Found Objects (4 page)

He marched back down the hallway to his condo. Pausing before the door, he was struck with a distinct sense of unease.
 
If it was so easy for this fellow to gain access to his space, what else could happen?
 
Why had he left the door open when he disposed of the trash?
 
Some miscreant could easily have slipped inside while he was focused on the trash chute.
 
He entered his condo tentatively, half-expecting to see a wild band of hoodlums laying waste to the furniture.
 
But all was quiet.
 
Shaking off his unease, he latched the door and went to brush his teeth.
 
 
 

Gerber awoke with a start and checked his bedside clock.
 
The
LEDs showed
4:18.
 
Gerber had been having dark dreams in which he was drowning is a whirlpool of turgid water.
 
Shaking his head to clear it of the disturbing images, he climbed from bed
to relieve himself.
 
H
e stopped before entering the bathroom.
 
There, in the moonlight, he could see a spot of soot on the living room rug.
 
He walked over to it and bent down, probing it tentatively with one index finger.
 
He was annoyed at himself for missing it.
 
He stood and reached to the light switch, but recoiled from the touch of it.
 
The switch was coated in a thick layer of grease.
 
 

He went to the kitchen to turn on the light there.
 
As the overhead fluorescents flickered on, Gerber was greeted with a sight that wrenched his stomach.
 
Soot was scattered all over his marble countertops.
 
The formica flooring was obscured by what looked like several cups of topsoil that had been spread evenly around the kitchen.
 
A glob of mud had been hurled against the refrigerator door, splattering there.
 
Gerber felt weak.
 
How did this happen?
 
How did that wicked man get into the kitchen without me noticing! Unless...
 
 

Gerber spun back to the living room to see the tall, bulky silhouette of Wilson standing there.
 

"You should have let me finish the demonstration," Wilson said.
 
In one hand he held a bulging paper bag.
 
He reached into it with the other hand and withdrew a fat handful of soot.
 
Staring at Gerber, he opened his hand, and the clump of filth fell to the carpet, exploding there with a miniature puff.
 
 
 

"I'm calling the police," Gerber said, and moved for the phone.
 
Wilson reacted with surprising speed for such a large man.
 
Moving to intercept Gerber, he dashed to the phone, quickly reaching into the bag.
 
As Gerber's hand was a foot from the handset, Wilson tossed a handful of soot onto the telephone.
 
Gerber froze.
 
His mind was filled with the image of pressing that sooty piece of plastic up against his head, the particles getting into his hair, his ear, his mouth.
 
He could feel his bronchial passages tightening up.
 
 
 

"Get out of here!"
 
he screamed, but Wilson just stood there, with a glassy look in his eyes and an empty smile.
 
Wilson made a dash for the door, but Gerber produced another handful of soot and tossed it on the door handle.
 
Wilson stood by, grinning, as Gerber stared at the door.
 
He could not touch it.
 
He could only think of the soot getting on his hand, getting lodged deep under his fingernails, trickling down his sleeve.
 
His hand was four inches from the metal.
 
He tried forcing his hand to touch the knob, but his arm would not move.
 
Then, he tried leaning his weight towards the door, forcing the reticent hand into contact by moving his entire body.
 
This only made his knees buckle, and he fell to the floor, landing heavily on the plush carpet.
 
The breath went out of him as he realized the carpet he was sitting on was once again spread with filth.
 
 
Wilson chuckled darkly.
 

"I sell quality products, mister Gerber," he said, towering over Gerber's prone form.
 
"I would not lie to you."
 
 
 

Overcoming the burning in his eyes
and the weakness in his legs, Gerber
leaped to his feet and ran for the harsh fluorescent light of the kitchen.
 
He cringed as his bare feet registered the dirt on the floor; his stomach turned as he imagined the dirt clinging to the soles of his feet, the mud squishing between his toes.
 
Pushing those thoughts aside by sheer force of will, he crossed to the far side of the kitchen and snatched a large knife from the butcher's block.
 
Turning, he saw Wilson still standing there in the middle of the living room, hands at his side, the creepy vacant smile still playing on his lips.
 
Gerber pushed off from the counter and ran straight towards Wilson, the knife held high.
 
He ran across the dirt on the kitchen floor, but almost stopped when he realized he would track it onto the living room carpet. Gathering his strength, he forced himself into the living room, his muddy feet crushing the soil into the rug as he charged towards Wilson.
 
 
 

Gerber was about to plunge the knife deep into Wilson's chest when he suddenly visualized Wilson's blood spilling out all over his carpet. The image brought him up short.
 
 
That would never come out,
he thought.
 
Wilson stood there calmly, deliberately, staring at Gerber and smiling.
 
Gerber steeled himself, raised the knife high, took a deep breath...
 

Just as Wilson raised his clenched right hand and tossed a large handful of soot directly into Gerber's face.
 
Gerber rocked backwards on his heels.
 
The grit was in his eyes, in his mouth, his sinuses, he had sucked it down into his lungs, it would get trapped in the alveoli in his lungs, they would get lodged there and serve as nucleation points for tumors, he could not breathe.

Wilson collapsed onto the floor in a paroxysm of coughing.
 
