FIVE

I took the gun out of the bag and laid it on the bed. Sitting down, I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, my head bowed. Phantoms swirled around me. The small picture of the woman peeked out at me from inside the bag. I had practically memorized her face by now. The luxurious blonde hair, the haughty blue eyes, the contemptuous grin. The attention to detail, everything perfectly in place. It was about 9:30, I still had an hour. I lay back on the bed, closed my eyes and waited.

I wasn't always like this, you know. I was a perfectly normal kid until about the age of ten or so. The birds sang and the breeze blew, and Manhattan was a pretty nice place to grow up - the tall buildings were up there in the sky, Central Park was nice and green, you could go to Coney Island and get hot dogs and all that sort of thing. I lived with my Mom in a small apartment on the Lower East Side, in a Jewish neighborhood. It was a rent control place and we didn't have a lot of money, we had trouble making ends meet. My Mom cleaned apartments part-time and so at least there was usually enough food on the table. My Dad had abandoned the family when I was very small, no one knew where he was. My mother didn't seem to care too much, so I didn't either - he was gone and there was nothing anyone was going to do about it.

My Mom was a staunch Catholic who went to church every Sunday. Her church was everything to her, she did volunteer work whenever she could swing it, said prayers throughout the day and carried her rosary beads around with her everywhere she went. Mom didn't say much. She was quiet and shy, a bit simple I think. She was constantly distracted, and a glaze would form over her eyes from time to time. I never knew what she was thinking, and she never told me. Although we didn't talk much, she was sweet and caring and made sure I knew she loved me, she'd smile at me, pat me on the head and give me plenty of hugs. I spent a lot of time in my room by myself, looking out the window, or out on the street running around with the other kids from the block.

Things changed when I got to high school. The other kids were all bigger than me and liked to push me around, they'd follow me home shoving me back and forth the whole way, steal my money and stuff. I did bad in school, I got bad grades. I was no dummy, I just couldn't concentrate for some reason, it was like I had clouds in my head or something. That was what one of my teachers always said, that I had clouds in the head. Or maybe it was that I had my head in the clouds, I can't remember. Anyway, they had me in all the vocational classes pretty early, metal shop and wood shop. They gave up on kids like me pretty quick, I felt like I was being kicked to the curb already.

Life had changed. I felt like shit all the time. My Mom was like dead weight on the couch all day long, and there was never anyone else there. I sat around and stared at the walls, there was nothing else to do. What was I going to do, my homework? I didn't understand any of it, and it didn't look like it'd do much good anyway. I started spending more and more time wandering around on the streets. My friends were all starting to get into trouble, they were stealing stuff in the neighborhood, scrap metal and whatever little crap they could find. A few of them had gone off to juvie already. I figured it was only a matter of time before I got sent to juvie too.

There was a lot of crime in the area. The streets were tough, guys dealing drugs and mugging people and all that. The kids kept following me home from school every day and beating me up and I didn't know what to do. One day I went home and instead of going upstairs, I went down into the basement of the building instead. It was a dark moldy place full of furnaces and beat-up cardboard boxes. I sat on the floor, getting dust all over myself. There was an old rusty nail sitting next to me. I picked it up. Without knowing why, I pressed it against the inside of my forearm and made a mark there, a long red stroke. The blood rose to the surface and there was a long welt. I dug deeper and it began to bleed, more than I'd expected. I ran up to my room, locked the door and went to bed. I had to hide it from my Mom for about a week before it started to heal up. Soon there was a big white scar there on my arm. I liked the way it looked there, it made me feel better for some reason. It was on the underside, so I could hide it from people if I needed to, I just turned my arm over so that no one could see. It was like my little secret.

There was a girl at school I really liked, whose name was Patty. She was in my grade and I'd known her for a long time, ever since elementary school. I was no good with girls, they didn't like me, and Patty was no different. She'd been nice to me once, but now she wouldn't give me the time of day. All day long I sat at my desk, looking at the back of her pretty blonde head, dwelling on her icy blue stare. Then there was this other girl Tessa, who I was kind of friends with. I didn't have many friends, people steered clear of me for the most part, but Patty talked to me more than the others did, she made me feel kind of normal.

"Why don't you ever talk?" she would ask me all the time.

"I talk," I'd reply diffidently. If there was something to say, I'd say it, I guess.

