by C. Hightower
She saw him as soon as she started up the landing. He was blocking her door. Just lying there. Asleep or drunk, she couldn’t tell. Maybe drunk. Probably a party in the building. She put her hand on the man’s shoulder and shook it gently for want of anything else to do.
“Are you alright?” It was kind of an inadequate thing to say but what else was there to say?
He grunted something but didn’t open his eyes. Should she call the Super? He wasn’t responding to her, so maybe she should call an ambulance.
“Were you upstairs at the party?” She’d seen a delivery man carrying up a case of alcohol. She hadn’t been invited. How did he even get in the building without a key? She could just go inside and close the door and forget him. She pushed past him. “You can’t SLEEP here.” Maybe she should offer him some coffee. He sat up some against the doorframe and pulled his face up off his chest. She’d never seen him before but he did look familiar to her. She had instant coffee inside.
His eyes opened so abruptly and absolutely that she thought for a second he had been awake this whole time. Maybe this was some kind of trick to get into her apartment, which he was now leaning over into, unable to hold his head up. He was staring at a point off in the distance.
“Are you alright?” she asked again.
“Am I alright?”
“Yeah, are you sick or anything?”
“Or... anything?”
She repressed the urge to laugh. It really was not funny.
“How did you get in the building?” she asked.
“I live here,” he said, seemingly normal now. It was only a small walk-up. Three floors, two apartments on each floor. If he lived here she’d have seen him by now. He was a good looking man even in this state.
“Well, which apartment?”
“This one,” he said. “ Is this Flagstone Apartments?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Apartment D?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s where l live,” he said, pursing his lips and raising his brow. There was a fair trace of alcoholic mockery on his face. Why didn’t he leave?
“Can I help you find a cab?” she asked. He was giving her a strange look like she was the one in the wrong.
“Help me find a cab? Is that what you want to do?”
“Kind of, yeah,” she said. She was so tired and he was half in and half out of her apartment. She had never had a scene in the hallway in all the time she had lived there. She had never had anyone over this late.What if someone saw and told the Super? He stood and began to walk down stairs with considerable difficulty.
“You know where you’re headed, right? You can give the driver an address and all?”
“Oh, I got an address,” he said, walking with a slight limp now, his right hand dripping blood onto the carpet and leaving smeary prints on the white walls of the hall. “Don’t you worry your little brain, I got an address.”
Then he was gone. She wondered why he looked so familiar. Maybe the alcohol. All senseless drunks kind of look the same when you get down to it.
When he showed up the next day, she wasn’t sure it was the same guy. She heard the knock just as she was turning off the lamp. She crossed the room and looked through the peephole, but the hall was dark and bleary. When she opened the door, he was standing there with one hand on the frame, head slightly bowed, as if he’d been waiting a long time.
“Oh,” she said. “Are you alright?”
He looked up at her slowly.
“Why?” he asked.
“You had a lot to drink,” she said. “I was worried you were sick or something.”
His mouth pulled into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Drunk? I wasn’t drunk,” he said. “You were drunk.”
She stared at him.
“I wasn’t drunk.” She had been, actually. She’d had four greyhounds before she stopped keeping track.
He leaned a little closer, his voice low and even. “Sure you were.”
For a second she thought she might laugh, but there was nothing funny in his face.
“I think you’ve got it backwards,” she said.
He glanced past her into the apartment, then back at her.
“No,” he said. “I think you do.” His damp hair stuck to his scalp in little waves, like a kid’s drawing of an ocean, but inverted. A red line creased his forehead. He exhaled. Then he laughed a funerary laugh. She closed and backed away from the door until the sink dug into the small of her back. Her hand found the edge of the counter and gripped it hard enough to hurt. The apartment had gone too quiet.
Then, from the hallway, came the sound of a key entering the lock. Her mouth went dry. The knob moved once, gently, as if tested by someone on the other side. Then there was a faint scraping sound, like metal worried against metal. She could picture him there, bent slightly, one hand steadied against the doorframe, the other doing something careful and practiced with his keys.
Except he hadn’t had keys in the hallway.
Had he?
She tried to remember his face as it had been on the landing. Pale. Shaved or nearly shaved. The mouth that had seemed to know her. The eyes that opened too fast, too awake, as if they had been waiting behind the lids for her to ask the right question.
Her own keys were still on the hook by the kitchen.
She stared at them.
The key at the door turned.
A second turn, harder this time.
Then, very softly, from the other side of the wood: “You always do this part.”
Her breath caught.
“What?” she said, though she meant not to. The hallway went silent. The apartment seemed to lean toward the door, listening. Then he laughed once, low and dry, with no humor in it at all. “You always act surprised.”
