The Little Sleep

by Paul Tremblay

  They take a step inside the shed and have to duck under the doorframe to enter. The wood complains under their feet. I empathize with the wood. I did say I was a druid.

  The goons take up all the space and air and light in the shed. Redhead says, “We’re gonna cut the banter short, Genevich. You have two choices: we shoot you and take the movie or we just take the movie.”

  “And maybe we shoot you anyway,” Baldy says.

  I do register that they’re confirming my find is in fact a movie, which is a plus, but I’m getting tingly again and the dark spots in my vision are growing bigger, ink leaking into a white shirt pocket. Come on, Genevich. Keep it together. I can’t go out now, not now.

  I shake my head and say, “That’s no way to treat the gracious host. Bringing over a bottle of wine would’ve sufficed.”

  Redhead says, “We don’t have manners. Sometimes I’m embarrassed for us. This isn’t one of those times.”

  I say, “There’s no way I’m giving you the flick. You two would just blab-blab-blab and ruin the ending for me.” I don’t think they appreciate how honest I’m being with them. I’m baring my soul here.

  Baldy says, “Sorry, Genevich. We get the private screening.”

  They take another step forward; I go backward. We’re doing a shed dance. I go back until the rear wall shelf hits me across the shoulders.

  Redhead raises the gun to between-my-eyes level and says, “We do appreciate you clearing out a nice, clean, private space for your body. The way I see it, we shoot you, put all that crap back inside the shed, and no one will find you for days. Maybe even a week, depending on how bad the smell gets.”

  I say, “I didn’t shower this morning and I sweat a lot.”

  Baldy says, “Give us the movie. Now.”

  That’s right, I have the film, and until they get it, I have the upper hand. At least, that’s what I have to fool myself into believing. I am a fool.

  I can’t move any farther backward, so I slide toward the right, to the corner, to where I found my prize and to the hole I punched through the back wall. The rotted plywood and wall are right behind me.

  I say, “All right, all right. No need for hostilities, gentlemen. I’ll give it to you.” I pretend to slip into the floorboard hole, flail my arms around like I’m getting electrocuted. Save me, somebody save me! The movement and action feels good and clears my head some. I might be hamming it up too much, hopefully not enough to get me shot, but I don’t want them watching my sleight of hand with the package, so I scuff and bang my feet on the floor, the sounds are percussive and hard, and then, as I fall to my knees in a heap, I jam the film inside my jacket, right next to the manila envelope. The photos and film reunited and it feels so good.

  Redhead traces my lack of progress with his gun. He says, “Knock off whatever it is you’re doing, Genevich, and stand up.”

  I say, “Sorry. Tripped. Always been clumsy, you know?” I hold out my empty hands. “Shit, I dropped the movie. I’ll get it.” I turn around slowly. I’m that shadow on the sundial again.

  Baldy says, “Get away from there, I’ll get it,” but it sounds tired, has no muscle or threat behind it because I’m trapped in the corner of the shed with nowhere to go, right? Redhead hesitates, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything to stop me from turning around.

  My legs coil under me. My knees have one good spring in them. I’m aimed at the fist-sized hole in the wall and ready to be fired. I’m a piston. I’m a catapult.

  I jump and launch shoulder first toward the plywood and the rear wall underneath the shelf, but my knees don’t have one good spring in them. My feet fall into in the hole, lodge between the floor and the frame, and then I hit the plywood face first. The plywood is soft, but it’s still strong enough to give me a good shot to the chops. There’s enough momentum behind me and I bust through the shed and into the fading afternoon light. I’m a semisuccessful battering ram.

  There’s a gunshot and the bullet passes overhead; its sound is ugly and could never be confused with the buzz of a wasp or any living thing. The grass is more than a couple of feet below me. I tuck my chin into my chest, my hat falls off, and I dip a shoulder, hoping to land in some kind of roll. While dipping my shoulder, my body twists and turns, putting a tremendous amount of pressure on my feet and ankles; they’re going to be yanked out of their respective sockets, but they come out of the corner. Upon release I snap forward, and land awkwardly on my right shoulder, planting it into the ground. There’s no roll, no tens from the judges. My bottom half comes up and over my head into a half-assed headstand, only I’m standing on my shoulder and neck. I slide on the grass in this position, then fall.

