Sometimes I think about contingencies. Little branches I'll never know because I've made choices and, for better or for worse, I'm bound to them in a way thicker than a shoddy set of nuptials. Forks in the dirt road where I stopped for a while before making my turn, or freeway exits I blew by without ever noticing. Crack open a modern philosophy textbook and most of them will probably say that your choices make up who you are. That is, if they have the balls to tackle the subject.
Me, I've got the balls. And I can't help but sit here bothered by that idea--I mean, take away the choices and what's left? Why are people so different if it's mathematically likely that some of us will make all the same choices if you limit our options enough?
Well, I'm not much of a thinker. I've made my life-altering choice. I'll guess I'll trust defining that choice to the eggheads. For better or for worse, that's who I am.
I fell off the tree early. At the ripe old age of thirty-three, I made a mistake. I shot from the hip, my crotch and my gut swaggering me through life before my head could catch up.
I made my choice. All the rest is backwash. Waiting. Sitting. Running. You're always waiting, and the bitch of it is that when you open the door, you get the lion or the lady. There's only door number one. If you open it to the furry carnivorous fuck, you don't even get to spend your last moments thinking about how close you were to the right choice, to door number two.
Right now I'm waiting for a phonecall. It might be Walter Clayton, the mid-level executive at a big news network with some clout looking to get a little more topheavy, throw some muscle around. I sent him the tape. Of course, it might be them. It'll be a new trick, no doubt. It won't be another guy pretending to be fighting the same cause. No, I went down that road in Sacramento. It won't be a beautiful woman trying to pick me up in some dive, either. That was Phoenix. Not an enthusiastic journalist who's been chasing me for the last six months. Portland. The funny thing about the highway to ditching gullibility is it ends in a U-turn.
Whatever their game, it'll be their A-game. Somebody will be chatting me up and suddenly a silver minivan pulls up to the front of your building posing as a drycleaner that delivers. Maybe a florist. It is February, after all. You can't outhink them, but you can prepare. The ladder on my fire escape is rigged to drop right to the ground if I release a catch. There's a ladder on the balcony, and the next roof over is a rooftop patio for a hotel with an elevator that drops right to ground level. Public places suck. You have to keep everything in an inside jacket pocket and keep it zipped up, or one of them is going to swipe it. You can count on that. As sure as you can count on nuclear fusion in the sun and BS about lower taxes from every politician.
The business of running is tough because it's a second full-time job that you work two-four-seven. Ambience is your friend and your enemy. Every dish that breaks next door, you have to notice. Every car that drives by, every set of headlights that wash across your window--you have to run and check. After a while you get used to spotting the various ways they stick out by trying to fit in. You don't get used to paying attention to everything, embracing it and fearing it at the same time, though. You reach for your fifteen shot nine-millimeter handgun every time you wake up. You train it on the door when someone knocks. The funny thing about guns is that they're our most crude invention--our extension of the club with bones jutting out--and yet they're the most advanced security system we've got.
Every set of footsteps that pass your door, whether they pause or not, you have to analyze. Male or female? Weight? Confidence? Could I shoot this guy from thirty feet away while running? Could I get away from him if he got a hold of me? You have to notice everything that happens around you, because the day you stop calculating is the day they would've given themselves away.
Then you're long gone.
You're always waiting. Even while you're sleeping. You can be hopping over a fence or bodychecking some goomba in a three-piece suit out of your way, but you're always waiting. The funny thing about what you want and what you fear is they travel on the same channels. Probably rub shoulders while traveling, none the wiser. The bicycle that brakes hard in your alley might be a contact slingshotting a paper ball with a time and spot to meet, but it might also be an uzi-toting health nut. Those vicious bastards, they're my favorite paradox. The only thing that keeps them from drinking your blood is the empty calories.
A hard rap rattles my old door in its frame. I tense, slipping my gun out from under the pillow, lithe as a snake. Four rapid knocks follow; I relax and drop the gun on the hardwood as an envelope slides under the door. Just the landlord with the rent cheque. I worked out a deal with him months ago. A nice old guy. He thinks I'm nuts.
