The hose did nothing and the same for the sponge and soap. How would a person in a movie hide this? They’d probably call one of their friends who just so happened to be skilled in this area. Except the only friend I have is George, and he doesn’t know shit. I could call him anyway, see what he thinks. But there’s not enough time to explain all the insanity that’s unfolded tonight. There might never be enough time. I can’t call the police. I can’t call George. I can’t call Hobbs’s brother because a) I don’t have his phone number and b) I don’t even know his name. Hobbs should have contacted him immediately, Leo was right. Hobbs is a bag of rocks, but his brother on the other hand, he’s at least semi-intelligent.
A white car honks at me as it passes and for a moment the world freezes because I just know it’s a cop car and now everything is fucked I’ve been caught I lost my chance to confess now I’m going down with Hobbs and it’s all because of the fucking owls—but then the car nears, and it’s only the newspaper lady, waving as she moves on to the Other Goddamn Hotel. Christ, if she’s already made her drop here, then I’m really running out of time. Think, goddammit, think.
I can’t. So I run. Inside the hotel, I sprint down the hallway. A guest calls for assistance but I ignore him and continue toward the maintenance office on the second floor. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’m certain the answer to all my problems can be found in this room. This is where you come when you need to fix something. Well, I need to fix something.
In the corner of the office there’s multiple cans of white paint. Maintenance uses them to touch up the walls every once in a while. The rooms age and disintegrate, just as humans and every other unfortunate creation in the universe. I grab a flathead screwdriver and slide it in my front shirt pocket, then pick up two cans of paint and hurry back outside. This time I manage to avoid any customer interaction. I’m too afraid to check the time on my cell phone.
Outside, I lower the cans to the ground and bring out the screwdriver. I lean one can to the side and position the flathead underneath the can’s lid, then pop it up, successfully breaking the seal. I continue working the screwdriver until the lid’s at least halfway off, then I grab the can with both hands and fling the paint against the abstract puddle of blood staining the sidewalk. It lands like a tsunami crashing over an already obliterated city, splattering against my bloodstained shoes and slacks. In the back of my mind I’m obsessing over how I’m going to explain my horror movie appearance to my shift relief, but it’s a minimal concern compared to everything else that’s happened tonight. I empty the rest of the first can and do the same with the second one, watching the paint and primer spread over the blood. I save a little bit to pour down the handicap pole as well. It looks stupid as hell, but at least it doesn’t resemble a crime scene now. I set out a few CAUTION: WET FLOOR signs around the perimeter. All I need right now is an oblivious guest walking through the wet paint and bringing their half-blood-half-paint footprints into the hotel.
The roaring engine of a garbage truck grumbles from a distance, nearing the hotel. I throw both empty cans of paint into the overflowing dumpster just as the truck rounds the building. I flee from the dumpster and maneuver around the puddle of white paint and collapse on the bench next to the door, trying to catch my breath and relax my heartbeat. I’m overwhelmed with a strange feeling that everything’s going to be all right now. Things are working out, in their own fucked-up ways. The sidewalk will still be noticed, and I’ll almost definitely be questioned by management, but at least they won’t be asking why the parking lot looks like the film set of the latest Eli Roth production. Instead, they’ll be more curious why I randomly dumped two perfectly good cans of paint on the sidewalk. Plus, what happened to the handicap sign? As long as they never ask “What happened to Mr. Yates?” I should be able to cope. But of course the question will come up. A person doesn’t go missing without anyone eventually noticing.
The garbage truck grinds its loud, hungry teeth into the dumpster and heaves it up like a drunk chugging a beer, emptying the dumpster’s contents into the truck’s greedy stomach. As expected, stray trash bags and cardboard boxes spill out the sides of the truck and splatter in the parking lot. One hundred eighteen rooms in this hotel, perpetually producing garbage.
