Three A.M. (4 page)

I had looked into renting one a few years back. It was about the size of my place now, but it had a little balcony, and I had liked the prospect of sitting outside above the streets, lost in the air. I wanted to sit there naked and drink scotch and soda and listen to people muttering below me and imagine it was London from centuries past and other such nonsense. But Heller had changed his mind while I was there looking at the place. I think he saw me wanting it and then like a petulant child decided he liked it too. Liked it too much to have old Tommy Vale in there.

But he had said he’d take my deposit and think about it. It took me three months to corner him in an alley and convince him that he oughta pay me back. But then for some inexplicable reason, he had come to me later and asked to borrow money. Even more strangely, I agreed. I guess I was so desperate for human contact that I was willing to enter into a deal that would surely have me chasing and beating the poor fuck before long. It was something … it was a reason to talk to someone.

I stood outside my building, smoking a cigarette and trying to decide which of Heller’s places I would check first. I usually started with the apartment I’d wanted to live in. Sometimes I figured he’d offer it again to have me ease up on the debt, but whenever I caught him, I’d clap him on the back of the head a few times and he’d give me a rumpled twenty or a few tens and it would be enough and I’d be secretly glad to have a reason to come back. Sometimes we actually talked, once the unpleasant business was out of the way.

I started up the street. The pale yellow glow of the shitshop’s sign came into view and I slowed as I passed the window. The old Asian woman was there, glaring at me, her circular face pressed between cold iron slats against dirty glass. I stopped in front of her and gave a half smile. She leaned back from the window, leaving her hands gripping the metal grate, and kept staring at me from within the shop, her face impassive.

“What the fuck are you thinking about, woman?” I whispered aloud as I walked on.

I threw down my cigarette and picked up the pace. Each time I passed an unlit orb post, I laid my hand gently on top of it out of habit. I loved the warm glass spheres at night. By day, they were cold and damp; in the evening, they were comforting. A group drew near me, and I could hear their muffled voices:

“If we don’t take him with us, he’ll never learn,” a woman said.

“Look, it’s just one week.” A man. “I know you don’t think it’s ideal … learn this sort of thing … I’m certain.” I lost some of what he said, and then suddenly they were before me. It was a family. A mother wearing a dark dress, maybe thirty-five years old, maybe younger and just worn out. The father wore a rumpled suit and glasses, which he wiped at as they came into view. Two young boys were in tow, both dressed in slacks and brown jackets, with pale, slender faces sticking up above matching dark ties. Hadn’t seen kids that young in ages. I was strangely unnerved and embarrassed, seeing their little eyes on me.

The mother was startled to see me and almost missed a step. Then she forced a slight smile and dip and took the smaller boy’s hand. The father mumbled a hello, which I returned with a nod, never slowing down throughout our three- or four-second encounter. By the time they were six feet past me, we were all ghosts again. I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like they were talking about going to church. I couldn’t even tell you when Sunday was most of the time. Day names didn’t matter hardly. It all seemed so ridiculous. So antiquated. But for a moment there, I was almost … tempted. Not to find one of the few churches that was still open or anything so drastic; rather, I felt a twinge of jealousy at their feeling a part of anything greater at all.

That, and it must have been nice to always have someone to talk to. When you spend all your time alone or with bad people or at best people who want you to go after bad people, your frame of reference gets all screwed up. All the time I found myself snapping at clerks or being short with waiters, rude to strangers. It’s not like that was anything unique in this goddamn city, but I wasn’t always like that. It bothered the hell out of me to know that I had changed. It bothered me to feel like the person I cultivated for the first few decades of life was a failed project.

I almost ran into a darkened orb post. I needed to focus. Keep up with all the sentimental shit, and you got so down … there was so little in my life to bring me back up that mostly I had to keep my thinking on the level or keep liquored up. Heller. Money. Maybe a conversation.

