The Journey Prize Stories 22

by Various

  She studies the man across from her. While he speaks, his hands chop at the tabletop in unison, as though he holds a box between them and is shaking it at her. His box of facts and knowledge.

  He says, “Do you know what an area of awareness is?”

  She shakes her head.

  “It’s where perpetrators commit most of their crimes and where they feel comfortable, often where they travel between work and home and social events.”

  “What you’re saying is that people commit crimes in areas that mean something to them? Near the people closest to them?”

  “It’s not my opinion. It’s just the way it is.”

  “Why?”

  He eyes the doorway of the club.

  “For one thing, it’s easier to commit a crime if you know where the escape routes are.”

  Escape is important for both perpetrators and victims, she thinks. Sometimes it must be hard to tell them apart when they’re fleeing the scene.

  “For another thing –” he continues and offers her a tentative smile, suddenly ducking his bulky head as though shy. Then he stops smiling and his hands fall onto the table. One flutters, with surprising delicacy, to his jacket pocket and retrieves a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. When he puts them on, she cannot see his eyes.

  “For another thing, everyone needs some sense of security.”

  All evening, the strange men have passed in front of her. No sooner does a man sit down at her table than a bell is rung and he is up and off. After a while, it seems as though these are not different men, but one man who keeps changing his clothes and manner. A man in disguise. It is hard not to be suspicious of such a man – a man who keeps altering, like the landscape of the city, which is always under construction and covered with scaffolding, always getting torn down and rebuilt. Just as she adjusts to one view of the city, the next thing she knows, everything has changed. The buildings have gone from small to large or large to small and the familiar people are gone and unfamiliar people are in their place.

  The nightclub has been built from stainless steel – bar, bar stools, walls, and low tables – as though designed to withstand crowds of people flowing through on their way to elsewhere. It reminds her of a subway station.

  Two men before the criminologist, she meets a man who looks like a country singer, with his cowboy boots and square, bearded jaw, and when she asks him if this is what he does, he shouts, “Why does everyone keep asking me that!” He reminds her of her fourth boyfriend, who always shouted at her with reproach, so she ticks No on her scorecard. One man before the criminologist, she meets a man who owns a distribution business, but he will not tell her what he distributes. His silver rings remind her of the rings her sixth boyfriend used to twist around his fingers while crying over her indifference to his feelings, so she ticks No on her scorecard.

  No, no, no. It begins to feel like indexing, breaking each man down into parts, then putting the parts into categories. When she was younger, the world was broad and unknown. Now, she knows that world so well she can divide it up into index cards, which prevent her from making the same mistakes twice.

  Number 29 holds a clear drink, a lime slice pinching the side of the glass. It looks like a gin and tonic.

  She says, “That’s what my eighth boyfriend used to drink. I thought he’d drunk them all. I thought there were none left in the world, he was so thirsty.”

  Number 29 laughs, barkingly, but by the time she thinks to laugh, he has stopped.

  “Ah, my ex-girlfriend was also sarcastic,” he smiles, but then looks away. “She was sarcastic even while she was leaving our apartment for the last time and getting into a car with another man. Even then she still thought she had some right to sarcasm.”

  He leans back in his chair and eyes her across the table.

  The bell will ring soon. Their time is almost up.

  “I’m a feminist,” she says. She brandishes the word as though laying down something between them, a bundle board in a bed, for instance.

  “Yes, so was my ex-girlfriend. I could be friends with a feminist,” he says.

  Already, they are building their escape hatches, so when it comes time to flee the scene – and it will come, she thinks, staring at his shirt – the getaway will be fast and easy.

  ————

  But! His hands have begun to dance out a new choreography. Now as he speaks, instead of chopping at the air, he dabbles with his fingers across the table as though laying out his words in rows. This seems familiar. This seems like what she does with words while arranging an index. Lulled by his dainty dabbles, she finds the chopping motion less violent and more generous when it returns. As he holds out his box of air to her again, she feels he may be offering her some intangible gift.

