Nigh

by Zachary Leeman

  She doesn’t stop walking until a whimpering noise wraps itself around her neck. She stands motionless listening to the weeping and moaning sounds pushing through the dense air. She follows the continuous sounds to a thick tree with a collapsed pile of fur lying beneath it.

  His belly moves slow and hard, up and down, up and down. She moves closer until she can feel the steam rising from his breath on her fingertips.

  His mouth open, he lies on the ground waiting for death to mercifully carry him away. She walks closer and closer, the dog still as he can be, wheezing now through his final breaths.

  She drops to the ground in front of him, her knees screaming for a moment. Her left hand instinctively moves to her belly while she watches her breath hover and then quickly dissipate over the animal.

  Large bits of black and red consume the animal’s neck. Its blood is dried and ugly. Fur is clumped together in splotches.

  She watches the heavy, warm fog leave his mouth and evaporate into the world. Again. Again. Slower each time. His eyes slowly make their way toward her and then back to the nothingness in front of him. Her hand drops until she can feel his wet on her palm.

  Her hand moves with him, up and down, up and down, up and down, the slow rhythm gruesome and yet strangely comforting to watch, to listen to, to feel.

  A small attempt at a whimper leaves the animal’s throat and then she watches as his eyes close, the pain in this movement obvious and excruciating. She holds his belly until it stops its breathing song and becomes just another thing abandoned in the world.

  Her hand holds him for some time longer and then she begins petting the dead creature. With each stroke of her hand, a piece of her mind irrationally tells her it will breathe again. She brushes her hand across its thick fur until every part of her knows it is dead.

  She lifts herself up, pain setting her body aflame. She watches the animal for a few more moments and then leaves, the air thinner with each step.

  “Where have you been? We’re late!” He looked more driven by vigor and passion than she’d perhaps ever seen before. He stood on the porch, phone in hand, frantically pacing as he waited for her. “And what happened to your knees? Where have you been. We need to go now!”

  She could still smell the pine and dirt behind her.

  “We need to go, Deborah,” he said and then disappeared into the house.

  She took a step toward the house, the wet blades of grass brushing across her sore legs. She felt tired and odd. With her next step, she was surprised by a tightening pain around her stomach. She looked down to see her hands there, their grip stronger with every step.

  She followed her husband inside, listening to the curses under his breath as she entered, the stomping of his feet, the jingling of car keys in his pocket. Her hands were now clenched so tightly around her stomach, she thought she may have broken skin with her nails.

  “I can’t believe this. We talked about this,” he said walking through the living room toward the front door. She stood by the fireplace, unable to take another step, the wheezing of the dog scratching at her ears.

  He turned back when he didn’t sense her behind him.

  “What are you doing?” Her grip tightened. Electric pain shot across her skin. He began walking toward her.

  Her right hand moved from her stomach to the fireplace. It fumbles about until the grainy handle of the fire poker made its way into her palm. He kept moving closer to her, not seeing the weapon.

  “We talked —” He was on the floor before her senses fully realized what had happened. She nearly toppled over with him before she told herself to let go of the steel, it now lying stagnant in the side of her husband’s head. A crunch and a thump were all the noises he had left before his insides were pooling onto the floor.

  Her hand moved back around her child as she watched her husband die.

  138 days left

  Faggot. Pussy. Fairy. Dad’s voice is as clear as when I last saw him. I sit up and try to shake him from my mind, but his voice is like a storm burrowing itself deeper and deeper inside my mind. I pull one of the last cigarettes I have from my back pocket. It’s mangled and twisted, but I light it anyway.

  A fire erupts in my lungs and then my chest as I inhale. The burning makes me feel alive and whole. I push myself off my mattress to the ground and move out of the alleyway. It’s a nice alleyway these days. I have it to myself, which is new. Old neighbors have moved into abandoned houses and buildings around the city, but not me. It’s never felt right to leave.

  I savor the last smoke that the stick can give me and then drop it to the ground. I walk the streets like I do every day. I walk and walk. I walk until my feet scream. Most days, I walk through the city with my head down letting my feet take me any way they can. I keep hoping I’ll look up one of these days and be lost, but I’ve been here too long. This city’s claws are in me and they won’t let go.

  I look up from my travels when I feel a hunger rumbling in my stomach. Tragically, I know exactly where I am. I walk the mile and a half between me and a local grocery store still open.

  Most of the shelves are bare. The lines stretch long. I always wonder why there are lines anymore. It’s like none of them can accept that things are done. Their routines are the stitching that keeps them from fully tearing apart. I walk through the store, avoiding eye contact with everyone, and grab a can of beans and leave.

  Outside, a few men give me glances that last too long. I feel dirty, heavy, sick. Being around people is hard now, somehow harder than before. I imagine there’s no real difference in who people are now and who they were before. The difference is now you can see most of what people would have hidden in some hole inside of them before. Now they wear their true wants and needs upon their shoulders with a twisted sense of pride. These days people give off a thick odor of their rottenness that wafts through the air and clings to you and makes you wish you were dead.

