Passenger(33)
Digging my key from my pocket, I slide it into my door and, just as I turn the lock, hear something click off to my left. In the shadows.
I turn and see a man pointing a gun at me.
THIRTEEN
When you don’t know who you are, it is hard to tell where you end and where the world begins.
It becomes impossible to tell if your smile is your natural smile or if it has been culled and cultivated from years of watching your father smile, your mother smile. Or the shiny smiles of shiny celebrities on television. That you like soft jazz because there is something chemical in your brain that attracts you to the lilting electric pianos and classical guitars, or because the memories you have, the good memories, memories of your friends and family, are memories you automatically associate with soft jazz. So soft jazz makes you feel good. You see someone in the street and the first things you see are the things that have turned them into who they are. They walk a certain way because of the things they’ve seen and the things they’ve done to make them walk that way. Their hair is parted to the right or the left or straight back because of the nurture factor—because of years watching a father comb his hair to the right or the left or straight back. Or because nature has seen fit to weave it in such a fashion—right, left, centered. The woman laughs then apologizes for her loudness because it was her mother who laughed and apologized for her loudness. The laughter is natural, the apology learned. This is why we wear the clothes we wear—the loose-fitting Hawaiian shirts or the tight-fitting blue jeans with the wide cuffs. Cowboy boots or moccasins. This is why we listen to the music we listen to. This is why we love and hate the things we love and hate.
So many things we do because it becomes ingrained in us.
So many things we do because our memories lead us to them.
*
He is a nervous, sweaty, sloppy thing, this man. He wears a blue nylon coat that looks two sizes too small and a rumpled oxford shirt that is only partially tucked into his wrinkled trousers. He’s got a squat, square head with a shiny pate covered with strands of greasy hair. There is perspiration on his doughy cheeks and along his upper lip and it looks like his eyes are fighting to stay open. Surrounding him is a cloud of alcohol and cigarette smoke and, when he manages a single step in my direction, his unsteadiness tells me he’s drunk.
Still, he is waving a handgun at my face.
His nervousness makes me nervous.
“You,” he practically squeaks. His fat cheeks quiver. “You son of a bitch.”
“Hey.” I prop up both my hands and press my back against my door. “Hey, man.”
The man clenches his teeth and his eyes light up. Then he expels a gust of sour breath and again those fat cheeks quiver. One moment he looks ready to rip my head off; the next and I think he’ll burst into tears.
“Bastard,” he breathes. “Son of…of a bitch…”
“Take it easy, man.”
“Don’t you tell me to take it easy!” He jabs the gun in my direction.
“All right…”
“Don’t you tell me a goddamn thing!”
“All right…”
“You…I…you, you son…”
“All right…”
And this is how it is going to end: in a piss-smelling hallway in a Baltimore City apartment building. Just another statistic. This stranger with no name, no identification, dead and forgotten. Who was he? No one will ever know…
“You son of…of…” And the man, he starts crying. I advance cautiously in his direction, but he is quick to jab the air again with the handgun. “No!”
I throw myself backward against the door. Brace for the shot…
“I should do it,” he says, and it is like he is talking to himself now, “I should, I swear it, God, I should…” Those quivering cheeks. “Son of a bitch.” The barrel of the gun is all I see. “I swear, you ever f*cking touch my wife again, you son of a bitch…”
Crazily, I hear Clarence say, Must make you feel free. Must be like parole.
“Barry,” I say. “Come on, Barry. Point the gun down, man.”
“I should do it.” Like he’s trying to convince me. “I really should do it.”
“Barry…”
He staggers for a moment and plants one hand against the wall to right himself. Briefly, the gun sways off me, dips into the shadows, reappears.
“I should.” Then he shouts, “You son of a bitch!” and I prep for the flare from the muzzle and the deafening crack of gunfire to echo forever down the hallway.
Something swings toward my head. I have time to see it is Barry’s gun, a glint of steel, coming in an arc toward the side of my face. Instinct pulls me back, but instinct is not quick enough; some part of the gun strikes my temple. Before I know what’s happening, I’m already on the floor, missiles exploding in my field of vision. I try to sit up, to prop one hand beneath me, but the world takes on a significant tilt. Like the Earth is trying to shake me off into space.
“Barry,” I say…but now my voice is deep and slow, like a tape playing at the wrong speed, and I’m not even sure I manage to get the whole word out.
He kicks me once in the stomach and I curl up like a fetus. Through my blurred vision, I watch as the pointy toe of a cordovan shoe strikes again, this time connecting with the side of my head.