  There are two loud snaps, one right after the other. Breaking wood. I’m on my stomach and I chance a look back at the shed, instead of getting up and fleeing for my life. Most of the rear wall is gone, punched through, and the hole is a mouth that’s closing. The roof is falling, Chicken Little says so. Yet despite the sagging roof, the shed is growing bigger, a deflating balloon somehow taking in more air and taking up more of my view. Wait, it’s moving, coming right at me. The cinder blocks are toppling, and so is the propped-up shed.

  The goons. They’re yelling and there’s a burst of frantic footsteps but those end suddenly. The curtain drops on their show. I might meet a similarly sudden fate if I don’t move. The shed falls and roars and aims for me. I roll left, out of the way, but I go back for my hat. I reach out and grab the brim right as that mass of rotted wood and rusty nails crash-lands on the hat and my fingers are flea lengths away from being crushed. More stale dust billows into my face. All four walls have collapsed, the doors broken and unhinged. Just like that, the shed that stood forever is no more.

  I yank my hat out from beneath the rubble. It has nine lives. I stand up and put the hat on. It’s still good.

  Most of my body parts seem to be functioning, though my face is wet. My fingers report back from the bridge of my nose; they’re red with blood. No biggie. Just a scratch, a ding, otherwise good to go.

  I have the film. The goons don’t and they’re under a pile of suburban rubble. I step over the cyclone fence and remake myself into a woodland creature. I give one last look behind me.

  The backyard of the Genevich family plot has the appearance of utter devastation and calamity, the debris of Tim’s life destroyed and strewn everywhere, spread out for everyone to see, should they care to. Secrets no more. Tim’s stuff, the stuff that defined Tim for the entirety of my life, is nothing but so much rusted and collapsed junk, those memories made material are asleep or dead, powerless and meaningless, but not harmless.

  I walk away from the damage into the woods, thinking that Ellen won’t be pleased when she finds the shed. Hopefully, I’ll be around long enough to improvise a story.

  THIRTY

  I walk a mile, maybe two. Keep to the woods when I can, stay off the streets. When there aren’t any woods, I cut through people’s yards, stomp through bushes, trample on lawns, cross over driveways. I hide behind fences meant to keep riffraff like me out. I walk past their pools and swing sets. People are home, or coming home from work. They yell at me and threaten to call the police. But they don’t, and I keep walking. Small children run away; the older ones point and laugh. I don’t care. I wave them off, shooing away flies. I’m carrying the big secret. It gives me provenance to go where I need to go.

  I’m hungry, thirsty, and tired. Not the same tired as usual, but more, with a little extra spice, a little kick. Buffalo tired, General Gao tired. I can’t do much more walking. The aches and minor injuries from the rumble and tumble with the shed are building, combining into a larger pain. They aren’t inert.

  I have no immediate destination in mind other than away from the goons and my house, just to go somewhere they won’t find me. That’s it. No more walking. I find two homes that have an acre or more of woods between them. I go back into hiding, but get the street name and address numbers first.

  I call B
rill, tell him where to pick me up. He says he’ll be there in ten minutes. That’s a good Brill.

  Being the only cab in town during the off-season, this is a risk. Assuming the goons have emerged from the woodpile, they’ll do all they can to get back on my trail. They’ll figure out he’s the only way around town for me, if they don’t know that already. I have to chance it. I need one more ride from him.

  I sit on a tree stump. The street is twenty yards away, far enough away that I can see the road, but I’ll only be seen if someone stops and searches for me. I won’t be seen from a quick drive-by.

  I take the film—what I presume to be the film—out of my coat. The wrap job is tight. After an initial struggle to get the unraveling started, the layers of tape and plastic come off easy and fast, the way I like it. It’s a canister of film, maybe six inches in diameter. I open the canister and there’s a reel of celluloid. I lift it out like a doctor extracting shrapnel, or like I’m playing OPERATION, careful with that funny bone, can’t touch the sides.

