Disintegration (16 page)

I sleep the day away, sweating under the blankets, an uneasy rest. I'm haunted by the sound of cars racing over wet pavement, the squeal of tires. Traffic lights blink off and on, and I see nothing but accidents, an Accord plowing into an SUV, running through a stop sign, filling the driver's seat with bumper and glass. A red Buick stops, taillights shining, and the windshield is filled with the trunk of the car, steering wheel speeding forward, the impact and sensation of pain, body parts bending wrong, the snap of a bone, the gush of hot blood. A semi-truck in the rear mirror, and it isn't slowing down, foot on the brake as it plows into the back of the blue-green Eclipse, pushing it forward into the semi in front of it, the hood sliding under, the wide rusted bumper screeching over the metal, pulling the emergency brake, to no effect. The panic, the sense of being trapped, the certainty of death and my eyes open—I don't need this.

The dream slips away and I hear screams from outside my apartment. A woman's voice outside, the crying of a small child, a girl, begging for something, scolding her mother, promises were broken, time has slipped away, there are things to do, she says, the wish will not be granted, and it seems so petty to me. Give her the damn candy bar. Buy the stickers. Get a fucking puppy. It's nothing to scar your daughter over, the yelling and cursing, a smack on the back of the legs. Pulling at her arm to get her home, dinner must be served, your father will be home soon, shopping bags dangling from an arm, two new blouses, flip-flops, and perfume.

At least she's alive.

My stomach turns over. I can't remember the last time I ate. I'm sick to my stomach and ravenous at the same time. I shower to remain human, scrubbing my body with a tiny bar of soap, too lazy to go out and buy more, uneasy in any public environment. I get dressed. I open the back door and holler for the cat, but there's no sign of her. It worries me. I leave the window to the kitchen open, screw the cold, I'm mostly numb anyway, and fill the cat bowl with dry food, change the water, and stare out into the alley as the sun begins to set. Over the brick walls and telephone lines, a flutter of black birds drifts in formation, jumping to the right, then back, swirling, and then gone. A plane in the distance, Midway or O'Hare, and I wish I was on it, anywhere but here.

When it's almost dark, I leave. There's a diner just south of here, the Busy Bee.

The sidewalks are icy, some are cleared and some are not, the snow in drifts, cars covered entirely. An odd arrangement of chairs and brooms hold the empty slots hostage. It's a Chicago thing. If you take the time, make the effort to shovel your car out, backbreaking work, you can claim it with just about anything—a cardboard box, Weber grill, traffic cones, or the classic: two plastic lawn chairs and a broom combo. You don't violate this trust, ever. Move those boxes and park your car and you can expect to have your windows shattered. Run over that singular plastic, red bucket with a tiny yellow shovel sticking out of it, and expect to find
ASSHOLE
carved into the driver's side door. And I couldn't agree more. Shovel your own damn spot.

There isn't much foot traffic. There are a few men in overcoats and dress shoes, briefcases in hand. Women in long coats, stylish fur collars and crystal buttons, long boots over their stockings, eyes down, trying not to fall. A specter that is the translucent echo of my wife holds the hands of two dirty children, stained T-shirts and tennis shoes bound with duct tape, dragging them away from me, and they are around the corner, gone, and I curse them. South on Milwaukee, not a storefront around, brick buildings and wrought iron gates, the highway in the distance, a blink of red lights, the heavy whoosh of semis going under the bridge, horns honking, and there are so many of them. The commute. Commuters. So many lives going on just out of my line of sight, just out of reach.

I hated it, the traffic, the painfully slow crawl, the bad talk radio, punching a clock, filling out reports, deadlines and assholes, everyone scuttling for attention, everyone jockeying for a promotion. It seemed so important, so dramatic. I laugh at it now. Could I ever return to such a life? Told to stay late, yelled at for a spelling error, a digit in the wrong column. How could I be human now? This mask that I'm wearing, I could slip it on from time to time, I'm sure of it, but I could never leave it behind. There would be slashed tires in the parking lot, sand in the gas tank. Maybe a robbery by a masked assailant, roughed up late at night, heading home after a hard day of belittling the employees and making snarky comments. How long until a picture of the CEO's daughter appears on his desk, the address of the school she attends, the time she gets out, the bus she rides on clearly spelled out? And in my eye there would be a gleam, a snicker behind the cubicle walls. They'd show up with questions, and I'd make a mistake, I'm only human. Pictures on my hard drive that I thought I had erased. No alibi for the beating in the parking lot, no alibi for any of it.

