***
The stench was overpowering, a sleeping animal’s breath over soggy gums. The light switch had been completely muddied with shit, I stood in a funk of urine. The shock was outrageous to me. I just closed the door behind me, jaw open, taking heavy, deep breaths in.
I could not quite fathom it. The amount of human feces spread around was obscene. Everyplace.
I started to shake. I felt as though flakes were whispering down from the ceiling onto my naked chest. I felt completely unhinged. I locked the door, walked around, gulping in the immensity of what Montgomery had done.
Was this all his shit? Had he been saving it up, did he carry it here in bags, in a slop bucket, or did he excrete it all, one lump at a time, divvy it out everyplace while I’d been away? When I’d earlier come to the door, had he been in the room, squatting on the tile of the kitchen, smearing the stove burners, filling the juice bottles in the refrigerator to their brims with his piss?
I lifted the bourbon to my mouth, but almost immediately retched, a thought stabbing me, that Montgomery had somehow known I would buy just that bottle, had held his penis over the bottle lip, voided himself into it, somehow resealed it. I wanted to cut open my stomach, let myself drain to be certain he was out of me.
Reeling, I walked in a sort of semicircle, frightened to death, then closed myself in the bathroom, plumps of his waste in the toilet, in the sink, over the showerhead, the mouthwash bottle filled with his urine. But I felt closed in, safe, barricaded.
He’d smeared shit on the mirror, so my reflection was beneath the half-day old stiff of it. I looked horrified, made wretched, turned inside out.
I’d been right, and this was torture. I’d been right in thinking he’d defiled my home, had been right even while he’d probably been doing it.
Back out into the living room, I couldn’t get past the idea of this. I felt too close to him, felt him nibbling at the backs of my eyes.
There were twenty-three messages on the machine. The button to replay then had a distinct, almost modeled, round crisp of shit on it. I pushed a finger through, viciously, sobbing. I wondered would it be another little song, another nothing, would he speak this time.
The sound of the squirting shit from his bowels cracked from the small speaker, his labored breathing, his grainy, rubber sigh as his body relaxed.
The beep. A whir.
A moment of static quiet, then the forceful strike of his urine to the wall, this dulling as it was aimed at the carpet, the sound of him sucking up phlegm through his nostrils, the squirm of his spit pushed through tight lips.
The beep.
A whir.
***
Collecting items in a trashbag, I kept flitting my eyes around, expecting to have overlooked the presence of someone in the room with me. I muttered that the mess was not so total as it seemed, that it was jarring simply because there was any mess at all, that obviously not everything in the place had been soiled. I would get a proper duffle bag once I’d left, because even after examining the one I had, finding it clean, I couldn’t believe he hadn’t contaminated it somehow, underhanded, obscene.
I hardly paid attention to what I was doing, but the weight of the bag became a strain. I’d lost track at some point, making no distinction at all between trash and clean. The bag was worthless. I dropped it, gave it a violent kick, heard something in it break, kicked it again, then tensed, breathed heavy, got calm, terrified to have, on top of everything, a neighbor suddenly appear, complaining of noise.
Why hadn’t the smell alerted somebody, already? What in Christ did the neighbor just on the other side of the corridor think when they’d seen the filth on my doorknob? Had they seen it?
I tried to get a picture in my mind of who lived there. Somebody did. Somebody did somebody did.
Nothing.
They could be out of town, could be at a friend’s, could’ve noticed, just thought it peculiar, nothing else.
If I saw some turd on a neighbor’s door, what would my reaction be?
I mocked myself.
Nothing. It would be nothing.
These thoughts got me distracted. I just strolled around the room, touching at things, looking at the vents which were covered in electrical tape, probably had perfumed towels back behind them. I didn’t check. I didn’t know if that would make a difference.
I thought I could scrub down the shower, make it clean. I was filthy already, so it might be best, it wouldn’t make a difference to get filthier first, rinse in my own water.
How long would it take? Would I be out by three in the morning? Two? Four thirty?
I looked at the kitchen clock, it read nine twenty-two. The bed stand clock read eleven-sixteen.
***
Few articles of clothing were left untouched. Three shirts, two of them hanging in the closet, the other in the top drawer of the bureau, two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, both draped over the back of my desk chair which had been dragged in to the bedroom, and one blazer. The other clothing was in a pile, had been spilled from the hamper, soaked with urine.
I did consider that it might’ve been a combination of urine and water, as the things were completely sodden, but it hardly made a difference. I could, of course, have taken anything I wanted, gone to a Laundromat, have clean, dried clothing well before the deadline for my departure, but I wouldn’t. I wasn’t so far gone as that.
However, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to dress in. Stared at the different items. Wondered which combination Montgomery would’ve preferred, which he’d made a little bet with himself about. Also, I was resistant to changing at all, let alone taking all of the clothing, because he’d chosen it, he must have done something to it, must have subtly rubbed waste on it, semen, licked the things, rumpled them under his arms, sat on them, something.