Nonetheless, I'll leave the letter there a while. See if it turns brown. After all, they might've gotten to Old Man Stanley. I'm not sure if I've got the right idea for testing a package for anthrax, but it works for me. I'll watch the tape when I open it, just in case. That way I can die thinking about the lady. If it comes to that.
The funny thing about running is it's more like skiing. You might break your neck on a tree. You won't know what the hell happened until the mist settles.
I still remember when I got sent with Linda to go interview Don Smythe, the crazy old fart. He was always babbling. About getting grabbed, about being vivisected. I remember Linda, hair thick and blond--not Barbie blond, the natural, almost white kind. I remember her perfume, how it smelled like bourban and was a bit too strong. I remember it so well because smelled the same after they shot her. I got it all on video, of course. We heard the racket, walked up with the camcorder running and Linda whispering her report. She should've just been quite. Not long after I jumped up and saw them cap Long Don Silvers, Linda's face smashed into my forearm, rubbing her lips all over it before dropping to the lawn, her lipstick sticking to the gobs of blood that ribcaged my arm.
I never knew just how good I was at running until I tried it that day. The funny thing about high school track is it's as effective in training you to be a warrior as it was in ancient Greece. Luckily I didn't have to run in a toga.
Contingencies. Leisure time is dead. Whenever I'm done plotting my next move or escape plans, I immediately fantasize about if I answered affirmative to the message I got that night, offering money and asylum. I remember that night so well, because I remember the palm tree outside my hotel slapping the window. I remember snorting, figuring they had a different idea of "asylum" than me. Maybe they were telling the truth, though. How's that for a parallel?
A pigeon lands in the birdbath out on the balcony. A worm rests in its beak, long dead, and it scuttles about, dipping its head in the water, its neck craning in fifty directions per second in that way only birds can handle. The feathers on its wings are ruffled, wetted in another birdbath and air-dried since. Pigeons fascinate me. They carry the baggage of every disease we've got and meander from place to place without purpose, and they still find ways to carry on.
Sometimes this makes me hopeful. Sometimes this makes me spiteful.
What did I owe Smythe, anyway? I didn't know him. And Linda was a bitch. Smythe probably owed some money. Took out some loans to make one of those big publicized babbles of uber-insanity he was fond of. Network TV isn't cheap. I know. It cost me a thousand bucks just to get Burke to look at the tape.
Maybe I've just got a mob hit on tape. A few overzealous loan sharks. Why should I believe Smythe over the government, and every newspaper in the country? I don't know. For whatever reason, I do. Then again, I'm not much of a thinker.
Doubt comes in numbers, though--so it can always blindside you. I wonder if anyone would even take the tape seriously. Thousands haven't--I'm pretty much banking on the Law of Averages. Maybe nobody will ever believe me. Maybe I'll go right to Canada and the eskimos won't even touch it. After all, I don't have the lights in the sky on my tape. Just proof that people get pissed off, and when they do so, can be pretty rash. At best, I've probably got the NSA eliminating a terrorist threat.
The funny thing about evidence is you never know if you have it.
Whatever. I've made my choice. The rest is backwash.
The phone rings, the old receiver clunking and jingling in its loose holder. My hands shaky, I answer it and sit poised to dive through the open window at a moment's notice.
"Yeah?"
"Mr. Black?"
"That's me," I mutter, jeering at my own lack of creativity. I've never been much of a thinker.
"This is Walter Clayton, we met briefly?" He hesitates, confused as to how anyone could not trounce with joy at the sound of his name, probably. He doesn't know I'm just checking to see if his voice matches up. "Hello? Mr. Black?"
It matches up. "I'm here."
"Yes, well," Clayton clears is throat, probably fiddling with his spectacles. "I regret to inform you that I don't find enough compelling evidence to open a journalistic investigation."
Straight from the Handbook of Rejections 101. I wonder if they got to him or if he's really that ignorant.
He senses the tension. "Would you like me to return your tape?"
"Keep it." It's just a copy. "Something to remember me by."
"Um. Yes." The silence says it all. He might have been pressured, but either way, he doesn't believe me. "Goodbye."
The line's dead. He's made his choice.
I glance out at the pigeon, grimacing. If he can meander, so can I. Fuck it. Canada better have understanding landlords.
