Ryan Jahn - Low Life

‘I told you,’ Simon said. ‘To kill me. He broke in because he wanted me dead.’

‘Why?’

Simon shook his head.

‘I don’t know.’

He reached down and put the bag back over the corpse’s head.

Both men simply stood silent for a long moment.

Finally, Robert said, ‘I’ve – I’ve seen him before.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know,’ Robert said. ‘Monday maybe. Is today Thursday?’

‘I don’t know. What happened?’

‘Remember when I told you a guy accosted me on the street?’

Simon nodded. He remembered. Robert had even mentioned that the guy looked a bit like him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that till now.

‘This is him. I was walking to that liquor store on Fourth Street to get a pack of smokes and he grabbed me by the shirt and slammed me against a wall and asked me if I was the one who took it.’

‘Took what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him I didn’t.’

‘What are you gonna do now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Simon said. ‘Now that you know, I was – I was hoping you could help me figure that out.’

Robert was shaking his head before Simon even got the sentence out.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No way. I don’t – I never. No. No.’

Simon and Robert had been sitting on the couch, but now Robert got to his feet.

‘I’m gonna wait for the auto club outside.’

‘You don’t want another drink?’

Robert shook his head.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah,’ Robert said. ‘I’m – ’ he licked his lips and swallowed – ‘yeah, I’m okay. I have to drive. I’m gonna go.’

Simon felt a sudden desperation to keep Robert there. In part because if Robert left Simon didn’t know what he would do – maybe he would go straight to the police – but mostly because he simply didn’t want to be alone right now. Thinking of the life Shackleford must have lived with his wife and his students and his university friends made Simon feel hollow in his own. What did he have? His record collection and his whiskey. And Francine, of course. But it wasn’t enough.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. I’m just gonna wait outside.’

‘Please. Just stay for one more drink.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Robert walked to the front door and pulled the chair away from it.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said again, and then pulled open the door.

‘Robert.’

Robert stopped. He turned and looked at Simon.

‘Don’t go to the police. Please. I need to find out why he wanted me dead.’

Robert bit his lip, looked out into the corridor – maybe thinking of Tijuana and his trouble there – and then he looked back.

‘I didn’t see a thing,’ he said finally. He swallowed. ‘And now we’re square.’

Simon stared down at the ice in his glass for a long moment.

‘Simon?’

He looked up at Robert.

‘If I keep quiet,’ he said, ‘we’re square. I don’t owe you anything else.’

Simon nodded.

‘Okay.’

Robert stepped out of the front door, pulling it shut behind him, but it only swung back open again. Simon listened to him walk across the corridor floor and then down the stairs to the lobby, shoes clunking against wood. Then he was gone.

Simon poured himself another drink, sipped it.

When he leaned back he felt something large and heavy in his pocket. He reached in and pulled it out. It was the picture of Jeremy Shackleford and Samantha he had taken from their house. He looked at it for a long time, at Samantha’s smile, at how beautiful she was. It must have been wonderful to have a woman like that, to be able to call a woman like that your own. Simon imagined sleeping beside her, spooned up against her bottom, one arm wrapped around her, hand cupping a firm breast. He imagined he’d be able to feel her slow heart beating in her chest.

He set the picture down on the coffee table and looked at it for a while longer.

Then he got to his feet, found a screwdriver – the one with the black and yellow plastic handle – and screwed a hasp and staple combination into both sides of the door, so the apartment could be secured from inside and out.

While doing this, he finished the bottle of whiskey.

Sleep did not come that night. He simply lay in bed, turning this way and that, pushing his blanket off him and then pulling it back on, flipping his pillow over repeatedly, his neck kinking, his ankles popping, his right arm falling asleep as he crushed it under the weight of his body, then his left. Thoughts swirled round his brain, which refused to go silent.

After what felt like an eternity – would this useless fucking night never end? – the gray light of morning began to seep in past the edges of the blue blanket nailed over the window.

The alarm clock didn’t have a chance to ring. He shut it off early, got out of bed, and padded to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and spat toothpaste and blood into the basin. He rinsed it down the drain, then cupped his hand under the running water, brought a palmful to his mouth, swished it around in there, and spat again. He turned off the water and stared at himself in the mirror, his face only inches from the glass. He looked into his own green eyes – green with flecks of brown. He had tiny bumps under his eyes, just above his cheekbones. They were white and about the size of the tip of a pen. He had accidentally scratched a few off once when he had an itch and despite their size they bled quite a bit. He pushed on the gray bag under his left eye. It was soft and moist and when he pushed on his eyeball through it his eye made a squeaking noise, as air was forced from a duct there, and his vision went blurry. He scraped the eye boogers from the corners of his eyes with a fingernail. He looked at them and then wiped his finger on his pajamas.

Then he turned away from the mirror and looked at the corpse lying in the now almost ice-free bathtub. He should have bought more ice yesterday. He would have to buy more this morning, even if it meant being late for work. He walked to the tub and sat on the edge of it. The porcelain was cool through his pajamas.

‘You had a very beautiful wife,’ he said. ‘I hope you appreciated her.’

He reached down and grabbed the corpse’s cold purple hand. The skin was soft and loose on the bones, like the skin on an undercooked chicken. He pulled the ring off the third finger and skin came with it, turning inside out and peeling backwards. Simon rinsed the gold band off under the faucet before putting it on his own finger. Then he sat back down beside the corpse. It was just beginning to smell. The scent was thick and slightly sweet. You could feel it like horseradish behind the roof of your mouth and the backs of your eyes.

‘Me,’ he said, ‘I’ve never been in love before. I’ve often wondered what it felt like. So many poems and songs try to describe it, it must be—’ He stopped there, licking his lips. He just didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

With most of the ice gone, he could see the corpse’s right hand. It was a blue-white color, the color of a week-old bruise, and covered in a network of scabbed-over cuts.

Strange.

He got to his feet and walked out of the bathroom.

He was only fifteen minutes late for work, and only three times that morning did he stop working in order to look at the gold band on the third finger of his left hand. When he did stop, he held his hand palm up and looked down at it, and with his right hand he twisted the ring around and around on his finger, thinking of what it meant to be attached to someone by such a thing. He longed for that. But then each moment passed – he snapped himself from his thoughts – and he went back to work.