She crossed the room. Snatched the phone from the counter. Her thumb hovered over the first number she could think of, though she didn’t know whether it was the police or the Super or her sister. Her own reflection flashed in the black screen, thin-faced and white-eyed.
A sound came from the bedroom. A slow creak, like a mattress taking weight. She turned so sharply she nearly dropped the phone.The bedroom door was open a crack. Her chest tightened until it hurt. She could hear the blood in her ears now.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
From the hallway, the voice at the front door said, almost kindly, “Too late.”
And from the bedroom, in the dark where no one should have been, came the sound of someone breathing in her bed. She pulled open the bedroom door. He was sitting on her twin bed with his ankles crossed, his hands behind his head.
“How did you....” she trailed off.
“I told you, I live here,” he said. “And we’re gonna make some major changes, you and me.”
All she could think of was her brother, how he always borrowed money from her and promised to pay it back but never managed to. This guy was here to collect.
“Is this about… a debt?”
“In a way, yes,” he said. “Let’s sit down and talk. I’ll explain everything and I won't take too much of your time. I’m late but I always come.”
He was holding something out to her— a raffle card. She took it. It was for a free sailing lesson. What the fuck? A sailing lesson? It was filled out in her handwriting with her name and information. She did not fill this out. She had never even been on a boat and had no experience on the water.
He was smiling in a terrible way.
“This is on the house. It’s totally free and what’s more— You deserve it.” His eyes were rimmed with purple and deep in their sockets. One cheek bore the mottle of a bruise. A fine sheen of sweat was over his brow. He looked even more battered than the first time she’d seen him.
She just wanted him out but something in his face made him feel she had to oblige him. She thanked him.
“Great,” he said. Not sure what he thought she had agreed to. “You won't regret it. Say, where’s your bathroom? And don’t get any ideas. I’m here for at least the night and let’s make this as painless as possible, right?”
There was a crazy man in her apartment. She was well within her rights to tell him to leave.
But she didn’t.
“It’s just through here.” He was still on her bed and the apartment was small enough he could see the bathroom from there but she still showed him.
“And don’t get any ideas,” he said, raising her phone before her eyes.
“You’ve been very polite so far. Let’s keep it that way.”
She couldn’t think of anything to do but put on a kettle of tea. She poured herself a cup and offered him one.
“So this is your place. You live here alone?”
She started to answer him but he cut her off.
“You live here alone,” he said again with a nod.
She’d lived alone there almost the entire time she’d owned the condo. Marshall had left that first year, said he couldn’t be held back by a relationship. Couldn’t be held back by her, is what he had meant. He had married Jannette from his gym the following year. They had a little baby.
He paced as he talked, moving more than was really necessary, picking up books and lifting objects from the mantle.
“You and me are gonna talk a little. I’m sorry,” he said but he didn’t seem embarrassed or sorry. “Excuse me just a second.” He didn’t wait for a reply.
“Before we start, I got a case still out in the hall, grab it and bring it in here to the table.”
Without knowing why she did turn and go into the hall and get the small black suitcase there. She passed the landline phone, giving it a long look.
“Okay, good. Bring it in here and open it up.” She knew it was a gun before he brought it out.
The case was empty except for a small pistol and a length of rope. She saw it but it really did not feel like he was there to hurt her. She was aware of his straight spine, large white teeth and that same overly bright smile. His khaki suit was stained with sweat.
“You know what I think,” he said after a long while. “I’m gonna tell you. I’m gonna tell you the truth. I know People, like I get People, you know what I mean? Don’t look at me like that. I’m not gonna use the gun on you. Have I hurt you yet? Incredible. So ungrateful,” he said, rolling his eyes.
She stepped away from him and he kept coming toward her. He raised his hand. “Let me finish.”
“I know I told you I was offering you a sailing day. That’s true.” He lifted a glass from the counter and inspected it. “I own the company, I don’t work there. I own it. 100 percent.”
She was staring at him.
“What, you think I couldn’t own a business? Pathetic.”
“I didn’t say that.” She said flatly.
“You know what I like about sailing? Some of the people we take out for lessons, they’re divorced, like you. They’re— well— they’re frankly obese. Now of course there’s no way most of them would ever take up sailing. But I’m good at what I do. These people, they’re not happy with their life choices. But for one day, they are. They are at least thinking about a change. Some of them don’t try during the lesson, but they won't relax, either. Those people don’t have a chance. I like pushing myself, understand?”
But she didn’t understand. What could any of this possibly have to do with her? She didn’t go out, and it couldn’t be a prank because she didn’t know anyone well enough to be the victim of a joke like that.
