Bad Man_A Novel

by Dathan Auerbach

  “I came in to take a piss, saw it sitting there. So I took it to the lost and found like you’re supposed to.”

  “When?”

  “Shit.” Frank shrugged. “I don’t remember. It was a little while ago.”

  “Before I started working here?”

  “I think so…Maybe it was after, though.”

  “Jesus Christ, Frank,” Marty said.

  “It coulda been before! Ben, if I woulda known…”

  Ben stared at the sink until his eyes lost focus. “Was it wet?” he asked listlessly. “When you found it, was it all wet?”

  “Yeah,” Frank said.

  Ben blinked hard and held his eyes shut. His breath wavered as he exhaled and looked at Eric’s flyer. Ratty and worn, it seemed almost ancient. But it was new enough to have Ben’s phone number at the bottom. The markings, however, bothered Ben the most.

  They covered Eric’s whole face, stretching down into the text of the flyer. He tried to place where he’d seen the shape, turning the paper to the left, then right. Turning it until it looked like something. From one angle, he saw letters eating one another: Cco.

  The first C was a crescent outline, and it gorged itself on its thinner twin—a single curve that was itself consuming a smaller o. A line moved through the middle arc of both Cs, bisecting everything but the o. If he turned the image so the line pointed up, it became a tower of smoke rising out of the small o—a train light hurtling through the dark tunnel of the larger C.

  Frustrated, Ben cursed under his breath. It meant something to someone. Whoever had scribbled it on his brother’s face knew exactly what it was and wanted to show Ben. But that wasn’t really necessary, was it? Because the longer he looked at it, the more he felt like he’d seen it before.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  Marty took the paper and looked at the drawing. “No,” he finally answered.

  “Frank?”

  Marty handed Frank the paper and he turned and tilted it a few times like Ben had, then shook his head.

  “Really look at it. You never seen that before? Not either of you?”

  Frank looked again but kept glancing up. “I never seen it. What does this have to do with the rhino?”

  “Look at the name, Columbo,” Marty said.

  “The name?” Frank studied the page. “Oh, jeez, Ben. I had no idea. Oh, Jesus, man. And someone tore this down?” Frank held the paper up.

  “What? Oh, fuck,” Marty said, turning away in exasperation.

  Ben looked at the rips in the flyer: uniform and evenly spaced, just like how he’d tried to fix the flyers to telephone poles and trees. There was a trembling in Ben’s legs and a fluttering in his chest.

  “Who would do that?” Frank asked.

  Ben whipped the door open. He could barely hear Marty and Frank as he walked into the back room, despite them being very close behind him. The metal steps rang like untuned bells under the stomping of their feet.

  “This is a real shit idea, dude,” Marty said as they passed the sleeping air conditioner.

  “He might have cameras and stuff,” Frank added.

  “Then go back downstairs!”

  “Well, we still wanna see you hulk out.”

  “Marty, c’mon. Ben, we don’t even know if that camera works.”

  “He’s got two monitors up here and two VCRs. One’s for the deli. Marty, you steal so much time here, there’s no way the other one’s for the time clock.”

  “Yeah, but then what?” Marty asked. “If the camera don’t work, Palmer fires all three of us for breaking into his office. If the camera does work, then maybe you see what you see, and then that’s it?”

  “No,” Ben said, yanking on the doorknob to Palmer’s office. “No, that ain’t it.”

  “He will fire you, Ben. Press charges. Probably sue you and whatever else he can do.”

  “Let him then. Fuck him and this whole damn place.”

  “Ben—”

  “Someone tore down Eric’s flyer and drew on his face! Someone had his toy and put it right where I left it that day. Someone’s fucking with me, and I’m gonna know who it is.”

  “Wait,” Marty said, grabbing Ben’s arm.

  Ben tore free. “You ain’t gonna stop me from seeing this tape!”

