Disappearing off the Face of the Earth

by David Cohen

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I kept pulling up the roller door as hard as I could until the whole latch came loose. Didn’t take that much effort, either; I don’t know if I should be grateful for that or pissed off at how easy it would be for someone to steal my scooters. Anyway, when I came out – surprise, surprise – not a soul around.’

  I sat in my swivel chair, wondering what the hell was going on. Did this really happen to her or was she imagining the whole thing?

  ‘Ellen,’ I said, ‘I seriously don’t recall even coming back up there.’

  ‘So who was it, then?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to look into this, Ellen. I’ll get to the bottom of it, I swear.’

  She didn’t say anything for a while.

  ‘Ken, don’t bother. I no longer even care if you’re telling the truth. I’m coming on Friday, Tony’s coming with me, and I don’t want any interference from you.’

  ‘Ellen, it would be crazy to let this spoil things between us. I mean, how often do you find two people with the sort of connection we have?’

  ‘Any connection we have is in your head. Sorry, Ken, but that’s the truth.’

  She hung up, but her words continued to radiate from the phone into my hand, making it throb. I put the phone down and stared at the noticeboard across from my desk, hoping to be soothed by the picture of the mysterious rendering of the mysterious building. I stood up, leaned over the desk and unpinned the page, gazing at that sleek white structure. When I turned the page over, I noticed that another set of initials, if initials they were, had been added to the existing two.

  MT

  I wondered how that had got there, but my train of thought was interrupted by the sudden materialisation of Bruce.

  ‘Fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Sorry, Ken.’

  I sat down again, leaving the page on my desk.

  ‘You look a bit down in the dumps, Ken. Something wrong? Anything that would benefit from my input?’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Oh. I just got off the phone from Ellen. I’ve told you about Ellen, right?’

  ‘Yes – your lady friend.’

  ‘She was here a few weeks ago.’

  Without skipping a beat, Bruce said, ‘Unit 40, right?’

  ‘So you’re familiar with her unit?’

  ‘You know me, Ken.’ He tapped his head. ‘I’ve got all the units in here.’

  ‘Good for you,’ I said. ‘Well, someone locked her in there, padlocked the door from the outside. She thinks it was me.’

  ‘Really? Why would you do that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t fucking do it. I didn’t fucking do it. Which begs the question: who did?’ I turned to face him. ‘I think I’d really benefit from your input at this point, Bruce.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Bruce stroked his chin. ‘Well, I know you sent me up to fix the light.’

  I said nothing. I must have looked very confused, because I was.

  ‘You sent me up there to fix the light,’ he said. ‘Unit 40.’

  ‘I sent you?’

  ‘Yeah. I remember: you came down to get the ladder, but then you were interrupted by a phone call so you told me to go up and do the light.’

  ‘A phone call. What phone call?’

  ‘No idea, Ken, but you definitely told me to go up, which I did – you can check for yourself.’

  ‘Why don’t I remember any of this?’

  Bruce smiled. ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that one either, Ken. But you have been having some memory issues of late. You might want to look into that.’

  I swivelled in the chair, trying hard to recall the events of that day. But my brain, that stubborn prick, refused to cooperate. It kept putting up a wall at the point when I came down for the ladder.

  I was still looking at Bruce. ‘But it was you who locked her in, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What makes you think it was me?’

  ‘Okay – let’s think of a more likely scenario. I know: after you fixed the light, a mysterious third person came along and locked that particular unit for no discernible fucking reason.’

  Bruce said nothing. He seemed to be weighing something up in his mind.

  ‘All right, Ken,’ he said at last. ‘Yes. It was me.’

  Even though I’d been expecting this, I was stunned into silence. All I could do was stare at Bruce’s radically vapid face and wonder what the hell would come out of it next.

  ‘Before you say anything, Ken, just be aware that I did it for you.’

  ‘You did it for me, did you?’ I said. ‘Well, that makes everything all right then, doesn’t it? Perfectly reasonable behaviour.’