  She throws one of her legs over the other and shifts both out from under the table, swinging her foot beside him. Then she remembers she knows nothing about him and sweeps her legs back under the table. Above the table, only her high-necked sweater is visible. Under the table, her black skirt barely covers her thighs.

  She is thinking about areas of awareness, the familiar spaces where criminals commit their crimes.

  “What about with bodies?”

  He looks confused, so she traces the space around her hand, saying, “This is my area of awareness. But when I move my hand beside yours into your area of awareness –” she lays her hand beside his on the tabletop, so her thumb is millimetres from his own, “ … whose area is it? Who is the more likely perpetrator when two areas overlap?”

  Deviancy is an odd thing to flirt about, but he is smiling.

  “That’s not criminal theory, the body as an area of awareness,” he says. “That’s a theory of something else you’re working on.” His smile widens, and this time her squint relaxes and she allows herself to grimace in amusement.

  They lean closer together.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  The bell.

  After Number 14 meets six more men, the bell rings for the last time and she tears the white sticker from her sweater. The sticker has a one and four written in pink marker, no name. She leaves it crumpled on the bar and drops her scorecard into the slot of a box wrapped in silver paper with red hearts. She has checked Yes beside only one number – his number.

  As she walks past him on her way to the washroom, he touches her lower back, fanning his fingers across her spine. Her body is in love. It has fallen in love in three seconds. With a hand. Of course, it could be the hand of a serial killer, she thinks, squinting meanly into her eyes in the washroom mirror.

  She is wearing four breasts tonight, two real and two padded discs, cupping the real as hands would, as his hands might. As she reaches for the taps, one disc slides towards her neck.

  She imagines Number 29’s fingers on her breasts, dabbling out their rows. She tries to reason it out. Even if he is a serial killer, perhaps he will not hurt her if she is willing and does not resist. In fact, if she is willing, she might never need to learn that he is a serial killer. This is the bargain she strikes with her reason.

  It has been a while since a man touched her back.

  She could leave the washroom and go home. The event is over. In a few days, if he has checked Yes beside her number on his scorecard, she will be sent his e-mail address. When she arrived, she signed a waiver stating she understood attendees were not screened. She released the event’s organizers from any responsibility for what followed the final ring of the bell. Suspicion lurked at the evening’s outskirts like a peeping Tom.

  “I am willing,” she whispers through her teeth, squeezing the taps. “I am willing.” Her molars grind together.

  She retucks her fourth breast into her bra.

  He is sitting at the back of the club on a low, modern sofa, a white rectangle with steel legs. He rubs his index finger against his thumb, staring off into space. The tip of his tongue darts in and out of the corner of his mouth to the rhythm of his rubbing. She decides not to see this. Instead, she sits down beside h
im.

  “So how many women did you pick tonight? How many are you going to see again?”

  “Maybe I won’t have to see any others,” he says.

  He offers her his drink.

  “About that eighth boyfriend of yours,” he says as she takes the glass, “my grandfather was an alcoholic.” She sips and tastes only mineral water with lime. He takes back the glass and looks into her eyes. “I don’t drink.”

  “And I’m not always sarcastic,” she murmurs.

  Over the next two hours, he fills in the details of a life that is placid and unthreatening. He works for the police and his brother teaches at the private boys’ school near her apartment. He meets his parents and brother at a pub every Sunday for lunch. He owns a home in the suburbs just outside the city. One of his friends is a fireman.

  While he speaks, her body – with preening self-caresses and head tilts – is holding a covert discussion with his. Her body is welcoming his, rolling out its little red carpets while doorkeepers swing wide the doors. She is barely aware of what her body is up to until she notices that she and Number 29 are sandwiched together, her hand on his knee, his arm around her waist. A great strategizer, the body has dumped doses of oxytocin – the body’s rohypnol – into her bloodstream to counteract her adrenalin, to relax and stun her.