  “I ain’t trying to!” Marty shouted. “Just listen to me for one goddamn second and you can get in there without getting canned!”

  Ben’s fists were squeezed tight enough to hurt, so he jammed his hands in his pants pockets. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, let’s hear it then.”

  “Alright,” Marty said calmly. “Lemme see that flyer.”

  20

  After they finished stocking the shelves, Marty and Frank stuck around for a while, waiting to see what would happen. But as the morning dragged on, Frank said he had to leave. Marty stayed. He said it was because what was about to happen was his idea; Ben suspected that Marty just wanted to prove that he wasn’t afraid of what would be on that tape, or at least wanted Ben to think that was the case. Marty had sworn up and down that the graffitied flyer wasn’t his doing. If Ben was being honest with himself, the fact that Marty insisted on staying left little doubt in his mind that there wouldn’t be any tape to see at all.

  Everything relied on a functional camera in the break room that was actually connected to something and Bill Palmer somehow agreeing to show them what it had seen. A perfect storm of unlikelihood. Ben knew, however, that if the first two conditions were met, then the third wouldn’t really matter in the end. He’d get into Palmer’s office with or without the man’s consent.

  “You boys been standing there for a while now,” Beverly said as she approached.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ben said.

  “ ’Bout two hours, I think,” Marty added, tapping the back of his head against the wall by the time clock.

  “You waitin for somebody?”

  “No. Just can’t get enough of this place. Thinkin about just movin on in.”

  For whatever reason, Marty could always make Beverly laugh, even when he was giving her a hard time. “Least the pantry’s always full,” she replied.

  “See? She gets it. Can I ask you somethin, Ms. Beverly?” Marty said, and the woman nodded. “Have you ever seen this before?” Marty patted Ben’s side with the back of his hand and then held it out. Ben handed him a folded piece of paper. “For the life of me I just can’t remember what it is.”

  She looked at it for a long while, her hands and head trembling with disease. “What is it?”

  “Just something I saw somewhere. Been tryin to remember what it is and where I seen it. Just one of them things, I guess.”

  “But Benjamin’s got it in his pocket?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yes, ma’am. Said he’d try to help me remember what it was.”

  Beverly nodded. “Well, I wish you both luck. It don’t get no easier the older you get.”

  “No, ma’am,” the boys said almost in unison.

  The woman walked away, slow as ever, the strings of her apron swinging as she shuffled along the tile. Ben slipped the sheet of paper with the copied symbol back into his pocket, right next to the defaced flyer.

  “I couldn’t do it,” Ben said.

  “Hmm?” Marty grunted.

  “Be that old and work in a place like this with assholes like us…”

  Marty smiled briefly. “Shit.” He moved a little away from the wall. “Here we go.”

  The doors screeched closed behind Bill Palmer as he walked by the registers. When he saw Ben and Marty, he slowed and frowned at his watch.

  “Hope you two are off the clock,” the man said, stroking his palm over hair that was too thin to conceal the scalp beneath.

  “Yessir,” Marty said. He opened his mouth to speak again, but closed it and lo
oked at Ben.

  “I need to talk to you, Mr. Palmer. About a theft.”

  Marty and Ben followed Palmer through the store. It wasn’t at all clear that Palmer was actually listening, but Ben stuck to the script while Palmer interrupted here and there to call attention to some flaw in the work the crew had done the night before. This went on until Marty interrupted.

  “Should we clock back in? Since we’re talking about work and all.”

  “Okay, so your CD player was stolen.” Palmer shrugged. “If the lock or locker wasn’t broken, then that means you didn’t lock it.”

  “I was just wonderin if that camera works. The one in the break room. Maybe I could see who went into my locker.”

  “Sorry, but no,” Palmer said. “No. Those lockers are provided as a courtesy. Securing what you put in them is your responsibility. We’re not gonna spend all day playing detective because you left yours open.”