  The film is tan and silky and beautiful, and probably horrible. It holds thousands of pictures, thousands of moments in time that fit together like the points in a line. It’s getting dark in the woods and I try holding the film up to the vanishing light. There are shapes, but I can’t make out much of anything.

  I need equipment. Luckily, I know a film expert. She wears clown pants sometimes.

  My cell rings. I dig it out of my pocket. I don’t recognize the number, but it’s the Boston area code.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mr. Genevich? It’s me, Jennifer.”

  I look around the woods like she might pop out from behind a maple. I say, “What’s wrong? Daddy doesn’t know where I am?”

  There’s a beat or two of silence on the phone, long enough to make me think the call was dropped or she hung up. She says, “I’m sorry about what happened. I just thought my father was going to watch you, make sure you weren’t dangerous or up to some crazy blackmail scam. That’s all. I got your message and today I saw the break-in of your office and apartment in the paper. And I’m sorry, Mr. Genevich. Really, I didn’t know he was going to do anything like that.”

  I’m in the middle of the woods, and I’m too tired to breathe. I want to sit down but I’m already sitting down. Not sure what to believe or who to believe, not sure if I should believe in myself.

  I say, “On the obscure chance you’re telling it straight, thanks.”

  “Why would my father do that?”

  “No would about it. Did. He did it.”

  “Why did he break into your apartment? Was he looking for those pictures?”

  I say, “Your father was looking for a film to go along with those pictures I showed you. The pictures are meaningless; they can’t hurt anyone. But the film. The film is dangerous. The film can do damage.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I have it. I’m getting copies made right now. Going to send them to the local stations as soon as I get off the phone with you.” Dressing up the truth with some bluff can’t hurt, especially if she’s trying to play me on behalf of DA Daddy again.

  “Oh, my God! Seriously, what’s on it?”

  “Bad stuff. It’s no Sesame Street video.”

  “Is it that girl who looks like me?”

  “What do you think, Jennifer?”

  “How bad is it?”

  “One man is already dead because of it.”

  There’s a beat of silence. “What? Who’s dead?” Her voice is a funeral, and I know she believes me, every word.

  “Brendan Sullivan. Police report says he shot himself in his Osterville home. He was the one who hired me, sent me the pictures, and wanted me to find the film. I found the film. Sullivan was a childhood friend of my father and your father. We’re all in this together. We should all hold hands and sing songs about buying the world a Coke.”

  More silence. Then: “Mr. Genevich, I want to see it. Will you meet me and show it to me?”

  “Now that sounds like crazy talk. Even assuming that I don’t think you’re trying to set me up again, I don’t know why I would show you the film.”

  “I know and I’m sorry. Just listen to me for a sec. After our dinner, I couldn’t stop thinking about those photos, and then when I heard about your apartment, it got worse, and I have such a bad feeling about all this, you know? I just need to know what happened. I promise I’ll help you in any way I can. I need to see this. I’ll come to your office and watch it. I can come right now. It won’t take me long to get there.”

  Jennifer talks fast, begging and pleading. She might be sincere, but probably not. With the goons having lost my trail, the timing of her call just plain sucks. That said, the DA can’t go to her well too often. She’ll know too much.

  How about I keep the possibilities open? I say, “We’ll see. Need to finish getting copies made. Maybe I can offer you a late-night showing. I’ll call you later.” I hang up.

  The cell phone goes back in my pocket. I need to chew on this for a bit. For such a simple action, watching a film, there are suddenly too many forks and branches and off-ramps and roadblocks and . . .

  Three loud beeps shake me off my tree stump. I land in a crouch. A white car crawls along my stretch of woods, stops, then beeps again. It’s my man Brill.

  I try to gather myself quickly, but it’s like chasing a dropped bundle of papers in a windy parking lot. I come crashing through the woods. The film is back inside my coat pocket. There’s a moment of panic when I expect the goons to be in the backseat waiting for me, but it’s empty. I open the door and slide in. The seat’s been retaped, just for me.