The phone rings. Somehow, it has this tone of urgence to it.
The funny thing about the highway to ditching gullibility is it ends in a U-turn. I grab the phone and steel myself.
That ladder latch better work.
-I
Me, I've got the balls. And I can't help but sit here bothered by that idea--I mean, take away the choices and what's left? Why are people so different if it's mathematically likely that some of us will make all the same choices if you limit our options enough?
Well, I'm not much of a thinker. I've made my life-altering choice. I'll guess I'll trust defining that choice to the eggheads. For better or for worse, that's who I am.
I fell off the tree early. At the ripe old age of thirty-three, I made a mistake. I shot from the hip, my crotch and my gut swaggering me through life before my head could catch up.
I made my choice. All the rest is backwash. Waiting. Sitting. Running. You're always waiting, and the bitch of it is that when you open the door, you get the lion or the lady. There's only door number one. If you open it to the furry carnivorous fuck, you don't even get to spend your last moments thinking about how close you were to the right choice, to door number two.
Right now I'm waiting for a phonecall. It might be Walter Clayton, the mid-level executive at a big news network with some clout looking to get a little more topheavy, throw some muscle around. I sent him the tape. Of course, it might be them. It'll be a new trick, no doubt. It won't be another guy pretending to be fighting the same cause. No, I went down that road in Sacramento. It won't be a beautiful woman trying to pick me up in some dive, either. That was Phoenix. Not an enthusiastic journalist who's been chasing me for the last six months. Portland. The funny thing about the highway to ditching gullibility is it ends in a U-turn.
Whatever their game, it'll be their A-game. Somebody will be chatting me up and suddenly a silver minivan pulls up to the front of your building posing as a drycleaner that delivers. Maybe a florist. It is February, after all. You can't outhink them, but you can prepare. The ladder on my fire escape is rigged to drop right to the ground if I release a catch. There's a ladder on the balcony, and the next roof over is a rooftop patio for a hotel with an elevator that drops right to ground level. Public places suck. You have to keep everything in an inside jacket pocket and keep it zipped up, or one of them is going to swipe it. You can count on that. As sure as you can count on nuclear fusion in the sun and BS about lower taxes from every politician.
The business of running is tough because it's a second full-time job that you work two-four-seven. Ambience is your friend and your enemy. Every dish that breaks next door, you have to notice. Every car that drives by, every set of headlights that wash across your window--you have to run and check. After a while you get used to spotting the various ways they stick out by trying to fit in. You don't get used to paying attention to everything, embracing it and fearing it at the same time, though. You reach for your fifteen shot nine-millimeter handgun every time you wake up. You train it on the door when someone knocks. The funny thing about guns is that they're our most crude invention--our extension of the club with bones jutting out--and yet they're the most advanced security system we've got.
Every set of footsteps that pass your door, whether they pause or not, you have to analyze. Male or female? Weight? Confidence? Could I shoot this guy from thirty feet away while running? Could I get away from him if he got a hold of me? You have to notice everything that happens around you, because the day you stop calculating is the day they would've given themselves away.
Then you're long gone.
You're always waiting. Even while you're sleeping. You can be hopping over a fence or bodychecking some goomba in a three-piece suit out of your way, but you're always waiting. The funny thing about what you want and what you fear is they travel on the same channels. Probably rub shoulders while traveling, none the wiser. The bicycle that brakes hard in your alley might be a contact slingshotting a paper ball with a time and spot to meet, but it might also be an uzi-toting health nut. Those vicious bastards, they're my favorite paradox. The only thing that keeps them from drinking your blood is the empty calories.
A hard rap rattles my old door in its frame. I tense, slipping my gun out from under the pillow, lithe as a snake. Four rapid knocks follow; I relax and drop the gun on the hardwood as an envelope slides under the door. Just the landlord with the rent cheque. I worked out a deal with him months ago. A nice old guy. He thinks I'm nuts.
Nonetheless, I'll leave the letter there a while. See if it turns brown. After all, they might've gotten to Old Man Stanley. I'm not sure if I've got the right idea for testing a package for anthrax, but it works for me. I'll watch the tape when I open it, just in case. That way I can die thinking about the lady. If it comes to that.
