I picked the pieces of myself up and threw them into a pile on the couch. It would be a waste to start being cooperative now. I mean, if I gave up anything now, it would have made the whole beating pointless.
My world was ringing and I couldn’t understand the Nazi bastard. Excuse me, the thin Nazi bastard. I could understand the large one just fine. He was using sign language. I tried to wave him off. I pulled back a sprained, all but broken finger.
The thin one threw me my pants and I pulled them on. Not because he said so, but for my own reasons.
They spoke in German. I don’t know German but I think they said “Let’s take him out back and show him our nice trunk.” I know this because I was now in their very spacious trunk. I tried to count the turns, to figure out where they were taking me. It felt like we took 17 consecutive right turns. That couldn’t have been right.
Everything came apart so fast. The first few days were chaos. Even the people that fancied themselves prepared had trouble holding on to their lives. Some of us were lucky; we were not in a big city. We had been camping, what began as the worst weekend of my life, turned into the end of the world. My name is Sam Russell. I haven’t seen another living soul in twenty-two days. I don’t know what today is. It is twenty-two days since Grace died. I didn’t know her. I had been cornered inside a deli; it was stupid of me to go in there. I was hungry. We are always starving these days, but I was just hungry. I didn’t need to eat. But I went in there anyway. My senses left me and I went into a building I didn’t know, in the dark, without knowing, without thinking. There were so many, as if they were in the walls. She told me it’s the smell, the rotting cuts of meat. They are drawn to the smell. She said that when she saw me go in, she figured I was just tired of living. When she heard me scream, she knew she had been wrong. She was so fast. Literally three-to-one. I was, I am able to handle myself, but she was a natural savior. She was graceful in it. Eight of them were finished before she pulled me out of that coffin.
She didn’t die that day. It was later that I lost her. It was later after I knew her. And it wasn’t them, it was us. A living man killed her.
It is so much quieter than it use to be. It is like when you wake up just before dawn and you feel like you are the only person in the world. It is like that all of the time now. I don’t know how, but we did it to ourselves. It’s been twenty-two days since I have heard more than the sound of my feet.
I woke up on the sofa with my papers stuck to my face. I was still fully dressed minus a shoe. There was hot coffee and piece of toast on the coffee table.I guessed it was from her, but for all I knew it was a breakfast fairy.
I wiped the cold sweat off my neck and took off my pant as I went into the bathroom. My Pants slung over one arm and the coffee and newspaper in my hands. Equipped as I was, there was no way to close the door. So fighting my manners I left the door open.
It was loud. It crashed and sent splinters across the floor past the bathroom doorway. I wiped, pulled back on my boxer and stumbled at running pace through the door. The pins and needles struck my nerves like being hit in the funny bone. I lost my balance and went face first into the wall. Burglars beware occupants of this apartment may self-destruct.
I woke up on the sofa with a very large man very close to my face. I was fully dressed minus my pants and a shoe. The man backed up and took my piece of toast from the coffee table. He sat down. Another man came into view as I sat up. He was sitting at the little bar attached to the kitchen. He told me to not look at him; to keep my eyes on his friend.
They were both blonde, and both wearing suits. Their heads didn’t look like the sort of hears that would be sticking out of a suit. They looked like the sort of head that would be popping out of an orange jumpsuit.
Guys, I am a student, and my… roommate is just a nurse. We don’t have much. Just take what you want, I won’t call the cops. I laid it on a little thick. I wasn’t afraid, but like dealing with a wild animal err on the side of caution when dealing with large men that lack the ability to knock. Maybe that had been a knock.
“Right, thank you for getting right to it. If you remain cooperative he might not have to hit you.” He hit me, hard, in the face. “Again.” He wound up for a second strike. “NO!” the man at the bar yelled, “I meant he might not have to hit you again.”
It was a twisted version of mice and men going on in here. I wanted to leave them to each other.
“Hitler’s gold. Where is it?” Although this was actually said I neglected to mention it to the UIO man when I later retold the story. “We know it was discovered in your research, so tell us.”
I really wish I could help you. I was going to get hit again. The big one was taking off his suit coat. I wish I could tell you exactly where it is, I just don’t have that information yet.
“I think you are lying.” He nods upward, “Hit him once, and not in the face, he needs to talk.”
My vision began to fail, like an old movie where the iris closes in. I breathed, and as I got more oxygen my vision came back. I slumped over, and chanced a look towards the door.
“There is no escape for you. No rescue.” He slithered off the stool, his feet hit the ground and he stood up straight.