He dropped the knife and tried to wipe the soot from his eyes, but he only managed to grind the particles in deeper.
 
His throat was closing up, his sinuses were filling with mucus.
 
He coughed harder and harder, fighting to suck a few ounces of air in between explosive coughs.
 
A large hand gripped the hair on the back of Gerber's head and pulled it back, twisted it around, tipped it upwards.
 
Gerber imagined Wilson reaching back a huge fist, preparing to strike. He had to open his eyes, so he could see to ward off the blow.
 
He had to take a breath, so he could keep fighting.
 
With all his might, with every muscle on his face, he pried his burning eyelids and swollen mouth open.
 

Just in time to see Wilson, towering over him, still smiling, upending the paper bag directly onto Gerber's face.
 
 
 

"Dammit," the taller policeman said.
 
"The rug is too white.
 
Can't see a thing."
 

Chalk in hand, he was trying to outline the body on the cream-colored carpet.
 
"I think they keep some graphite powder in there, for that kind of thing," said the shorter policeman.
 
 
 

"Oh yeah," said the taller one, rummaging about in the bag.
 
He withdrew a vial and began sprinkling the black powder around the body.
 
As the sooty substance outlined Gerber's rigid form, the shorter policeman shook his head and sighed.
 
"
Anaphylactic shock
, the coroner said.
Hell of a way to go," he said.
 
"Just look at the expression on his face.
 
When I die, I hope it's nice and peaceful, in m
y sleep.
 
Not like this guy."

MARGIN OF ERROR

The paint wasn’t even dry when Martin moved into the new apartment.
 
The manager had complained that the apartment wasn’t ready.
 
Martin didn’t care.
 
There was much to do
,
many things to move.
 
Eight plates; four large, four small.
 
Five glass tumblers, each with a capacity of ten fluid ounces.
 
Two soup bowls, six spoons, seven forks, five knives in various degrees of sharpness.
 
He was considering eliminating half his plates and a third of his cutlery because he never got around to using them and they took up, by his estimates, forty-eight cubic inches of volume.
 
But until then, he would carefully arrange them in the cabinets of his new kitchen.
 
 
 

He carried thirty-six boxes one at a time up sixteen steps from the rental van
(license plate 3SVW423)
into the apartment.
 
His apartment.
 
His last residence had been a
room at the halfway house
he had shared with a slovenly man for two years, four months, and sixteen days.
 
His new job represented an increase in
his take-home pay by precisely three point two six percent, enough to where he could justify having his own place.
 
 
 

Angie would be so proud to see him here, in his own place, arranging his own things.  He
had called her, a week ago, after
he had
accepted the new job and signed the lease for the
apartment.  She sounded tired.

“I’m really happy for you, Martin.”

“I’ll have three sinks, one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, and another in the laundry room down the hall. I’ll have to share that one. But that’s okay, I guess.” 

“Martin?”

“The gas range in the kitchen comes with four burners.  Four! How am I ever going to use four burners at once?  If the front two are going, I’ll burn myself if I try to reach over them to the back two.  I remember you taught me that.” 

“Martin?”

“Yes Angie?”

“You need to stop calling me.” 

He carried the next box into the bathroom.
 
One by one, he removed each small
item
and put them in their place.
 
There were six different prescription pill bottles. 
He reached in and pulled out his toothbrush.
 
Where other people would see clumps of bristles, Martin saw numbers.
 
Twenty-five bristles per clump.
 
Thirty clumps.
 
Seven-hundred and fifty bristles on the brush.
 
 
 

He
decided to allow
himself five hours of rest that night, but sleep would not come.
 
Instead, he was beset by swirls of numbers.
 
The city was two hundred and th
irty-four square miles.
 
 
Forty
-six people had lost their lives by violent means last year in the city.
 
It employed four hundred and twenty garbage collectors driving sixty-two garbage trucks.
 
 
Staring at the popcorn ceiling, formulae swirled in the crenellations.
 
Outside his window the fluorescent sign for the liquor store below flickered twelve times per second.
 
The rate of traffic on the street outside was a normally-distributed bistatic variance with a median of eighty-six vehicles per hour.
 
 
 
 

He slept.

The subway was new.
 
Actuall
y, the subway was old; it had been built eight years before he was born
.
 
But
it was new to him
.
 
T
here were different people on the train, different ads, different station layouts.
 
He had been through it
a few
times over th
e course of his life
.  He remembered
his parents taking
him to the zoo
on this line. 
The ads were different back then.  His parents argued
, his
father claiming the zoo would be too much
for Martin. When they got there, his mother signed them up for a family membership.  Martin remembered peering over his mother’s shoulder as she filled out
the form and noticing she did not add
his father’s name.  When he pointed this out to her, she became flustered and her face turned red.  They never went to the zoo again as a family.

He closed his eyes and listened to the click-clack of the seams in the rails.
 
He noticed things.
 
He noticed far more than people would believe.
 
He noticed when his
former
boss got a new tie and changed up his usual 4-3-4 cycle of tie rotation.
 
He also noticed that his boss tended to introduce a new tie at approximately the same time every year; Martin inferred that date to be his birthday.
 
