The Dead Are More Visible

by Steven Heighton

  Just give him the keys, Justin.

  There.

  And your wallet, the man said. Nice keychain. And your bag, ma’am. Come on.

  Ma’am, he’d said. Justin dug for his wallet. His fingers and body trembled as though hypothermic. The night wasn’t cold—mild air was lofting up from Lake Ontario and Justin smelled the vast lake in the air, a stored summer’s worth of heat. The pupils in the man’s pale eyes were dilated with crystal meth, or coke, Justin guessed, aware again of that aloof internal observer—that scientist—though actually in his life he was impulsive to a fault and in his work he progressed by instinctive leaps instead of careful, calibrated steps. He lacked focus but he had energy, good hunches. Two years past his Ph.D. he was in medical research at the university, assisting in a five-year study of fetal alcohol syndrome. No shortage of study subjects in this city.

  The pistol looked small to him, maybe a fake, but his knowledge of weapons was vague. He gave his wallet and then, with a sudden instinct to politeness, reached across the roof of the car and received from Janna her olive suede handbag—to pass it to the man. Janna’s crease was sharply incised, her green eyes tight and stony. No plea for heroics there. She looked dazed and indignant, he didn’t know at whom.

  The man got into the car. Justin, as if waiting to be dismissed, stood by the door as it was pulled shut. Your door too, the man told Janna—the voice gone thinner, higher. She shoved it to, the door bouncing back open—the seatbelt buckle. Don’t slam it that way! he yelled, a man now sustaining an affront to his property. She got the door closed. Frozen, Justin and Janna meshed glances over the roof. The man was trying to start the car. Something wrong there. On stiff, stilt-like legs, Justin edged around the back of the car toward Janna—Janna retreating, as if from him, though more likely toward the door of her building.

  The man swung open the car door and shouted, What kind of vehicle is this, man?

  It’s a Volvo. Volvo 240.

  I mean what’s its problem? The man sprang out of the car and stood teetering by the door, across from them now, eyeing them with ice-clear but unfocused eyes. Possibly drunk as well. He flapped the pistol in the air as he talked in his breathy, squashed tenor. Justin glanced around. The streets were empty.

  I don’t know, Justin said. It’s a standard. You don’t drive standard?

  His assumption that a townbilly would know how. Pickup trucks and so on. The man’s brow clenched, as if at some inward struggle. Drunk too, yes.

  Why didn’t you tell me?

  Well, Justin started. The word soaked up whatever breath he had.

  I can’t drive fucking stick!

  Oh, Justin said, eyes on the wagging pistol. I’m sorry.

  I hardly ever drive, the man said, quieter.

  It’s all right, Justin said.

  Just leave the car, Janna said, monotone, a digital voice on a recording. You’ve got our stuff.

  The man’s cellphone went off like a siren.

  Stay there, both of yous.

  The pistol aimed vaguely at the space between Justin and Janna. Justin wanted to bridge that space and at the same time move as little as possible. The man had the cellphone to his ear. Janna was rigid. She was a quick, fidgety type—frozen that way she was not herself, a wax replica.

  Right, but I said I’d call back. How’s that? I don’t know why the fuck the thing hasn’t come, you call them back yourself! I know, I know, that’s why I said don’t use them anymore, didn’t I? Yeah. That’s right. And pineapple on just half this time, right? And don’t call back. I might be longer, there’s no car now. No, I don’t want to now. I’ll deal with it.

  He jabbed the cellphone into his jacket. He looked to either side.

  Into the trunk, both of yous.

  What? Justin said.

  The man flicked the key over the roof of the car. It slid off the near side and plinked down among the leaves and rotting oak mast along the curb.

  Hurry up!

  Just take our stuff, you don’t need to—

  Panicking, the man trained the gun on them over the roof of the car, straight-armed, both hands on the grip, a cop at a police car barricade. They might be dead in a second and the afterimage Justin would take with him into oblivion would be from prime-time television.

  Open the trunk!

  Okay.

  I’ve got to fucking walk now.

