The way out

Choices, choices, choices.

I’m standing outside the supermarket entrance when I get the feeling again. A numb, prickling carpet rolls across my back, sends electric fingers up into my hair. Tiptoeing the light pooling on the ice-grouted tiles, a shudder shakes itself loose from the pelvis. My hand clutches tight around the phone, turning the screen dark.

The feelings—sensations, whatever— have been around some time now. It used to freak me the fuck out-- especially when it happened while I was waiting at a crosswalk or a subway platform late at night. But you get used to things. Even the feeling of creeping dread.

What happens now is different, though. The usual vague sensation has been turned up. Amplified. A legion of hair-thin legs trundling over my nerve endings. My eyes had already lifted themselves from the phone’s screen when the feeling came up—their natural impulse, used to it or not. Now my head snaps up to join them, taking in the parking lot.

It's almost closing time. Any other day, the lot would be filled to quarter capacity. Now only a dozen or so cars remain, more than half no doubt belonging to the supermarket personnel. It’s the fog, which adds an unwelcome, clammy embrace to the teeth-drilling temperatures. Moisture smokes and swirls icy-white against the floodlights, puts the fade to anything more than ten feet away. The only movement comes from an old broad huddled in a tan wool coat pushing her shopping cart across the wet asphalt, wheels hissing as she goes. Otherwise, there’s nothing. Just the strange, tamped-down quiet only fog and snow can provide.

I stay on the woman for a beat or two, before I turn to the phone again. After a glance inside, I unlock the screen and log back into my banking app. While the wheel of fate spins, I bounce on the balls of my feet.

You know your life’s a party when you need to check your balance getting groceries. You know it’s fucking epic when there’s thirty-two dollars in your account and you’re only eight days away from the last paycheck.

I blow out my cheeks, turning to face the sliding doors. Slipping the phone in my coat pocket, I’m wondering how much time you get for shoplifting, when another wave of gooseflesh rolls across my skin. The sensation’s just as strong and urgent as the first time. Unable to resist, I throw a glance back over my shoulder, sure it’ll turn out to be nothing again. And it is. Just then, twin boiling beams come alive—the high beams on the old broad’s car. As they rake across the lot, they flash me a blinding bluish-white on their way to the exit.

I take a half step, my heart stuttering, going for distance. But even with the burning coins that have been placed across my eyes, I can see that there’s nothing there now. At the edge of my vision, the old broad’s taillights bleed a fuming red for an instant before she pulls out into the street. Then there’s only the empty lot and the fog’s phantom whispers hovering at the absolute threshold of my hearing.

The feelings aside, I know it could’ve been something stupid, like the car’s high beams throwing up shadows. I know they can’t always be trusted-- that they are, in fact, wrong most of the time-- but it doesn’t hurt to be a little paranoid. I think about the guy who got jumped at the bus stop across the street two weeks ago, rapped on the head with an empty bottle of Popov for two twenties and a half pack of Camels. Yeah, it doesn’t hurt to jump. Even at shadows.

I almost do, when I start backing up and the electronic doors open with a gasping breath. Between startled blinks, the afterimage flashes again and again. The figure in the fur-lined hood I saw standing in the shadows of the shopping cart corral.

---

By the time I’m back outside, a dozen cans of cheap beer and two boxes of frozen hamburgers swinging from the bag in my hand, the whole thing’s down to a faint tickle in the back of my mind. In its place burns a thin, hot flame of resentment for the way I’m driven towards the register with spearpoint eyes. For the pretty cashier who can’t mask her annoyance when I pay for half with a fist-worth of crumpled bills and coins, and thrusts out the receipt with a look that wants to give me the up-and-down but somehow doesn’t. The comment I want to make is that she ought to try the food delivery business: close calls rushing orders and twenty block drops for a buck fifty in tips. Like her, I manage to hold back. But the words go down like a hot coal, glowing bright behind my chest as I fumble with the coat’s zipper, and the bag nails me in the shin. Once, twice. On the second bounce, the lights wink out behind me.

I make a show of shaking my head and stalk away from the entrance. Thoughts flicker like knives, moving to the beat of my feet, the breath fuming in the freezing night air. The bag rustles, bounces of my thigh and corkscrews the handles. Fuel for the fire.

But it’s out long before I’m even halfway. In the fog’s bubble, the world pulls away. My own footsteps snap back harsh and loud, become an unseen presence that leans in too close. The night has gotten even colder, tendrils of mist slipping through layers without effort, wrapping close against the bones.

I shiver when a black hole lined with fur opens in my mind.

Despite the air now choked with invisible possibilities, I manage to keep it to a brisk walk until I make it to the sidewalk. An unchecked glance goes off across the street, where the hollow outline of the bus stop juts from the sea of white.

