Passenger(59)

“I didn’t realize you still wrote.”

“No,” she says. “I just started up again. You’ve inspired me.”





*





Then, two days later, three peculiar things happen, one right after the other. Or, maybe, each happens because of the other.

It is early evening, January third. I am standing outside a convenience store with a giant inflatable milkshake secured to the roof. I peer around the alley, rummage around in the trash back there, in hopes of jogging my memory. The memory of fake Paul Howard, according to the driver’s license. But nothing can be jogged. A shape shifts somewhere in the darkness ahead of me and I catch the glint of a man’s eyes. Tall, dark-skinned, his jaw set. He wears all black so he is hard to make out in the darkness of the alley.

So I go inside and revel in the warmth of the store. The Hindu clerk behind the register does not like the looks of me. Catching my reflection in the wall of glass refrigerator doors, I cannot blame him. So I feign interest in the junk food aisle, but am not very hungry. And when I’m done with the junk food aisle, I make my way over to a magazine and newspaper display. I am humming softly to myself, Eres mi amor, mi amor, and am aware the clerk’s eyes are still on me. After all, I am the only customer in the store. What else does he have to do but watch me?

He starts beckoning me from behind the counter. “Excuse me—excuse me, sir—excuse me, excuse me, excuse me—”

“I’m just getting a paper.” I grab a copy of the City Beat because it is the first thing my eyes fall on. The front page is a full-color photo of two prizefighters banging it out in a ring at the Palladium. To prove my intention, I open the publication and glance at the first page.

“You read it, you buy it, sir,” chirps the Hindu clerk.

But I hardly hear him now. Because I am looking at the first peculiar thing of the evening.

It is a black and white photo of Clarence Wilcox above which floats the caption:

local hero saves neighbor’s life

“Son of a bitch…”

After hearing the shouts of a woman in the apartment above his, Clarence Wilcox, according to the article, raced up the stairs and down the hall and listened at his neighbors’ door. After identifying the sounds as a woman’s “cries of distress,” Wilcox broke into the apartment to find his neighbor Barry Witham threatening his wife, Patrice Witham, with an eight-inch serrated carving knife. Wilcox wrestled Witham to the floor and managed to disarm him, sustaining only superficial lacerations to his own forearms and palms. Patrice Witham called the police and her husband was arrested. Patrice Witham incurred a number of lacerations and was taken to Mercy Medical although, according to police, her injures did not appear to be life-threatening. Police said the incident occurred after a heated argument got out of hand. Police said Mr. Witham, who had recently learned of his wife’s infidelity earlier last month, snapped and tried to kill her. “If it wasn’t for Mr. Wilcox,” one of the officers is quoted in the article, “Mrs. Witham might be dead.”

“Sir!” The Hindu clerk drums his little brown knuckles on the countertop. “You read, you buy, sir!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—sorry.” I lay the paper on the counter and dig into the pockets of my jeans for cash.

“Sir.” The clerk looks very annoyed.

“Hold on,” I say, and pull out a handful of bills and toss a dollar on the counter.

When I turn from the counter, my eyes still glued to the article, I do not see the plastic tub of gumballs on the counter’s edge. My elbow strikes it and the tub jumps to the floor. Startled, I watch as colored gumballs scatter like debris from an explosion: they roll under aisles, pool along the rubber mat by the doors, bounce tat-tat-tat along the linoleum, and scurry beneath the refrigerator unit against the far wall.

“Oh good goddamn!” barks the clerk.

I cannot take my eyes from them—all of them, all of them, all of them. This is the second peculiar thing of the evening—peculiar not in the incident itself, but in the way it grabs me and will not let go—and I cannot tell if it is a memory or a fear or an obsession. Something like a fist tightens around my guts, squeezing the air out of me. Unable to breathe, powerless to move, I can only watch the gumballs roll and bounce and settle on the rubber mat.

“Get out!” the clerk shouts. “Leave! Now! See this mess you make? You go now!”

I push out the doors—ding!—gasping for breath like a skin diver breaking the surface of the sea. Traffic is heavy along Lexington. Doused in sweat, I stand for a moment, breathing in the crispness of the air. The wind freezes the sweat to my body. All interest lost in the paper, I set it atop a trash receptacle and prevent myself from tumbling over with one hand against the brick wall of the convenience store.

Ding! Behind me, the door swings open and the Hindu clerk, striking the air with a fist, warns me that he will call the cops if I do not leave.

“Sorry…sorry…” My voice is sick, is dying. I sound like a cassette player whose batteries are running out.

I stagger down the sidewalk. My legs are too weak and I do not trust them to carry me safely to the other side of the street. Instead, I hook a right and slip into the trash-ridden alley where, like a junkie, I lean against the brick alley wall to prevent myself from collapsing to the pavement.