Ryan Jahn - Low Life

Simon blinked away the blindness and saw floating above him a white plastic grocery bag. There was a hole in the front of it and it dripped blood onto his face, into his mouth – salty and thick and metallic – and through the hole he could see one pale green eye staring at him, bright and alive and filled with rage and insanity.

He reached behind him for a weapon of some kind – I’m not going to die on the floor in my own bathroom for no reason at all – and knocked over a magazine rack, sending the glossy things sliding across the tiles. The next thing to fall was a toilet plunger, and then a toilet brush. Water spilled out of the cup the brush had been sitting in, stale and reeking.

Simon’s vision was fading and going smeary at the edges and the colors were distorting, becoming bright and strange, everything turning blue and green and grainy as an old film.

And then he felt it.

A porcelain jar out of which a small bamboo plant was growing. It was the only plant in Simon’s apartment, and he took great care to make sure it stayed alive. Filled with water and small stones, the porcelain jar was heavy.

Simon wrapped his hand around it and swung his arm forward like a catapult, smashing the thing into his attacker’s face. A moment later blood came gushing from the hole in the bag and the bag sagged with the weight of what blood could not escape it. Simon wrapped his hands around Shackleford’s throat and squeezed as hard as he could, gritting his teeth, feeling the veins in his temples pulsing, feelings the cords in his neck go taut. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Shackleford went limp, but Simon wasn’t going to fall for it this time. He let the body drop to the cold tile floor and then crawled atop it and continued to throttle the neck. And then he picked up the porcelain jar again – now slick and smeared with blood – and slammed it against Shackleford’s head. It was an easy thing to do when there was no face to look at. He might have been cracking a walnut. He slammed the jar against the head a dozen times, breathing hard. With each hit, what was behind the bag went softer and softer as the bone of the skull broke into smaller and smaller pieces. The porcelain jar finished what the plastic flashlight had begun.

He got to his feet, feeling weak and lightheaded, swaying on his legs like a top-heavy tree in a strong wind. He swung a leg and landed a kick into Shackleford’s ribs, but when he kicked again he lost his footing and fell to the floor, sitting in the stinking water that was running along the grout lines.

He sat there, sprawled out, legs in front of him, hands pressed against the tile behind him, holding him up, and stared a blank moment. His chest hurt from heavy breathing. His throat was sore and bruised and it hurt to pull air through it.

‘Jesus,’ he said, and then looked at Shackleford. ‘You better stay dead this time.’

He crawled toward the bathroom counter, grabbed his whiskey, and downed it in a single draught. It burned going down.

He sat down on the couch with the telephone in his lap. He dialed Dr Zurasky. He hadn’t talked to Zurasky in over a year – since last April or May – but for some reason he was the first person Simon thought to call. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t tell him what had happened. He just wanted someone to talk to. After four rings that someone picked up and said, ‘’Lo?’

‘Dr Zurasky, it’s Simon Johnson.’

‘Who?’

‘Simon Johnson.’

‘I don’t – never mind that. It’s late.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—’

‘Is it an emergency?’

‘I don’t—’

‘This is my emergency line. It says so right on my card. Is this an emergency?’

‘No, I guess not.’

‘Are you thinking of harming yourself?’

‘No.’

‘Are you thinking of harming someone else?’

Simon paused. Then: ‘No.’

‘Okay,’ Dr Zurasky said. ‘Call my office tomorrow morning at nine. Tell my assistant Ashley I said to squeeze you into the schedule. What was your name again?’

‘Simon Johnson.’

‘Right.’

The click of a signal being severed.

‘Oh,’ Simon said. ‘Okay.’

He put the phone back into its cradle and set it on the floor. For a moment he thought about calling Robert or Chris, but then decided against it. No good would come of it. He got to his feet and padded to his bedroom.

He awoke with a bit of a hangover. His throat hurt. He stumbled to the bathroom, wetted a washcloth, wiped himself down with it – the bathtub being in use – brushed his teeth, and combed his hair. There were two dark blue-green thumbprint bruises on the front of his neck, and eight barely noticeable fingerprint bruises stitching their way up the back, right into his hairline. He was surprised the bruises weren’t worse. He looked at the corpse in the bathtub. A lot of the ice had melted in the night and gone clear – before, it had been frosty white – and he could now see the body beneath. It was strange, like an insect in amber.

He walked out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen.

There was a screwdriver on the kitchen floor, partly hidden beneath the edge of the counter. It was a Phillips head with a black and yellow plastic handle. According to the same handle it was a Stanley screwdriver.

He picked it up and put it into a junk drawer.

He packed his lunch.

He grabbed Shackleford’s wallet and keys and headed out through the front door.

He pushed his way out of the Filboyd Apartments and walked along Wilshire toward his car. As he walked he kicked a pack of Camel Filters – his brand – picked up the box, shook it, found it was empty, and dropped it again. Then he saw the dog just to his left. It was in the gutter, its head resting on the curb, which was smeared with blood. He recognized its chewed-on steak-fat ear. It lay dead behind a black Saab sedan. Its mouth was open, its tongue hanging out. The car was no more than two years old and had blood streaked across its otherwise white rear license plate.

Poor bastard.

Simon briefly considered keying the Saab, scratching something awful into the door, but decided against it.

He continued on to his Volvo.

He sat at his desk and dialed the number.

Ashley picked up on the other end. ‘Dr Zurasky’s office.’

‘Hello. This is Simon Johnson. Dr Zurasky was expecting me to make an appointment for today, and—’

‘He said you’d be calling. Have you seen Dr Zurasky before? He wasn’t—’

‘I’m actually feeling much better today, so I’m just gonna hold off.’

A pause, and then: ‘Okay. I’ll let him know.’

‘Thank you.’

He hung up the telephone.

Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He glanced left and there was his boss, Bernard Thames, a pear-shaped man in his fifties with narrow shoulders and a wide middle. Big forehead a beach over which the wave of his bangs splashed, eyebrows like question marks, long and narrow fingers with knuckles like knots, fingernails trimmed so short a couple of them were bloody. He wore gray suits and spoke in an inflectionless monotone. But Simon thought there might have been more to him than was immediately obvious – Mr Thames often wore red socks.

He had no idea how long his boss had been standing there.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘About the Samonek account.’

‘If you mean the discrepancy between the check and the time card for Fran Lewis, it’s the time card that’s in error. I got a last-minute phone call from Sheryl on Wednesday. I must have forgotten to update and initial the time card.’

Mr Thames nodded a quick affirmation, tipping his chin briefly.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That answers that.’

He turned to walk away, managed three steps, and then turned back.