Then I’m running. Running towards the floating eye of the traffic light in the distance.

---

Home is a sixth floor one bedroom, second from the left. Looking at it from across the street, the building looks like a concrete dresser with the drawers inched open. Fitting, considering the amount of break-ins we’ve had this year.

As I cross at a diagonal, I spare a sullen sideways glance for the red Civic sagging on its tires by the curb. The glittering crust of ice across its windshield seems to grin at me. I down the last of my beer in four long swallows, then throw the crumpled can in an . It bounces off, clattering away in the street beyond. After a wet burp by way of thanks, I slouch past.

I know it’s pointless, but it’s David looming large in my mind as I climb the dank pit of the stairwell, my feet making tired scuffing sounds on the steps. David, and the way he fucked me over when he moved out. His fault I can’t fix the car’s transmission. His fault I’m taking three fucking trains into work every day. His fault I’m still stuck in this godforsaken hole of a life.

***

The whole thing’s a thunderstorm, every part of our friendship lightning pulsing in the belly of a cloud. But it’s the fight that still crackles down in a white-hot snarl, every detail of it. The way he comes in and the air is whipped solid. Just standing there with his hands in his pockets and his head hanging down. He doesn’t look at me the entire time—not really. Just shoots me these quick, snapped-off glances while he brings the whole thing out in fits and starts. Aware of just how thorough, how complete the assfucking is going to be.

I’ve been thinking about things, he says. And I want to go back to school. Get my degree.

Some of the dread is dissipating. I’m about to tell him that’s great, man. Congrats.

Only it means he’ll be moving out.

Only, he wants to sell the coins. The crypto I’ve spent weeks researching and procured over a period of nine months, sitting in front of the laptop screen every minute of every day so I could buy into the dips.

I’m not angry. I try to make him see reason. The market’s down, selling our spot now is the biggest mistake we can make. I’m convincing. It should work. But talking to him is like picking my way through a strange house in the dark, confusing and frustrating.

When I tell him I’ve got an idea how I can make up the difference, there’s a ghost of a smile. That’s exactly what my dad said you were gonna say.

The mercury creeps up into my neck at the comment. But I keep it in check. Until he looks off to the side and says: He won’t help out with the tuition until I sell the stake. He’ll make up the difference.

Part of that money is mine, I say. I borrowed to buy it. It’s true. But there’s a taste of blood in my mouth, as if the blow has already landed and I just haven’t noticed.

Our eyes meet, for the first and only time. In his, I can see the distance that has grown between us. And something else. Oblique and tinged with sadness. You can’t be serious right now.

Even now, I feel the dull, red thud of it—a rage too immense to put into words. I take a shot at it, though.

Two days later, he’s gone. He sends some guys over to pick up his things, like an ex not up for any more drama. His things turn out to be most of the furniture. When they left, I sit up against the wall, dead-eyeing the snarl of wires poking from the hole in the back of the leaning IKEA cabinet. They seem to sum up the situation like nothing else.

I give in, of course. Can’t afford not to once big, bad lawyer-dad starts sending threats in the mail, citing back rent and other expenses. David has kept receipts. Neglecting to mention we never talked about splitting costs. Two weeks after wiring him the money, I get a thank you: a bill for two years’ worth of rent and utilities. Six months after that, the coin’s price goes through the roof.

Of course.

Somehow, I keep moving. Despite the debts and the humiliations. Even when the city flushes me out here and friends stop calling. Don’t have much choice: there’s no bailout waiting for me. Much like the women here, the folks have little compassion for a thirty-five-year-old delivery boy.

Take a look at your life, the old man said the last time we spoke on the phone. When I assured him it was all I did, the only answer was the triple beep of a disconnected call.

It’s easier than wiring me fifty bucks, I guess.

***

Later that night, I’m hunched over the overflowing ashtray, teasing usable tobacco out of cigarette butts and onto the coffee table while watching Seinfeld on DVD. Between the lingering smell of hamburger and the top half of the fifth beer, I’ve found a laugh or two—even though I can recite most of the dialogue from memory by now. I’m not drunk but a different kind of fog is rolling in, fuzzing the edges. So, when I straighten and the primal part of me clocks the aberration in my peripheral, I think that’s why I haven’t noticed. Except that’s not true. It’s been with me all the way here, a cold finger pressed against my spine. I’ve just tuned it out, mistaking it for nerves. And I’m positive I haven’t heard the crunch of broken glass. It explains why the dark, furry eye of the hood is staring at me from the open bedroom door. He used the fire escape.

It's clever, and it makes it so he almost gets the drop on me.

Almost.

