Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

She leans down and picks them up and smells them, earthy and pleasant with a slight pollen sharpness. It reminds her of being a teenager. When she was fifteen she was courted by an eighteen-year-old Mexican boy named Albert. He gave her flowers like this and they went for walks. Once they did more than walk. She lay back and let him take her virginity. It was sweet and awkward and brief. She wonders what happened to him, but supposes she’ll never know.

She smells the flowers again. She wants to bring them into the house and put them in water, but something tells her she shouldn’t. They’re sure to be from Carl, she can think of no one else who’d leave flowers for her, and she doesn’t want to be reminded of him every time she looks at them over the course of the next week.

He was a mistake and she doesn’t want to think about it.

She tosses them aside, into the dirt to the left of the porch, looks toward them briefly with some regret, and closes the door.

Then she heads back to the bathroom. She has to finish getting ready for work.

2

Sandy watches from down the street, from behind a car. His mother opens the front door, looks around briefly, and then looks down. She picks up the flowers he left for her and smells them. It makes him smile to see her there. He misses her very much. Seeing her makes a large part of him wish that he could take it all back. If he could take it all back he could run up to her right now and hug her. He knows he’s supposed to be strong now. He knows the gun tucked into his pants is supposed to make him bigger than he really is. But seeing his mother makes him feel like a little boy.

She throws the flowers to the ground, steps inside, shuts the door.

She hates him now. She must hate him now to throw his flowers away. He left them for her to let her know he was okay, to let her know he loved her, and she didn’t care. She threw them to the ground and shut the door.

That’s it, then. He needs to stop thinking about her. He really is on his own. He knew he couldn’t go home, knew he couldn’t talk to her no matter how much he wanted to, but he thought he still had a mother somewhere. Now he knows he doesn’t. He has no one. He closes his eyes. He tells himself that men don’t cry. Men are big and strong. They don’t say please, they don’t say thank you, and they never, ever cry.

He turns and walks away from there, walks down to Macy Street and heads west, toward Hollywood.

He never should have come here. It’s getting late. It’s getting dark. Unless he goes back to the house he broke into earlier he has nowhere to sleep, and it doesn’t seem worth it. It’s far away, and he has no car and no money. He’s hungry again. He wishes he could steal a car like hoodlums in movies do, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to do anything. He’s just a stupid little kid and he doesn’t know how to do anything and he was stupid for thinking he did. He was stupid for thinking he could do this on his own. He wishes he was tough and crazy like James Cagney, but he isn’t. He’s just a stupid little kid. No wonder everybody hates him. No wonder the other kids wipe boogers on his clothes and push him and punch him. He’s no good. He never was any good. It was only a matter of time before his mother saw it too. No wonder she threw those flowers away. If he was her he’d have thrown them away too. And ground them into the dirt with his foot. If he was tough like James Cagney he would’ve pulled out his gun earlier and taken all the money from that stupid shop. He wouldn’t have run. That’s not what toughs do. But he isn’t a tough, is he? He tries to be but he isn’t.

He wipes at his eyes with the heels of his hands and tells himself to stop being a baby. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his packet of cigarettes. He lights one. He takes a drag, inhaling the smoke, and coughs. He takes a second drag.

He can be tough like James Cagney if he wants to be. He can be crazy like him too. He knows he can. He can make it on his own.

He’s a vicious dog. He’s a wild horse.

He’s killed people.

He doesn’t need anybody.

He reaches into his pants and pulls out the gun. It feels heavy in his hand. He rubs his thumb against the hammer spur, feeling the grooves in the metal. He can see a liquor store up ahead. There are lights on. He’s going to rob it.

He’s going to take all their money.

And he won’t say please.

And he won’t say thank you.

3

Candice parks her car in the lot behind the Sugar Cube and steps into the night. She looks toward the dark sky. She likes its depth, the way it just goes on and on. She closes her eyes and experiences the same depth in the other direction. That she likes less. She opens her eyes and walks into the bar through the back door. She makes her way through the stock room, past boxes of liquor and wine and beer, into the front of the place. It’s just beginning to come to life with talk and laughter.

She scans the room for Vivian, but there’s no sign of her.

She does, however, see Heath sitting at a table sipping a glass of Johnnie Walker Black and watching the room.

She walks over and asks about Vivian.

‘She called in.’

‘She all right?’

‘Didn’t say.’

‘How’d she sound?’

‘Fine. But you don’t need to worry about it. You been through too much as it is. I don’t even think you should be back at work yet.’

‘I don’t have anything else to do.’

He doesn’t respond. Eventually he looks away.

She stands there a moment, then turns toward the bar. There she sees a gentleman in a suit sitting alone, sipping his drink, looking around the room. She walks over and slides onto the stool to his right, hoping he can help her temporarily escape herself.

‘You look lonely,’ she says.

He turns toward her and smiles.

Eugene twists the key, listens to the thwack of the deadbolt as it retracts, and pushes open the door. He knows the room’s supposed to be empty, but his mouth is dry and his heart beats erratically in his chest. Last time he did something like this he ended up stumbling upon a couple corpses, and is still wanted by the police because of it.

He steps inside and closes the door behind him. No one else is here.

A bed fills the room, nightstands resting against the wall to its left and right. A Gold Medal paperback, something called The Brass Cupcake by John D. MacDonald, sits open on one of the nightstands, its narrow spine broken. A chair sits in the far right corner with a pinstriped suit coat draped over its arm. A desk and a lamp. An oak dresser with two suitcases resting on top of it, laundry piled high on the floor beside it.

A lived-in hotel room.

He pulls the switchblade knife from his pocket and walks to the nearest nightstand. He opens the drawer. But for a Gideon bible the drawer is empty. He sets the switchblade knife in the drawer beside the bible and pushes it closed. He walks to the dresser. A large leather suitcase sits on top of it beside a small square leatherette case. He begins with the large suitcase, unlatching it and looking through the contents. He finds socks, underpants, some T-shirts, half a bottle of whiskey, and a dress shirt. The dress shirt’s presence in the suitcase is strange. It’s the only piece of clothing which should be on a hanger. It’s the only piece of clothing that looks to have been worn. He picks it up. A bit of color catches his eye, blood on the left cuff. A few drops like an ellipsis. But enough for the police to find if they search the room thoroughly.

Evelyn might be right. They might simply be able to pin those murders on Louis Lynch. They belong to him, anyway. Come here, sweetie, let Momma stick this note to your shirt so you don’t lose it on the way to school.