  ‘Looking back, I admit that, yes, locking Ellen up against her will was a silly thing to do – possibly even illegal. But I know she’s slipping away from you, Ken. You may not have said it in so many words but I can tell. I know you well, Ken; you don’t always express your feelings but I’m attuned to what’s going on. What I did – it was a spur-of-the moment thing, a kind of instinctual response. But I just thought if she was given some time and space to think about the situation, she’d realise —’

  ‘Time and space? For fuck’s sake, Bruce, what’s the matter with you? I could have sorted this out myself. I would have sorted it out in time. But now … you’ve set us back, Bruce. My relationship with Ellen may not recover from this.’

  ‘It was a misjudgement on my part, Ken, but I only had your best interests in mind.’

  I looked at Bruce. His face was almost terrifyingly annoying. Was he telling the truth?

  ‘She got out eventually, though, didn’t she?’ he said.

  ‘Only after she broke the latch from the inside. Apparently it wasn’t that difficult.’

  ‘Ah, you see, I knew she’d be able to do that, Ken. I’ve been telling you those latches are in bad shape – hardly worth putting a padlock on some of them.’

  I rested my head on the desk. ‘She’s moving her stuff out. I really will have to give her some space now. Wait a suitable period and then … who knows?’

  I went silent. I picked up the page from the desk and looked at the picture again.

  Bruce spoke, softly. ‘It’s how I imagine the afterlife.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been looking at that picture a lot too.’ He came close to me, uncomfortably close.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ he said.

  ‘Can you tell me later?’

  He didn’t even register my remark. ‘What I’m going to tell you,’ he said, ‘may strike you as a bit odd.’

  I was in no mood for one of Bruce’s monologues, but at the same time, an inner voice advised me not to obstruct him right now. This was premised on an uneasy feeling that, like the faint warning flicker of a fluorescent tube, Bruce’s behaviour of late was an indicator of greater instability to come.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  He took the sheet of paper from my hand, as if relieving me of a loaded gun. ‘I’ve never told you this before, but I want to tell you now. I have this idea that all the people who’ve disappeared off the face of the earth – the people who disappear and are never found – all go to the same place.’ He pointed to the picture of the building. ‘This place.’

  I had no idea how to respond to that. All I could come up with was, ‘But didn’t you tell me a while back that it’s just a rendering of a place that’s yet to be built?’

  ‘Exactly. In this world it’s just an ideal. It doesn’t exist on earth. It exists out there somewhere, in the beyond. Call it the next world, if you like; the name doesn’t matter.’

  ‘That’s an intriguing theory,’ I replied half-heartedly.

  ‘I like to look upon it a storage facility for souls. We can store things, physical objects, but what about a facility for intangibles? Human souls?’

  ‘You mean like heaven? Or hell.’

  ‘Like I say, call it what you like. It’s a place of blissful peace. I can just picture those lost, restless souls arriving there
and thinking: Sweet as!’

  ‘This is all getting a bit metaphysical,’ I said. ‘If this place doesn’t really exist, where does this picture come from? Who did it?’

  ‘Truth?’ Bruce said. ‘I did it myself. It’s a representation, my vision of a place in the transcendental realm.’

  ‘You? How did it get into my pocket, then?’

  ‘I’m afraid your guess is as good as mine on that one, Ken.’

  I nodded dutifully, then sank back into my chair.

  Bruce pinned the picture of the building back onto the noticeboard.

  ‘Re Ellen,’ he said, ‘would you like me to apologise personally? Assure her you had nothing to do with it?’

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘I have to handle this.’

  ‘Sweet as, Ken. But don’t worry: if I do happen to run into her, I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you.’

  Eighteen

  The construction site remained empty, static. I knew there was some connection between the Sargent and Greenleaf padlock on the gates and the padlocks on units 117, 102 and 45, and I suspected that Bruce was involved in some way. But for the time being, Pharaoh’s Tomb was off limits.