"What's that mark on your arm?" Tessa asked one day. She'd never asked about it before. There was a pause.

"Oh, that's nothing," I said, looking down.

"How'd you get it?" she asked, pressing the matter.

"It was from a long time ago," I said. She let it drop.

Over time, Tessa and I got to be best friends. We'd hang out all the time on weekends, go to the movies together and stuff. High school dragged along, without too much changing or too much really going on. Soon they'd be spitting us out and we'd have to fend for ourselves. Some of the kids seemed like they were looking forward to it, but they were mainly the kids that got good grades, that were going on to college. Me, I wasn't going anywhere. I was going straight to the construction site, or to the paint factory over in Queens or something.

It was Senior year before I realized I was in love with Tessa. One night I decided to tell her. We were going to the movies again, and after the lights went down I went to take her hand there in the dark. She smiled at me somewhat awkwardly, but she let me take it. We'd never done that before. Then about halfway through the movie, I leaned in to kiss her. She pulled away. Afterwards, we went over by the river to sit on a bench and talk about it.

"I'm sorry, I just don't really have those kinds of feelings for you," she told me.

She was trying to let me down easy, but at the same time she was fighting back tears. Tessa had a good heart. I saw the writing on the wall as I walked along the darkened street, heading back to the apartment. I'd just lost my best friend. Tessa wasn't going to talk to me anymore, I could tell. It felt like some kind of natural culmination, like a foregone conclusion, almost like I'd been waiting for it to happen. My Mom was asleep on the couch when I got home. I went into my room, locked the door, turned out the light and sat on the floor. The moonlight shone through the flimsy curtain, catching on a razor blade that I'd been playing around with a few nights before. I took it and held it between my fingers for awhile, then I cut a second mark in my arm, a little tally right next to the first one. I'd really gashed it this time, it was a lot deeper than before. Even in the dim light I could see the blood going everywhere, pooling on the floor.

School ended in the Spring. I'd graduated, but just barely. I got a job as a janitor, working in an office building over on Fulton Street. Then my mother got sick and they had to take her away to a hospice. She couldn't take care of herself anymore and I couldn't do it for her. Mom was physically sick, but her mind had been going for a long time, as well. She sat there staring into space for days on end, and she never said a word anymore, it was like she'd given up the will to live. I didn't want to stay in the apartment anymore after that, it reminded me too much of her, so I moved out and got my own place. It was a rat trap over in the Bowery, up on the third floor. The window was cracked and the hot water didn't really work, and there were big roaches crawling around all over the place, some as big as mice. The junkies camped out in the stairwell and they left their syringes lying around. It was a pretty dismal scene, but it was the only thing I could afford.

The job was pretty bad. It was just hour after hour of boredom and drudgery, pushing a mop around in that dark dingy hallway. I always knew I wasn't destined for greatness or anything, but I hadn't known it was going to be quite like this. The days leaned on me, I went home tired and sore. There was nothing to look forward to.

I'd never been much of a drinker before, but now I started going to bars, just to pass the time. There was a local dive joint just around the corner, and so most days I went in there. These were becoming more and more of an endangered species in the new and improved, shined and polished New York, but you could still find them if you looked. The people in there were pretty strange, for the most part, real desperate souls. I guess I fit right in then, I was a desperate soul too. Still, I couldn't bring myself to have a conversation with any of them, most of the time I just sat and stared. When they were good and tanked, the bums would come over to drape themselves on me like an overcoat and breathe their drunken spitting fumes in my ear, like I was supposed to give a shit. They were damn persistent with it and sometimes I had to shake them off physically. The bartender on Friday and Saturday nights was named Jessica, a sexy blonde chick who was real white trash. She was something to look at, though, so when I wasn't watching the wall I was watching her. Over time I developed kind of a thing for her, and one night when no one else was in there, I asked her if she wanted to go on a date with me. She turned up her nose and walked away. The chick had no class - the least she could have done was be nice about it.

So I started going with prostitutes instead. They were a dime a dozen there in the Bowery, a bunch of crack whores skulking up and down the street, looking for a quick score, whether it be animal or chemical. I'd take them up to the room and lay them down on the bed and get to work. Usually it didn't take too long, and then they were back out the door again. It scratched the itch, to be sure, but it didn't do much else, just two animals rubbing up against each other. Most of the time, I felt worse afterwards than I had before.

