Another patron entered, smiling widely, just milling by the sink until I noticed they were holding their tie in hand, had their collar up.
-Sorry.
They waved me off, said It’s fine and I went back out to my seat, sat, tried the temperature of my espresso now to my lip, still found it too hot, shook the little cup in my hand, blew, but just in the air, not into the heat of the liquid, not into or at anything.
One of the other people sitting had been in line when Donald had been taken off, they were reading a newspaper—no, doing some puzzle in the newspaper, would unconsciously dab at their lip after each sip of their drink, they’d even dab at their lip if they just picked up their cup, set it down without taking the littlest sip, figured out something they needed to jot down, a refined grin of small triumph, ordinary discovery.
I already felt dirty again, most especially where I had scrubbed, was keenly aware of the accumulation of layers of old perspiration all over me, covered my face and breathed out long into the hands cupped, plugging my mouth, felt some breath get out over my cheeks, some up the curves of my nose, some warming my palm, moistening it, being sucked back in a moment, breathed right back out, again, new spots escaping, the same spot shuttled back and forth.
***
Up a few blocks, I glanced over my shoulder, walked a half dozen steps looking at what was back there, feeling that I was finally able to think.
When I found the metro line, I was able to figure out a fairly easy route home. One transfer. Three quarters of an hour and I’d be home. I fed money into the ticket machine, fed the ticket into the turnstile, collected it, rode the escalator down.
Standing leaned against the side of the stairs at the end of the platform, I began to get very tense. The approaching train meant a definitive retreat—thoughts got loose from whatever had been holding them back, I couldn’t breathe well, nothing worked. The train meant I was walking away, it meant I was taking that option, one that had been presented me.
But then, even just sensing that I was considering not going, I became furious with myself.
Was I going to find a policeman, was that the thing? Was I going to explain to everyone who had no reason to know I’d been anywhere last night where I had been, what I’d been doing?
And this I hated the most, this sentence, this thought. I hadn’t been doing anything—I’d been taken, smuggled away from myself, I’d stood places, followed someone, but really I hadn’t followed, I’d been led.
It was apparent that Donald could be telling them all about me, he had that power.
A train approached, I stepped on, sat in the first seat I saw, stared at a seat I would have rather sat in.
He could be telling them I’d been with him, could be giving my name, describing me to an artist.
I actually burst out a laugh—yes, Donald describing me, I’m sure the police who had apprehended him would call an artist right in, insist that Donald give the description of the man he’d allegedly forced to witness his atrocities.
Donald wouldn’t be saying anything—devoid of power, of weapon, of purpose, of chance, he’d shut up tight, as tight as I had, tighter. There was nothing to him but senseless apparition anymore and nothing about me had anything to do with it, him, last night, anything.
I was allowed to go home, it was not a right that had been taken from me—I hated how I was trying to convince myself, assure myself it was alright, so certain I’d have to explain myself, beg allowances from all manner of people.
I sharply turned to look behind me, down the length of the train.
Nothing.
I didn’t know what there might have been, but there was nothing.
Donald?
I closed my eyes, knew I wasn’t looking for him.
It was properly the morning, no longer a pale colour of dawn, it was day, the sun up, a day I would sleep through, wake at the tail end of, alone.
I was shuddering where I sat, positioned my body well enough to hide it, to just seem I’d maybe been out in the cold too long, something natural.
I decided I should go home, first, absolutely, then at least go to a doctor, have somebody assure me my injuries weren’t so severe.
Gwen. It struck me that Donald’s wife had been named Gwen.
And how often would this happen, names of carcasses popping into my head as though they meant something, were connected to me?
My witness to them had not been witness, it was something that if I didn’t claim it, it had no right to me. So he tells them about me—maybe now, maybe later—he tells them a name, they find my prints, know I was walked around with him, did I think he’d add in lies, make me sound as much a monster as him, a participant?
I hadn’t been and if he made up farcical versions of what had happened it would be all the more reason to believe me when I denied it—my lies equaled any he might tell.
But mine weren’t lies.
He could say I’d done anything and it wouldn’t be the truth—the only way I could lie would be to say I had.
But I’d done nothing.
I climbed the stairs of my apartment building, up to the fourth floor, hurried down the corridor, got in through my door and locked it, began undressing, the clothes falling to the floor—not my clothes, it took me a moment to understand their appearance. I buried them under the garbage in my kitchen receptacle.
There were some bills I’d been making notations on next to a plate covered with crumbs on the counter. I licked my finger, dabbed up the flakes of bread, looked to the refrigerator, then to the bottle of acetaminophen in the little orange bowl by my telephone charger, swallowed six, then four more, drank warm handfuls of water from the faucet.
I lay down, pulling the blanket I’d sometimes sleep on the sofa under up over me, over my head, kept it there only a moment because my breath was too warm and smelled too much like the taste that felt all over me.
I needed to be able to keep composed—if someone was going to knock on my door, stop me on the street, telephone me, it would be in the next few days.
I should go somewhere else, I considered, call in to work, take the rest of the week.
But not call in to work—if someone came looking and I’d called in to work, said I was leaving, unexplained, abrupt, what would it seem like?
On the other hand, if I just left without telling anyone, it would look just as bad, just as worse.
I needed to stay, to waste this day sleeping, hope no one came for me, and then the next day I’d have to wake up and go about things, ordinary, have nothing to me that made me seem like I’d done anything, no air to me that seemed altered, not so much as a glance, something buried behind my eyes that questions or curious looks could dig out.
I needed to be able to know that I had done nothing.
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