No. I can't go back.

I pull open the door and walk in. The smell of frying potatoes, oil and garlic, the rich aroma of coffee and I tremble. Why do I think I'm strong when I'm fragile and weak?

I shaved today, knowing I'd be out in the public eye, so I'm not quite as disheveled as usual. I'm not on fire, I don't have three heads, and there isn't a tattoo of 666 on my forehead. I should be fine.

I sit at the counter, a long lozenge shape that fills the center of the restaurant. They serve breakfast all the time, and it sounds like heaven on a plate.

“Coffee, hon?” she asks.

Her name tag says Sophie. She's portly, hair graying, massive chest hanging low, straining behind the apron, splattered with grease, a pencil behind her ear, and cat-eye glasses. There are small amber jewels in a string around her neck.

“Please.”

She flips over the cup and pours a steaming black liquid into it, spilling not a single drop. The pale yellow walls are too bright for me, so I stare into the swirling abyss in the dull, ceramic cup. The crowd is mostly elderly Polish men, short and fat, and skinny women in turquoise pants. A sprinkling of hipsters, pierced tongues lolling through scrambled eggs, blood sausage, and crispy potato pancakes. There are plates full of pierogi, bowls of split-pea soup with garlic croutons and sizable chunks of ham, beef goulash over a den of noodles. It's a mix of white hair and baseball caps, goatees and bedazzled blouses. I fit right in.

“Whattaya havin'?”

She's back, pad in her hand, pencil poised. I glance down at the plastic menu in my hand.

“Breakfast number four,” I say, “over-easy, whole wheat toast.”

“You got it.”

I turn to the wall and notice the framed
photos—President
Clinton, Mayor Richard M. Daley, documents and awards and photos of softball teams. There's a picture of the police chief, his arm around Sophie, and an award for community service. A long line of old radios, covered in dust, fill up a shelf all the way down the left side of the restaurant, like hunched-over gargoyles, watching the ravenous feed.

The food arrives fast and hot and I bow my head and dig in. It's fantastic. It may kill me later, I may not be able to keep it down, screwing up my usual diet of beer and bourbon, but it tastes so good right now. The bell behind me continues to ring and more and more people enter the diner. I don't look up. The bacon is perfectly crisp and I'm getting a bit giddy. I smear strawberry preserves over the toast, mingling them with the butter. The yellow yolk runs over the potatoes, the starch crisp at the edges, moist inside, and I'm a machine, stuffing it down my yap, guzzling the coffee, under the watchful eye of Sophie.

“Good?” she asks, beaming in front of me.

I nod, my mouth full of sausage. I pour warm syrup over the pancakes and moan gently to myself.

I look up and almost choke. I've been so involved in my feeding frenzy that I haven't been paying attention. Farther down the bar are two fat white cops in full dress, drinking coffee and chatting with a young, thin waitress. Sophie wanders over and pats one of them on the hand. On the left, even farther down, are two thin black cops, one male and one female. The bell rings behind me and I freeze. Please, no.

The white cops, ones I haven't seen before, look up. They motion toward me, wave me over. My stomach lurches. I feel the cold at my back and two large bodies drift past me. These two, them I know. It's the guys from the other night, by the alley. One of them chased me. He knows my face.

Jesus Christ.

I swallow and stare at my plate. I study the Rorschach on the faded china—it's a bent arm, a torn skirt, a splatter of gunshot, and I can't swallow. I have to get out of here, quiet and fast.

I slip a twenty out of my pocket and place it on the counter. Slowly I stand up and grab my coat off the stand by the door. I don't even put it on. I open the door and the damn bells, I can feel Sophie turn toward me, I don't even have to look. Her brow furrows as she walks toward me, she thinks I'm pulling a fast one, a dine-and-dash.

“Hey, buddy…” she starts.

The door is wide open, and sweat is oozing out of every pore. I can feel the eyes of the cops on me, all of them, the whole room, burrowing into my back. I don't turn.

She sees the twenty and stops.

“…thanks, pal, have a good one.”