  Still thinking and seeing with a weird clarity, Justin bent down for the key and as he stood up he studied the keychain in his hand. A tiny plastic bust of Elvis. A gift from her, last Valentine’s Day. He walked to the trunk and opened it. This was all right, though. There would be people passing, and the trunk was spacious, as trunks go. The guy wasn’t taking them into an alley and shooting them. And though Justin had forgotten his cellphone tonight, he knew that she had hers, she always did, and maybe it wasn’t in her handbag now, sometimes she kept it in her jacket.

  I’m not getting in there, Janna said.

  Get in, the man whispered.

  No, I can’t, please.

  Janna, please.

  Stop! she hissed in a private way, straight at Justin, her eyes round with rage.

  The man’s skinny arm pushed her toward the trunk and she gasped. Justin, flat-palmed, shoved at the caved chest under the denim jacket—did it without thinking. The man swung the gun and the butt cracked Justin in the side of the head. He saw a screen of blue light, heard a fizzing sound like static or a can of beer being opened, as he sat back into the trunk. A sick, cold feeling, nausea in the bones, plummeted down his spinal column to his toes. Beaten, he tucked up his dead legs and curled obediently into the trunk. She was making a faint blubbering sound as she climbed in after him. No, I won’t, she said as she climbed in. I can’t. Please.

  Get in, Justin and the man said at the same time. Now just move your foot, the man told her, his voice still quiet but in a different way, maybe appeased, maybe appealing for a sort of understanding. The trunk was deep. It snapped closed and after a second there was a sound of steps running off. The sound-space between the strides was long and Justin had an image, projected on the sealed darkness around him, of the man loping away up Union, long arms dangling, almost simian, mouth slack and panting under the droopy moustache. In their politically civilized circle, people didn’t use words like “trash” or “skag” about the distressed elements—addicts, parolees, the generationally poor—who made the city’s north side seem more like a slum in Jackson, Mississippi, than part of the old limestone capital of Canada. But now in his anger the words occurred to him. And what he should have done. What he would be doing mentally for weeks to come, rewinding the scene, re-cutting it.

  Fucking yokel. Cops will have him by tomorrow. Are you all right?

  No. She expelled the word on a faint puff of breath. He was groping in the dark for her shoulder. He found her breast instead and she seemed to recoil, though there was no room for that. In the deeps of the trunk, furled on their sides in mirror image, they lay with knees pressed together, faces close. Her breaths, coming fast, were hot, coppery, sour.

  Janna? He found her shoulder and she didn’t move.

  She said, Could air be running out already? I feel like it is.

  No, no way. And the car’s ten years old. We’ll get some air in here.

  I don’t feel it.

  Breathe slower, he said. Do you have your cell?

  In my bag. It’s gone. I didn’t want to get in. Why did you just get in?

  I didn’t. You saw, he smacked me. I was out for a second. He would have shot us. My head is—

  I can’t be in here, Justin. I can’t! You knew that, too. That I’m claustrophobic.

  He’d never seen her this way. Even in private she was always capable, composed, professional, as though feeling herself under constant scrutiny by some ethical mentor. Too much so, he sometimes felt. How she would never miss a day’s workout in the spring and summer while training for her annual triathlon, whatever the weather or her, their,
schedule. How she would talk of getting “more serious” about the sport next year, maybe doing more events. Even her recreation—nights out, parties, vacations—she undertook in this same carefully gauged manner, pacing herself. Only so much fun. Only this much frivolity and no more. As if she was afraid of some tipping point.

  Till now he had not let on to himself how her discipline—what he had so long lacked and craved—was coming to irk him.

  I’ve told you I’m claustrophobic. Why didn’t you tell him?

  He probably wouldn’t have known the word. Christ, my head.

  Of course he would know it.

  And I didn’t know. I mean, I thought you were just saying that before. Everyone says they’re claustrophobic.

  I don’t even like when you pull the quilt over us!

  To make love, he thought, in an exclusive cocoon, cut off from the world.

  I’m sorry, Jan, he said. The throb in his head was worsening and something was gouging into his hip. Maybe a tool? Something useful here? Of course there were no tools in his trunk. He felt the thing, an old ballpoint pen. His mouth was parched.