I gave him the bird, call me a liar, fuck you then. I caught part of a punch to the back of my head. I couldn’t see right again, this time it was stars. So, it was a bad idea to tell them off. I got hit again in the lower back; I spun around and got another one in the ribs. My ribs crashed and sent splinters across the floor past the bathroom doorway. Someone must be at the door.
…And then I woke up in the hospital. I finished, my story told. I explained everything, and he wrote exactly none of if in his little book.
“Ok then.” He stood up and moved for the door.
That wasn’t good enough for you? Should I have lied to make it more interesting? None of it good enough for your little book?
He sighed, I had obviously stuck a cord. It sounded like he felt he owed me an explanation. He came back and sat down.
I am wearing women’s clothing. The ceiling fan slowly whooping, constantly moving but never going any distance, and he opens his little book to the first page.
“So the war ended.” He sounded unsure. He flipped ahead a few pages, and then back a few. He might have been looking for a particular note. “The war ended.” This time he seemed sure. He paused again. It was becoming obvious that he had not intended to share this information. He flipped ahead a few pages, and looked up from the book. “I track Nazi.” He closed the book.
That was-I began, but he interrupted, “That was, as useful to you as your story was to me?” He moved to the door again. Come on! No way! I was in a bit of shock. I told him all kinds of useful things about what had happened. I felt like what the Indians must have felt when they realized they sold New York for small pocks.
“You shouldn’t stay here.” He said this as the door fell off the bottom hinge and hung bent and crooked from the top. He was a jerk.
I came back out of the bedroom wearing a pair of pink sweat pants that ended halfway down my calves.The rest of me was covered in her bathrobe. I had found and taken more pills while I dressed. He was making coffee; he knew the apartment like he had been here before.
The door was re-hung but would not close properly. The couch was returned to the center of the living room and a small bookshelf had been pulled over just enough to keep the door from swinging back open. He handed me a cup and retrieved the coffee table from the corner of the room opposite the door.
He removed his jacket before he sat down. He was wearing an solid olive green shirt. This time it was giving off the perception that his tattoos were growing off the shirt. Their pattern was puzzling to me. I couldn’t quite figure out what they were of, and the fact that they seemed to change was occupying more of my thoughts than I would ever admit.
“You a hard-ass?” He asked as he flipped his foot up onto his knee and eased back into the slashed sofa.
I am… I began, but he cut me off. “You’d have to be. First the beating, then the hospital escape. If I didn’t know any better I would think you were a hard-ass.”
I repeated back to him the first bit of the last thing he said. Didn’t know any better, I raised my voice at the end to turn it into a question.
“And you're not much for volunteering information are you? I mean considering your current state.” I touched my ribs and ran my fingers across my eye. I’m not doing to bad I thought, the doctors must have thought I had insurance or something.
“You see what I mean? Hardly a fucking word comes out of your mouth.”
I moved to the window and told him that she would be back soon, or as he had implied, they might come looking for me. He didn’t look in my direction, he had taken out his little notebook and flipped to a marked page. “ I have a guy out there, and your girl knows me. We have a minute, but the hell if I am going to spend it answering you. Tell me a story.”
I reminded him he wasn't going to hear shit from me without seeing a badge. What he provided didn’t help my muddled head. He had no badge. What he handed me was a small piece of paper the size of an index card. Printed on it was his name with military rank. Under that in larger print was, United Intelligence Organization : Special unit in charge of war crimes. It had his photo and a watermark and stamp. A metal tag clipped onto the lower right corner. A series of number ran down the right side and repeated in reverse order across the bottom. I paid less attention than I probably should have to the thing, there were swirls and underneath it all was his photo. It looked legit but I didn’t have a clue as to what kind of authority it gave him.
Big business card. I said as I handed it back to him. He shrugged and returned it to his jacket pocket. “Big organization.”
So I talked, He seemed unconvinced by most of my story. From what I can remember, here is how it went down.
She avoided my questions in a way that made it seem like it didn’t matter. She dismissed the boat story, and explained the hospital scrubs I had been wearing as something she must have brought home from work. To her, I was exactly where she left me when she left for her twelve hour shift, just worse off.
We couldn’t find any of my cloths among her things, so she put me to bed naked. Exhausted and feeling completely exposed I asked her to take us someplace where we could think everything through.
“Think what through?”