  I used to have to suck them off and fuck them in alleyways, in the shadows of the night behind stores or in the woods. They were discreet about what they wanted. Now I know exactly what they want the second their eyes pierce me.

  I haven’t fucked a man since The News. I haven’t taken money to fuck anybody since The News.

  I move to the outside wall of the store and drop myself against it. I place my can of beans next to me and pull the last cigarette from my back pocket. It looks worse than the first one. I’m careful as go through the process of lighting it. I lean my head against the stiff concrete and close my eyes and let the smoke massage my insides.

  “Looks like you could use a fresh pack.” I look up to see an older woman with short grey hair looking down at me with a smile. She doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen in a long time. She looks warm.

  “I’m fine with this. Thanks.” I watch her reach into her pocket and pull out a crisp pack of Marlboros. I take a long drag off my smoke, finish it off and toss it to the ground.

  I look at the red and white pack in her hand, neatly wrapped in plastic waiting for its next victim. I snatch it from her and begin peeling the packaging off.

  “Thanks,” I say, trying not to look at her or her smile. Something about it is different, nostalgic, out of place. I pull another stick out and light it. The first drag is good and strong and the best thing I’ve had in a long time. I close my eyes, but I can still feel her shadow over me.

  “Are you hungry?” she asks. Her smile is even wider now, watching me enjoy her smokes.

  I point to my cans of beans on the ground.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Choices aren’t what they used to be, are they? My name is Jessica, by the way.”

  “Max.”

  “What would you say to joining me and my husband for a home-cooked meal, Max?” I invite in another long drag of smoke and look deep into the whites of the woman’s eyes. I look for something, anything beneath the surface, beyond what she’s saying.

  “What’s your deal?” I ask.

  “De
al? What do you mean?”

  “You must be sixty or seventy … you want something, just say it. No need for all that bullshit anymore.”

  “Bullshit? You should watch your mouth around a lady, especially when it’s an elder. You merely looked like you could use a good meal and a fresh pack of cigarettes. People can still help other people, you know.” Jessica turns and starts walking away. From the back, she looks good for her age.

  I let in another blissful puff off the cigarette and jog after her, leaving my can of beans behind.

  I made a mistake. I made a mistake. It’s all I can think as the streets pass us by, her in the driver’s seat and me with my face pasted to the passenger window. I made a big fucking mistake. Curiosity and hungry stomachs can get people killed these days.

  A man’s voice screeches about government bunkers and aliens and God and Jessica eventually flicks the radio off before the man’s voice can completely drown the inside of the car.

  I watch a person club another over the head in a parking lot, a pregnant woman clutching her stomach stumbling through the streets and a toothless, smiling man holding a sign saying, “I told you this would happen.” The last sight makes me chuckle.

  I look over to Jessica, the warm smile still stretched across her easy face. I look back to the window and feel like I’m on a cloud, separated from it all, watching from afar, witnessing a dream play out that I could have sworn was real.

  “Don’t be so nervous,” she says.

  “I’m not.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you?” I ask.

  “Am I what, dear?”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Well, why should I be?”

  “You don’t know me. I could be crazy.”

  “I know enough, dear. Sometimes you know enough just by looking at someone, just by seeing their eyes.” The words should drive me to open the passenger door and throw myself to the pavement, but they don’t. My mind accepts it all without hesitation. I sink back in my seat and continue watching the outside world.

  “Max, we’re here.” My eyes leap open and it takes a few moments before I realize where I am and what I’m doing. Jessica’s hand is on my shoulder.

  “Where are we?”

  “My home. Why don’t you grab the groceries from the back and come inside and meet Bill?”

  “Bill?”

  “My husband.” She leaves the car, the clap of the door closing finally bringing me out of my daze.

  Maybe it’s the sleep, maybe it’s the realization of what I’m doing, but my stomach feels like sinking iron inside of me. I push myself out of the car.

  The house is unlike anything around it. It’s a lower-class suburb and it looks like most suburbs I’ve seen recently. Lawns are overgrown or brown, some houses are decorated with broken windows and spray paint, one is nearly gone, now little more than ash and rubble.

  Jessica’s house looks like it was teleported from a different time. The grass is cut, the white paint has a sparkle to it. There’s even a garden with tomatoes growing. I grab the bags of groceries from the back of the car and wonder if I’m still dreaming, still lost in some distant slumber in the car, or maybe even the alley.

  I walk to the front door and before my feet take the first step onto the porch, the door swings open and a man with broad shoulders and a smile as deep and warm as Jessica’s is standing in front of me.

  “Let me take those off your hand, Max.”

  “I’m Max,” I say, handing over the bags. The man laughs a little.

  “I know that, Max. Come on in.”

  I never met my grandparents. My mother was not around much, and my father’s parents died when he was young. The house I enter, though, looks exactly like the house I’d imagined grandparents to have when I was a boy. It’s tacky, but welcoming. Odd in its arrangements, and yet welcoming in every corner.

  Jessica stands in the kitchen and shoots me another smile, this one bigger than any of the previous ones. Bill puts away the groceries, paying no mind to the stranger in his house.

  I give a glance to the door and remember the burned house, the broken windows. I remember the alley I call home, the grocery store, the men and the looks they give me.