The funny thing about running is it's more like skiing. You might break your neck on a tree. You won't know what the hell happened until the mist settles.
I still remember when I got sent with Linda to go interview Don Smythe, the crazy old fart. He was always babbling. About getting grabbed, about being vivisected. I remember Linda, hair thick and blond--not Barbie blond, the natural, almost white kind. I remember her perfume, how it smelled like bourban and was a bit too strong. I remember it so well because smelled the same after they shot her. I got it all on video, of course. We heard the racket, walked up with the camcorder running and Linda whispering her report. She should've just been quite. Not long after I jumped up and saw them cap Long Don Silvers, Linda's face smashed into my forearm, rubbing her lips all over it before dropping to the lawn, her lipstick sticking to the gobs of blood that ribcaged my arm.
I never knew just how good I was at running until I tried it that day. The funny thing about high school track is it's as effective in training you to be a warrior as it was in ancient Greece. Luckily I didn't have to run in a toga.
Contingencies. Leisure time is dead. Whenever I'm done plotting my next move or escape plans, I immediately fantasize about if I answered affirmative to the message I got that night, offering money and asylum. I remember that night so well, because I remember the palm tree outside my hotel slapping the window. I remember snorting, figuring they had a different idea of "asylum" than me. Maybe they were telling the truth, though. How's that for a parallel?
A pigeon lands in the birdbath out on the balcony. A worm rests in its beak, long dead, and it scuttles about, dipping its head in the water, its neck craning in fifty directions per second in that way only birds can handle. The feathers on its wings are ruffled, wetted in another birdbath and air-dried since. Pigeons fascinate me. They carry the baggage of every disease we've got and meander from place to place without purpose, and they still find ways to carry on.
Sometimes this makes me hopeful. Sometimes this makes me spiteful.
What did I owe Smythe, anyway? I didn't know him. And Linda was a bitch. Smythe probably owed some money. Took out some loans to make one of those big publicized babbles of uber-insanity he was fond of. Network TV isn't cheap. I know. It cost me a thousand bucks just to get Burke to look at the tape.
Maybe I've just got a mob hit on tape. A few overzealous loan sharks. Why should I believe Smythe over the government, and every newspaper in the country? I don't know. For whatever reason, I do. Then again, I'm not much of a thinker.
Doubt comes in numbers, though--so it can always blindside you. I wonder if anyone would even take the tape seriously. Thousands haven't--I'm pretty much banking on the Law of Averages. Maybe nobody will ever believe me. Maybe I'll go right to Canada and the eskimos won't even touch it. After all, I don't have the lights in the sky on my tape. Just proof that people get pissed off, and when they do so, can be pretty rash. At best, I've probably got the NSA eliminating a terrorist threat.
The funny thing about evidence is you never know if you have it.
Whatever. I've made my choice. The rest is backwash.
The phone rings, the old receiver clunking and jingling in its loose holder. My hands shaky, I answer it and sit poised to dive through the open window at a moment's notice.
"Yeah?"
"Mr. Black?"
"That's me," I mutter, jeering at my own lack of creativity. I've never been much of a thinker.
"This is Walter Clayton, we met briefly?" He hesitates, confused as to how anyone could not trounce with joy at the sound of his name, probably. He doesn't know I'm just checking to see if his voice matches up. "Hello? Mr. Black?"
It matches up. "I'm here."
"Yes, well," Clayton clears is throat, probably fiddling with his spectacles. "I regret to inform you that I don't find enough compelling evidence to open a journalistic investigation."
Straight from the Handbook of Rejections 101. I wonder if they got to him or if he's really that ignorant.
He senses the tension. "Would you like me to return your tape?"
"Keep it." It's just a copy. "Something to remember me by."
"Um. Yes." The silence says it all. He might have been pressured, but either way, he doesn't believe me. "Goodbye."
The line's dead. He's made his choice.
I glance out at the pigeon, grimacing. If he can meander, so can I. Fuck it. Canada better have understanding landlords.
The phone rings. Somehow, it has this tone of urgence to it.
The funny thing about the highway to ditching gullibility is it ends in a U-turn. I grab the phone and steel myself.
That ladder latch better work.
-I