The truck lowers the dumpster to the ground, backs up, and continues its journey through the parking lot toward the next dumpster awaiting to be eaten. As it passes me on the bench, the corpse of Mr. Yates waves at me as it hangs over the edge of the truck, one foot caught in its mouth, the rest of his body bouncing off the siding. As the truck turns onto the main road, Yates’s foot releases from the crusher and he drops, landing in the entrance of the parking lot. The truck continues down the road, as if everything’s perfectly okay in the world and it hasn’t just ruined my fucking life.
It takes a minute or two for me to find the strength to open my eyes. My face becomes stuck in this expression of pure terror, the kind of horrified look you get when you’re going seventy miles per hour down a two hundred foot, ninety degree rollercoaster drop. Except instead of falling, I’m just standing next to the hotel, staring at the corpse of Mr. Yates laying out in the open for the whole world to witness. I’m convinced a thousand spectators are circling around the body, just out of eyesight. The police are already on their way. Hobbs and Leo aren’t going to return. In fact, they never existed. I made them up to conceal the reality of my insanity. I hallucinate shoe counterfeiters and owls to numb my own murderous desires.
I haul ass to the front of the hotel, covered in blood and paint. I look less like a night auditor and more like a distant relative of Leatherface. My car is boxed in under the awning by the shuttle van and a random jeep. Some jackass is in the lobby bouncing up and down. Probably the jeep’s driver. The anger on his face is like grease in a pan of fried bacon. My relief will be in soon. She can deal with the guy. I rush into the foyer of the hotel, grab a luggage cart, and pause. Someone’s gonna notice a dead guy on a luggage cart. Hell, someone’s probably already noticed a dead guy in the street. I ignore the jeep driver’s protests as I rush past him and slide over the front desk. I collect a couple sheets from the laundry room and exit through the side door, avoiding the jeep driver as I retrieve the luggage cart again and I sprint around the hotel.
Yates still hasn’t moved. I guess a part of me was hoping he wasn’t actually dead, he’d just been knocked unconscious, and any second he’d stand up and walk it off.
But he’s no longer alone. A car has parked next to his corpse and a lady’s gotten out. She’s standing above it, crying. I pick up my pace, my chest on fire. Gotta start exercising more. Fuck.
“Miss!” I shout.
She looks up from the corpse and stares at me. “He’s dead! This man is dead!”
I shake my head, trying to act reassuring, when I realize my entire body is shaking, not just my head. “He’s badly hurt, but he’s not dead. He’s gonna be okay.”
“He isn’t moving. I gotta call the police. He needs an ambulance, for Christ’s sake. Just look at him.”
“Ma’am, I am fully aware of how he looks. And I’ve already called. An ambulance should be here any moment.”
She exhales, calming down. Then she steals another glance at the corpse and squeals. “What happened to him?”
“He got a little too drunk and fell off the curb.”
“That’s it?”
I nod. “Looks worse than it is, I promise.”
“I’ll stay here with you, make sure he’s okay. God, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“No, no, I can’t let you do that. The police instructed me to wheel his body into the hotel, so he’ll be safe and sound inside.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to move the body. Like, isn’t there a risk of causing a spinal injury or something?”
“Trust me, ma’am. Everything is taken care of. Please get back in your car and continue on with your day. Thank you for helping as much as you have.”
She hesitates, looking at the body, then at her car, then the body again, then me. “You sure he isn’t dead?”
I force a laugh. “It’s gonna take a lot more than a lousy fall to kill old Mr.…Johnson, here.”
She exhales. “Well, all right. I just hope he’s okay, is all.”
“He’ll be fine in no time. Have a good day, ma’am.”
“You too.”
After she drives away, I wrap Yates in three layers of bed sheets and drag his corpse onto the luggage cart. It feels like a million eyes are on me as I push the cart around the hotel. Every window is occupied by a guest, witnessing my descent into hell.
I’m five feet from my car when a man steps in front of me, his eyes glued on Yates’s corpse.
“What is that, a dead body?” he asks.
“Uh.”
He laughs and looks up at me. “I’m here to pick up my drunk crazy wife.”
“What?”
“A cop dropped her off here last night, right? She got drunk and went on a little road trip.”