  “I didn’t leave—”

  “Just put in a police report like I said, man,” Marty muttered to Ben. “Don’t cost nothin, and they can watch the tapes and whatever.”

  Palmer sighed, and Ben realized that the man still hadn’t said anything about the camera not working or there not being a tape. Of course, he wouldn’t want to admit that unless he had to.

  “I just figured this would be simpler,” Ben mumbled to Marty, who smiled just a little bit.

  Palmer squinted and rubbed his forehead. “Fine.”

  The portly man practically stomped the whole way to his office. Ben thought that at any moment Palmer might change his mind and send them away, but on they marched, right up to the door that Ben had almost kicked in.

  Inside, Palmer threw his keys on the desk and then jabbed at buttons on the VCR and its monitor until the black screen turned blue. A whirring rose out of the machine as the tape zipped backward. Ben glanced at Marty, who looked very tired now.

  The office was as messy as it had been the day Ben was interviewed. Paperwork lay strewn on Palmer’s desk. In the corners, boxes were stacked so high they almost reached the ceiling. From the looks of it, Palmer had lost the key to his filing cabinet; the lock was drilled out, and the handles of the top two drawers were fastened together with a chain. Looking at the clutter while Palmer fussed with the machine, Ben found himself wondering what the man did with all the old tapes.

  Palmer touched the VCR again, and when Ben turned he could see a grainy image of the break room.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Marty said under his breath.

  Each boy dragged a chair away from Palmer’s desk and sat it in front of the screen. Palmer grunted as he practically fell into his own chair.

  Based on the time stamp on the screen, the footage was from the previous morning, which was as far back as the tape went, according to Palmer. Capturing only a handful of frames a second turned a six-hour tape into one that could record a whole day, but it made the tape worse than a flipbook a kid might produce on his first attempt. Still, it was coherent enough, and it had a view of the lockers.

  Ben asked if he could fast-forward.

  Again, the tape whirred, and the screen became almost incomprehensible. Finally, there appeared to be some kind of new shape in the frame, but it was garbled and distorted. Ben mashed the play button and watched the jerky movements of a bag boy putting something in the microwave.

  Each time the room emptied, Ben leaned toward the monitor to press fast-forward. When there was movement, he played the tape and watched each frame. The first few hours of tape went by relatively quickly, but when the lunch rush started, Ben finally had to sit all the way back in his chair.

  Marty rested his cheek in his hand and stared ahead like a boy stuck in a lecture about the importance of proper shoelace maintenance.

  “Was your CD player one of the nice ones?” Palmer asked.

  “Hmm?” Ben glanced away from the screen. He’d been staring at the jittery recording for so long that looking at the smooth motions of the real world was almost dizzying. “Yeah,” he finally continued, “it was pretty good. Anti-skip and everything.”

  “How many seconds?”

  “Um, ten I think?”

  “I sprung for the thirty.” Palmer leaned over and tapped on a boxed CD player. “Figured why not? Reckon it’s gonna be a big hit.”

  “Maybe I’ll go for that one if I don’t get my old one back.”

  “You say they left a note? In your locker?”

  “Yessir,” Ben said quickly, leaning forward to pause the tape. Marty sat up as Ben reached into his back pocket and handed his boss the piece of paper. Ben studied Palmer intently as he unfolded the note. Palmer squinted as he looked at it, then turned it just as Frank had.

  “Just this on a blank sheet of paper?” Palmer asked, rattling the page. “What’s it supposed to mean?”

  Marty slumped in his chair, then leaned forward and unpaused the tape.

  “I dunno,” Ben said. “None of us did.”

  “Looks like a kid,” Palmer muttered. “Right here,” he added after Ben turned in his chair. “Raisin his arms up.”

  “What about the other shape?” Ben asked.

  “Might be a light. The moon maybe. Little stick-figure kid raising his hands in front of the moon? A crescent one. Do you see it?”

  “I think I might,” Ben tried to say calmly as he pictured that shape scrawled over his brother’s face. “Yeah, I think I can see it.” And he could. It was all he could see now.