I kept going to the bar, and before I knew it I was drinking more and more and now I was pretty well shit-faced every time I went home at night. I'd been trying not to think about Jessica too much, but she was really doing a number on me and I couldn't keep my mind off of her. She was ignoring me completely now, I could barely get a beer. Some of the barflies would get drunk and try to latch onto me, but I'd just brush them off, I didn't need any of their shit on top of mine. Jessica was treating me like a criminal for no reason, it was like I'd done something to her personally, insulted her family or some goddamned thing.

The days and nights blended together in a long grey string. There was no one around, there was never anyone around. I didn't understand why - I'd never asked for this, it just seemed to work out this way. I felt like I did things pretty much the way everyone else did them, and yet there I was, locked away up there day and night, like a leper or something, like a prisoner in a tower. The eyes in the street never met mine, bodies shifted course and heads turned away. The only ones who'd talk to me were the drunks and degenerates down at the bar, and half the time they didn't want to either. I didn't deserve this, no one did.

The weather turned cold. Wintertime was the worst in Manhattan, there was no escaping it. The cold just beat down on you, and the wind went blasting between the buildings, threatening to knock you clean off your feet. I couldn't get Jessica out of my head, no matter how hard I tried. It was getting harder and harder to go down to the bar. She wouldn't give me the time of day, it was like I wasn't even there. The window was still cracked, the landlord refused to fix it and the apartment was freezing fucking cold all the time. I'd picked up a twelve-pack at the convenience store that night and gone through most of it. It was around midnight. I got up, stood there for a second, went over and punched a hole in the wall and then went into the bathroom. There was that old razor again, the same one from before, it had made the trip over from the old place but it was a bit rusty now. I picked it up off the sink, and for a split second I thought about cutting my throat with it. But I didn't do it. I laid another little mark down, calmly, without reflection, right next to the other two, another neat red line. The number was three.

Month followed month. Every day I went down there and pushed my mop around, it was like a nightmare that never ended. I'd had bad jobs before but this was one was a real doozy, it numbed your brain, made you want to just sit down and give up. The one bright spot was an old black guy named Willie, who'd been working in that same building for years. He was as beat down as the rest of us but he tried not to show it, he always had a smile on his face and a kind word for everyone. His back was bent and his hair was grey, but there he was, fighting through it, whistling on break, chewing on an apple and offering you one if he had a spare to give. He was a kind and gentle soul, and I couldn't imagine why - they'd been whaling away at him for thirty or forty years, I would have been raving like a lunatic by now, I'd be howling mad. Guys were all wired differently, how else could you explain it. Or maybe it was like they said, about animals in danger, when they're cornered and know there's nowhere left to run, they just sit down and wait for the end, calmly watching the flood waters approach or the fires grow higher.

I thought about Willie as I lay in bed at night. I didn't know if I could do what he did, just take it like that for all those years. Most people did it, that was for sure, but that didn't make it right. And sure, most of them made it through to the finish line, but some of them blew a gasket and got carted off to the madhouse too: ask those guys if it made sense to fight the good fight. Some nights, I would just walk the streets endlessly. The crowds would filter away as it got later and later, until it was just me and the tall buildings, one shadow amongst others. It was all the same, nothing ever changed, everything dead and withdrawn, each thing trapped within itself. The world was a stone, and you could squeeze no blood from a stone. The world didn't want me around anymore, if it ever had - it had no use for me, I was just driftwood in the stream. Guys like me were left hung out to dry, no one cared if we could make it, no one cared if we lived or died. I stared up into the darkness of the sky, at all the injustice and callous disregard, searching for a face, or even just the blink of an eye, searching for something to appeal to, something to hate.

I remember there was a full moon that night, it was shining through the crack in the window and throwing all sorts of strange patterns around. The walls were closing in, more than usual even, throbbing with an almost animal pulsation, like the building had come out of some deep slumber. I made the fourth mark without thinking about it, without even feeling it, the stroke like something of an afterthought. My thoughts were floating around the room, my mind was jumbled and I couldn't quite pin it down. The room was as cold as ever that night, but it didn't seem to bother me like it had before. I slept the sleep of the dead, with the sheets down and the blankets thrown aside.

