All Gone (18 page)

“Dead,” a man says. “I'm a doctor, retired now, and she's dead. Someone should call the police,” he says to the people around him.

I run down the block, someone chases me, “Get that man, trip him, hold him, he just killed someone,” he says.

“I didn't do it on purpose, honest, it was an accident,” I yell at people I pass who just stand there, none running after me. The man tackles me, climbs on top of me, I say “Let go, I'm going to kill myself, I was running to the subway, I was going to throw myself under the wheels or on the third rail, whichever came first,” and he says “Not till you had a proper hearing before the courts of law for what you did.”

I throw him down and grab him from behind by his neck and stick my knee into his back and say “Don't follow me, please, you have to let me handle it my own way,” and he says “You bastard, you killed her, she was such a pretty girl, I've seen her around, and nice, you're going to get thrown away for life soon as I grab you and hold you down for the police.”

I say “Don't,” and he says “I will,” and I say “Then I'll have to hurt you to stop you from trying to grab me,” and he says “You better do something before I get up and clip you so hard you can't run off again,” and he starts to push himself up and throw me over and I squeeze his neck till some people grab me from behind but they must have grabbed me too late for he suddenly slumps and I let go and they lift me up and someone who's kneeling over him says “Holy gee, his heart's stopped,” and starts breathing into his mouth. I kick and shake off the two men still holding me from behind and run for the subway or anyplace where I can kill myself.

A few people chase me now, one throws something at my feet, I trip, get up, there are three of them, two women and a man and I see an empty wine bottle at the curb and grab it and say “First one to touch me or try to stop me from what I've got to do to myself is going to get hurt, I swear to you, very hurt.”

“What are you going to do to yourself?” the man says and I say “Throw myself under some subway wheels or the third rail,” and he says “Under the third rail?” and I say “On it, whichever comes first,” and he says “Hell you are, you're only going to try to get away so you can kill a third person and then a fourth,” and lunges at the bottle and I smash it over his head, he falls down, half the bottle is still in my hand, the two women grab me and I stick the bottle into the chest of one and slam the other woman with my other hand and kick her head and body when she's down till she doesn't move. I start to run, look back, the three people are still down, a crowd's chasing me now, about twenty of them. I hear sirens, run into an alley I know thinking I can climb the wall and get away through the backyards. They follow me in. Wall's too high. I jump and jump. “Make way,” a policeman says. Crowd parts. Two policemen, both with drawn guns. One gets on his knee and the other stands crouched and both point their guns at me and one says “Stay put, don't turn or move,” and I say “Good,” and turn to them and say “I'm going to get you guys with the knife in my pocket,” and reach for it as I run at them and they fire. Bullets chip off the wall and pavement around me before one goes through my throat though I feel no pain. I'm on the ground but I don't remember falling there. Someone's searching my pockets and says “No knife.” “Let me at the bastard,” a man says and there's a commotion to my right and my eyes open and I see some people trying to stop a man from getting at me. They can't hold him and he comes straight for me. He's a big guy and has a hammer in his hand and the policemen step out of his way.

