they say the owl was a baker's daughter: four existential noirs

by KUBOA

  A mass of phlegm caught up along the roof of my mouth, making it difficult to get a good breath in. I hacked, snorted, then squiggled past the thing into the kitchen, spit into the sink and just held my hands up, shivering, numb fists of the fingers, thinking of how to get rid of the insect.

  I opened a cupboard, getting out a green plastic bowl. I flopped it over the thing, fast, worried it’d have wings it could thump, rattle, frighten me away with.

  I put two cans of soup on top of the bowl, laughed like an imbecile and turned to the wall, pointing again, calling the stitch-mouthed man a liar.

  Not only did you not kill it, I said, a grumbling, wet whisper, I bet you put it on me to begin with.

  I swallowed, slumped my shoulders, hated that I’d said that, hated that I was now deflated in a medicine haze wondering if it was a possibility.

  He’d been standing behind you, he’d been standing behind you, I said.

  Looked at the soup cans, the green bowl, wanted to peek under, mistrustful.

  ***

  I took a few more ibuprofen tablets, massaged my forehead and neck, shook my arms around and drifted into the bedroom.

  I couldn’t see Ginette being involved, romantically, with this person. I granted that there must be medical reasons to have one’s mouth shut, but no reason at all to draw stitches through the lips. It was some sort of grotesque.

  And because of that, I said lazily, laying down, still rolling my hands, I could not allow for the supposition that it was her father or something. So the list of middle-aged, ugly men who would be doing a young woman’s laundry in the middle of the night was done.

  I sat up, actually concerned.

  Maybe I was wrong about the apartment, or maybe she had moved out. But I’d seen her panties in that laundry, I said, correcting this to I’d seen panties, which could’ve belonged to anyone. Then I wondered if I actually had see them, was I sure I’d seen panties?

  What if something was happening, over there?

  Things happened to people. I wasn’t a lunatic for thinking something might be off.

  Isn’t this how people die, horrifically? They don’t go someplace else, someplace else comes to them?

  I chuckled, fake, had let a thick of wet collect in my mouth, went to the piled laundry in the corner and squeezed the spit into a rumpled shirt.

  Just then it occurred to me that he’s looked at the outside of my door so intently because he’d seen me pretending to be going into another apartment. He’d stopped and looked at my door.

  I chuckled, fake again.

  How long had he stood there?

  I went to the door, eye to the peephole, rechecked the lock, the bolt, the chain, listened to the air from my nose whistle, felt it warm the skin above my lip that was touching the cold paint.

  ***

  Sort of pretending I was talking myself out of it, I dressed to leave the apartment. Unable to come up with any other idea, I figured there might be a nameplate on the mailbox to thirteen, I could at least verify if Ginnete was still the tenant. Probably not, but there might be, or there could be something in the trashcan, junk mail, circulars, something that might be addressed to apartment thirteen and have a name on it.

  I undid my door meekly, not wanting to be ridiculous about it, and mocked myself the entire way to the elevator with how idiot I was being. I did my best to quiet my agitation by reminding myself I’d just not be comfortable unless I checked something, at least, made some attempt to convince myself out of this mindset. It was check the mailboxes or it was something else, and checking the mailboxes was harmless.

  There was no nameplate. Only about a half dozen of the mailboxes had nameplates. I gave a tired, heavy look to the trash can, rubbing my eyes.

  The rain was hideous, outside, I could see it roughing everything illuminated by the street lights, so dense and forceful, like lines of rain, long lines, think as twists of hair around two fingers.

  I only thought ill of this man because of his lips. And because he’d growled at me. I’d been staring at him, though. Because he’d been walking around with his hand covering his mouth like a creep.

  He was a creep.

  I drooled a long few breaths into the trashcan, hit the summon button and leaned to the elevator wall, then just stood, waiting, cramps building from behind my knees up through my ribs to hang from my collar bone.

  I hit the button for twelve, forehead to the panel above the other buttons and before the doors closed I also hit the button to the basement, left it to chance if I’d head back to my apartment or give a quick check to the laundry room.

  I closed my eyes, listened to the shut of the doors, the sigh of the mechanism starting, felt the floor drift down away me before resettling, clenched my jaw, groaned low in my throat.

  ***

  I took a seat on one of the many folding chairs all along the slanting left-hand wall, just inside the laundry room. I stared at the folding tables, three set together, the stack of ratty paperback novels and magazines left in a decrepit laundry basket. Sniffling roughly, running the butt of my palm into the skin between them, I closed my eyes.

  There were a few baskets, a few hampers around, one in the chair next to me, two others on the folding tables, one already full with folded garments, but there was distinctly only the slush from one churning machine, a damp, hissing sound, and there was the humidity of the damp scent of this in the otherwise blunt chill of the space.

  Just deciding to get it over with, I moved to the machine and popped up the lid, the soggy whir of the thing coming to a slow stop, the clothes slicked to the machine sides.

  They were all woman’s clothing, nothing even close to a man’s clothing, not a sock, a pair of underpants, a t-shirt.