I found myself in a strange state of mind after that. If I'd had trouble talking to people before, now I was avoiding them altogether. In the morning when the alarm went off, I was turning it off and going back to sleep again, missing work. I wasn't thinking about Jessica anymore, so at least there was that. She'd slipped out of my mind completely, I wasn't sure why, but she had. It was a relief to be rid of her. Finally I missed too much work and they fired my ass. A month went by and the eviction notices started coming in under the door, I had two weeks until I met my doom. There was no aspect of my life I had control over, I was just being smacked around, tossed on the stormy seas, riding the winds of the hurricane. I'd be dead in the ground and I'd still have no say in the matter. They never let you assert yourself, not ever: not with girls, not with jobs, not with nothing. Everything was decided by someone else, someone better than you. Life was a play being staged for other peoples' benefit.

I was down to the last hundred dollars in my pocket, that was all I had left. The apartment had become unbearable. I couldn't stand being in there anymore, it felt like it was someone else's place already and so I spent all my time now wandering around on the streets, day and night, going from downtown to midtown, wading through all the corporate crap, from the South Street Seaport to Port Authority and back again, up and down Houston Street, Eighth Avenue, Broadway, back down to the Bowery to mingle with the hookers and the junkies. I went up to Central Park to sit with the bums, hanging out on benches just whiling away the hours, wondering what it would be like to finally be homeless. I didn't know if I could do another job, even if they dropped it in my lap.

That night, I was at the bar. I was feeling mean, I'd had it with peoples' shit. I just wanted to be left alone. But the guy next to me wouldn't take the hint, he just kept on and on. He was a big old drunk, a truck driver or something with a big tuft of greasy black hair underneath a ball cap. I put up with it for as long as I could, and then I turned my back to watch the television set in the corner.

"I'm just trying to make some conversation here, buddy..." he said, getting offended.

I tried to defuse the situation a little bit, to say a few words by way of a truce, but I couldn't muster up the willpower, I couldn't even make eye contact he disgusted me so much. All I could do was grunt. I looked around for the bartender, but he was down at the other end of the bar, paying no attention.

"What's your fucking problem?" the guy said, putting a rough hand on my shoulder. The next thing I knew, I was swinging. I saw red, it came over me before I could stop it. Then I was out on the sidewalk with a bunch of hands trying to restrain me. I looked through the open doorway and saw the trucker's body sprawled out on the floor, blood puddling beneath the back of his head. I couldn't remember what had happened, not at all, but I could hear the muted voices inside speculating that I might have killed the guy. One of the people holding onto me took me aside.

"Come on, let's get outta here," he said, leading me away from the doorway and down the street. He was a scruffy little guy with dark hair and even darker eyes, wearing a leather jacket and some weird little round hat, like some old school gangster or something. The guy led me around the corner, down a few blocks and into another bar. This place was quieter, just a couple of roughnecks sitting around minding their own business. It almost looked like a private club of some kind.

"Man, you really did a number on that guy, I tell ya what," the little fellow said, chuckling and ordering a round of beers for the two of us. I sat there saying nothing.

"What do you do for a living?" he asked me.

"I just got fired," I replied shortly, taking a sip of my beer when it arrived. In the course of the altercation, I'd apparently stripped my jacket off or had it removed for me, and I'd left it behind. My shirt was practically ripped to shreds and I had scratch marks on my neck. The guy looked over at the inside of my arm as I took another slug of beer. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw that he was staring at the marks that were there. Again, I said nothing. I felt stunned, I didn't really feel capable of speech.

I finished the beer and put the bottle down on the bar. "I don't have money for this," I mumbled.

"Don't worry about it, I got it," he said. As I got up to leave, he grabbed my arm, restraining me.

"Wait, just listen for a minute. Look, I can tell you're pretty down on your luck right now. I might have some work for you, if you're interested."

I looked him over for a bit, he had a strange gleam in his eye. I waited for him to continue. He leaned in closer, speaking softly now.

"It's a rich guy's broad, she's been running around on him behind his back. He needs someone to take care of her for him."

I backed off the stool. "What the fuck do you think I am?"

The guy was undeterred. "Listen - you've got the stomach for it. A lot of guys don't. They told me to keep an eye out for someone. It's good money, ten grand. Easy work, in and out of the hotel, just like that. She's been staying in the same room every Saturday night, her other guy puts her up there."

