Nineteen minutes after one while walking to the bank on a Thursday morning in April, I decided I was going to murder the man walking in front of me. He was well dressed. A new white shirt with thin blue grid lines. Three button gray Italian wool suit. Four buttons on each cuff. His hair was black, neatly trimmed twice a month for fifty dollars a cut and shampoo. Caesar by way of GQ magazine and the Brits. His ears were eye level to me, the black hair tapering down his skull. If I had a gun I would have shot him in the back of the head, but I did not and instead thought of ways in which my bare hands could choke or beat the life out of him.
The woman he was walking beside was talking words. Words I did not hear and words I did not care to hear. She kept feeling her hair tied tight in a bun. She wore dark flannel slacks, clean of animal hair, and her black pumps were well worn. When he looked at her I could see he had a hawkish type of nose. He must have been half something. Turkish or Iranian or Arabic. Half white and English. She said good-bye and they parted; she going in to the foyer of an office high rise, he continuing to walk into the business district. His cell phone rang and he spoke abruptly, laughed sharply and then put the phone back into his breast pocket.
I ordered a café laté and lemon cranberry scone as he had previous to me and I sat down across from him in the Starbucks. I scanned through the daily. Taiwan was having free elections. China said they had the Neutron bomb. George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola were traveling with their family’s across Canada on a luxury train on the Canadian Pacific Railway for $7,000 dollars a day per person. The scone was dry and the pastry flaked into my lap. I could not eat anymore. Rich people make me sick.
He finished his coffee and his flipping through the financial times, and I followed him three blocks before I was rudely interrupted by a man thinking he was a priest, preaching sermon out of a book that on the spine read Dr. Zhivago.
“That’s not The Bible, that’s Doctor Zhivago!” I said, pointing out the exceptionally obvious to the clearly insane. “Look every one, look!” “Vanities of vanities, say’s the Preacher. “Vanities of vanities. All is vanities!” I said to everyone and not just the Priest. And the Priest reading Zhivago looked at me and completed the quote “What does man gain by all the toilat which he toils under the sun?”
“I’m impressed.” I said, cause I was. “I didn’t know...” I looked at the spine again. “Boris Pasternak, could write so well.” I chuckled at this. Ha. “Hey? Did you know he could write so well?” I asked a young woman who walked by. “Did you?” She was pretty, but she kept on walking without looking at me in her fast ugly way.
Then the preacher, on a roll kept on going with out my help like he wrote it himself. “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains for ever.”
He occasionally looked down at Zhivago to give him a hand.
“Yeah, yeah.” I said spurring him on. He could sure quote Eccliastes. “But how about some dialectic,” I says.
“All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.”
“Shut up. I said how about some dialectic, some conversation here buddy, huh? Enough bloody bible talk for one day. Hey look at me when I’m speaking to you, man.”
I said man just to tell him I was on the level with him. But then he keeps on going. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done. blah, blah blah.
Shut up already. And then I saw him again.
He thought he got away, but he was only going to a movie. His hair was blonder now and he looked less like a Turk or a Jew and more like Scandinavian but I knew it was the same man. He couldn’t hide from me. not even with a new suit and new haircut.
I got popcorn without butter cause it was bad for my arteries and sat in the row behind him so I could stare at his head and pretend I had a gun to blow him away.
Fifteen minutes of previews and two car commercials and I only laughed once before the main feature came on. Some stupid thing with George Clooney. Boy he makes me sick. He’s trying to be Cary Grant, but he’s not Cary Grant, Cary Grant wasn't even Cary Grant, so how is Clooney supposed to be him. Was the movie ever lousy. It was all plot and it had none. Awful, stupid, boorish dialogue that even I could write. Everybody was supposed to be so cool, and it was supposed to be so great. Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Now what a pair. The blind leading the blind. Matt was so obviously gay. I couldn’t believe how much I hated him. These rep theatres aren't much these days but I could of definitely puked over the twenty foot screen and covered it all. The popcorn was so dry it needed butter and I hacked twice because I had a piece of kernel stuck behind that thing that hangs down in my mouth at the back of my throat. I shoved my finger so far in to get it, I nearly did puke right there in the empty seat next to me.
