After a long while, a sound – at the first moment of consciousness, a scuffling along the side of the house. I hadn’t heard it begin; it was as if it had been there before I was. Abruptly, I was aware of the dark room, the heavy comforter, my own drowsy breathing. I leaned forward in bed, head cocked toward the sound, and with the passing seconds it fell into a loose percussive rhythm, each rustle, each thump keeping time. In its harsh insistence it seemed to eat slowly at the walls.
My first thought was of a raccoon scavenging in the trash, but after a few moments I decided that the intervals of movement were far too deliberate. Even a bum, I realized, throwing off the comforter and standing up, wouldn’t have taken such care digging for a meal. They want something I thought, and in an instant my legs buckled toward the bed. I was the type who cut up credit cards and burned bank statements in the fireplace; and yet, here was someone combing my garbage can for evidence. I searched my mind for anything incriminating I could have overlooked, but in coming up empty I only grew more anxious. If I was guilty of nothing, I thought, then I could be accused of anything.
The sound ceased, as if it were a machine shutting off. I waited, leaning against the bed, but there was nothing afterward. He’d found what he wanted, or he’d given up; either way there was nothing to be done about it. But even so, I was curious to see what kind of mark he’d left.
Regaining a steady footing, I walked out into the hallway, pausing just before the living room. Something had made me stop: not a noise, for the house rang with silence, but the lack of one. No footsteps; my face tingled as I became aware. In the corner of my mind I could see him out there, a motionless shape waiting as if for a command. The distance to the front door seemed all of a sudden too small.
I listened again, and as if the command had been given, a soft receding sound came from outside. For some time after it had stopped I stood in the hallway, breathing hard in the weighted air, watching the indistinct forms of the furniture. I still had the urge to look at the evidence of the intruder, but somehow, going through the kitchen to the side door required too much courage. Finally I headed for the front door, not bothering to turn on the lights, and not really knowing what I had in mind; only certain that there was something out there for me to see.
I stepped outside, shut the door behind me, and for a moment I thought I was looking out into blank darkness. Even the neighboring houses were only visible by the sharpness of their corners. But after staring ahead for what must have been minutes, a little part of that blankness resolved itself into a shape standing in front of my lawn, almost directly across from me. I couldn’t make out any feature of it, except that it was the size of a man, and seemed to be answering my gaze. Both of us stayed where we were, as if neither of us wanted to turn his back to the other.
It was hardly visible in the dark, but I was sure I saw him raise his hand. With that small gesture, so loaded with ambiguity, I snapped into a state of fear once again. I wanted to scurry into the house, turn on every light; yet I was compelled to keep him in front of me. So I remained there, immobile on the front step, and somehow I could tell he was grinning.
***
I was walking along some street I didn’t recognize, hedged on both sides by anonymous industrial buildings. Every one looked abandoned – the dusty windows, some cracked or missing jagged round pieces, sat uncomprehending. A streetlight above me blinked off and on in fits. All around was a bottomless silence, unbroken by any distant motor. I couldn’t even remember what part of town I was in, had only the vaguest sense that I knew the town at all.
As I approached an intersection, the rows of factories and machine shops stretching on, I noticed a murky blue light cast on the sidewalk in front of me. It had some of the quality of neon, but more subdued, soft and grainy like glowing smoke. I came closer, and saw that it was pouring from a low building planted on the corner. Smiling, I wondered how much time I had before last call; the lack of music made me think it was too late already.
I reached the entrance, and now I could hear faint piano notes drifting out of the place, along with the sound of a single voice. I looked in, saw a man sitting hunched at the bar, the bartender leaning toward him as if to listen, both of them pigmented by the blue light that spilled out into the street.
“I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but I knew all along what was gonna happen,” the man at the bar was saying as I entered and sat on a stool. “That’s all it was, really, just self-delusion. I made myself believe that I loved her.” He shook his head. “I never loved anybody in my life – not her, and not the baby either. Goddamned kid kept me up all night, every night, just this horrible screaming mouth I couldn’t have given a shit about.”