She must be waving. My right hand flutters in the air like a wounded bird, wing broken, and I keep going, holding down the food, trying not to vomit. I make a left and head up the street, north on Milwaukee, and I dare to glance back through the windowpane, and there are no eyes on me.

My extended family seems to live in the same neighborhood, this must be Vlad's doing. My brother-in-arms is a short walk away. It's dark out, but not too late, I don't need more attention from the men in blue so I try to take this assignment to the streets during the normal drinking hours of Wicker Park.

And for a few minutes, I'm lost in thought, the snow fluttering over my line of sight, and I could be on my way to meet a friend for drinks—a cheap pint at Estelle's, a band at Double Door, pool at Holiday. But I'm not.

I get off of Milwaukee and cut across Wicker Park. I flash on a puppy being kicked in the face, a jackass in a suit preying on the weak. I pass the very bench he was sitting on, and there is no remnant of our time spent here, no bloodstain to mark the history or scattered pieces of the plastic phone, no beaten-down scrap of ice cream cone. I didn't expect anything to be here—a plaque maybe on the back of the bench, for volunteer work, helping the needy, maybe a simple thank-you from the ASPCA. No, nothing. No initials carved into the flaking green wood of the bench, nothing to mark my first kill. The day I became a man.

In no time I'm at his apartment, just across Damen, cars lined up and down the street. A mocking of Camrys, a smattering of SUVs and low-riding muscle cars, an old Civic, a VW Golf, and a sleek red Mustang, shining under the snow.

His time is up. And he's expecting me.

The front gate is open an inch, I click it shut behind me. The door to the six-flat is open a crack, so I enter, wipe my feet, and close it with my shoulder. Up the stairs a door at the top is open, a pillar of light leaking out. I pull my gun out and ease it open.

The apartment has been trashed. A table is overturned, the wood scarred, chairs knocked over, magazines and broken glass, a picture frame on the wall, glass cracked, crooked. A long black entertainment center runs down one wall, the shelves emptied, videos on the floor, CDs smashed and in pieces, and a large gap where the television should be, the shape left behind, a slightly lighter shade of beige. There is no sign of him in the main room.

“I'm in here,” a soft voice murmurs.

A square formica table sits in the center of the kitchen, black and gray swirls running across the top, surrounded by four chairs, seats in red leather, brass tacks lining the edges. In the center of the table are several bottles of wine, red wine, some upright, all uncorked. One is tipped over, a long spill over the table and down to the floor. It drips slowly, a drop at a time. He's sitting there slumped forward, and it's every kitchen I've ever been in, every man I've shot or stabbed, sitting broken, waiting for the axe to fall.

“What happened?”

“Me. I happened, brother. I did it.”

“What…why?”

He looks up, dark circles under his eyes, which are swimming with light, a smile across his face, a crooked grin, and he's flying. He's barely here. I see two small plastic bottles next to the wine.

“Take them,” he says. “I don't need them anymore.”

I don't want them. I don't need them. I pause. I take them anyway.

“I knew he'd send you.”

“Vlad?”

“Yeah. I really
did
blow the last one. The guy ran, across the state, took a girl with him, some cousin of Vlad's, some hooker he was turning out. I guess Vlad liked the girl. The guy tied her to the back of a semi in a rest stop, one hand to the rear bumper of a southbound furniture truck, the other to the bumper of a northbound refrigeration truck full of meat. He blames me for that.”

“Jesus.”

“So I had to improvise.” He waves his arms around to include the mess.

“Break-in?”

“Bingo,” he says, pointing a finger at me, and firing an imaginary gun.

“I'm the burglar?”

“You got it, brother.”

I take a breath.

“How do you want to do this?” I ask.

“Well, I need to get rid of a couple of these bottles of wine. I only meant to have one, just a nice evening at home, some loser getting drunk on wine. But it tasted good, so I kept on going. Can you do that for me? Take out the trash on your way out? Can't look like I got drunk waiting for this execution, like I knew what was coming. If they identify my body, there might be some insurance money still in play.”

“Sure.”

I reach under the kitchen counter and pull out a trash bag, and drop the bottles into the black plastic.

“Anything else?”

“I ransacked the place,” he says, “took the TV down to the Salvation Army, and anything else of value, VCR, CD player, stereo, stuff like that. I didn't have much. Just got rid of the stuff that should be gone after a robbery.”