The movie was over when I work up with the white credits scrolling up past the ripped and repaired part of the screen and Dolby Sound being so important in this rotten little theatre like it just needed it’s own title.
The man in front of me was gone.
It took me a while to realize that’s why I watched this crapfest at all. Only one couple remained and you could just tell she was going to imagine Brad Pitt giving it to her hard while her boyfriend was mounting her softly and limp after this. “Get a room.” I said, but not too loudly as sound travels really well in a theatre.
I was lucky. I found the man pissing in the urinal. I stood next to him and relieved myself and looked at the blue crust filled tile in front of me while my piss splashed all over his white leather loafers. He didn’t even notice. That’s what kind of guy this was. After he got a call and talked in the bathroom and then made a notation on his Blackberry. He deserved to die.
I followed him to his car, a goddamn German designed Wündercar. Who’d have thunk. I picked up a good sized rock near the sign that said twenty-five dollars a day, Two hundred-forty a month. For parking.
That’s why I take the bus.
The guy came to his passenger door and I picked up the pace. He turned toward the sound of me lunging at him and I hit him in the temple with the rock kinda hard.
“Open the door, or you’re dead.”
He just moaned a lot.
“Open the door and get in!” I grabbed his keys and opened it for him shoving him in. I ran around to the other side and opened the other door and I got in next to him. I must have hit him harder than I thought because he was pretty stunned and bleeding all over his white and pink checked collar. “Drive or I’ll blast your fucking nuts off.’ I had the rock in my pocket. “Don’t you have any Kleenex, in here? Hey. Give me you hankie?” He did slowly.
I wiped his face of blood.
“Yeah, now you look better, now drive!” I said pointing the rock through my jacket. He started the car.
“Where?” is all he said.
“Where?” I said. “Where do you live.”
“I can’t?”
“My wife is home.”
“Your wife, huh? She pretty?”
He hesitated.
“Forgot your wedding band today? Go the fuck home!” They all live alone.
He was trembling and shaky but all in all he did good. He didn’t make any faces when he was stopped at a light. I watched him all the way.
“Yeah this car aint so hot once your inside. Maybe if it was a Mercedes, that would be something.”
He never said a word.
“How much do you make a year?”
“After taxes?” he said.
“Yeah after taxes.”
“Fifty-six.”
I whistled. “Fifty-six huh. After taxes? Not bad. Not bad at all. What do you do? Stock exchange? You a broker.”
“Investment banker.”
“You have a lot of savings?”
He didn’t answer and I laughed at him.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you or torture you, I just need to lay low for a while until the heat dies down,” I lied to reassure him.
“Yeah. I shot a security guard in a botched jewel job.” I said. I was having fun with this. “I’m pretty sure they got a good look at me, so I have to make sure I’m not on the six o’clock news.”
“I don’t have cable.”
“Do you have the internet?
“Yeah.”
“Good. I need to check my email. See if anyone has tried to find me while we plan our escape. Might have to go to Guatemala. I have friends there.”
He lived in one of those building where you need to go underground for parking. The big steal gate goes up and we go through. His parking spot was E-11.
He turned the car off.
“Look, I’ll give you my wallet and you can take whatever you can get and I’ll give you 24 hours before I phone the police, to be fair.”
This is what he said to me. To be fair.
“Yeah? Give me your wallet then.”
He did. I opened it up. His name was Jerry.
“Jerry?”
“Yeah.”
“Jerry, get out of the car and take me to your apartment. And do it slowly and carefully or it’ll be two men I kill today.”
He got out of the car and so did I. I closed my door and he the alarm beeped.
“Easy”, he said. “Just the alarm.”
“I bet you don’t want it stolen?”
He was quiet.
“Don’t worry Jerry, I don't like your car.”
On the bottom floor we passed some old coot carrying a bag. I helped her with it to her door and made small talk all the way. She thought I was so nice, she even gave me a five dollar bill just to say how pleased she was. I said, no, I couldn’t, honestly, and then I took her money. She’ll have a story to tell over tea and cookies.
The elevator ride was a long one. He wasn’t high, it was just slow.
“Were you skipping out on work?”
“I started work at five.”
“Oh?” I said. Like I cared. He should of went straight home.
Twelve thirty-eight was his apartment number. Twelve thirty-eight.