  And I really have to pee, she said.

  That’s just nerves, he said. His own guts were wheeling. But it calmed him somewhat, being the one in control like this, consoler and protector.

  What’s that?

  A car revved past, humping out a heavy rap number, the octave dropping as it receded, as if in sadness or fatigue. Justin realized that he’d shouted—both of them had shouted for help, though at the last moment somehow he had tightened the syllable to Hey.

  You forgot your cell, didn’t you? she whispered.

  There’ll be more cars.

  They can’t hear us, Justin. You always forget your cell! I knew it.

  People’ll be going by.

  Not till the morning. I feel like there isn’t, there won’t be enough air.

  Don’t worry, there will.

  And I really have to go.

  She’d never sounded so much like a small girl. Or girly woman. And sometimes he’d longed for that, for a small, unshielded part of her to give itself over to his chivalry and guardianship. But this went too far. Her stomach (invisible now, though as he jabbed the LED on his watch, 1:22 a.m., he got a subaquatic glimpse of her nestled form)—her stomach had a washboard look, tanned, much harder and stronger than his own. She was crying, whimpers mixed with convulsive little intakes of breath, like a child post-tantrum. Finding her hands he held them close between their chests. The trunk seemed to be rocking slightly as if from the adrenaline thump of his pulse, their hearts together. Spending the night together after all. He’d studied murky ultrasound images of curled fetuses, and one time twins—soon to be FAS siblings—the victims of ignorant, careless or despairing parents. Entombed in their toxic primordial sea, the two had seemed to be holding each other in a consoling embrace.

  Help, help, she was calling weakly.

  Another car passed, slower. Again he yelled involuntarily, aware of a swelling node of panic he was compressing under his heart.

  Might have let us go if you said I was claustrophobic.

  Okay, Janna. He tried to speak normally. A laryngeal whisper came out. Let me think.

  I mean, he won’t want us to die in here! He doesn’t want to go to jail for that!

  You’re going to be fine, Jan.

  How the fuck do you know if I’m going to be fine! You didn’t even remember I’m claustrophobic!

  Janna.

  You’re supposed to be a doctor!

  I’m not a doctor, you know that. Jesus.

  You’re crushing my hands, Justin!

  Her whine seemed to split his head. This felt like the most savage hangover—worse than the worst he had undergone in university and grad school, before he met Janna and set his life on a stabler footing. A student of booze, he had been. My years of research, he would quip.

  Jesus, Janna, calm down.

  Why is no one walking past? Most nights I lie there and it’s, it’s. It’s like an endless parade of people walking past. Yahoos shouting.

  Someone will. Don’t worry. We’ll call. I—

  I just knew you wouldn’t have your cell. How can we call if—

  Shut up! I mean call.

  This just fuelled her. She wrung her hands free, panting in the tight space. No, no, you’re not a doctor and it’s lucky. You’ve got no—no—you can never just be together, can you, Justin? Why can’t you just arrange yourself for once? It makes me crazy! You’re always—

  I’m telling you, enough.

  Oh, your bedside manner.

  Her breaths were shallow, the sour smell filling the trunk.

  You’re going to hyperventilate, Janna. That’s the only way you won’t get enough air, if you hyperventilate.

  I can’t help it! Get me out of here, Justin!

  What are you doing?

  Okay. Okay—I’m on my back, I’m pushing up with my feet. You do it too.

  Janna—

  Like a leg press. I’m strong. It’s an old car.

  Ten years isn’t old for a Volvo. This came to him from somewhere—a line from some ad? His father, years ago? She was grunting, doing her press. At the fitness centre she used a personal trainer and was toying with the idea of becoming one herself. After a few seconds he rolled onto his back and tried it. It was tight, the angle too acute.

  Come on, she breathed out, please please please please. Come on, come on.

  The only motion, a slight flexing of the metal. Then more of that suspensioned rocking, below. A passerby might think lovers were in the back seat of the car.

  I hear something, he said. He wanted to cover her panting mouth with his hand. Listen.

