Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2000

(click)

This is a picture I took of a pile of garbage. I use it to illustrate what Jamie’s apartment was like. Hell, it was practically a closet. It was decorated like a teenage girl’s bedroom, too, with pop music and movie posters lining the walls, audiotapes and compact discs piled so high they practically reached the ceiling. As far as furniture goes, this place had just enough room for one double mattress. I watched as we fumbled together onto it. It smelled sour. These huge sweatshirts and skirts she wore were heaped all over. She pushed a pile off her bed so we could sit on it, and she turned off the light. As if from that far-off vantage point, I saw the two of us kissing sloppily. I looked through the darkness and held witness as we rolled around on her unwashed bedclothes. I soared away to an even greater distance when I saw myself unbuttoning my shirt. And when I saw her peel off her clothes, unbundling that sweatshirt, twisting off that skirt, I retreated even farther in the recesses of the ceiling. I saw her folds of flesh from two places, from my eyes which were stupid and drunken, and from somewhere else, up above, far off, sickened. “I love you, Kevin,” Jamie was saying. “I’ve always loved you.” She was sort of crying.

“Yes,” I heard myself say, my hands caressing her immense breasts, “Yes, I know. It’s okay. I know everything.”

Then she started calling me “Kev-ee.”

(click)

This is Jean. Forgotten after a long, hot bath.

(click)

This is Fiona. I forgot her by going to a nightclub.

(click)

I forgot Brenda at the Museum of Modern Art.

(click) (click) (click)

I forgot, I forgot, I forgot.

(click)

It’s like there were two parts of me, the one doing it, and the other one watching. I slipped out of the bed, with Jamie snoring there, her mouth open, her teeth pointing ceilingward. I had the plan. This was something I had to forget. I had made a mistake. I knew I had the drop cloth. I like to keep the studio freshly painted, so I always have plenty of supplies. I left her apartment surreptitiously. Did anyone see me? No. I’m sure of it. I came back here and got everything ready. I unrolled these huge plastic sheets of drop cloth onto the floor, right by the door. I pulled this stool over to that wall, and then I waited. I just sat there. I knew she’d be in at nine. She was always punctual. I kept the lights off, and I listened to her footfalls all the way up the stairs, and when she got to the door she did something strange — she knocked. She never knocked. But today, maybe because of last night, because she thought I might still be sleeping it off, who knows why, today she knocked. “Come in,” I said, and my voice cracked. I watched the knob turn, and as soon as she was inside I was behind her with the hammer. I’d thought one hit would do it, but I was wrong. She turned around to look at me. Here’s an example of how wrong I was: it wasn’t even Jamie.

It was Beth.

(click)

This is New York. People scream all the time.

People are also made of stronger stuff than you’d think. Girls are especially. It took several whacks. You know that sound? Like from the movies? Big, squishy thuds? Beth went down and started twitching, trying to get away, I guess on sheer instinct. She couldn’t have known what the fuck I was doing this for. She turned around and faced me as she fell, and she put her hands up in the air. She saw me too. I caught that look of recognition, that spark of understanding. And now, it’s like I’m still the one watching, but I’m even further away. I’m watching myself through a telescope turned the wrong way around. Or maybe I’m the one watching through this videocam. Maybe I’m you.

Hello there.

Come on, I had to forget all this somehow.

( click)

I just wish I could remember more about Nicole. I mean, what the hell was she doing in the water? She wasn’t allowed. She was too little to swim. I barely knew how to swim myself. I was only, what, eight or nine or something.

(click)

I guess Beth was coming to yell at me. Or maybe she wanted the film. Whatever. I didn’t mean to... you know. It was Jamie I wanted. And it was Jamie who showed up, like, five minutes later. Talk about a surprise. There I was, covered with blood, pieces of Beth’s head everywhere. But Jamie got it, I have to say. She sussed out the situation right off.

“What are you going to do with her?” she said.

I was still kind of numb from the whole thing. I looked up.

“Why don’t you hop in the shower,” she said gravely, “and I’ll wrap her up.” So I did. And when I was in there, I started thinking. It’s kind of my thinking place, you know, standing there under the hot water, watching the steam rise and stick to the tiles. I started thinking about my mistake. I started thinking about Jamie out there wrapping Beth up in the plastic sheets. And I wondered if I’d ever be able to forget now, if I’d ever be able to forget last night with Jamie, or this morning with Beth. And then something hit me that was even more important. Would Jamie? Would Jamie be able to forget?

(click)

Beth wasn’t very big. So after we wrapped her in the plastic we shoved her into a huge bag with lots of other trash and garbage. Then she went out onto the street. The garbage guys come around pretty often, and I’ve watched them heave those trash bags up into the truck. They don’t know what’s in there, and I’m willing to bet they don’t want to. I wonder how many other people are out there in the landfills, rotting away.

Anyway, it was a nervous day. I even had a couple of appointments, which I kept because I didn’t want to arouse suspicion. See? (click) This is Jilah, a girl from Thailand. Pretty. And this (click) is Meredith. Skin’s not so good. Not so pretty. And this — well, this next one didn’t have an appointment or anything, but since I’d never really gotten a decent shot before — this is Jamie. Her eyes were always like that, looking away. I couldn’t get her to look at the camera. She just wouldn’t do it. “Why don’t you sit up there on the stool?” I had asked her.

“Me?”

“Sure,” I said. “Just for one shot.”

“But I don’t have any makeup or anything.”

“It’s not a glamour shot,” I said. “Come on.”

She made that clicking sound girls make with their tongues, then slid up onto the seat and looked at her hands.

I adjusted the camera. I futzed with the lights. “You know,” I told her, “I’ve got a problem.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said.

“Oh, I know that,” I said. “I know you wouldn’t do that. But you have to understand, Jamie, that I can’t go around remembering all this. I have to forget. I have to forget all this, or I’ll go crazy.”

“Oh.”

And that’s when I took this photo.

“Do you know what I mean?” I asked her.

“I think so,” she said. Then she cried, very softly, for quite a while. Then she told me in a voice all trembly and sorrowful that she’d been thinking about it for a long time, anyway, and that she had a whole bottle of blue Valiums in her backpack. And we calmly talked about how it would all happen. We’d wait until it was really late. Then we’d lay out the sheets of plastic. She’d write a note — I’d help her — about how she didn’t have anything or anyone, and that nothing made any difference. I could drop it in the mailbox in the morning. And I’d pour her a big glass of water, and she’d take those little blue pills, two at a time, until they were all gone. She’d lie down, then, and go to sleep. It would be beautiful, I thought. I said so, too. I told her that.