  They leave the restaurant. Night has shrouded the streets and alleys. As Number 29 steps onto the sidewalk, night falls over his head and shoulders like a black hood.

  He turns to face her, where she stands in the doorway, and holds out his hand.

  “Come on. I’ll drive you home.” With his other hand, he scoops a key ring from his trenchcoat pocket and whirls it around one finger – more confidence than he has shown all night.

  His keys. His car. His area of awareness.

  In the parking garage, he mentions that hidden eyes are watching her.

  “Security cameras,” he says, scanning the concrete roof.

  She trails behind him as he points at beige cones poking from the ceiling like tiny beehives. She always thought they were sprinklers.

  She thinks about getting into his car.

  Yes.

  No.

  “This is a high-risk society,” he says, still looking up. “Terrorism, bio-chemical warfare …”

  “ ……HIV, hepatitis, pregnancy, serial killers,” she thinks.

  “I have a camera for a brain. I remember everything about tonight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sitting at the table beside yours was Number 26, a lawyer in jeans and a green sweater. Beside her was Number 10, gold barrette and contact lenses. I saw the rings around her irises. Then Number 12, picked at one of her cuticles the whole time we talked. Black wool skirt, run in her nylons. Then Numbers 20 and 18 and 4. And on the other side of the bar, 8, 16, 2, 22, 30, 6, 28, and 24. I could tell you how each woman dressed and how she behaved and what she said. Five women wore glasses and only two wore jeans. Nine worked as teachers. And you, you were Number 14.”

  Number 14 stops walking.

  “I think I’ll take the subway home.”

  He stops as well and turns to face her. “Why? Are you nervous about me seeing your place? Are you married?” He pretends to joke but his voice cracks on the final word.

  The problem with his questions is this: she cannot answer them. She cannot say, “I suspect you might be a serial killer,” for if he turns out not to be a serial killer, such a statement is an insult, and if he turns out not to be a serial killer, she might want to see him again.

  He takes off his glasses and blinks down at her, as though he is just as confused as she is. Then he reaches forward and lays a large hand on her arm.

  She sees this image – his hand on her arm – as though watching it from above her own body. She imagines police officers in a dank concrete room, viewing the security video from tonight, clearing their throats, taking notes.

  She asks Number 29, “Do you wear a uniform?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “At your job, do you wear a uniform?”

  He steps back from her and takes his hand off her arm.

  “No. Sorry. Women always ask me that. I’m sure I could rent one if you wanted.”

  He turns away from her and moves between two parked cars, saying over his shoulder, “People used to focus on punishing criminals once a crime had been committed, but these days we try to prevent crimes before they happen.”

  He opens the passenger door of a black hatchback and looks at her expectantly.

  “Of course, security is all a question of balance,” he says. “Balancing caution against necessary risk. There are no guarantees.”

  There are no guarantees. But there are safeguards.

  “Just a minute,” she says and pulls her cellphone from her jacket. “I need to check my messages.”

  While he fiddles with his own cellphone, she lowers hers and snaps a photo of the back of his car.

  Then she texts a co-worker, someone who might ask questions if Number 14 stopped showing up for work.

  “I met someone!!!”

  She attaches this message to the photo of his licence plate and hits send.

  “Don’t let them take you to a second location,” she remembers a newscaster saying about serial killers, as she slides into his car. “That’s where they kill you.”

  No.

  Yes.

  She pulls shut the door.

  ————

  They drive away from the city centre, travelling north up a highway and then a series of side streets. She does not drive and is unfamiliar with this route to her apartment, but he knows the area. His brother lives nearby, he says.

  The car has leather seats and a CD changer in the back. She has never heard, before now, of a CD changer. He widens his eyes with disbelief and pleasure at such naivete. As a female folk singer wails through the car’s speakers, he grins about all the things he knows.