“Oh, yeah. She’s in her room.”
“You mind telling me where that might be?”
I tell him.
“Thanks.” Before he walks away, he glances once more at the corpse. “Your, uh, luggage is bleeding.”
“It does that, sometimes.”
Once my trunk is popped, I let out a loud, pained groan as I lift Yates inside. I lock up my car and return the luggage cart to the foyer, then stumble into the now empty lobby. Behind the front desk, the on-hold function is still beeping on the phone. I don’t remember putting anyone on hold, but a lot of shit’s gone down in the past couple hours, so who knows what else I’ve forgotten. I take it off hold and apologize for the wait.
“It’s all right, dear,” the woman on the other end says.
“How may I help you?” I ask, staring at my hand. It’s covered in blood and dirt and paint. I wonder if my face looks the same.
“I was just wondering if your hotel offered adult films to rent on pay-per-view.”
“You waited on hold all this time just to ask that?”
“I’m very lonely.”
“We don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Aww.”
I hang up just as my relief comes in. Fortunately, it’s Yas and not Javier.
“What the hell happened to you, Isaac?”
I drop the register keys on the front desk and shrug. “It’s been a long night.”
I leave the hotel without closing my shift. I’m not even sure if I ran the audit last night. Did I print out the receipts? Who cares. None of it matters. Nothing is important when there’s a corpse in the trunk of your car. Everything is just TV static you can’t mute fast enough.
I drive away from the hotel wondering how long it takes before a dead body begins to smell.
I turn on the radio and “Yakety Sax” blares out of the speakers.
Part 19
I desperately scan through the dozens of gangster movies I watched growing up. If Joe Pesci was here, he’d direct me to an already dug hole out in the desert. But shit, this is San Antonio. I’m not driving five hours out to the Chihuahuan Desert when the hole is yet to be dug. Casino made a smart point: who knew how many more hours I’d end up digging before the job was done? Besides, I’m not a killer. I did not throw Yates off the roof. I’ll keep repeating it until it starts to sound like the truth. It might not sink in until I’m bouncing off the walls of a padded cell, tongue half-chewed off. Owls picked him up and dropped him from the clouds.
If the desert’s out of the question, then what? I don’t know a Mr. Wolf and I certainly don’t own a woodchipper. How much are woodchippers, anyway? Christ, the mess that would make. I’d never get back my deposit. I could just leave Yates in the trunk and drive it into a lake, except then I’m out of a car, and besides, what’s to stop the car from floating back up above the surface sometime in the future? Cops take one look at the registration and I’m fucked. Unless I’m already in the car, blue and bloated. At least then I’m fucked on my own terms. If I’m dead, can I even comprehend the idea of being fucked? I guess if a necrophiliac happened to discover me…hey, thinking of things to do with a dead body! Yeah, no, that’s wrong. I’m a piece of shit. How did this happen? How did a corpse end up in my trunk?
“Because you pushed him off the roof, you sadistic motherfucker,” an owl says from the passenger seat. Somehow, I already know his name is Owlbert.
I scream and swerve the car, struggling to reclaim control of the steering wheel.
Next to him, another owl probably named Chowls says, “You better keep your eyes on the road, buddy, or you’re gonna have a few more bodies to add to that trunk.”
“And there was barely enough room to fit the one!” Owlbert laughs. “Imagine another dozen!”
“You guys aren’t real. Owls can’t talk.”
“Then what the fuck is it do you think we’re doing?” Owlbert asks.
“You’re just figments of my imagination.”
“Hey,” Chowls says, “maybe you’re our imagination, asshole.”
I grip the steering wheel tighter. I don’t know where I’m driving. If I stop, everything becomes real again.
“You know,” Owlbert says, “you could always just chop that old fucker up and bake him into some scrumptious meat pies.”
Chowls sighs fondly. “Sweeney Todd is my favorite musical. So bloody, so pretty.”
“Oh, wait, wait,” Owlbert says. “Shit, you work at a hotel. Barton Fink it the fuck up! Cut off the guy’s head and carry it around with you in a box. Embrace your inner Madman Mundt.”