My being pulverized and her apartment being smashed to bits? She is right it must be a coincidence. So that's what I told her. She laughed, then moved around the room talking with her hands. “It’s this neighborhood! Some meth-head or something. Don’t get all conspiracy on me. Some junkies probably broke in here, fucked you up.” Her tone changed and she sat on the edge of the bed, the denial fell away and her sincerity felt like a feather pillow top, “I am sorry you got fuck up, baby. But you’re probably just concussed.”
She got up and slung her giant purse over her shoulder. She had the hippy/shabby chic thing going on. She was a nurse, a force of nature. Life was the tail to her comet.
“I am going to go buy you some cloths, and jell-o. When I get back we can call the cops and report this…” She searched for the right word but in process realized saying nothing was a big enough descriptor. With a wave of her hand she was gone.
I stayed in bed and watched the ceiling. I let my eyes play tricks on me and focused on the ‘floatys’ that swam across my field of vision. The fan in the living room was moving papers around. I could hear them shuffling across the floor.
My papers shuffling across the floor?
My thesis shuffling across the floor… I cringed. And then cringed again as I put my feet on the floor. It was time to play fifty-two card pick-up with a hundred thirty-seven pages, (and counting) of historical data and analysis.
I limped around the corner. He was standing in the doorway to the apartment, trying to re-hang the door. He looked more eclectic this time; he had added a tweed sports jacket to his ensemble. His back was turned to me, and I could see that his tattoos worked their way up the back of his neck into his hair. When he turned around he seemed as surprised to see me as I had been to see him. I covered my inheritance. Had I been famous we were in a six figure snap shot.
“Dude, really?” He itched his head under his hat. “What the hell did you come back here for?” He paused for a moment, obviously rethinking the situation.He reached into his pocket and pulled out his little note pad. “We have to talk.”
The cab ride supplied me with a second beating. Between the stolen drugs and the honest pain the ride was a blur. I gave the driver a huge tip, or stiffed him. I couldn’t figure out the bills with my one tear-filled eye. The cabbie yelled something as I slammed the door. I replied in kind and was lucky enough to find my balance before the car sped out from under my weight.
I can’t remember the stairs or how I got in the apartment. I washed some more pills down with a warm beer. The lip of the bottle tasted like strawberries. My mind fluttered with images of her sweet smile and beautiful body. I was going to have to thank her for the nicest transition into unconsciousness I've had in the past few days.
She screamed. That is how I woke up. I jumped and howled from the pain in my chest. She screamed again. She hadn’t seen me on the couch and I provided her with a second fright. Her first scare had been caused by the state of her apartment. I hadn’t noticed when I came in but the door was nearly off its hinges. And everything else must have grown legs and run from whatever came in. The place was a mess. It was a toss up for who was in worse shape, 403 cherry lane. apt 214 or me.
I’m standing in front of most of her bathroom mirror. Finally putting a picture to the pain. I was swollen and black and blue. She was trying to put things back together while she looked for her bandages and peroxide. The metaphor of the broken mirror didn’t escape me, but there was no point in putting meaning into it.
She grabbed my ass as she came into the bathroom and turned on the bathtub. I went for the beer. She had blocked the door with the couch and drew the blinds. How much trouble did she know I was in? Did she know what was going on better than me?I couldn’t honestly remember how I got onto the boat or for sure why. I would have to ask, after my bath.
The clocked ticked slow, time was stretching as long as it could for me. My left eye had completely swollen shut. I was off the street. Or, still in the street and completely naked. I assume that the bums clothing was probably in better shape than my own. But money was on the hospital. A blade of light slashed through my iris as my one good eye parted to confirm my state. Hospital. The walls were white, everything was white. I felt like a shit floating in the bowl. Moving was even harder than it had been the last time I was conscious. I was dry, tapped, broken, empty. I closed my eye and put my full weight into the bed, and waited for someone to flush.