  “Sweetheart, let’s get you out of those clothes. They’re filthy,” Jessica says, brushing her hands against my t-shirt, which probably hasn’t been more than rinsed off in months. Seeing her close, I realize for the first time how old she really is. Her face slouches and is marked with the wrinkles of the decades she carries behind her. Still, her eyes are young and attractive. “I think we still have some of Joe’s old clothes, don’t we Bill?”

  “Yes, I believe we do,” Bill says, taking a brief break from his work and then immediately getting back to putting the groceries away when he realizes his wife has nothing else to say to him.

  “Come with me,” she says, “let’s get you some fresh clothes and you can take a shower before dinner.” I follow her into the next room, unable to muster the energy to do anything but comply.

  I know why they like me. I know why they’ve always liked me. The sideways glances, the looks that always linger a few seconds too long. Even as a young man just discovering my body and wants, the signs were all there. My father’s friends, older boys at school.

  I know why they pay. The toned, yet feminine body, the smooth, hairless skin, the baby face, the small stature and, of course, the unnaturally long ropey set of veins and muscle dangling between my legs.

  I know why they like me and I know why they pay. I know why they still like me and I know why I could still get them to pay.

  I turn the knob of the shower and the water hits me like a swift, biting wave. I can’t remember the last time I showered.

  I stay in until my skin turns red and begins to prune. When I step out, the door to the bathroom swings open and I’m caught half in and out of the tub. Jessica takes a step inside and looks up, surprised, nearly dropping the clothes in her arms. I expect her to look away, but instead her eyes fall straight to me.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. I don’t try to cover up or move. I watch her eyes guiltily move down my body and then rest for a moment before she puts the clothes on the sink and jolts out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  I feel open and clean. I run my hands through my hair a few times, enjoying not having them collect grease for once. The clothes are a little loose and baggy, but they feel far better than the rags I’ve been wearing.

  It feels lighter. Walking. Moving.

  The kitchen is warm and smells like roasted meat. It’s a smell I can only faintly remember from some distant point in my life. Bill is working at the stove and gives an approving nod when he sees me.

  “They fit well,” he says.

  “They look very nice,” Jessica says, her eyes showing no hint of what happened between us only a few minutes ago.

  “Thank you,” I say. I walk away from them both and onto the front porch. I pull out the pack of cigarettes Jessica gave me and remove one, toss it between my lips and light it. The ritual movements center me, remind me I’m not inside some strange dream.

  I light the smoke and take a slow inhale, savoring every bit of crackling goodness it offers my lungs. I stand out there for what feels an hour. Bill and Jessica don’t bother me, and I manage not to think about them or where I am or what I’m doing. I just smoke.

  “Must feel nice smoking a fresh pack,” Jessica says as I enter the house again. “Bill used to smoke, and he never seemed to enjoy anything more than the first couple of cigarettes out of a new pack.” I watch Bill nod his head agreeably as he stirs the pot in front of him. Jessica is sitting at the kitchen table, not far from the stove. I walk over and sit across from her. Below her hands, I see a crossword puzzle with nothing penciled in.

  The house is like nothing I’ve seen for a long time. It’s something that shouldn’t exist. These people shouldn’t exist. None of this should exist.

  “Would you like to help
me set the table, dear?” I look to see Jessica’s spidery hands across mine. I silently follow her and set out silverware, napkins and plates.

  Bill serves a stew full of meat and potatoes and vegetables and I eat three bowls of it. I can’t remember the last time I had a meal cooked on a stove. Jessica and Bill watch me and smile. The food is too good and soothing to my tongue and stomach for me to care about their stares while we eat. They ask me a few simple questions about where I came from and about my family, and I give answers as generic as I can make them, mostly burying my face and mouth in what’s in front of me.

  When we are done, Jessica clears the table, and Bill asks me to follow him into the living room. I feel like the hot embrace of a smoke after a meal like that, but I follow him into the living room anyway, the sound of running water forming behind me.

  Bill sits in a chair in the corner of the living room and I sit on the couch next to him. We are in silence for a while, the only sounds being Jessica cleaning in the kitchen.

  “It must be nice,” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  “Having a home like this. Especially today.” I tell myself to shut up, to leave, but everything around is consuming me. I’m feeling safe, an emotion I usually know better than to succumb to so easily.

  “You don’t have a home, Max?”

  “Not for a long time,” I say, leaning back against the couch, savoring the full feeling in my stomach. Silence grabs the room again, longer this time, until Bill’s voice cracks the hold.

  “Would you like a home?” The question shoots me forward. Bill’s eyes make me nervous. They look ready to unload something when I hear Jessica say from the other room, “Anybody ready for dessert?”

  Bill jumps up from his seat and hurriedly movies to the kitchen. I sit alone for a few moments before moving.

  Walking back into the kitchen, looking to Bill and Jessica and feeling the warmth emanating from the walls of their home, I’m reminded of the fleeting high I had in the moments after The News. When I didn’t feel like a whore. When I didn’t feel like much of anything. When I felt one with what was around me. It was silly. The feelings rightfully left quickly and never came back.