“Wow. Not too bad at all Jerry. You even have a view, sort of. Do you always shop at Ikea?” This was to goad him cause he looked Scandinavian. He probably did shop at Ikea. “You watch a lot of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy don’t you, Jerry.”
“I have to go to the washroom,” said Jerry.
“Ahh ahh ahh. Give me the cell phone in your pocket and your Blackberry.”
“I don’t have a Blackberry.”
“Give it to me. I saw you use it you slime.”
He did. One cell. One Blackberry.
“That’s a good boy. Now go pee. If you try anything funny. Your dead.”
“Yeah, so you say.” He closed the bathroom door and I heard him lock it. I laughed at that too. I already saw his penis in the John. It was uncircumcised.
I looked around his place. Barely any family photos or anything. This guy just worked that’s all he did. In his bedroom I found a line of four condoms next to the bed. Wishful thinking.
His closet was full of nice suits. Holt Renfrew nice. Matching shirts and ties. A sports jacket. Pattern t-shirts. A Yankees cap. Black Puma tennis shoes. Head tennis racket. What a faggot.
I took the tennis racket out of its case and started swinging it when I heard the toilet flush. It occurred to me that maybe he stuffed a razor in his sleeve to cut me with.
“I hope you washed your hands,” said I. “Put them up. Up over your head. Walk to the kitchen.”
He started to walk slowly. He was a real pain-in-the-ass this guy. The world would be done a favour if he killed him.
‘Do you have any rope or string.”
“Closet.”
“Sit on the chair hands up.”
He sat. Hands up.
“Take your blazer off.”
He did.
The closet was full of useless garbage and household cleaners but I found a roll of hemp and duck tape.
I tied his hands behind him and his ankles to the chair legs, real tight like so he couldn’t get out if he tried. Then I ducked him to the chair.
“Yeah, now I feel safe”, I said. I took the bloody rock out of my pocket. “Some gun huh.”
The guy could sure give a look with those buggy blue eyes.
“Anything to eat.”
“Help yourself.”
“Don’t mind if I do. If I do if I do.’ The fridge was empty. “Jes-susdon’t you eat.”
“I eat out.”
“Cheddar Mild, expired November. Yuck. Milk?” I sniffed it. “Seems good.” That’s what I needed a glass a milk.
“Do you want some?”
“No thanks.”
“Hey, I might not ever feed you again, so this is a darling offer.’
“If you put it that way.”
I poured him and myself a glass of milk. The tumblers said Caban. What a guy. I had to feed him milk and I felt kinda weird doing it.
“Alright that’s enough. What else you got? Cereal. Lots of cereal. Milk and cereal. Hmm.” I poured myself some crispy oats that made the milk turn purple.
I went out on the balcony and ate and watched him from inside. Twelve floors up isn’t too bad but he wasn’t facing the water. Still I could see a lot. A taxi picked up a woman in red. Kids on bicycles. A man walked a dog and waited to pick up after him then disposed of the baggy by throwing it into a wooded area. Different angle. All the same.
“You ever use this bar-b-que?”
“Not much, no.”
“Shame.”
“Seems to be,” he said.
In his living room he had a Plasma TV.
“Shit, I thought you said you didn’t have cable,” I said as I turned it on and flicked through two-hundred channels.
“I don’t it’s satellite.”
“Semantics. Do you watch it much?”
“Just the sports channels.”
“You have a TV like this and you only watch sports?”
“High Definition soccer looks pretty good.”
“I bet.” I bet he watches a lot of Gay Porno.
I was bored so I turn it off. I don't like TV in regular definition or otherwise.
“We’ll turn it on at six to watch the news.”
I laid on his sofa, white leather of course. He had one sofa and a chair that was half red fabric, half white coloured steel, like a fancy lawn chair. He read all the architecture magazines. They were on his coffee table with Golf Monthly. The table was round and clear plastic three inches thick on a pedestal, of the same composite material, whatever it was. Special plastic If I had to guess. Awful.
“What a waste.”
The man was quiet.
Then the phone rang and I shot up.
“Who’s that?”
“How should I know. Probably someone wondering why I wasn’t meeting them for golf.”
“Shut up. Stop lying,”
“No it's the truth.”
Then the answering machine went on. “Hi, Jer, its Monica, hope we’re still on for tonight, see you at seven.”