  Oh God, it’s someone. Help! she said, but with no breath in it.

  Hello! he yelled, amazed at how the enclosure, and somehow the darkness too, seemed to stifle the shout. He squirmed out of his leg-press crouch as steps approached. This move involved shoving contortions, Janna crying out weakly, cursing him as his knee met her shoulder, he guessed. He didn’t care now. This was the point in the old film where the hero slaps the hysterical woman and she gets a hold of herself, grateful, admiring, won over.

  He got his mouth up against the crack of the trunk, near where it latched. Hello! Help!

  The footsteps stopped.

  In here, please! We’re in the car!

  The trunk, Janna whispered.

  We’re in the trunk!

  Footsteps approached. They sounded heavy, solid. A good thing.

  Someone in there?

  Yes.

  Yes! Janna called with a sob. Her breathing was slower, though still shallow.

  What, there’s two of you?

  Yes.

  What are you doing in there? A faint slur yoked the words together. The voice was low and throaty—older. Actually, the voice sounded a bit tickled.

  We got locked in. A guy robbed us.

  No way! What a fucking drag! I never seen anything like this.

  Please, Janna said.

  Can you just open the trunk? Justin said. The key might be in the lock there. Or maybe on the ground somewhere.

  Hmm. Not in the lock.

  Or just call the police. My fiancée is claustrophobic.

  Yeah? The wife, she’s got that too, as a matter of—

  Have you got a phone?

  What’s that? Oh yeah, at home. Let me see if I can see a key around here.

  The keychain is of, uh … it’s Elvis, his head.

  Not having much luck here. The man started to whistle softly, in tune. It’s now or never.

  I think I’m going to pee, Janna whispered.

  Hold on, Justin said. Would you please hurry up, mister?

  Hey, I’m doing my best for you, chief!

  Maybe you should just go call the cops.

  No! Janna said. The key has to be around here!

  He might’ve just stole it, the man said. It’s not on the road here.

 
; I don’t see why he would have, Justin said stubbornly, hoping the words into truth.

  Why didn’t he take the car? Nice car. I like these European cars.

  He tried, Justin said, reaching to hold Janna’s quivering shoulder. He couldn’t drive standard.

  A momentary silence, then the man burst out in snorty guffaws. Oh now that’s too good! he said finally. Guy couldn’t drive standard!

  I can’t hold it, Janna said. Oh God.

  It’s all right, Justin whispered.

  Oh God, get me out of here, please!

  Go call the cops now, please! Justin yelled.

  All right, yeah, I will so. I will now. But I was just wondering something first …

  What?

  Got nothing but shit for luck these days. Never the luck, the wife says. If you know what I’m saying. Could you give me a little retainer?

  A what?

  You know, a retainer. It’s legal talk, like on TV. A fee. He paused and then said, firmly: Slip me out some money, whatever you got. I need it. Then I’ll call the cops for you. There’s a payphone up the street.

  I told you, we were just robbed!

  Justin, wait.

  We don’t have a cent. How the fuck can you ask—

  Justin!

  Now hang on a minute, chief—I told you, I’m broke, and I’m going to be doing you a favour. I mean, I prefer not to have anything to do with cops if it’s up to myself. This is going out on a limb for me. It’s not like you can’t afford it. Look at this car. This fucking Volvo.

  But we—

  It’s okay, Janna said, I have something. Some money.

  What? Justin said.

  Just slip whatever you got through the crack, here by the latch. I can pry, maybe. I got some keys here.

  My keys, Justin said. Janna, what are you—

  I always keep a twenty separate, she said, in case.

  Of course, Justin whispered.

  What?

  Of course you do, he told her, and now in his mind he saw, not with doting amusement but a stressed rage, Janna opening doors with her hooked pinkie, or with the same fey digit keying in her PIN at the automatic teller. This although, he’d explained, on any given day a person encountered a dozen infectious agents which, if you were weakened enough, could make you ill or worse. But she was strong—probably all the more so for her years of working with the public at the bistro, where she also did the pinkie thing. Where it must be seen as a stylish or campy affectation, not another symptom of her leery, meticulous nature.