“So no piles of cash, jewelry, anything like that left?”

“Nothing. It's all long gone.”

“Can I ask you one question?”

“Shoot,” he says, and starts to giggle, running his hands over his bald head, leaning back.

“The fire, your family. This was Vlad? He set this up?”

“I can't prove it, but yeah, I think so.”

“How did he do it?”

He sighs, exasperated, waving his hands.

“I don't know, man. They burned to death, that's what the police told me. There wasn't much to identify, very little left in the rubble, the ashes, so what the fuck was I supposed to think?”

My skin crawls.

“You think he does this kind of thing all the time?”

“How the fuck…” He pauses, takes a breath. “Brother, I don't know. It's worth a shot, right?”

I nod.

“Let's go into the other room.”

“Didn't your neighbors hear any of this?”

“I did it over time, this week, when I knew my time was running out. Most of my neighbors work, but just to be safe I did it slowly, cracked a glass, tipped over a chair, slowly, scattered the CDs, walked over them. I took the TV and stuff one piece at a time, hidden in the garbage, in case anyone was watching.”

“Anything else?” I ask.

He pulls a gun out and I freeze.

“Relax,” he says. “I'm not going to shoot you. Gonna miss.”

“Sure about that?”

“Yeah, brother, I'm sure.”

“You've thought of everything.”

“Except a way out,” he says.

Except that.

“So stand over there,” he points toward the kitchen. “No need to yell or any of that bullshit. The place is already a mess. The back door is open, but you better haul ass.”

I nod.

“I'm going to fire twice over your head,” he says. “Then give it to me. Wherever you can. Just make it fast, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Two birds with one rock, as Vlad likes to say, right? Something for the cops, and something to show that you did your job, for Vlad.”

We stand across from each other like a couple of old gunslingers, and I want to pity him. But a part of me feels relief, and jealousy. He's getting out.

“All right, brother, here we go.”

He aims at me and for a second I think he's changed his mind. My chest is thudding. He winks and raises the gun and fires over my shoulder, twice. Bang, bang.

I pull the trigger and his chest erupts. He flies back into the wall. I pull it again. It pins him to the wall, and he slides down. One more shot in the gut as he goes and his eyes begin to glaze over.

“Nice job, brother,” he gurgles, blood running over his lips.

He drops the gun and his eyes go blank. He's done.

I hear voices in the hallway, and I run toward the back. I grab the trash bag of wine bottles. What was I thinking? This was a stupid thing to agree to. They crack and break in the bag and I'm out the back door, feet sliding in the snow and slush, down the stairwell, open to the elements, the wind swirling, and there are voices above, someone screaming, and I hit the alley running. A large dumpster sits open, its gaping mouth eager to swallow, so the bag goes in, and I keep on going, out of the alley and down the street toward Damen. I slow up as I approach a group of women, short skirts and glitter under their eyes. They eye me up and down and pull their coats tighter, arms linked, smiles disappearing.

“Evening, ladies,” I say, and I turn north.

I keep on walking up the street, up toward the main drag. I want to stop and drink. I see the Double Door, and hear music. I want to slip in and go chameleon, get lost in the crowd and disappear. But I can't. Can't put a memory here of my presence. It was dumb enough to address the girls behind me. I turn around and they're slowly heading this way, toward the action and fun. Up for some acid jazz or a fucking crantini. I turn back around and keep walking. I'm moving at a steady pace and I pass a homeless man with a cast on his foot.

“Hey, man, can you…”

His hair is a tight weave of white, eyes glazed over as if blind, and yet he sees me, I know he does. His eyes track me and a shiver runs over my body. He gives me the creeps. His name is Oba, I've seen him before. He's a poet. He's always reciting something, and when I walk by him, the words change. He's a soothsayer, and I don't like it. When I walk by him it becomes red rivers running over the banks, sand like cracked flesh, a hunter's moon, an arrow shot, the stars shedding tears for the acts that they've witnessed.

“Keep your mouth shut tonight, Oba,” I threaten as I drift past.

To square the deal I place a wad of cash in his outstretched hand like parchment, and I feel feet on my grave, his smile wide, teeth a massacre, his eyes staring off over my head, toward the trees.

“I'm not even looking, man,” he says.