The fog was especially thick, the air colder than normal, and no breeze stirred the narrow streets up in the northwest part of town, where Heller lived. I traced my fingertips along the brick wall to my right and could barely see my outstretched hand. I slowed to avoid tripping over anything and searched for a street placard. My fingers found it before my eyes, suddenly sliding across smooth, cold brass. I leaned close to the large engraved disc and read
48TH STREET,
with a line under it to show that’s what I was on, and
RIVER STREET,
with an arrow by it indicating that it was the next cross street. I took a few slow steps beyond the placard, running my palm over the damp bricks, until my hand slipped past the edge of the wall and into space.

I turned down River Street. It was a mere three feet beyond the brass sign, and I hadn’t been able to see it. The fog was about as bad as it got. I decided to spend some time on one of the blown-out boulevards later—my latter-day equivalent of an afternoon in the park. Heller’s building was about a hundred yards ahead on the left side of the street. I crossed slowly, feeling ahead with my foot until I found an orb post, and then fell into a rhythm heading up the street. The posts were placed so precisely that I could walk along with my eyes closed, swinging my right arm at a certain speed, taking three long steps at a certain gait, and each time I lowered my palm, it landed on the next post. It was the fastest way to travel on a very gray day.

One post, one two three steps, next post, one two three steps, and so on. Nineteen posts later, I opened my eyes and edged my way up onto the curb and over to the building beside me. I found the door and smiled at my accuracy. Sure enough, it was Heller’s building.

The outer door was usually locked, but I’d learned long ago that a solid kick right by the bolt did the trick nicely. I put my ear to the cold iron for a second to see if I could hear anyone within. Just the hum of the vent, so I leaned back, raised my right leg, and gave a hard kick, heel by the knob. The loud thud was dampened by the heavy air, and the door shuddered inward a few inches. Clockwork. I pushed it open and stepped into the alcove.

The old, rattling vents above me wheezed mist out of the tiny room as I shut the door behind me, waited a moment, and then turned the knob on the second, glass door. I always liked how these older buildings—the old walk-ups—had no lobby areas. You came here to sleep and eat and have sex and whatever else life consists of but not to chat in the foyer. I started up the rickety stairs covered with a moldy carpet, trying to plant my feet close to the outer edge of each step to minimize their creaking.

Heller’s place was on the third floor. I slowed my upward climb as I passed the second landing to listen between each step. Faint music drifted down from above. I hoped it was him playing it. I wanted to listen. I had thrown away or taped over all my music years ago. It depressed me, but still, every once in a while, I loved to hear a minute or two.

It was sweet, gentle music … pianos and strings. I got to the third landing and stood there for a long while, just listening. I wished everything were different and there was nothing to do but hear it. I sighed, put on my game face, and knocked hard on his door.

The music stopped. For a moment there was silence, and then I heard footfalls coming toward the door. Silence … then: “Who’s there?”

It was Heller. His thin, raspy voice.

“Open up, Heller.”

“Who is it?”

“Open the fucking door or I’ll kick it in.”

“Vale?”

I paused just long enough to let the moment linger. “Vale,” I said.

I heard him sigh, and then fidget with the three locks that barred his door. The tumblers on the final dead bolt clicked and he pulled the door open.

Heller wore beige linen pants and no shirt. His pale, sunken chest was rising and falling rapidly beneath his pointed chin. He hadn’t shaved in days and was bleary eyed. His dirty blond hair always looked gray contrasted against his sallow, sickly face.

“Hey, Tom,” he muttered.

I pushed past him into the apartment. The main room was large and contained nothing but some metal folding chairs; a small, soiled couch; and an ornate mahogany coffee table. Atop the dark wood of the table sat an old tape player, much like mine. Except that next to his was a stack of cassettes.

The door to his kitchen sat ajar, and I could see various cans and boxes strewn about on the countertops. His bedroom door was shut. The balcony I had so craved sat through that room, and before speaking a word inside his home, I had made up my mind to get out onto it for at least a while.

He watched me as I surveyed the place, standing next to the door with his left hand still on the knob, as if I might suddenly decide to leave. I took a few steps farther into the place, toward the large windows off to my left.

Behind me, I heard him let out a long, tired breath and step away from the door. “I don’t have any money right now.”

“Sure you do,” I said matter-of-factly.