Time passes in the normal tick, tick, tick fashion… but less like a bomb. So tick, tock, tick and so on. The nurse comes in. I start to feel better, so she must have slipped me something good. The bed inclines. Something was about to happen. I open my eye to see the nurse leave and a house of a man enter. He wore a MMA t-shirt, it was tight, like his skin had been painted. Tattoos down each arm. His hair was short under an ill fashioned fedora. He sat down in a relic of easy chair that was near the bed. My angel of death was going to take his time? I waited for the clock to slow. He produced a notepad and a pair of reading glasses. He sat his hat on the floor and put the glasses on. “Can you speak?” I responded quietly, I wasn’t sure if my voiced worked. I was glad my ears had somewhat recovered. “What is your name?” he asked. Thank you, crossed my mind. He wasn’t going to kill me. Or if he was, at least I wouldn’t be buried as a john doe, a number painted on a wooden box in a hole on the edge of town. The people responsible for my current condition knew my name. Being asked my name was a good sign that this guy didn’t come into the room with murder on his to do list. I tell him my name. He wrote it down. “We thought you were dead, the way you went down in the street. To everyone’s surprise you’re not.” He tapped his pen against the pad and looked over the top of his glasses. “So… tell me your story?” I asked him if he was a cop. He said no, he was something else. I told him I didn’t have a story and he asked for some gratitude. He heard me say if he wasn’t a cop my name was gratitude enough, and if he was a reporter he could fuck himself. “I assure you, I am law enforcement. Get some rest. We will talk again in the morning.” I assured him we might talk again if he produced a badge. He laughed and put his hat on. Once it got quiet I shut my monitors off and found my legs. I looked at my chart. Broken this, bruised that. I had fractured something in my head and my shoulder. I felt each trauma individually as I read them off my grocery list of pain. I wrap the bed sheet around my tattered hide and look for pants. I wasn’t going to stick around.
Things crash over and over. It is all work… there is too much. Noise, its loud and garbled, static that distracts. Sound that blinds. These thoughts are a giant platter, full of carefully balanced fruit, and there is nowhere to set it down. Every time you think there is a good spot there is something already there. Something someone left in your way, or something you neglected to pick up. Spinning, bending, lifting,, spinning, walking, exhausted. What is on the platter again? I can’t remember. I don’t know why I am holding this. I don’t even think its mine. I am a statue. I am pale and emotionless. There is a smile. A smile stuck on my face. Like marble I am cool and hard. Smooth, and from a distance I look perfect. Pose with me. Take our picture. Put us on your wall. That is all you get. I am on a bike and the hill looks like it will never end. I can see the top but it doesn’t get closer. Perpetually out of reach. Legs burn, the chain slips. But if I quit, if I stop, I don’t know if I will ever start again. I don't like it here. I don't want to stop.
I rode my bike to work today. I also donated blood. The ride home was spiritual. I am only on the edge of joking when I say that I nearly blacked out. Nearly. I could feel all of me at the same time, and then all the feeling would rush to my head, like waves crashing.
Everything is okay now. I did not see the future, or a past life, or a deceased loved one. But oddly enough, a deceased loved one from one of my past lives told me about the future. But their future happened to be the present so… marbles.
TV, TV, books, books. I want to sit around a campfire and tell stories like they did in long ago times. Travel by foot and horse, when rivers seemed insurmountable at times. Shoot dinner and cook it over an open fire. Surrounded by the smell of leaves and grass, shit, fire, mud, rain, animals and me.
Friday: This is my second day off. This stay home vacation began on Wednesday night with a trip into the city on the train. Mike and I went to see Satriani at the Chicago theater. ... just saying Satriani makes me think that it might have been an opera or something. Not an opera, just flat out guitar talent. There was a pretty amazing milf on the train, she locked her keys in her car in the city and was on her way back in with her extra set. I think she worked on the Oprah show. I think that is what she said. Mike would have to confirm. The walk to the show reintroduced me to shin splints and Qudoba. The first for both in my time in Illinois. The show ended, the streets were relatively empty. Skateboarders were doing their thing in front of a building. There were kids in the train station on their bikes. I honestly wonder where their parents think they are. Eight out of ten people I saw out at eleven at night in the city were younger than any of the two numbers in this sentence added together. There were also some backpackers. They were dressed like they were trying to hitch a ride on the side of a highway out west, but they were in the middle of State street. I wondered where they were going, and how the one guy could wear a backpack on his front without it falling off. And now I am wondering if I should refer to it as a front-pack. The train home was full. there were some guys from the south sitting behind me. Their conversation jumped from the porn on their telephones, to perks they get on their credit cards, to guns, and then started all over. They got off at the same stop that I did and one of them hollered, "Taking care of business like how we do in New Orleans." he then pissed on the train station. I think that illustration speaks for itself. There were another two young guys on the train. They were very greasy, as in dirty. Homeless looking. But they had cellphones. Do the homeless now have cellphones? There was an abused air about them, they seemed damaged. Homosexual almost, or confused in a way that would make them seem that way. One of them was reading a Harry Potter book to the other until he fell asleep.
I went golfing today. I had a score that would be alright if I had been bowling. I seem to be getting it down. I feel there will be a dramatic improvement in the future. Unfortunately there was little chance for odd character study today. Anything interesting could have been contributed to suburban stupidity.