Otherwise, what was the game? Or was there a game? Why was this freezing me up?
I pointed with one hand at a shirt, the other hand, pointed finger ticking between pant and pant, pant and socks, and pant and socks.
Most of all I distrusted the blazer. It was to identify me. All of the clothing was, but the blazer certainly. Green corduroy, thigh length, heavy, obvious from three blocks away, completely distinct. A gift from somebody, but I didn’t trouble with remembering who even as I said the sentence A gift from somebody aloud to myself, pointing from shirt to pant to blazer to socks to shirt to socks to pants to blazer.
So, it would work like that. A telephone call to the police. Or the evidence delivered. An anonymous call that I had last been seen wearing the blazer.
No. None of that would be necessary.
I stared at the blazer. I hadn’t been wearing it when I’d killed Gavin.
Had I been wearing it when I’d strangled Gavin? Strangled Gavin in my green blazer?
No.
And it was a coat, not a blazer.
-Not a blazer, I said, not a blazer not a blazer it’s a coat a green coat.
I pointedly stated that I’d not killed Gavin in a green coat.
Looked at the socks, the pants, the shirts, the coat, still calling it a blazer despite my own correction.
***
A list I came up with, items I would immediately need, was only six words long. Of these, I doubted I needed any.
I crumpled the paper up, shoved it to the inside pocket of the coat, not willing to give it up, not trusting I’d remember the items without the list, or if I did remember I’d forget one, or I’d not really be forgetting any but since I’d have no list I’d haunt myself with the vague itch of something I’d insist I’d written down, lose certainty, work myself into a fit.
I didn’t really need anything. I wasn’t packing for some trip. I was stepping in front of a train, no special preparation was required.
I had a cigarette, really taking my time with it, the smoke mint blue in the dark, the apartm
ent rooms soot, just a stain of light from under the bathroom door spreading itself thin everywhere as best as it could.
Montgomery would never let me leave. He just wouldn’t. It wasn’t allowed. I had the option of trying to elude the police without fleeing, but knew that was pointless. It was a condensed version of the larger game. Each hour would compact it, abstract it, reduce it to atomic components more and more. I had a series of choices that would all lead to the same result. From the moment I’d seen Montgomery I’d been flitting through them, she-loves-me-she-loves-me-nots, each choice made got rid of five thousand others, but any of those five thousand would have gotten rid of the same five thousand.
Meaningless.
If I hadn’t looked up, would he have followed me?
Yes. He would have just been out of some different nowhere, a train platform, a cinema, a café, the rounding of a corner.
I’d been through it all, whittled things down to the last half dozen touches of wet finger to specks of salt left on my plate, doing anything differently wouldn’t have been doing anything differently.
But I still couldn’t accept this, something automatic in me groaned, burped, wheezed dry little moans, whimpered for some way out, forlorn, abandoned, invalid.
More pathetic, I still couldn’t see the last moment, didn’t know anything about it. I was looking right at it, standing in it, dressing in it, oblivious. Somehow it would still be a surprise. I’d still be caught dumbfounded, unaware, helpless.
***
The bottle of bourbon I’d used to clean the front door was on its side, not emptied, where I’d dropped it. I lifted it, took five hurried drags, then discarded it, again, off hand.
I was trying to figure out where the nearest clock would be, as I doubted I was in good enough shape to approach anyone I came across. I could get a receipt from a cash machine, just down the block, as I needed to withdraw as much money as I could, astonished I hadn’t already done so.
Had I already done so?
I chuckled about this, trying to coax the recent alcohol to its first flare up of disaffection.
I touched my hand to the inside of the doorknob, brought my eye to the peephole, hardly conscious of doing so. There was a man standing outside of my door. My ears began to ring, my nose felt congested, damp. Standing straight, I waited for a knock. I didn’t know if it would be better to address the neighbor or not, if it would be better to pretend I’d either gone to sleep or gone away.
No knock.
I stayed still, not wanting to indicate my presence in case they were just listening, trying to figure out if I was done making noise, eager themselves to avoid confrontation. I tried to count down from sixty, kept getting lost, just sighed, leaned in to look.
The man was still there. Hadn’t so much as moved.
The bile in my throat squirmed around over the stains of itself. The man didn’t move. At all. It wasn’t a neighbor, I hadn’t even made noise in the last ten, fifteen minutes. He wasn’t even looking at the peephole, just standing there, head lilting off to one side a bit, maybe a slight natural sway to him. It was like the first insect had landed on the eyes of my cadaver, the first aroma of my stink had spread and eggs for maggots were piling up in the bowels of flies.
I backed away.
Montgomery had sent other people to keep vigil?
Not vigil. This man was outside my door. Sentry.
I tensed my hands to claws, gripped my face, roughed my head up and down.
He was going to have me apprehended in my own room? In what would be taken as my own filth? This was how I was to be delivered?
***
I moved to the bedroom, padding at the empty dark. I tugged the string to lift the window blinds, revealing another man, stationery, not even reacting to his suddenly being uncovered. He didn’t meet my eyes, seemed to be casually looking at something down by his feet, even had a cigarette that I watched him take two drags from, arm up, arm a flop down to his side.