The bartender glanced at me with a bemused expression, as if to ask, Am I really hearing this? He was around thirty-five, ordinary-looking, dressed in a black button-up shirt, dark hair slicked back stiffly. The way the light shadowed him gave him a secretive look.
“So I left,” the other man concluded, putting down his empty glass as punctuation. “And you know what? I didn’t feel a thing.”
As uneasy as he made me feel, I decided to join him in the confessional. “I didn’t feel anything when my wife divorced me, either.”
“You, too? What’s with the two of us, then?”
“I don’t know…” I looked up at the wall behind the bar; seeing that it was a solid row of mirrors, I dropped my eyes back down. “It’s like we were born without the right components.”
“Or with the wrong ones,” he said, nodding cryptically, and now I really looked at him: his face had an odd concave look, as if the cheekbones had fallen in, and his broad nose was bridged across by a small scar. Even in the dim unnatural light I could see that his complexion was sallow and unhealthy.
“You guys really have a guilty conscience tonight, don’t you?” said the bartender, sighing as if he’d heard enough. “Think I might be able to help you with that?”
“Sure,” I said. “Get me a double whiskey, straight-up.”
“What brand?”
“Whatever’s cheapest, I guess…”
“And you?” He looked at the other man.
“I’ll have the same.”
We stayed silent while the bartender poured our drinks. After taking his first sip, and tasting it loudly, the man said, “I’m so fuckin’ tired right now.”
“Well, the whiskey’s not gonna help that,” I offered.
He grinned, and for some reason it frightened me. “Of course not. Shit… I’ve been thinkin’ I should call my buddy who sells Dexedrine – you know, speed. A couple of those little bastards’ll keep you up all night.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not into drugs.”
“Alcohol’s a drug, too.” He tapped the rim of his glass. “And you know what? I read that it’s more linked to violence than any other drug.”
“Really?” I’d started taking bigger sips, closer together.
“Yeah. In fact, they say half of all murders are committed under the influence.” His eyes took on an awful sheen as he said this. For the first time I noticed the palms of his hands, laid out on the bar, the white flesh bruised as if from gripping too hard.
I downed the rest of my whiskey and placed a five-dollar bill under the glass. “Nice talkin’ to you,” I said, and he gave me a kind of salute, raising two fingers to his temple.
I backed out of the bar, never turning away from him, and as the distance between us increased he seemed to dissolve into darkness.
***
A low sound, a scuffling; it was as if it had begun inside my mind and spread outward. I could hear it along the side of the house now, someone, or some animal, digging through the trash. Immediately I was out of bed, listening at the window. When the sound had persisted for a minute or two, I went out of the bedroom and down the hall, turning on the light as I walked into the kitchen; then I hesitated, standing by the side door, listening.
It was no raccoon, I decided – he was moving too cautiously, searching for something specific. And a random prowler would have been chased off by the light – this guy wanted me to confront him. Taking a slow breath, shivering a little, I went to the sink, opened the drawer underneath it, and took out a heavy flashlight. Holding it like a nightstick, I crept toward the door and put my hand on the knob.
The sound had stopped by now, but I could feel him out there, expecting me. I turned the knob, holding my breath. Yanking the door open, I stepped outside with the flashlight raised.
“No need for that,” a voice said a few feet to my left.
I switched on the flashlight and pointed it in his face. “What the fuck are you doin’ here? Who are you?”
He’d put up one hand to cover his eyes, the other trailing off into the shadows. Between his hand and the harsh wash of the flashlight, his entire face was obscured.
“What’s in your other hand?” I demanded, raising the flashlight again.
“Just these.” I could see now in the pale light from the kitchen. For an instant I thought he was holding a piece of string out in front of him; then I saw the shoes that dangled from his hand by the laces, sized as if for a doll – baby shoes, I realized, and I shrank away from him, shivering.
“Don’t you remember ‘em?” he asked. “They’re yours – I found ‘em at the bottom of your trash.”
A trace of recognition crept to the surface, and for an instant I remembered pressing my hand into a brittle softness, holding something down as if afraid it would escape. As the sensation faded I felt my breath again, quick and struggling. “No, I don’t remember,” I insisted.
