Ryan Jahn - Low Life

He pushed his way out of the Saab, walked across the sidewalk, putting his hand forward to push one of the glass doors. But just before his fingers touched that cold, translucent surface he stopped and turned away – I can’t do this; I can’t fucking do this – and got back into his car.

He opened his box of cigarettes. Last one.

He stabbed his mouth with it and made a fire. He tossed the empty pack of Camel Filters out of the window and onto the sidewalk.

I can’t do this.

You have to do it.

His chest hurt and his eyes stung and his stomach felt hollow as a gourd. He looked down at his clothes – the overcoat, the green tie, the green scarf: what Shackleford had been wearing on the night of the break-in.

He laughed.

‘Fuck,’ he said. Was there anything he could have done that would have put him in a different position? He wasn’t sure. Perhaps all paths led here. Only the scenery was different.

But it didn’t have to end the same way. Just because it had happened that way once, that didn’t mean it had to happen that way again.

He smoked the rest of his cigarette slowly, and when it was gone – smoked down to the filter, which he pinched between thumb and index like a joint; smoked down till he could taste the filter itself burning – he flicked it out the window.

If he killed the man in the corduroy coat, if he performed just one more brutal act, he could finish this. He could step back into his life as Simon Johnson.

He didn’t care about whys any more. He just wanted it finished. And if he killed the man in the corduroy coat it could be – it could be finished. He could go back to his quiet life and pretend that none of this ever happened.

At the end of the day, he thought, it’s the only sane thing to do.

Then he started laughing and he couldn’t stop for a long time.

He pushed his way through the front doors and into the lobby of the Filboyd Apartments. An electricity ran through his body – and yet he felt cold.

As he walked up the stairs he reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out the Stanley screwdriver he’d used to switch the license plates. He gripped its black and yellow handle in his fist. The plastic handle was warm from pressing against his body, but the pad of his thumb was cold against metal. As he walked up the stairs his head swam with déjà vu, with a sense that he had done this before – not once before, not twice, but dozens of times. Maybe hundreds.

But that didn’t mean it had to happen the same way again. Things could change.

He felt cold.

He reached the top of the stairs and saw a graffito.

it said in black, that‘s’ smeared on the wall above it.

‘I intend to,’ he said back. ‘I intend to take him.’

His voice sounded strange in the empty corridor.

He licked his lips and breathed loudly through his nose. He turned to face the length of the corridor. He blinked. He saw ice cubes spread out before him, saw his own breath on the air like a speech bubble in a comic book, saw icicles hanging from doorknobs. He blinked again and all that was gone. It didn’t have to happen that way. He was so cold.

His body had remembered even if he had not.

It didn’t have to happen that way again.

As he walked, a sense of vertigo swam over him and he leaned against the wall and put his forehead against the paint. It felt good. He felt sick.

He could still turn around and walk away.

No, he couldn’t.

He didn’t want that.

He had no life as Jeremy Shackleford.

He walked to the front door. He looked at it. It was painted white. There were dirty-finger smudges along the outside edge, by the doorknob.

He swallowed, looking at that door.

He breathed in and he breathed out, faster and faster, working himself up – making himself hyperventilate.

Okay, he thought.

He brought back his foot and then he kicked it forward.

The door swung inward and splinters of the doorjamb flew in every direction, scattering across the small living room’s hardwood floor.

‘I know you’re here,’ he said as he stepped into the apartment. ‘I watched you come in.’

But as he walked in, a second wave of vertigo rolled through him and he stumbled toward the kitchen, thinking he might be sick. He dropped the screwdriver on the kitchen floor and hung his face over the sink. A sick groan squeaked from his throat, but nothing came out. He hadn’t eaten anything in days. He hadn’t eaten anything since Monday and today was Wednesday. He thought it was. Of course it was. Jeremy Shackleford had broken into his apartment on a Wednesday, so today had to be Wednesday. He was missing that special on UFOs. If he failed, the man in the corduroy coat would simply go to work tomorrow with a bruised neck. He would eat lunch with his friends. He would read in the paper about Helmut Müller’s death.

He stood there for a long time, arms resting on the edge of the counter, just breathing in and breathing out, looking at the smooth white basin. He could smell rot like the breath of an animal coming from the garbage disposal.

He heard a noise from the bedroom – faint. The man would be coming soon. He couldn’t let him find him like this. He stumbled to the fuse box and swung the gray metal door open and flipped all the switches, killing the power in the apartment. That would buy him a few minutes. It would let him get himself together. He leaned against the wall, still feeling sick. Breathing in and breathing out. Collecting himself.

Okay. He could do this. This time he wouldn’t die.

It could turn out differently.

Then a sound came from the living room. He jerked and looked through the kitchen entrance. He saw a man pushing the front door shut, cutting off the forty-watt light coming in from the corridor. He was wearing green pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt.

A shiver ran through his body: that was him.

He had to do it. It didn’t have to turn out the same way it had before.

He rushed the man – screwdriver forgotten on the kitchen floor – arms outstretched, and he gripped the throat. It was warm. He could feel the Adam’s apple being crushed under his thumbs.

‘Die, you son of a bitch,’ he said, and spittle flew from his mouth.

First there was only the cold. Then the pain. A pain above his left temple like no pain he’d ever felt before. Everything was black and he couldn’t figure out why. Then he did figure it out – and opened his eyes. A white out-of-focus something was hovering over his face like a ghost. He blinked several times. He had a plastic bag over his head. He exhaled and heard the plastic shift. There was a hole in the bag, a small tear shaped like a ragged z, and he could see that someone was sitting on the edge of the tub in which he was lying. That someone turned to look at him – that someone was Simon. Prematurely gray hair, glasses, a complexion like the surface of the moon. His breath caught in his throat.

He was buried in ice. He was cold. But he thought he felt open air on his left hand. He shifted his head slightly – trying not to make a sound – and saw that, yes, his left hand was lying upon the ice. He remembered pulling the hand out to see if there was a wedding ring on it. He could thank himself for freeing that hand later – once he was himself again.

The other man must have heard him because he leaned his head in and listened.

He reached out clumsily with his left hand – he was right-handed – and grabbed a handful of hair. Then he pulled back as hard as he could, gritting his teeth, and slammed the other man’s head against the tile wall. The hollow sound of a thud filled the room and the man fell to the floor with a clacking of teeth.