‘Golf, huh?”
“Honest.”
“You haven’t said one honest thing to me since I met you.”
“I think under the circumstances, I’m doing pretty good.”
“Oh, really?” I said.
“You assaulted and kidnapped me.”
“Don’t forget there is still another murder.”
“Murder?”
“The killing of another human, and despite your taste in things, you are human.”
“Listen man, please. Don’t.”
Jerry started to get really upset here and was crying and started to plead for his life but I put duck tape over his mouth so I could think for a second.
“Shhhhhh. Shhhhh. Just calm down. I’m just joking with you,” I lied once again. Now, I was starting to get a bit bothered by how weepy and scared the man was of him.
“I’ll put the TV on for you. It’ll relax you. I’m gonna take a nap.”
I put and left the first sports channel he found. It was the least I could do for Jerry and then climbed into his bed andI slept for a while.
I awoke and everything was black. A woman’s voice was in the room. It was distorted and sounded far away and hollow. I bet it was some smart cop who left his radio on. I got up quietly. Jerry’s alarm clock said eight eighteen.
I had slept for four hours.
I looked around the room for something to bash the cop’s face in and escape. I was breathing heavy but was excited and scared at the same time.
I found a putter. It would do. It looked like Jerry practiced golf when he couldn’t sleep. A glass was on the floor and a golf ball in it.
Everything was dark except for the light from the TV.
It wasn’t the cops. Brazilian’s woman’s kickboxing. Two ugly women in face protectors kicked the hell out of each other. One had her hair in a braided dreadlock. The other shorn clean. He could see their muscle structure. It made him sick that a woman look like that.
Jerry was on the floor turned over. He tried to roll his way out of the chair. He looked silly.
“Jerry. Jesus. What are you doing on the floor. Let me help you up” I said. It was the least I could do.
I turned on a floor light and turned off the Plasma TV.
“Ha. How long you been down there. I’m surprised you didn’t escape. Huh? What’s that Jerry?”
He tore of the duck tape.
He said something unrepeatable to me.
“What a mouth on you. Do you want to the tape back on.”
He shook his head when he realized that no duck was better than some duck.
“You have four new messages,” I said as I pressed play.
“Jerry, bud. It’s Bill. Missed you on the links today. I’ll catch you tomorrow. See ya.”
“Hey Jerry, I’m sorry about calling you a liar. Look like you were going to play golf.”
“Hi, Jerry. It’s Phil. I was wondering if we could meet for coffee at the end of the week and discuss my margins. I’m free Thursday afternoon if it’s good for you its good for me. Email me. Alright. If there is a problem maybe I can work something out. Call me on my cell.”
“Boy you’re popular. I wish I had this many friends,” I said.
Jerry just looked at me. He didn’t think he was very popular. If he’d had been more popular, maybe someone would have called the police.
“Hi Jerry. It’s Lisa I’m in town so if your free maybe we can hook up. I need some of your loving. I’m staying at the Sheraton. Room 1019. If want. Just drop by before work. Byeeeeeee. – Oh that the one on at the Wall Centre, you know the really ugly building that’s half clear glass and half black glass like the architect changed their mind half way. The room is nice though. You’ll love it. Byeeeeee.”
“You dog. Jerry. That sounds like a good thing to me. Room 1019, Huh. Lisa is her name, huh. Maybe I’ll give her a go. I’ve never been to the Wall Centre.”
“You sonofabitch, stay away from her...” Jerry tried to lunge a me but he was tied to a chair. I hit him a few times and he shut right up again.
“Look what you made me do. I’ve got blood all over my hands. If you can’t make civil conversation, then you’re going to be taped up.”
I taped his mouth a few times a round and a round and then used the washroom and washed my hands and peed.
I looked bad, like I needed a shower. I had blood on my black t-shirt, and I never even noticed it.
I took a quick shower. I used his soap and shampoo and conditioner. He had a nice smelling body wash. Now I even smelled like him. He had a shaver that was waterproof so I used that as well. I dried off and hung the towels up neatly. No sense in being a slob. With a shave I looked human again. My hair was kinda long and shaggy. I cut it short with his scissors. Now it looked like his except I cut mine myself and he paid fifty-five dollars for his. Now my hair was all over the place and into everything. It grossed me out.