  “Ben, look at this,” Marty said. He was leaning forward in his chair, his eyes fixed to the screen.

  “Beverly?” Ben said. “Did she go near the lockers?”

  “No, but just wait a second. I bet she’ll do it again.”

  Ben watched the jerky images of the old woman eating her lunch as two other employees prepared their own. One of them sat at the table opposite Beverly and quickly scarfed down a sandwich. Neither of them seemed to say anything other than “bye” when the man stood to leave.

  “Okay, watch,” Marty said.

  And Ben did. The tape jerked forward. Beverly took another bite of her food. And then she started talking.

  “There,” Marty said. “What the fuck is that?”

  Ben watched the old woman. She moved her mouth and then her hands. And then she seemed to laugh. She was having a conversation. And she was alone.

  “What in the world?” Marty whispered.

  “People talk to themselves,” Ben said.

  “Like that?” Marty pointed.

  On and on she went. And then, seemingly in the middle of a sentence, she stopped. Frames later, another employee walked in.

  “I mean, what the hell, dude?”

  Ben shrugged. “Who cares?”

  It was clear that Marty wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

  “She does that sometimes,” Palmer said. “Talks about her day and her customers. No one’s ever complained about it, so…” The man tilted his hands, then looked back down at his paperwork.

  Marty and Ben scanned through the footage, fast-forwarding and rewinding, going frame by frame anytime someone went near the lockers. Each time Palmer wanted to leave the office, the boys paused the tape and stood outside his locked door until he returned. Sometimes Marty would leave too. And when he was late coming back, Ben would just resume the tape without him. It took almost three hours until the tape showed Ben and Frank walking into the break room the night before.

  Ben didn’t recognize himself at first, but as soon as he did, he stopped the tape and slowly stood.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nosir.” Ben strained as he stretched. “Must’ve happened sometime before yesterday.”

  “Let’s watch the rest of the tape.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Just to make sure,” he encouraged as he slid his paperw
ork to the side.

  Ben resumed the tape and sat back down, glancing at Marty. On the screen, Ben and Frank moved around the room chatting. Ben pulled his chips and the note out of the locker. The two boys laughed and then left the room.

  “You don’t look too upset there, son. About finding that your CD player was missing.”

  “I didn’t realize until later,” Ben replied.

  “Oh,” Palmer said. “I only mention it because this wouldn’t be the first time that someone lied about their property getting took in my store. Usually it’s so they can ask for some kinda compensation, but it doesn’t seem like that’s what you want.

  “I’m not exactly sure what you boys’ game is here, but I am certain that it is a game. From where I’m sittin, here in the big chair, it looks an awful lot like you just made up a story so that you could come in here and watch this tape.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t realize—”

  “I don’t know what for. To see who took lunch when. Or see who’s using the unmarked lockers. Don’t matter. It’s weird to me that Frank’s not here, since it was you two and not you two on that tape.

  “What’s even weirder is that I’ve never seen any of you with headphones on. Not one time. From what I understand, you usually play your music over the intercom with that little boom box of yours, right? So I don’t know what you would even be using a CD player for.

  “I don’t like my time bein wasted, and I’m not gonna waste more tryin to figure out just what in the hell the two of you are up to. Marty, this’ll be your second warning. But Ben, I think maybe it’s time we moved you to a new position. Bag boy or cashier, wasn’t it?”

  “Mr. Palmer,” Marty said, pointing at the screen.

  The man adjusted his thick glasses and followed Marty’s gesture. On the monitor, Ben walked into the break room, opened his locker, and peered inside. After a few seconds, he slammed the door shut and stormed out of the room. The seconds sped by on the time-lapse tape, and before long, Ben returned with Marty and Frank. Ben gestured at his locker and waved the paper at them. The paper was blank, of course. They hadn’t copied the graffiti onto it yet.