It’s a rough fifteen minutes before I lower myself onto the toilet lid and rub my face, chasing away the cobwebs. He’s still out, slumped in the tub like I was, the first time. Well, apart from the duct tape binding his ankles, his knees, his wrists behind his back. Looking at him, I know I could’ve saved myself the effort. One glimpse of the yellowed paper skin beneath the hood and it’s clear he’s just another burnout. I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything; that it even makes sense, if you think about it. But when my eyes trace the bony hollows, the deep lines carved into the forehead and cheeks, all I feel is disgust. For what he is. For what he’s capable of, given half a chance.

Not anymore, though. My eyes flit to the gun that isn’t a gun. It’s in the sink, along with what I’ve pulled from his pockets. There wasn’t not much, just a flattened pack still holding two cigarettes, and a few cards and papers that put the pinch to my temples. Everything else is empties and grit.

I light up a smoke. One of mine, not his. It’s too loose and there’s a wet, bland taste to what I pull down, but it’s still better than the ones I pulled from his pocket. They taste wrong, like a lungful of cold static. I smoke it down to the filter then pop it into the bowl. When I close the lid and sit back down, he’s staring at me from the tub, his eyes dark and shining with murderous hate.

My questions are met with a contemptuous silence. The scowl and the even, seething glare tell a story I’m not ready to accept. Until I start getting to him and I’m offered several bursts of unintelligible speech, ripped from between the bared surviving teeth. Then I sit back, feeling a sharp stab of disappointment. It’s true that only a few of them have spoken something approaching English since the first ones, and that even they wouldn’t tell me where it is. It’s true that this one was a long shot just by the look of him, but still… disappointment.

Listening to his noises, I fire up another one and chase my thoughts in the recycled smoke until it’s half gone. Then I get up and step to the edge of the tub, lower the cigarette held up between thumb and forefinger to eye level. His babbling falters and he grows still. Long enough for me to pull the bag over his head. Not long enough to wrap the tape around.

But I manage.

I sit back while he struggles, his feet striking off hollow thuds in the tub as the plastic crackles and snaps, shrinks back against the grotesque goldfish inside. The sight of it goes down cold and slick, but there’s also something strangely compelling about it. No matter how many times it happens, you never get used to seeing yourself die.

When it’s over and done with, I go back inside. Sinking back onto the worn-out couch, I crack open another can since the last one got spilled during the struggle. I press play on the DVD menu, then down most of the beer in one go, hoping one or the other might get rid of the gooseflesh still clinging to me in the wake of his death. Instead, the beer refuses to warm me up, and the first waves of canned laughter wash over me like cruel, mocking cackles.

I stare at the screen, wondering how long it will take for the smell to drive me off to the next place. I’m thinking it’s got to be at least a week longer this time, what with the cold. Sighing, I rub my eyes. It’s not the apartment. I’ve gotten good at sniffing out the low places. It’s the car that’s sitting out front; the one that gave up the ghost getting me up here.

I wish I could pull the same trick again but as soon as the thought enters my mind, I dismiss it. For all I know it could have been luck the first time, the dental records checking out. The one lying in the tub won’t fool anybody. And besides, I’m already dead. Have died, more times than I can count.

Maybe the first one had the right idea, in his strung-out desperation. It almost makes me wish I’d tried it. Then I see myself kneeling beside the bathtub, arms red up to my elbows, panting in metallic breaths as I root inside the hole I’ve carved in myself, and the beer in my gut does a slow turn. It’s stupid anyway. Even if I somehow got it done without fucking it up, I’d need connections. The kind I don’t have. As for the one I have now… I don’t even have to try to know it’s not gonna work.

Incompatibilities.

It’s what David called it in the papers he’s written. It’s part of a longwinded series laced with a lot of expensive words. He’s grown fond of those, ever since he went back to college to study physics. But I pick out enough.

Infinite realities.

Infinite possibilities.

All theoretical, or so he thinks. I’m tempted to tell him different— more so with every new visit. But doing so could have consequences. And knowing David, he’ll find some way to blame all this on me. Even though I’m the victim in all this.

I do wish he would hurry up. I recall his talk of dropping stones and distorting ripples and it’s hard not to think about the version of me lying in the tub right now. It’s still me, apart from the rotten teeth that curve up from the gums like fishhooks and the inkwell eyes. But I wonder how long that will last.

These fucking ghouls. It isn’t fair. I’m sending up a desperate prayer for David—my David—to hurry up and finish his version of whatever it is that’s bringing them here, destroying what’s left of my life.

Gooseflesh crawls across my skin. But it’s a soft breeze. Distant. I hope it’s somewhere out there, on the infinite ocean of realities, where all the right decisions have been made—the place I know I deserve to be.

---

Author’s note: Just the product of a very tough week writing with the flu. I had to kill off two others and this one is… up there. I’m working on some better ones. But— points for courage, eh?