I wake up and Susie's up and I say to her “You wouldn't believe the dream I just had,” and she says “What time is it?” and I say “Let me tell you about my dream first,” and she says “Hold it, look, what's the time, it's on your side,” and I say “8:35,” and she says “8:35, why didn't you tell me?” and I say “I was asleep,” and she says “I mean just now,” and I say “So you're late for a change,” and she says “I punched in late twice last week and they want to dock the time from my paycheck from now on,” and I say “Let them,” and she says “You're paying me for the lost time?” and I say “If they're going to be so cheap, whatever it is, I'll pay you, for how much could it be?” and she says “I still don't want to be late so many times, you get a bad name, they won't promote me, I want to do good at a job once and not be a loser like you all the time sleeping your life away in bed,” and I say “Bed, right, listen, my dream,” and she says “Will you shut up already with your dreams, I've got to go,” and I grab her wrist and say “Just let me tell you, I want someone to hear it before I forget it,” and she says “Write it down,” and I say “I can't write things like that, I just want to say it,” and she says “Write it down like it's a letter or notes and show it or tell me when I get home from work,” and I say “It won't be the same, it's fresh in my mind now,” and she says “Please, will you let go of me?” and I say “It'll only take two minutes, at the most three,” and she says “Will you please just let go?” and I say “I'll make it one minute,” and she says “Please, I'm getting mad,” and I say “Less than one, time me, I promise,” and she says “For the last time now, please let me go?” and I say “No,” and she says “Diego,” and I say “No,” and let her go and she gets out of bed and leaves the room and I yell “You, whatever you are, just go screw yourself,” and she yells from the hallway “Why?” and I yell “For not listening,” and she yells from the bathroom “Then if you're going to be so stupid, go screw yourself too,” and I yell “And you can just stick it up,” and she says “Same from me to you, stick it up, but I haven't time for any stupid arguing with you now,” and I yell “You haven't had time for a minute of listening either, you never listen, you hardly even talk with me anymore, you never do anything with me anymore, you barely sleep with me, goddamnit, so leave, goddamnit, or I'll leave,” and she yells “All right, I'll leave,” and slams the bathroom door and I yell “I didn't mean for always, I meant just for today,” but she doesn't say anything and I go to the door and knock and she says “What?” and I say “I want you to know I didn't mean for one of us to leave for always, just for today,” and she says “I can't hear you when the shower's on,” and I say “The shower's not on,” and then I hear the shower go on and I try to open the door and it's locked when it's usually not and I say “Will you let me in?” and she doesn't answer and I yell “Just say then you know I didn't mean that I want one of us to leave here forever or anything like that, I got hotheaded before, I'm sorry, all right?” and she says “I wasn't, I'm going, soon as I finish my shower I'm going to pack my things and take them to work with me and sleep over at a friend's place tonight and look for another apartment and come back for the rest of my things when I get my new apartment, I'm glad this finally happened and you should be too,” and I say “I'm not and none of this would have happened if you had listened to my dream,” and she says “Phooey on your dream,” and I say “But that dream scared the hell out of me, you can't imagine, it was horrible, I was killing innocent people in the most barbarous ways possible and one of them was you,” but she's turned the shower on more and I suppose didn't hear what I just said and I'm sure couldn't hear me now because she's flushing the toilet one time after the other and it doesn't seem she'll stop and I go to the bedroom and get dressed and she comes out and gets her overnight bag and throws some things into it and starts getting dressed and I say “Susie, I'm sorry,” and she says nothing, keeps packing and I say “I'm very sorry, honestly, listen to me now,” and she says “You said yourself it isn't working and it isn't, we've seen that, so let's forget it,” and she puts on her shoes and heads for the door and I say “Really, it was the dream that made me upset, I mean it,” and she says “I meant it too, I'm tired of the way we don't get along together, for the first few months it was all right but there's nothing good about it now, there's no fun, no talk, no good times, no surprises, no just about anything and whatever sex we have you seem to have exclusively because I just lay there and let you take it and I couldn't care, I don't want to share anything with you from now on, I can't, I am completely turned off by you and today capped it, the camel's straw, the broken back, it would have happened anyway, maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight, maybe in a week or month but I'm sure sooner, so be glad it happened if it was going to happen and it was going to, definitely, now rather than when it might have been tougher to take later, so goodbye,” and she grabs the doorknob and I say “I can't take you leaving like this now,” and she says “You better start taking it because I am leaving like this and now,” and I say “Okay, I can take it but I don't want you to go, let's try and work it out by talking some more,” and she opens the door and goes and I slam the door and open it and run into the hallway and see her rounding the stairwell below ours and I yell down “Susie, be reasonable, it was only the dream I had because I'd killed you in it that made me so upset before,” and she keeps going downstairs and I run to the window and throw it open and she's stepping outside and I yell “Susie, goddamn you, listen to me, I want us to talk,” and she goes left and I grab a flowerpot off the sill and think I'll throw it to get her attention, throw it way in front of her so it doesn't hit her but where she'll look up at me and maybe start thinking some new thought and then I think no, better not and I wait till she's a good ten yards to the left before I look down and see that no one's below and just let it drop, it smashes on the ground, she turns to where the pot dropped and looks up at me and shakes her head as if she never saw anyone so stupid or pitiable and I raise my shoulders and make some motion with my hand that the pot fell accidentally and she waves that I'm lying or crazy and turns and goes and I slam the window down hard as I can and the bottom pane breaks.