“What’s in the box?” Chowls squeaks. “What’s in the box? Oh God, what’s in the box?”
“No, that’s from Se7en, dumbass.”
“Well,” Chowls says, “what about Se7en then?”
“What about it?”
“How did the killer dispose of his victims?”
“He didn’t, he left them out for the police to find. Then he turned himself in.”
“Oh. How thoughtful.”
“Which is precisely what Isaac is attempting not to do.”
I clear my throat. “What if I just melted them? Poured some hydrofluoric acid in a bathtub, like in Breaking Bad.”
Owlbert shakes his tiny head, disgusted. “Obviously you know that idea is a turd and a half, considering the acid ended up melting through the tub.”
“Actually,” Chowls says, “they tried that out on Mythbusters and it didn’t eat through the tub. Turns out Vince Gilligan is a fraud.”
“Well fuck me sideways,” Owlbert says.
“Why don’t we do what they did to Jimmy Hoffa?”
“No one knows what they did to Jimmy Hoffa.”
“Exactly.”
“How is it possible to be so fucking stupid?”
“I’m not hearing any brilliant ideas from you,” Chowls says.
“Maybe we could slice him up and—”
“We already suggested Sweeney Todd.”
“—and tie the body parts to balloon strings, then, just…let the sky eat them, or something.”
“Is that from Up?”
“Close, but not even. I’m thinking of this weird Polish flick called How to Get Rid of Cellulite.”
“Ah.”
I slam on the brakes and scream, “Will you two shut the fuck up? You’re owls. You can’t watch movies, so fucking stop it.”
The passenger seat is empty. The car is silent. I look through the rearview mirror, anticipating a collision caused from stopping suddenly in the middle of the road, but I’m not even in the road. I’m parked in front of my apartment.
I sit behind the wheel, listening to the static of my own rotting brain. If I get up, then I have to take action. But if I keep sitting here, then I can continue to not exist. If I wasn’t covered in blood, I might do just that, but my shirt’s beginning to get sticky and who knows how long it’s going to take to scrub this shit off.
&
nbsp; I enter my apartment and take the most significant shower of my life.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die.
This isn’t going to end until I’ve killed myself.
In the shower I travel through time, back to the days of living in a Pretty Shitty Hotel I spent a lot of time in the motel shower, the water hot as Satan’s piss, digging my nails furiously into my flesh. I was plagued by the perpetual itch. I scratched and scratched, and of course it did no good. But it didn’t matter. At the time, I couldn’t stop.
The Mayo Clinic describes obsessive-compulsive disorder as: “an anxiety disorder characterized by unreasonable thoughts and fears (obsessions) that lead you to do repetitive behaviors (compulsions).”
Like an addict surrounded by infinite crack, like a bulimic drowning in free waffles, I used to binge big time. The insides of my fingernails were raw and caked with tiny specks of blood. My stomach always on fire. I couldn’t stop attacking it with my fingers. The bleeding only made the skin itch more.
Stop imagining blood gushing like a waterfall. These thoughts do nobody any good. This isn’t a splatterpunk exploitational TV drama. The truth was, it wasn’t much more blood than what you’d get after scratching a dozen mosquito bites. It was enough to send me into full on freak mode, though. Enough to block out all logic and make me go blind with panic—scratching deeper, scratching faster. Jesus Christ, how it itched. Now, standing in the shower of my own apartment, I scratch the scars on my stomach, wondering how much pressure it’d take to reopen them.
I was around fourteen when I first started suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. I’d been living in motels for a little over a year by then. A room smaller than my old bedroom, housing two beds, one for me and one for my parents. The queen-sized mattress by the window was my only personal space. I looked out that window a lot, sat at the desk and read. Watched TV. My father went to work during the day. My mother stayed “home” every day, unemployed. Sometimes I went for walks, but didn’t go too far, considering most of the hotels were right smack in the middle of some lost highway with nowhere to go.
The Nightly Disease (Serial Novel) Page 16