  I dug the things out, a few at a time, laid them in a loose pile on the closed machine tops. I checked the sizes of the panties, medium, the sizes of the shirts, medium, small, six on one button down, eight on another.

  I closed my eyes, stopping myself, turned in the direction of the door, expecting some witness to be there.

  He was washing the clothes, but what could that mean?

  It only meant he was washing clothes.

  Was I thinking he’d done her some violence?

  That was idiot to think. What would washing all of her clothes have to do with that?

  But right away, even in the mud and wet of my drifting thoughts, I could supply an answer, almost gave it to myself snidely. He could easily be washing all the clothes, intend to fold them, put them away, store them in moving boxes—he could be packing up her whole apartment or something.

  Or what?

  I felt almost disappointed when my riff fell apart, when I forgot what I’d even been trying to explain.

  ***

  Putting the clothes back in, I felt something in the pocket of a long, thick skirt, so set this aside. Once everything else was back into the machine, I patted the skirt fabric, found a deep side pocket and emptied it of seventeen dollars in cash, a few sodden slips of paper, two credit cards, an identification card and a card with a magnetic strip on it, the name Noran, G. and a number printed in green on it.

  The identification read Ginette Levents Noran.

  I jammed the skirt back into the machine, closed the lid, had taken a step away but wheeled around when the machine didn’t start up, again. I scanned the thing around where the coins should be inserted, screwed around with the dials a moment, but the thing would not reactivate.

  Hand still around the items from the emptied pocket, I hurried out of the room, not wanting to run, my gait taking on a quirk, a limp due to my being so conscious of myself. I took a bad step, the toe of my shoe striking hard, full stop, into the flat carpet, tensed myself into striking the wall, a thump to the side of my head, my nostrils cleared a moment from the shock, but congested by the time I was back at the elevator.

  As soon as I’d hit the su
mmon button, I shook my head, moved along to the stairwell door, got it closed behind me and leaned to the wall, both hands now to my head where I’d hit the wall, that eye watering, not stopping when I dabbed at it.

  I sat to the third step, miserable, forming little bubbles of spittle on my lip, listening to the distinct pitter of them breaking, not even understanding what I thought I was doing.

  I scooted around awkwardly until I had the identification out. Looked at it. Ginette Levents Noran.

  I stared at the stairwell door, like I was looking at the wet clothing out through it, unsteadily stood myself up, began climbing the stairs.

  ***

  Despite the exhaustion of the climb, or because of it, I got myself calm, somewhat sensible, tried to make it all a joke about myself. Either way, I could return the stuff, just put it all in an envelope, tape it to the door with a note or something. Without a note. I’d get it back to her, somehow.

  And the thought Who is this person? returned, again, not waiting for any answer, like I just wasn’t awake enough to think of anything more interesting. His face. Mouth. Stitches.

  By the seventh floor, I was considering urinating in the corner, the sudden urgency in my groin painful, so much I decided I get the elevator.

  Was I worried about him seeing me? I wanted to know. Was it really that?

  And nodding, a twitch of my mouth, I admitted it was that.

  Why was he in Ginette’s apartment?

  It was certainly obvious he wasn’t doing the laundry at her request, otherwise these things in the pockets wouldn’t be in the pockets, he’d have made sure things were in order. This was her identification and some card she obviously needed for work and her money.

  I just milled at the end of the eighth floor corridor.

  No.

  No, no, I just repeated, referenceless.

  But it was true, I said, pointedly, gave a scratching motion to the door at about the height of my elbow.

  The stuff hadn’t been sorted, either. If he’d been involved with her, insisting on doing laundry at midnight, why wouldn’t he have checked the pockets?

  All pointless, all wonderful and pointless, I decided, belching along, a stick of my one leg hard, my body lurped after it, the only sort of motion that felt comfortable.

  Nothing that meant anything, nothing that meant anything.

  The elevator door took more than a minute to open from when I hit the button for it. I waited, my fingers tight, stiff little tips, a circle to the metal around the button.

  ***

  I was even stiffer from tension, I noticed, the elevator door letting me into my corridor, a stiffness like waking from a long sleep, still fatigued, the room too warm. But I cricked to my door and quietly got the key in, was through, had the door shut behind me.

  Immediately to the sink for a drink of water, then opening the refrigerator for something colder and with some hint of taste.

  I made a tight fist of one hand, thumped my forehead, stood there with the fist side screwing the skin in and out of place.

  I thought, just for a moment, that I should—or should have already, it was too late now—dropped the identification card and the money and all of it in the corridor, in the elevator, on the laundry room floor, something.

  The stuff was wet, though, probably ruined. The cards were certainly ruined, seemed dulled, polished away.

  I retreated to the sofa, laid down before getting undressed, lacked the energy to do anything, squirmed my head into the corner and cushion side, just listening to scruff this all made in my ears, to the whine behind my eyes, the squish of them moving like blinking though they were closed.

  I focused on my breathing, making mouths of it, wide open air in, puckered loose lips air out. Over and over. Over and over and over and over and over.

  I realized my eyes were open, my breathing shifting to my nose in a whistle. I put on the television, staring at some repeat of a sketch comedy show, the same repeat that always seemed to be on.