I sat to the edge of my mattress, forgetting that it was soaked in urine, felt the chill creep through my pant fabric where my coat didn’t provide padding.
I waited for him to look at me, but he didn’t. I couldn’t fathom it, but also felt no panic. Wished I felt panic, wished I felt numb. I only felt childishly curious.
What was it now? Hired actors? What were they told? Everything? Montgomery explained to them I’d strangled a man, outlined his plan, they’d waited for telephone calls and now got to do their bit?
It had to be playacted, somewhat. You tell a man Go stand outside of Mister X’s door, offer them money, the man will do it. But these men were taking such postures of lackadaisical disinterest, as though where they stood, in corridors, in bushes having cigarettes, made all the sense in the world.
Had Montgomery specifically said for them to do so? Was he watching them, making sure they weren’t ruining it by making scary faces at me, hinting threats with darks of eyes? Was he having a cigarette, stale coffee, a sandwich, entertained by the set up?
For a moment, I wondered if these men had been coerced. This was what I might become. Montgomery would spare me at the last moment for the promise I’d be his tool in some later torment, my own torment made forever, but only intermittently.
No. Ghost story nonsense, the idea fell apart.
The man outside my window wasn’t a murderer, a pedophile, some monster who’d reduce himself to this, broken so into cricks by fear of Montgomery. The man outside my window and the man in the corridor had no belch of my sympathy.
I banged my hand to the glass. Again again again. Wanted to scream he should look at me, but only coughed dry when I tried, a re-e-eek, the cartoon of a sick frog.
***
Outside the seep of light from under the bathroom door, I did my best to work up the resolve to exit the building, one way or another.
Question my guards? For what reason? What could they tell me?
I already knew what was going on, so there was little point. As a matter of fact, they were harmless. The worst I could imagine them capable of was physically restraining me, doing their best to get me back in the apartment. So if I stayed in the apartment, I was doing their job for them.
I laughed, bent to cough, vomited a thin soup, one mouthful of it, heard a stitch of silence and then the weak little splash.
They weren’t going to kill me, stop me, weren’t going to even touch me.
I went to the front door, grabbed the handle, tugged, laughed at myself for not unlocking it, unlocked it, tugged, found the corridor empty.
-Christ, I muttered, sick of this old game, the kindergarten of it. I knew they were still around, no question, but like a badly wound clock, striking each second eventually, certainly, just in slugs and coughs, the thoughts surfaced, the questions.
Had I imagined them? Were they gone?
I shut the door behind me, leaned on it. They were gone, yes, momentarily. I’d not imagined them, however.
Perhaps it was building maintenance staff, something about the smell?
Idiocy. Despicable that I could even think this after banging on the window, watching the man not react, smoke his cigarette, the other man teeter so imperceptible on his feet, as stock still as a man could manage.
Pointless. But the thoughts came.
Did I know for certain the man would’ve heard my banging?
Yes.
No. No, say I didn’t.
I banged away, he didn’t hear me, didn’t see me, didn’t react when the blind opened?
Maybe because of the tint of the window he didn’t see any of it, just saw his reflection. Maybe there was a legitimate reason he hadn’t looked up.
I was to the end of the corridor, rounding the corner, stepping into the squat lobby. Three men, now. Three. I was sure two of them were the men from outside the window, outside the door.
Who w
as this third? Entrance door guard? Why? I couldn’t get out of the apartment, why have a third man?
Snapping myself out of a daze, I realized I’d just been standing there, none of the three moving, none addressing each other, none addressing me or even regarding me. I balled a fist, tried to think of which one to strike.
None.
I walked past, through the door, trembled up a cigarette, got it to my mouth, was up the block, another block before I thought to light it.
***
At a public telephone, I fished through my pockets for coins. The motion was bizarre, how automatic, my mind fumbling for a disguise, making me seem to be doing something when I wasn’t doing anything. I’d no one to call, no desire to call anyone even if any telephone number occurred to me.
I called for the correct time, energetic when this idea popped into my head. I bobbed up and down through the few rings. Three forty-eight in the morning.
-Early afternoon, early afternoon, early afternoon, early afternoon I whispered, making tapping sounds with the tip of my tongue to my teeth in between each repetition. I kept the receiver to my ear, looked at the numbers on the keypad.
If evening was six o’clock, I had less than twelve hours, now. This made sense. I nodded and nodded. Three o’clock would be midafternoon. So, sometime between twelve and three. Probably between twelve and two, as it would hardly seem fitting to say Early Afternoon then let it go as close to midafternoon as possible. One o’clock was the most likely, because once it really gets an hour into the afternoon, it’s rather stupid to still call it Early, it’s just Afternoon.
Early afternoon, afternoon, midafternoon, late afternoon, evening.
This progression didn’t satisfy me.
No.
There needed to be some term between midafternoon and late afternoon.
What?