Soon after that the buzzer rings and I say into the intercom “Susie?” and a voice says “It's Mrs. Wright from the first floor front. If you had to throw your flowerpot through the window, I'd think you'd at least have the decency to come down and sweep it up.”

 

One day I'm just not in my right mind. That's about the best way I can put it. I might have felt pretty bad other days but this day on the subway I'm really feeling things aren't right in my head and I'm definitely not in my right mind. That's closer. I'll begin when and where. I'm heading uptown. The express. IND. Months ago. Heading to my girlfriend's house. Not a girl, a woman. Her daughter's the girl. I got my valise for the weekend. My rough work clothes, my good clothes and the clothes I got on. Also some shorts and sneakers in the valise so I can run once a day the two days I'll be there. I'm going to help on her house. Fix up the basement with her. Plaster the floor, point up the brick walls as she says. What do I know from pointing? On the phone the night before she told me. Got a call from her. Big surprise: “Come up, all is forgiven, I love you very much. You must hate me by now the way I go back and forth in my emotions with you, but now I know how wrong I was and that you're the man for me. Leonore misses you too.” Leonore's her daughter. I call her Lee. So does her dad. “All right,” I said, “all is forgiven, and probably forgotten. I love you very much too, so when should I come up?”

“Right now if it was possible. But you won't take off unless you're really sick, so come up tomorrow after work.”

“All right. I'll catch the 6:10 bus.”

“Just take the subway to the bus station and I'll drive down and pick you up there.”

“Why bother? I'll take the bus from the bus station and be in your cute little town by seven.”

That's what it is. Cute. She too. Her daughter also. Their house, the town, the main street and surrounding countryside, all cute. “Till then, sweetheart,” and I said “Same here,” but felt a little as if I didn't know if I was doing the right thing going up there. I'd thought it was over between us. Glad it's not. All right, I'll go. I want to be with her. I love them both. So I go to sleep, to work the next day and half past five I'm on the A train that's to take me to the bus station at George Washington Bridge. But on the subway I suddenly feel peculiar. I don't know what it is or where from. People looking at me strangely, maybe me at them too. The newspapers. Talk of war, other countries' wars, sex, murder, scandals, gossip, all kinds of statistics and reports. People reading. Magazines too. The subway ads seem strange and horrible to me too. Everyone seems exhausted. Everything seems stupid and inhuman, like none of us should or don't belong. Like I especially don't belong. Subway rocking side to side. Screeching noises of passing trains and our train and whistles too. People pushing, some don't. Getting off, on. I'm standing. Need a seat. None. Crowded. I'm feeling crowded in by everyone and it seems everything and I almost want to scream. I hold one back. I'm feeling scared. The subway. Where's it going? Uptown the passing local stations say. Where am I going? Rochelle's, or I'm not so sure. I'm sweating: back, neck and face. I wish I was there already where I'm going. Rochelle's, but I don't know if I belong there now. With her. Here. Anywhere in the world in fact. I have to get off. Maybe it's some different kind of flu. I better wait till the train stops. It stops. I run upstairs. It's not the bus-station stop. That one I know where everyone from the front cars jam themselves in to get on the bus-station stairs. I have to call someone. I get the wrong number.

“No Rochelle here. What number you want?”