  “Have you ever seen the houses along Arbour Path?” he asks.

  When she shakes her head, he announces, “I’ll take you for a drive then.”

  He turns down more and more streets, away from the street lights and into a residential area thick with trees. She sways with the car, relaxed and dizzy.

  High walls of stone and tightly packed evergreens, as well as wrought-iron security gates with cameras and intercoms, surround the houses. A jeep with the words “Securo-Guard” written on one side cruises past. The houses look like sets from a movie. Massive Greek columns glow in the dark. Spotlights shine on the arched stone entrances of Tudor manors. These homes are not like anything an architect would design for beauty, but like something the owners imagined would be a grand home when they were ten years old. Number 14 stares at a stucco Italian villa and realizes that it is not a house but merely a dream of a house.

  Number 29 points out five-car garages. He talks about what sort of house he might like to live in. What sort of house he has now. How many children it would take to fill his house (one) and how many children before he would have to move (two). He lays it all out like a banking plan. His voice drones on, nasally, but she is not paying attention. She is watching his large hands grip the steering wheel.

  The houses are now farther back from the road, separated by vast stretches of dark lawn. She can barely see his face.

  Of course, he will never own a house like this. These houses belong to pop stars and the Russian mob.

  Even now, he is frowning and pausing at a crossroad, turning his head side to side. “I don’t …” He wheels the car to the right.

  It slows to a stop.

  “Ooops, dead end,” he says. He turns to face her.

  They are on a gravel road, surrounded by black shapes of pines. His headlights cast the only light. She looks at the uneven outline of his ridged skull, at the dark shadow of his face, at where she thinks his mouth should be.

  It’s him or me, she thinks. Him or me. Him or me.

  And I am willing.
<
br />   She smothers him with her mouth.

  She tongues the hollow beneath his Adam’s apple.

  She shoves her hand under his sweater and pinches his nipples.

  She pushes back his head with both hands, to expose his neck, and bites.

  Only when his hands begin to dig into her shoulders does she stop. He has made an X with his arms in front of his chest, palms facing outward, pushing her away.

  She grabs at his groin, but he swats away her hand and says, “I thought you were shy.”

  His voice is querulous and accusing, his breathing uneven. “I watched you at the club. You barely moved your hands or body when you spoke. You took up as little space as possible. Very shy people do that …”

  “You profiled me?”

  “ ……or liars.”

  The adrenalin that rushed through her body a few minutes ago seems to have pooled in her stomach, leaving her legs and arms numb. She feels tired. No, exhausted. The heft of her disappointment and humiliation, surely, will capsize the car.

  “I have no idea how we’re going to get back,” he says, and she turns towards the windshield. The yellow arm of a barrier gate extends across the road in front of them.

  They are both lost. Lost in this suburb of designer homes. A dream of a dream she had when she was much younger.

  “I won’t hurt you,” she says. She remains still. She makes no sudden movements.

  “Liar,” he whispers.

  ANDREW BODEN

  CONFLUENCE OF SPOORS

  The hunter followed the blood down from the North Shore Mountains into Vancouver. This was the third day he’d tracked the buck his father wounded but couldn’t kill, because a fall broke the old man’s femur. The hunter had never known a buck to bleed this much and go on. It should have bedded down and died two days ago, but here were drops of its blood on the white shoulder line of the Upper Levels Highway and, a mile on, a tuft of tawny hair caught on a chain-link fence. He crossed the Lions Gate Bridge at dusk and followed the blood trail east past Coal Harbour, down Cordova Street into the lower East Side. Twice his .30-06 leapt to his shoulder, but the crosshairs fell on the ghosts of old kills and he cursed his exhaustion, his hunger. His image of the wounded buck, blood staining its white belly, blood trickling down its pink-white thighs, blood loss lowering its head inch by inch, pushed him past the broken women who all smiled and asked if he wanted a date. He came to Powell and Raymur and the blood trail went north and east.