  I looked over at the wall, at the wall under the thin cake of light blotting on it, dark, grey as bone, blue with cracks, dark, grey as bone.

  Shutting off the television, I doubled over, not particularly needing to, could taste my breath, it seemed raw, like something sweet chewed too long.

  ***

  I moved to the kitchen counter, leaned, spit long and thick into the sink drain and looked at the identification card.

  It must mean that she was at home, at any rate.

  The thought just lay there, it was like an insect that didn’t know it’d been noticed.

  It must mean that she was home.

  Did this make sense?

  Even if it did, I couldn’t get any further than it.

  Assuming it meant that, assuming it meant that, I said and didn’t say anything else, just lost in the sing song.

  I took out the thermometer, washed it off, shook it, shook it, shook it, set it beneath my tongue, the long of it also pinched by my teeth.

  I tried to recall when I’d started thinking about this, now that it was such a fixation. It was a bit much to think I’d gone out for cigarettes just when this guy had left for cigarettes, headed back just when this guy was heading back, thought he’d been following me, but instead he goes to the apartment next to mine. Strange. But at the same time, it was a bit much to now suspect him of something.

  Except I couldn’t not admit to things, couldn’t say because things seemed odd that it meant they weren’t.

  If something was going on, I hummed, was I now involved or not?

  Was I?

  If there was something happening to Ginette or if something had happened to her, if I told the story of this night to someone built around her having been hurt or something—I wouldn’t, for some reason of decorum, go past the word Hurt—what would the faces be, what would be said to me, how would it look?

  My fever had not subsided, except maybe to one hundred two degrees proper.

  I glared at the bug I’d pinned beneath bowls and a soup can.

  If I mentioned that in the story, what would people say?

  -You pinned a bug under soup cans? I said, quizzically, testing it out.

  Paused.

  -Said, But what is it happened to that woman, Jervis?

  ***

  Wetting my face again and again, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling of wax, the feeling of being damp somehow under the surface, air trapped inside me, something making me feel looser than I was.

  I considered just calling the police.

  Why couldn’t I?

  I could utterly fabricate something, they’d show up, have to show up.

  Fabricate what?

  Anything, I said, as though it was obvious, a gag of spit in my stomach, loosening my pants, sitting to the toilet bowl, repeating Anything.

  But actually, I couldn’t come up with one particular thing to say.

  I’d call, say that I heard screams? Heard an argument, it’d sounded like someone was hitting a woman?

  Five minutes I sat, nothing issuing from me, chugging breath in head tilts through mucus, just playing out the scenario of the call.

  They’d ask who I was.

  So I’d just hang up. They couldn’t ignore that.

  I just couldn’t call from my apartment, I supposed. I’d have to use some payphone, though maybe that would make it seem strange.

  It became too much, any thought flattening to the same sullen clack.

  I had a slight bowel movement, mostly thins of flatulence, flushed, stomach still upset, but shut the light, returned to the kitchen, returning to the pattern of thinking.

  What if the police arrived and no one answered the door?

  They weren’t going to go kicking it in, they weren’t going to sit there, sentry.

  Or what if the man with the stitched mouth just answered? What if he communicat
ed with them, pen and paper, let them have a look around? What if nothing was found?

  He could claim he was there with consent, apartment sitting, that he was her boyfriend, that he had a key.

  So, his word against a hang up call. His written word against a coward prank on the telephone.

  The police would leave.

  The stitch mouthed man, I said, he’d have no choice but to think of me. He’d think of me. I was obvious.

  ***

  I started the oven for one of the cheap pizzas I’d buy in bulk from a nearby gas station, the only place that carried the brand, my favorite since I’d been a kid, they used to be everywhere. The task, the familiarity, it caught me up, combined with the drift to me from the fever and medicine, I soon was even milling, staring at the oven light, red, waiting for it to click off, indicate the heat had reached three-fifty.

  I must’ve been back from my little trip to the laundry room at least forty minutes, I thought vaguely, glancing at the clock. The laundry had been almost done washing when I’d gone down there, halfway at least, certainly it’d have legitimately been finished by now.

  Had the guy gone down for it?

  I frowned, not really because I was still thinking about it, but because it was another thing I felt I should have a way to verify, but didn’t. Or not a risk free way. I could go back down, but that would be tricky. Unless I took my own laundry or something.

  I shook my face, put the pizza into the oven, went to the door, eye to peephole. I figured I’d hear his door unlatching, but this could’ve happened sometime earlier, when I was occupied, he could’ve gone down, come back.

  He’d have to go down, again, to get them from the dryer.

  My eye was still to the peephole, the warped image into it a poke, like a rub to an itch, a squirm.

  Maybe he wasn’t going to go get the laundry, I thought, maybe that was the idea. Leave the laundry, her identification and all, some evidence she’d been home if someone looked for her.

  I coughed, suddenly, the tense of it bumping my forehead to the door.

  I tried to regather the thought, sat down on the carpet, let my chin drip to my chest, the congestion running into the ridge of my nose.