  ‘Bruce, you prick,’ I said as I drove past the site. ‘You’re getting to me.’

  When we were sprung robbing 52C, it was a peculiar moment. Bruce had kindly buggered off, leaving me in the corridor, face to face with Anthony and his brand-new runners. He didn’t strike me as the criminal type. He looked tanned and buff, like he spent too much time at the gym to be out stealing things. Whatever the case, he was pissed off.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ he said. ‘What are you doing with my stuff?’

  I remained frozen for a moment. Then I said the first thing I could think of.

  ‘The fact is …’ I began. ‘The fact is, we – I work here, as you can see.’ I pointed to my uniform. ‘I came in because of a security issue: suspicious activity around your unit and some of the neighbouring ones.’

  It sounded plausible enough, but then why I was holding the guitar? Why was the keyboard wrapped in a blanket and propped up against the roller door?

  ‘What’s that then?’ Anthony pointed to the guitar.

  ‘This?’ I said. ‘We were just in the process of transferring the valuable things to a more secure unit.’

  A ridiculous lie, and he knew it.

  ‘Feels like a really excellent guitar,’ I went on. ‘You’re obviously a serious muso.’

  ‘You’re in big trouble, mate,’ he said. He already had his phone in his hand and was walking down the corridor, back in the direction he’d come from.

  ‘If you call the police,’ I shouted, ‘I’ll call the police.’

  He turned back, gave me a perplexed look, then kept going.

  I watched him disappear around the corner. When I turned back to the unit, Bruce, true to form, was standing there.

  ‘Hey, thanks for running off,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, that was kind of wrong of me. Sorry, Ken.’

  ‘Where the fuck did you go? Did you see what happened? Guy caught me with the stuff and he’s gone off to call the cops. But I don’t get it. Is he bluffing?’

  Bruce looked at me with an expression I hadn’t seen before – an intense stare, but he seemed to be staring inwards, not outwards.

  ‘I think I’ll go and check,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just put his stuff back inside for now.’

  I rested the guitar case on the floor, having just realised I was still holding it.

  ‘Put it back?’

  ‘Yes. And I’ll deal with Anthony. It’s the least I can do after disappearing on you like that.’

  ‘What are you going to say to him?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Ken. Let me handle it. We’ll reconvene tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? How long do you intend to be?’

  ‘However long it takes, Ken.’

  There didn’t seem to be much point arguing. Bruce seemed to think he had the situation in hand, so I retreated and let him take care of it.

  The next morning I stood outside Pharaoh’s Tomb, having a pre-work smoke, looking out over the car park and waiting. It was one of those scorching Melbourne summer days where you feel as if some monumental engine has sucked every drop of moisture from the air. I watched the sunlight reflect off the pyramids and thought, This must be what it’s like in the desert, where the real pyramids are.

  I turned to my right and there was Bruce, smoking a cigarette and resting his back against the wall.

  ‘Jesus!’ I said.

  ‘No, just me. Good news, though – all’s well, he’s not going to dob us in.’

  ‘Thank fuck.’

  ‘But I think we should wait a while before resuming our activities.’

  ‘Resuming our activities?’ I said. ‘Didn’t you see what just happened? I’m not resuming anything. We were pushing our luck.’

  ‘All right. We’ll see.’

  We sucked on our cigarettes.

  I said, ‘How did you get him to change his mind, anyway?’

  ‘We had a little chat,’ Bruce said.

  ‘A little chat? A little chat about what? Did you threaten to get in first and go to the police?’

  Bruce looked over at the pyramids.

  ‘I suppose I should tell you,’ he said. ‘Promise you won’t get mad?’

  ‘No. Why should I promise that?’

  ‘Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. The stuff in Anthony’s unit wasn’t stolen – it was all his.’

  I turned to face him. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yeah, he’d just moved here from Perth and was storing it there temporarily. He’s in a band.’