I just kept staring at him, unsure of what to say or do next. He backed off.

"Hey, no offense intended. My apologies if I stepped out of line. If it's not your thing, then so be it, no big deal. But here." He slid a slip of paper across the bar. "Call that number if you change your mind." With that, he turned away and took another slug of beer.

I went back to the apartment and drank myself into a stupor. The fact that I was even considering it was the worst part. I needed the money, that part was obvious. But was this who I was? Was this who I'd become? Part of me kept saying no, and part of me didn't give a shit one way or the other. I wrestled with it for another few days, and then called the number. "I'll take the job," I told them. They gave me all the details. I was to pick the gun up on Friday afternoon and then go over and book myself a room on Saturday, just to be able to keep an eye on things. I spent the few days prior in a jumbled confusion, wandering around without even knowing where I was going. Sounds were muffled, the light was dimmer, nothing was making much sense.

I sat in the room with the gun in my hand. It was almost time to go. I took the pen knife that was laying on the desk and numbly made the final mark, the nullifying stroke. The empty set complete, nothing more to do.

I went out into the hall and slipped a few doors down. It was an icy cold night outside, pristine, everything peaceful and drowsy and still, an evening frozen in time. I put my ear against the door, everything was still quiet in there. It was a cheap place in SoHo, the doors were made of flimsy wood and the locks were nothing; it wasn't going to be a problem getting in there. But she'd made it even easier for me - the door was unlocked, and so I was able to just walk right in.

The woman was passed out on the bed, naked with her blonde hair strewn everywhere. It looked like he'd given her a real ride, she was all shagged out and there were a couple of empty liquor bottles lying around. I stood over her prone form with the gun in my hand. I wasn't confused, I wasn't upset, I just didn't seem to care much what happened next. Then my life started to flash before me, like they always said it did in the books and movies. All the happy times with my mother, before she got sick, all the long walks around the city and visits to the park, things like that. There weren't all that many of them, but there were more than I'd been able to remember for a long while. My vision got momentarily blurry, and my head began to throb, a low thunder that was pulsating rhythmically. I stepped away from the bed. The woman was still out cold, she wasn't going anywhere.

I went back downstairs and out on the street. Passing a sewer grate, I tossed the gun and kept going. I walked across town until I reached the Brooklyn Bridge, then went up the ramp and out over the water. The river was eerily calm, like looking at a sheet of bath water, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky and the stars were shining so brightly, they jumped right out at you. It was getting late, no one else was around. I climbed up on the rail and stood there, balancing for a second. A really long drop. So strangely quiet.

Bits and pieces, flashes of the hours that followed. A glimpse of the East River, a bike path, Third Avenue, a mostly empty diner. The occasional car going by, lights changing from red to green to yellow. When I came to, it was nine in the morning and I was sitting in a subway car in Brooklyn, where it had stopped at the end of the line. The doors were flung wide open and I was the only one in there. The sun was peeking out bashfully over the low buildings to the east, and it still looked cold out.

I don't think much about that night anymore, at least I haven't recently. There are times when I wonder if it ever really happened, or if it had all just been a trick my silly mind had played on me. That glimpse over the edge had almost done me in though, I wasn't sure I'd ever be the same. I think when you come that close to utter disaster, the part of you that remains is just happy to still be alive. One day at a time, a few steps forward and a few steps back.

I never saw the little guy in the leather jacket again. In the weeks that followed, I tried to return to my life again, but it was pretty damn hard. I wound up getting tossed out of my apartment and had to find a new place to stay, which was a real ordeal. But it was okay now. I got hired on with a road crew, so I have a job. And I met a girl the other day, believe it or not. We've been hanging out a lot, and we're even talking about moving in together. So I guess things are looking up.

Scott Taylor hails from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a writer and a musician, and an avid world traveler. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including Vast Chasm, Adelaide Literary, Unlikely Stories, Literary Hatchet and Swifts and Slows. His novels 'Chasing Your Tail' and 'Screwed' have been released with Silver Bow Publishing, and his novellas 'Freak' and 'Ernie and the Golden Egg' are slated for inclusion in an upcoming anthology with Running Wild Press. He graduated from Cornell University and was a computer programmer in a past life.