I still couldn’t make out his face – it seemed to blur in the darkness, the features melting into one pale mass. He stood in place, holding out the shoes as if offering them to me. “Well, if you don’t want ‘em, I guess I’ll take ‘em.”
He walked past me, opening the gate and shutting it behind him; by the time he was ten feet past it he was no longer visible.
“It’s the baby.”
A dull smoky light snapped on beside me. I took a breath, the first I’d been conscious of in a long time, and turned my head toward the voice. She was standing over the bed, face creased with worry, and at the sight of her I felt dreadfully exposed.
“What’s wrong with him?” Some instinctive part of me pleaded with her to go away.
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard him cry all night.”
She reached out and pulled me to my feet, and I followed her across the hall into the other bedroom. For a moment I thought the room was bare, as there was no furniture, no carpeting, visible in the darkness. But in time my eyes grew accustomed to the feeble moonlight that crept through the window, and I made out the shape of a crib, the shadow of the bars slanting across the wall in a warped arc. I looked back at her, but the empty expression on her face made me turn away.
“What is this?” I stared at the crib, hands quivering.
“You should know by now.” The softness of her voice made me fear her; I could feel her behind me, standing in judgement.
I stepped forward and peered over the rim of the crib: it was empty, but the bedding was pressed down, as if it had been slept on. The moonlight pooled in a deep depression near the head. I should have felt something then, I knew, should have summoned some small token of remorse. I trembled in anger at her, she who’d put these accusations in front of me. But all I could do was stare at the shallow trench, pushing back remembered figments: the pressure, the terrible bruising pressure of my hands.
All at once the rage overtook me. “You think you can trick me? You know goddamned well we never had a baby…”
I turned, ready to accuse her in kind, but she was gone. The house was truly silent now, the kind of echoing absence that takes years to accumulate. Leaning into the crib, I traced my fingers over the furrow in the soft bedding, stopping when I reached the round space that seemed so much deeper than the rest of it. I felt the beginnings of something in my chest, a primitive stirring for which I had no words.
Throat aching, I went into the bathroom, and without turning on the light I opened the cupboard under the sink. I withdrew the bottle of whiskey from its hiding place, behind bottles of shampoo and cleaning fluid, and set it on the counter. Keeping my gaze away from the mirror, I unscrewed the cap and took a swig. Satisfied, I closed my eyes and leaned forward, trying once again to rid myself of memories. She was three states away now, I reminded myself, and there was nothing she could do.
Somewhere in that slow drifting, before my senses were aware of it, I felt a presence next to me. I turned, eyes open, and saw a man in a black winter jacket, his face angular and hollow in the moonlight.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“I turned myself in at the station.”
“For what?”
“Infanticide.”
A blinding wave of cold broke over me. “Then how are you still here?
“They wouldn’t believe me – they threw me out.” He grinned. “But they’re very interested in talking to you.”
“You’re a fuckin’ lunatic.”
“So what does that make you, then?”
I was filled with such a swelling of terror and rage that I wanted to strangle him; I stared at him with burning eyes, warning him to back down. “What the fuck? Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“I would if I could,” he said, grinning again, and then I felt like weeping.
I stood in front of the lawn, watching the house. I could feel the frigid night air behind me, pressing on my back like a pair of hands; it all seemed to flow toward the front door. No lights were on, in the house or out front, and I began to think that there was no one home; it was a disappointment I couldn’t understand, for I had no memory of coming here. But after several moments I heard the foundation creak, and I knew that someone was moving inside, walking heavily as if half-asleep. I wondered if he could feel me out here, a firm and immobile shape, waiting without knowing what I was waiting for.
The door opened, and a man in a white tee shirt and black sweatpants walked out onto the front step and stared. He had a sharp pale face, strangely sunken in, and he looked as if he’d been ill for years. He kept his eyes in my direction, without seeming to see me. It was like a two-way mirror – I grinned at the thought.
After a few minutes of watching him, in which he still hadn’t moved, I raised my hand in a half-salute, tapping my temple with two fingers.
+++
+++
+++
+++
+++
+++