She thought about what she would do if he flipped or got violent. She closed the empty case with some difficulty.
“Keep that,” he said, gesturing to the case. “That’s a little present for you.” She smiled despite herself and slid it under her bed.
“What? You have nothing to say. Come into the kitchen with me, please.”
She had seen enough movies to know this is when you run. She also knew she was not able to do that. He pointed at the kitchen chair and took the gun from her gently. “I know you don’t like me, think I’m a liar, but I am very good at what I do. I built my body. I train my mind, understand?”
He was looking right at her so she smiled.
“As you maybe realized, I have a lot to offer. I could probably fix a lot of this junk you have in here. What do you keep all this junk for anyway? Okay, so do you have any money in the house? I need your cards, too.”
She nodded. So he was going to kill her after all. Maybe this was it…
“Ok, so like, how much money?”
The condo was so small she could see him lying on her bed with his feet up and his hands behind his head from the kitchen chair.
“Earth to Dickie,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face. Dickie was her nickname and only her Dad still called her it. “Give me an idea of what money you have in the house.”
“I have about 2 or 3 hundred cash in the dresser.” That was money she used to tip delivery drivers when she didn’t want to go into town for wine.
He stared at her, waiting.
“So, go and get it, and any jewelry too, if you have that. You worry too much. Relax.”
He waved the gun and smiled at her, patting the chair. “But come right back.”
She brought over the sad twenties and sat down.
“I don’t need your money, but I need something for my time. I’m here to help you, and if I wasn’t I wouldn’t be here. Go to sleep, and tomorrow I promise your day is gonna be normal. I’m real tired, Dickie, aren’t you tired? You have a right to be. We’re gonna go to bed now, but we need to be up early. We can get to it first thing. We have all the time in the world.”
They lay down together on the narrow bed. She could describe him perfectly to the cops if it came to it.
“And don’t even think about it, Dickie,” he said. “You can tell the cops why. Can you scratch my back? It helps me sleep.” She did. It always helped her sleep, too. “Up. Up. Over. You’re doing it wrong, just stop.”
They lay silently awake together for a time.
“I think that about covers it.” He said after a long while. “You’re wasting your life. You wasted your life, and you can think I’m lying or that I don’t help people or that I don’t own my own company, that’s fine. But do you think I’m stupid?”
There didn’t seem to be a good answer.
“Answer me. Do you think I’m stupid? That I can’t get things done?” He kissed the tip of the gun and her forehead.
“Relax, go to sleep now. I get things done. And that’s a fact.”
It was a stupefying action and speech she could not resolve herself to respond to. Maybe she had wasted some time but not her life. She’d never thought of it that way, laid bare like that.
Somehow she slept anyway.
He was awake, watching her when she opened her eyes.
“Do you have anything to eat in this house? Is that so hard?”
As it happened, she never kept much food in the house, preferring to go out or order in. She had a thick cut steak in the fridge drawer in case someone came over but she never liked handling meat, never felt all that hungry.
“You don’t even have milk. What, are you on some kind of diet? Well, it ain’t working. There’s no substitute for exercise and I think on some level you know that. And furthermore, do you think I need your two hundred dollars? I don’t need it. I’m gonna give you your phone back and I’m gonna leave but first you have to tell me how I can help you.”
“I—” she suddenly didn’t really want him to go. “I don’t know. I don’t think that anyone can help me.”
“That’s it, I’m taking the laptop, too. Now, the fact is things are changing TODAY, and this is your one chance to ask for my help. Don’t look for me once I leave here. Best thing for you is if I don’t come back here again. So, open that fucking JAW and tell me… how can I help you?”
She felt a new kind of confidence when she said, “Go get the rope.” She looked next to him on the sofa and it was there already, like it belonged. “You brought it, show me how to tie a sailing knot.”
He showed her and the way he said it— it made good sense. He really was good at it. He had her show him how she tied the knots again and again until finally he sat back, satisfied. Then he turned to leave but not before catching her eyes in the mirror with a wink, letting the door slam as he went. He said not to cancel the cards and even if she wanted to he knew where she lived. He said he would withdraw half the money and leave the rest one time only. “And if there’s any trouble you can tell the cops why, Dickie.”
Something for you, something for me. She sat at the kitchen table. Thank god he’d gone. Who could she tell? Who would even believe her? In a way, she was sad to see him gone. She took down a skillet, lightly seared the steak and ate it rare. Then she took a long walk to the harbor and stepped onto her Dad’s boat. She had all the time in the world. She watched her own eyes as she sailed off— a straight spine and white, even teeth.
“Say, Dickie,” he said, “Won’t you let me steer for a bit?”
****