  Brill says, “I’m not even gonna ask how you got out here.”

  “That’s mighty fine of you.”

  “I won’t ask what happened to your face, either. But I hope it hurt like hell because it’s killing me.”

  “Just a scratch. The perils of hiking through the woods, my man.”

  “All right. Where to, Sasquatch?”

  I say, “That’s actually funny. Congrats.”

  Let’s try a change of destinations. I can’t rely on Brill anymore, too risky. I say, “Take me to the nearest and dearest car rental agency. One that’s open.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  I’m leaned back into the seat, relaxed. I feel magnanimous in my latest small victory. Let Brill have his cheap shots. Let the people have cake. At least I feel magnanimous until I wake up, not on a sleepy Osterville road but in the parking lot of a car rental agency.

  Brill is turned around. The old bastard has been watching me. His skeleton arm is looped around the back of his seat, and he shows me his wooden teeth. I suppose it’s a smile. I didn’t need to see that. I’ll have nightmares the next time I pass out.

  I say, “What are you smiling at?”

  He says, “Your little nap made me an extra ten bucks. If I had any kids, you’d be putting them through college one z at a time.”

  I say, “I wasn’t asleep. Making sure the lot and inside was all clear. Sitting here thinking. You should try it.”

  “You must’ve been doing some hard thinking with all that twitching and snoring.” He laughs and coughs. Can’t imagine he has much lung left.

  I don’t have a comeback for him, so I change the thrust of our departure conversation. “Nice tape job on the seats, Brill. You’re first class all the way.” I’m running low on cash. I have just enough to pay the grinning bag of bones.

  Brill takes the bills. He says, “You here to rent a car?”

  “No, I’m going to get my shoes shined and then maybe a foot massage. All that walking and my dogs are barking.”

  Brill turns back around, faces front, assumes the cabbie position. “You driving on my roads, any roads? That can’t be legal.”

  I open my door. I don’t have to explain anything to him, but I do. I say, “I have a driver’s license and a credit card. I can drive a car. I’m sure the transaction will be quite easy. Wait for me her
e, we’ll drag-race out of the lot. I’ll let you be James Dean. You got the looks.”

  “No, thanks. I’m turning in early if you’re going to be on the road.” He revs the tiny four-cylinder engine. My cue to leave.

  I get out. The lot is small and practically empty. The sun-bleached pavement is cracked and the same color as the overcast sky. Brill drives away. He’s no fun.

  Inside the rental agency, everything is bright yellow and shitty brown. There are cheery poster-sized ads hanging on the walls featuring madly grinning rental agents. Those madly grinning rental agents are at their desks but outside with a bright blue sky as their background. Apparently renting a car should be some sort of conversion experience for me. We’ll see.

  Before docking my weary ass at the service counter, I make a side trip to a small ATM tucked away between two mini–palm trees. I need to replenish the cash supply. First I do a balance check: $35.16. Been spending too much and it’s been weeks since I had a paying client. I’ll take out twenty. While patiently waiting to add the exorbitant transaction fee to my ledger, I check my reflection in the handy-dandy mirror above the ATM. There’s dried blood on the right side of my nose and cheek. The shed hit me with a pretty good shot but I won by TKO in the fifth.

  No other customers in the joint, so I’m up next at the counter.

  The agent says, “Can I help you?” He’s a kid, skinnier than a junkie. Greasy hair parted all wrong, shadow of a mustache under his nose.

  I say, “I need a car. Nothing fancy. But if you have something that has bumpers, real bumpers with rubber and reinforced, I don’t know, metal. Not those cheap plastic panels they put on the front and back of most cars now. Real bumpers.”

  The kid stares at me. I know, I’m pretty. The dried blood adds character to a face already overburdened with character. He probably thinks I’m drunk with my slow, deep voice and my sudden bumper obsession. I suppose I should’ve cleaned myself up in the bathroom first. Can’t do much about my voice, though. I am what I am.