinets and then two drawers before I found some medicine—touched my forehead, could taste the grime of my fever along the sides of my cheek—swallowed two pills with a handful of tap water, swallowed four more, swallowed two more, dropped the bottle to the tile and heard it spin, the pills titter out, spread across the floor.

  I put my hands in my pocket, felt something there that turned out to be the fifty dollar bill Lecia had given me. I regarded it, crumpled it, uncrumpled it. The paper was dull already, warm from the stench of my skin under my pant fabric.

  I’d just taken a seat at the table when I heard a key going into the latch, turned to watch the door lock, grinned. The doorknob turned, a tug made the thing thump, a key was reinserted, closing the other lock, the door was tugged—this going on until the pattern that got it to open came off, a young woman, done up shabby, mussed from a day out dealing with some aggravation, came in.

  She was still cursing about the door when she looked up, saw me there. She stopped short, thacked in a breath, hands at her stomach like seeing me tasted heavy, soured her.

  I raised a hand and told her I was Aldous, Bertram’s brother.

  Tentatively, she nodded, moving, but not approaching me—moving toward a thick chair over near the television, lowering her purse into the rumpled blanket in it.

  -I need you to call the police, I said.

  She went livid—I could tell even in the unlit apartment, she took on a tone too thin for the lack of light, disappeared a moment.

  Shutting my eyes, I rolled my head around on my neck, opening my eyes in the direction of the kitchen, noticing bottles on top of the refrigerator. I stumbled up, the chair I’d been sitting in falling backward, a sound of some pills rolling and some others being ground down, broken by the press of my step as I pointed at the alcohol, asking Is this the sort of bourbon that Lecia drinks?

  The bottle was nearly full, but had been opened. There was a smear around the lip when I uncorked it that somehow made me thick she’d taken a tug straight from the bottle, freshly lip-glossed. I sloshed the liquid, made it messy, watched it settle, watched the few spots of bubbles that had formed meet, pop, turn to nothing.

  I turned to see that Courtney hadn’t moved, or hadn’t except to partway sit her weight on the arm of the chair, get her body turned in the direction of the door. I stared at her, couldn’t guess at her age.

  -What happened to Lecia? she asked, then three up down up down up down breaths.

  I shook my head, said Just call the police, something happened to Lecia, just call the police., waved my arm around, saw her move—a dart toward her room—and I asked the air behind her as she went, knowing she wasn’t likely to call a response from around the corner and through a shut door Is this Lecia’s bourbon, is this the kind of bourbon that she likes?

  I blew a breath that would’ve whistled if my lips hadn’t been heavy with spit, bubbles leering briefly then popping.

  I had the fifty closed in my hand, balled it and balled it, put the bourbon cork in my mouth, blew out, watched it arc over into the parlour area, hit the carpet someplace, invisible, silent. Putting the money on my tongue, I tilted the bottle into my tilting back head, tried to swallow but took a wrong breath, choked, a spray of bourbon falling to the surface of the table, coughs wheezing from me as though I was being dismantled, a string of mucus from my nose to the wet back of my hand I’d used to steady myself—whatever I might’ve said worthless behind the gags of me standing there emptied.

  Twelve ELEVEN thirteen

  A body split in two doesn’t know how to sleep

  You’re standing on you head while you’re standing on your feet

  -The Kills

  Idiot of me to do, I left the apartment, throat sore and probably
feverish, I hadn’t honestly checked, to go across the street for cigarettes. The weather was soggy, freezing, the heavy downpour I’d been listening to out through the apartment window since I’d gotten up to vomit, unable to sleep, had slackened to a breath of damp, maybe even just the wind mawing around the slop that had already fallen, not even genuine sleet anymore. I only half dressed, figured under my coat the lounge pants I was in, rather thick, would be fine, kept on the undershirt I’d been sweating through, tugged on a wool hat.

  On the elevator down to the lobby, I tried to decide when I would call out of my shift, not that any time instead of another would make it less of an irritant—there seemed something particularly cruel in my actually getting sick, something in it that made calling off into an actual task, like it was something so much more unacceptable because there was sincere need, nothing to be done.

  Across the street, no trouble, no traffic, a slow drag of myself across, I limply mumbled about how I shouldn’t even buy the cigarettes, that I’d not smoke them, would find it too unpleasant.

  I’d smoke them, I scoffed, a sniffle that tasted stale. Of course I’d smoke them. They’d lay thick and mangy in my mouth, but I’d smoke them down as though this is how they were meant to behave.

  ***

  The drugstore only had every third of the overhead lights on, typical for this hour, I wondered why they even stayed open all night. I strolled the aisles, thinking to get some more fruit juice, something to have around to eat, worthless little impulses, there’d be nothing better in the shop than what I had at home, already.

  I was holding a package of cookies, glazed eyes to the label reading nothing, thinking nothing, was just setting them down when I noticed a man walking in, head bowed forward, one of his hands clamped around his mouth. I eyed him, squinting, really holding my gaze too long, the man leaning in close to read the fronts of the newspapers disheveled in the rack. His hand was still to his mouth when he moved to the counter, pointing at something.