Percival Everett - Damned If I Do

Randall looked around. The bank was empty of customers. The guard was by the door looking at him. He looked up and saw the video camera looking at him. Randall began to whistle. He turned, continuing to whistle as he moved toward the door.

“Sir,” the young teller called to him, but Randall was gone. He ran down the street and around the corner, stopping finally, hands on knees, panting.

Randall went back to Thayer Street and boarded a bus. There were a couple of kids in the back and a blind man up front next to the driver. They rolled toward the tunnel and Randall saw the faces of the policemen. Their cars were connected to purple tow trucks with Buzz painted on the doors. The bus passed by and went through the tunnel. Randall looked at his watch and thought about that armed-forces ad that said soldiers did more before eight than most people did all day. It was nine-thirty.

Randall wandered into a McDonald’s to get warm. He bought a cup of coffee and sat in the middle of the restaurant, away from the windows. His mind was racing, but could find nowhere to go. He wouldn’t be able to sit here forever. Too long and the workers would get suspicious. Besides, the little, yellow, plastic chairs hurt his butt.

A man in a tattered coat had been sitting in a booth when Randall arrived. He wasn’t eating or drinking, just sitting. A kid in a McDonald’s hat came and asked him to leave.

“It’s cold out there,” the man said.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re going to have to leave.”

“It’s cold out there.”

The kid looked back into the kitchen and caught the eye of another man. He said something to someone Randall couldn’t see and came out to the scene.

“He won’t go,” the kid said.

“Sir, we’re trying to run a business here,” the new man said. He was tall, lanky, and not too old himself. He wore a brass tag that said MANAGER.

“And I’m trying to stay the fuck alive.”

“Listen,” the manager was getting tough. “You gotta get out of here right now.”

“Or what?” The man in the tattered clothes looked the manager up and down. “Or what? You candy-ass, made-up little prick-faced boy scout.”

The manager got mad. “Listen, asshole, the police are coming, already been called.”

“The police are coming,” the man repeated. “Is that because you can’t handle the situation?” The man pulled himself up and out of the booth.

The manager and the kid fell back a step.

“Boo,” the man said.

The manager got mad and started for the man in the tattered clothes, but the kid stopped him.

“You’d better stop him,” the man said, headed for the door. “Don’t make me have to hurt the sorry-ass.”

The manager stopped pushing and said, “Get out of here, you boozed-up, pathetic, homeless motherfucker.”

The man in the tattered clothes stopped, holding the door open and looked back at the manager. His eyes were steady. “I ain’t pathetic.”

Randall watched the man walk past the window and out to the street. He got up himself and threw away his empty cup. He had to use the toilet, but he wanted to be gone when the police arrived.

Randall Randall was scared. He couldn’t go home and he had no one to whom he could turn. He thought about the people who liked him. Susie liked him. He liked her. Maybe she would help him. He wondered what she could do, being just a cashier at the Osco. She could go to his apartment and get the checkbook. He would call Claudia and tell her that Susie was coming by for it, but then Claudia would see Susie and get jealous, jealous of her youth, jealous of her makeup, and then she would get mad and not give it to her. For that matter, why couldn’t Claudia just bring the checkbook to him herself or even go to the bank and bring him the cash? Because she wouldn’t, that was why. She had always insinuated that he was only interested in her money and this would just prove it. And what would he say when she asked him when he was coming home? It was her fault that he was in this mess. He had no problem with the Dumpster, he was just worried about her knee, all her complaining.

Randall went back to his neighborhood and from a couple of blocks away he could see that things weren’t quite right. There were two cops standing on the sidewalk across the street from his building.

He found another pay phone, this one in the back of an arcade. This phone had a dial and it felt funny on his finger; he had to work to remember his number. It was difficult for him to hear over the bells and buzzers of the nearest pinball machine, but he knew that Claudia sounded funny when she answered.

“Oh, hello, Randall,” Claudia said. “Where are you, dear? You’re late. I’ve been so worried.”

Randall hung up. He looked over to find the leather-jacketed, late-teens pinballer staring at him. “What are you looking at?” Randall asked.

“Nothing,” the kid said, staring right him. “I’m looking at nothing.”

Randall got mad for a second, then became afraid. He left the arcade and decided the public library was a good place to hide and keep warm.

The very tall woman with the tower of books in her arms disappeared down the stairs, leaving Randall alone on the floor, he believed. He sat on a step stool in the middle of an aisle, a book full of pictures of India on his lap. He’d never wanted to go to India and these pictures of sand and elephants and cobra snakes and people with spotted foreheads weren’t causing him to want to go there now, but still he wished he were there.

He looked through many, many books about Asia, suffering through the occasional visitor to his section of the stacks. Out the window he could see the sky starting to darken, the snow still falling. The library would close soon and he figured it was best to get out without being asked, so he left.

It was nearly five and the Osco would be closing. He wanted to catch Susie as she was leaving work and ask her to help, though he wasn’t sure what he would be asking her to do. Perhaps she would allow him to sleep at her place. It was much colder now and the snow was piling up.

Randall was glad it was dark, feeling he could now move about more freely. His jacket was not nearly warm enough. If he had a credit card he could just take off, go to the bus station or the airport, but he didn’t have one. A life on the lam didn’t sound so bad, city to city, new people.

Susie was bundled up in her long, down parka, coming out of the front door of the drugstore. The coat was a dark pink and seemed to match her eye makeup. Randall was standing at the corner of the building, at the entrance to the alley, in the shadows.

“Susie,” he whispered to her, startling her. “Susie, it’s me, Randall Randall.”

She looked at him, clutching her bag. “Mr. Randall?” Susie did not come closer. “The police came in today asking questions about you.”

“I need your help, Susie.”

Susie looked up and down the street, took a step away. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”

“I didn’t do anything, Susie.”

The young woman walked away, looking over her shoulder at Randall. The snow swirled around her.

Randall went back into the alley and fell to sitting on the ground, leaning against the brick wall, between a green Dumpster like the one behind his building and some empty cardboard cartons. He heard the back door of the Osco open and he pushed and pulled himself to his feet, his legs stiff. He saw Willy, the druggist locking up.

“Willy,” Randall said.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me.”

Willy put the package he was holding into his other hand and reached into his pocket.

Randall moved closer. The flash hurt his eyes. He felt a dull push at his middle and he was confused. He was sitting on the ground, looking down at his lap. His ears were ringing. He moved his eyes back up to see Willy. The fat man showed fear. Randall saw something drop from the fat man’s hand. Randall rocked in the cold air, then lay back, looked up at the snow.