He tried to use some of the techniques Angie taught him to engage his boss in conversation.  That did not go well. 

“You have a cat,” Martin said to his boss.

His boss looked up and blinked. “What?”

“You have a cat,” Martin said.  “I can tell from the bits of fur on your tie.” 

“Martin,” his boss said.  “We’re discussing your performance review.” 

“Okay.”

“You’re smart but too easily distracted.  You need to focus so you can improve your output.”

“It’s a calico, isn’t it?  Your cat, I mean.
I like calico cats.
”

“Martin.”  His boss sighed.  “Can you please sign this and then go back to your cubicle.” 

After it all ended, he
called Angie. 

“I’m so sorry you lost your job, Martin.”

“It’s okay.  Right?  That’s what I’m supposed to say?”

“Only if it really is okay.”

“But you told me sometimes you should say that even if it’s not. Sometimes that’s all people want to hear.”

“Martin.  I told you some things I shouldn’t have, back then.  That’s why I’m not your caseworker anymore.”

“But I really like using the things you taught me.  They’re so useful.  Like when they fired me.”

“What do you mean?” Angie said.

“They asked me to come into the director’s office. The director was there, along with my boss and a woman from the HR department. And there was another man the
re, but he wasn’t in the room.
He was sitting in a chair outside the office.  Reading a newspaper.  And he was wearing a jacket.”

“So?”

“So I remember you taught me that. That you don’t wear a jacket in the summer.  That’s why I noticed him.  That’s how I knew he was a policeman.”

“Oh no.
”

“So the HR woman was reading to me from a form. 
I think it was about unemployment
benefits.  But I knew all that already, I had memorized everything on the HR website when I was hired.  So I asked about the cop.  I said “Why is there a policeman sitting outside pretending to read a newspaper?’ ”

“Oh, god, Martin…”

“Everybody got really quiet.  The HR woman’s face got really red, too.  So I remember you taught me when that happens that it’s usually because people don’t know what to say.  So I started talking about all the police shows I used to watch.”

“Martin…”

“There was one I liked called ‘Homicide.’  I told them about my favorite episode.  A man was killed.  They thought it was his wife but it turned out it was one of his employees.”

“Oh my god.  You told them this?”

“Yes.  And so all of a sudden they told me they wanted me to leave the building.  I wanted to say hello to the cop on th
e
way out but they wouldn’t even let me do that.”

“And so what happened?”

“I… had an accident.”

“You mean you melted down?  Right there, in front of a policeman, after talking about people murdering
their
bosses?”

“Yes.”

“Martin?”

“Yes, Angie?”

“You really need to stop calling me.”

“It’s okay.”

He noticed
so many things.  T
he shoes of the person sitting across from him were worn
differently then most people’s.
She must have a
spinal deformity.
 
Maybe he should tell her. 
He noticed sounds, too.
 
Like the sounds of the train.
 
This train sou
nded slightly different than other
trains
.
 
The sound was vaguely familiar.
 
He traced the memory back to high school, where against his wishes he was enrolled in a metal-shop class.
 
He found it painfully dreary to make ashtrays and ball-peen hammers, until one day th
e teacher brought in a computer
-controlled lathe.
 
Instructions went into it in the form of numbers, and out of it would come precisely-machined artifacts.
 
And the sound of the tool carving away at the metal was just like the sound he was hearing now.
 
 
 

When the noise ratcheted up to an ear-splitting shriek, followed by a brittle fracturing sound and then a horrible grinding, Martin was the only one not surprised.
 
He had already braced himself. 
The
car lurched and shook, and some
people
fell
to the floor.
 
The lights flickered and died, and by the time the grinding noise stopped and the train ceased shimmying, there was
the sharp
smell of smoke
and hot metal
in the air.
 
 
 

Martin liked watching people in strange situations.  What he saw now was really fascinating.  M
ost of the passengers
went with either hysteria or
catatonia.
 
While the man sitting next to Martin stared glassy-eyed, the woman with the uneven shoes began screaming and running down the aisle, stumbling on
and trampling those
who had fallen.
 
 
 
He was really impressed with how agile she was, considering her spinal deformity.

The train condu
ctor, it turned out, was neither catatonic nor hysterical
. After the emergency lights fluttered on, his voice crackled over the intercom. ”Ladies and gentlemen, we appear to have had a malfunction.
 
Remain calm.
 
Please open the doors using the emergency latch, exit the train, and walk to the nearest platform.
 
We have deactivated the thi
rd rail, but still
be careful in the dark. I’m going to turn on the emergency lights now.”
 
 
A reddish glow suffused the train as battery-powered backup lights fluttered on.
 
Martin promptly stood, walked to the door with only one stumble over a misplaced shin, and pulled the emergency latch to slide the door open.
 
The other passe
ngers
picked themselves up and
followed him
out of the car, coughing on the growing volume of smoke.
 
 
 

The
y
stood in the cramped area between the train car and the wall of the tunnel.
 
A woman said “Which way do we go?”
 
 
 

“We should go back,” someone said.
 
People were coughing more as the smoke grew denser, and no one seemed inclined to argue much.
 
But then Martin spoke up.