“Hey Jer, I’m going to change into your clothes if that’s okay with you. Thanks. Oh, do have a broom or something. Can’t talk huh, it’s alright I’ll find it.”
I found a broom and a dust pan in the hall closet and tried my best to clean up most of my hair. No use in leaving too much DNA.
Jerry was a bit taller than I was, maybe an inch or two, but I was about fifteen pounds skinnier than him because unlike him, I didn’t like to go to the gym and be ogled by other men. Push ups were good enough for me. His clothes fit though, they just hung loose. I put on a nice blue pinstriped suit and put on a white shirt with thegrid lines he loved so much. They were pale green. I found a nice tie that matched. I hadn’t worn a tie for a while. Years probably. I used to wear them in church before I stopped going after my Mother’s funeral. I tied a full Windsor. All I needed was a little hair gel.
“Jerry, what do you think. Pretty spiffy huh. I bet if I went into your work no one would notice me. Ha. I know I need a bit of gel in the hair, just a minute.” I brought back pomade and wax.
“What do you use?” I held the two in my hands.
Jerry moved his head toward the wax.
“Wax, huh. Wax?”
I touched his hair it was indeed waxy. He had sweated through his shirt and had these big damp ellipses under his arms.
“Hot?” I undid his tie for him.
“Better?”
He nodded.
“Good.”
I read the directions of the wax and it said to put a bit of wax in the palm with two fingers and heat it up and then rub it in the hair at the roots.
I looked at him as I styled my hair then I went back into the bathroom to look in the mirror. Did I ever look suave.
“Hey Jerry, now I look like you,” I said from the bathroom. “Did you hear me,” I faced him. “I said. Now I look like you.”
His cell phone rang and we both looked over at it.
“Who’s that Jerry?” He didn’t answer because he couldn’t with the duck tape over his mouth.
The phone rang twice and we both waited for it to end. Then the buzzer went.
Blleeeeeeeeeeep.
“Jerry?”
The channel switched to a black and white close circuit monitor and Monica, a short woman with dark hair (it could have been red it was black and white) stared into the camera. She had nice black eyes.
“Jerry, It’s Monica. You there? We were supposed to meet at seven and you’re not picking up your phone. You in? Jerry?”
Jerry looked at the TV and I realized this place had a close circuit jobby.
I went into the kitchen and took a long paring knife out of a stainless steel block. The blade was nine inches long.
When I brought it near Jerry, he pulled back as if I was going to cut him.
“I’m just cutting off the duck, Jerry. Don’t get all ancy.”
I tore it off and he shouted in pure pain and then took a long breath of air into his lungs.
“You done?” I said. I still held the knife at him.
“What do you want me to do?”
What a bargaining tool.
His cell phone rang again. On the TV she was on her cell and she reached up and Blllllllllleeeeeeeeeeep came the buzzer inside.
She leaned forward and said “Jerry?”
“Tell her you’re sick.”
“She won’t believe that. I saw her a noon. I work with her.”
“Convince her.” I showed him the knife just in case he forgot.
“You’ll have to cut me out of this. The phone won’t reach.” he said.
I cut him out, because she was making me frightened and I didn’t know what to do. I was losing my nerve.
“Okay, tell her you’re sick.”
“Just give me some room” said Jer.
“Just do it.
He hesitated and took a long look at her on the TV.
She turned her back and started to walk away.
“Jerry!”
He picked up the phone. “Monica!”
She turned around and rushed to the phone. She looked so relieved.
“Hey, Jerry, what the hell’s going on...”
“Hey, uh, I’m sorry. I was totally asleep.”
“That’s okay,” she said in this sweet cherry concerned tone of voice.
“Can I come up?”
I shook my head. Noooooooooooo! I pointed the knife at his face.
“I’m not feeling very well Monica. How about I see you tomorrow. We’ll do lunch.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
Jerry paused a little to long so I put the knife against his throat.
“No, honey, um.”
The guy was going to cry on me.
“Yeah, uh, oh, Monica, it’s not a good time for me. I don’t feel so good, uh, I can’t talk now... I’llsee you tomorrow. OK?”
“You sure you’re okay? You don’t sound good at all.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Alright. Nite.”
She hung up and she left, real disappointed.
(in progress)