  ‘So … what made you think it was stolen?’

  ‘Nothing. I knew it wasn’t before we went in.’

  It took me a few moments to process this.

  ‘What the fuck, Bruce?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry, I should have told you that.’

  I threw down my cigarette butt; Bruce did the same. I ground mine into the concrete with my shoe; so did Bruce.

  ‘Then … why did we break into it?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. For the excitement, I guess.’

  ‘Well, that was fucking stupid, wasn’t it?’

  Bruce nodded. ‘Yes and no. I mean, what were the chances of him showing up at that moment?’

  I thought about that.

  ‘The other units, though – that was all stolen property, right?’

  Bruce suddenly started laughing uncontrollably. A full minute passed before he could speak.

  ‘Well … not exactly,’ he said.

  ‘Not exactly? What does that mean?’

  ‘The stuff in those units was just stuff, Ken. Stuff belonging to normal tenants.’

  ‘Not stolen?’

  ‘Nope.’

  No wonder a lot of the things in the units hadn’t looked stolen: they weren’t. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been.

  ‘So the only criminals are us?’

  ‘Come on, Ken – it’s only stuff. Things. What are things, when you get right down to it? Meaningless.’

  I kicked the wall. ‘You’re a fucking nutcase. You know that?’

  He cracked up laughing again. ‘Come on, Ken. You enjoyed it as much as I did.’

  ‘Only because I thought the stuff was already stolen!’

  Bruce stopped laughing. ‘Does that justify taking it? Because it’s already stolen? Poor reasoning, my friend.’

  ‘The point is, you lied to me. You led me up the garden path. Now I’m the criminal. Thanks a lot, arsehole.’

  There was no more augmenting our income after that – just as I was starting to build up some capital. But I hadn’t yet reached the point where I could start investing. Dennis and I still talked on the phone, but every week someone seemed to have pilfered another bit of his memory. When he couldn’t recall the word for something, he reached into a
lucky dip of other words, drew one out and attached it, like a cryptic post-it note, to the conversation. And although he remembered the name of the lunch bar he’d purchased in 1975, he had trouble calling to mind the name of his only sister. I could tell that Dennis was gradually losing access to the memories – those weightless, invisible things – he’d spent nearly eight decades collecting.

  Six weeks or so later, the system showed that Anthony had defaulted on his rent. As far as I could tell, everything in his unit had remained untouched since our unexpected encounter.

  ‘Now Ron Wood’s going to auction it off,’ Bruce said. ‘It could have been ours. Ah, well …’

  ‘I wonder what’s happened to him,’ I said. ‘That was valuable equipment. Where do you think he went?’

  Bruce thought for a few moments, then summed up the situation as follows.

  ‘He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.’

  It was only now, as I drove along the M1, recalling this episode from more than seven years earlier, that I remembered Bruce using that expression; I could almost hear him saying it. Until this moment, I’d been certain that he’d coined it while working with me at Hideaway Self Storage, but now I was convinced otherwise. The human memory’s a funny thing.

  Nineteen

  Friday came and went, but Ellen never showed up to empty her unit. I sat in my office all night waiting, Tony or no Tony. Another week passed and still no sign of her. I wondered if she’d changed her mind and maybe was prepared to give me another chance. At the same time, I was worried. I even drove past her house on the way to work a couple of times, slowing right down but, out of respect for her boundaries, not actually stopping.

  As usual, Bruce appeared the moment I stepped back into the office.

  ‘Morning, Ken. Where’ve you been?’

  I found the question irritating. Since when did I have to answer to Bruce?

  ‘Out and about,’ I said.

  ‘Running a few errands?’

  ‘Yes. Taking care of some business.’

  ‘Seeing to some things?’

  I sat down in my swivel chair. I looked at Bruce; he looked at me. I swivelled left and right, trying to look casual, although at that moment I felt anything but.