Ariel Gore - Santa Fe Noir

He slammed the big mossy tree against the mural.

And slammed.

The big mossy tree crumpled.

The fallen big mossy tree moaned, weakly writhing on the ground. This way, that way, looking for anything, Leo recognized the habits of a compulsive hoarder. The Honda was crammed with bags, clothes, detritus. Leo began rummaging. Pulling stuff out of bags. Disgorging the automobile. A handful of objects he grazed inside the Honda were bloodstained. Clothes. Socks. Toolkits. Hammers. Rivets. Pipes. Gloves. Cable ties. Cable ties provided a way to bind the suspect’s hands and feet. Get outta here, fast, faster. He realized his bicycle spokes were crushed anyway. He paused long enough to loop new knots, like a child playing Cat’s Cradle. He redoubled the cords, finished the job, beginning to see the angels and demonic imagery — the derelict presences — on the mural wall were living, sentient, huh, realizing he was hallucinating, or spinning, confusing past, present, and future Armageddons, or he had been zero/voiding since this morning, Lord knows since when.

Yep , he always told Giggles, I get irony . The irony that he had not gone looking for the cops since he was nine years old. The irony that he left the killer tied up beneath satanic devils; yet the minute he left the scene he believed he stepped inside illustrated phantasmagorias: looking for the blue-capped creatures that frightened him no less than angels and devils.

Nuclear war? Naw. Funny, though, the long and the short of it is. Armageddon. Has. Come.

His tongue raw in his mouth, his mouth bruised. And where am I? And how come my arms hang bloodless? My wrists sting, like I’m handcuffed? How much time has passed? None. Hours. Think back: think back to leaving the dead-end alley. Nearly sleepwalking. Nearing familiar Santa Fe, he laid the bicycle down. The bike frame was broken, bent at a sharp angle; the spokes network mangled. He leaned on the spokes with his elbows. The spokes softly pinged, pinged, while he pressured them back into alignment. He still couldn’t walk the bicycle much faster.

He had something to tell the cops. Damn straight. He had already begun disbelieving it. The story was factual: the imagery coloring his thoughts was semifactitious. But he seized phrases, Dead body. Hope she isn’t dead, then, The killer is in the alley. A flashlight sprung on him, like a sword drawn slantways from the scabbard. At first, in his head, he heard the ping ping , like a Pavlovian bell. Then he heard Reginald Prescott. Prescott was one of the policemen who occasionally visited the city dump. Step away from the curb.

“Oh, you,” Prescott said. He sounded disappointed, gesturing Leo away from the bike. Same guy that dropped by Leo’s campsite. Per usual, Prescott wouldn’t leave till he nudged the hibernating bear. “Had to be sure. You look like him. Go home. What am I saying — home? Say something.”

Before Leo finished answering, Prescott interrupted: “Something I should know about? What happened to your bicycle? Go back to the dump. The trash can, where you stay. Like Oscar the Grouch.”

Leo paid less and less attention to Prescott, barely listening — even when the man snickered — because when he tilted his head a certain way he heard ping ping ; the sound when he slammed the bicycle; the sound when he laid the bicycle flat. Ping ping , like a triggering bell.

I don’t look like him so much, up close. And he’s down. And the ping ping sound was right after the killer hit the wall. That’s where I recognized the sound. I kinda think I know where he’s tied up. Need help. Need help retracing my steps. It got scary right afterward when them pictures on the mural started moving, looked like they was moving, lucky I tied him down. Leo believed he sensibly appended the right details; maybe he unspun the whole fucking story, like unwinding a ball of thread. Or maybe not.

Prescott frowned, gawked, and pursed his lips like an administrator. Looking vexed, he raised his palm, spat, then looked away. “Lotta nerve. Lotta nerve, Leo—”

“It’s none of your business when we’re gonna catch him. You got a lot of nerve asking me all of this. And you already see there’s a police sweep in progress.”

Prescott glanced at Leo reprovingly. “But maybe that’s none of your business neither. Don’t insult police work again.” He began nodding his head stupidly, and he wouldn’t leave until Leo copycatted the gesture, and began wagging in agreement. “Comprende? No comprende? Scram.”

A police sweep? An unusually high number of police vehicles on the street? Definitely. Roadblocks. Cops checking civilian vans. Leo approached; red and blue lights spinning like shadowy genies escaping a million bottles.

“Sir. You have obviously been drinking. You either go someplace and have a coffee or I’m going to have to pull you in. I don’t want to hear another word out of you.”

An officer looking up from another driver’s license inspection, “Sir! Is there something that you want? Need?” Leo got scared, stumbled away.

Slouching to his knees, too enervated to bother himself over the consequences, he stationed himself at the doorstep of the only diner left open this hour. Three police cars meanwhile ran up and down the Cerrillos neighborhood. Lotta cops in the wrong location, Leo mused, so drowsily that the thought mattered less than that the patrons entering and exiting Denny’s politely sidestepped him. First piece of luck all day. He had raged all day long. Raged when he read the Santa Fe New Mexican . Raged when he read about the killer. Raged when he repeated his mantra. Raged until he couldn’t — he had to let the bile seep out of him. Couldn’t do anything about killers. They strike. They strike again. Killers kill. Drinkers drink. Just fall asleep here. ’Cause least people have the courtesy to sidestep me. Two of ’em. Blue devils. “It’s the fucking level of unprofessionalism,” one complained, entering Denny’s.

The other cop stopped, tapped his shoe. “This is not the place to sleep.”

A black cop gazed down at him. “Especially not tonight.” He sounded like he had something special in mind. “Get it? You must have noticed the sweep? Have you seen anything unusual?”

Say: I tackled the killer. And I tried to tell ya fellow officers. Can’t talk with all the bullhorns and sirens.

Say: And I feel ashamed looking at ya, officer. I don’t want to tell ya the crazy thoughts I was thinking.

He prattled, maybe he sounded like a baby with stones in his mouth, maybe he raised his voice when he sounded slurpy in his own ears. He couldn’t stop himself, still blathering while the shoes disappeared, seconds gone.

Leaving Leo babbling to thin air. Huh? The black cop returned. He held several pamphlets. The first pamphlets in the stack ubiquitously read, Help for the needy, or, Social Resources. The next set extolled church and Christianity with titles like, The Lord Provides. The black cop insisted, “Get off the street,” intended in a different sort of way than the others.

Thanks. Thanks for your concern. Thanks for Jesus . Presences nudged him left, then right. Gently rocking waves, leading him, leading him along until the thought broke through: Rage. I just got rage. But I ain’t him. Me. Him. Me. Him. Nothing else matters. But at least the killer wasn’t me. They might not know that. They gotta understand it wasn’t me.

Leo lumbered directly toward the blue, the red lights, converging at the street meridian. Everything shape-shifted. Cops, human figures emerged from the bulbous glow. A cop car tapped him, swinging open; he kicked back, like an emotional yo-yo.