I turned to look at him standing shirtless and shoeless in the middle of his messy apartment and gave a big, toothy grin. “Why don’t you go grab whatever you’ve got.”

He shook his head in resignation, scratching at his pasty stomach. “I started renting out my sister’s old place two weeks ago, but I won’t have a penny for a few days yet.”

“The place on Forkner Ave?”

“Yeah,” he answered, looking up at me for a second, then down at the cement floor.

I nodded as if in thought, which I was not, and then walked into his tiny kitchen. The cans lying around were all for beans or corn or other such single-item foodstuffs. I pulled open the fridge, hoping for a beer or some wine. Anything to drink, really. There was a bowl of pickles floating in water and some old condiment jars.

“High-class living, huh, buddy?” I sneered. I hated acting like such an asshole, but he needed and expected to be treated like this. He’d had plenty of money not more than a few years back. His inheritance now squandered, I figured my tough love and loans were all that kept his emaciated ass in line.

“Only the best.” He slinked into the kitchen and walked around me, pressing his back up against the wall, keeping the small table in the center of the room between us. “I don’t have cash for you.” He paused. I said nothing; expressed nothing. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t fret so much, Heller,” I said soft and low, drawing out my
F
on the word
fret
. “Got something to drink? I know you have something around.… Cash or no, you’d sooner be dead than empty handed there, right?”

He stared daggers at me, nodded.

“Great. Well, grab me something. I’ll just poke around.” I walked briskly from the kitchen. He moved as if to stop me, but dropped his arm just as quickly. I walked to the bedroom door and pushed it open. His bed was a mattress propped up upon what once was a bed frame, now just a few splintered boards. A pile of clothes sat in one corner; some empty liquor bottles occupied another.

I glanced into the dingy bathroom before turning to the large sliding-glass door of the balcony. It opened smoothly and I stepped outside. The thick fog swirled past me and into the apartment, and I slid the door shut. He had another pair of folding chairs out in the cramped six-by-four-foot space. I sat down in one of them.

A minute later, Heller slid the door open and stepped outside, now wearing a T-shirt and holding a plastic cup in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. The fan bolted to his ceiling hummed behind him. It was angled so as to blow out the door when it was open. I knew what he would say next. He shut the door and muttered, “I wish you’d switch on the fan before opening that door.”

I made eye contact with him and held it until he looked away. Looking past him through the dirty yellow glass of the sliding door, I saw wisps of fog as they were caught by his shoddy vents and spread throughout the room.

“Well, kid, I wish
I
didn’t have to do this kind of thing.” I sprang up from my chair and wrapped my right hand around the back of his neck. Hard. He gasped a bit and almost spilled the coffee mug. I grabbed his wrist, steadied it, and then took the mug from him. I sniffed it. Vodka?

“What are we toasting with?”

“Gin,” he coughed out as I pushed his head forward a few inches, squeezing harder and shaking him from side to side.

“Okay, then. Cheers!” I grinned, releasing him and tapping my mug against his cup. I took a pull of the clear liquor. Awful shit. But alcohol nonetheless. I sat back down. After a moment, he sat too.

“You can relax, Heller. I’m not gonna hit you or anything. Just a pat on the back today.” He stretched his neck from side to side reflexively, rubbing at where I had grabbed him. I leaned back as I continued talking and realized that he already had a pale violet bruise where my thumb had been. Jesus. “I just wanted to drop by and see how business was. How you were doing.” He said nothing. “So, how are you doing?”

“As good as anyone, I guess,” Heller mumbled. He took a large sip of his gin and coughed a bit as it went down.

“You’re not the picture of health, Heller. Are you getting enough vitamins and iron in your diet?”

“Might be missing a bit of vitamin D, I guess.”

I snorted out a small laugh. He was a clever kid, sometimes. “Yeah … slight shortage of that these days.” We sat in silence for a while. “How old are you, Heller?”

He looked over at me, held my gaze for a moment. “Twenty-five.”

Fuck me … I’d figured him for at least thirty. Twenty-fucking-five … that was right about at the age where the pre-fog world would be clouded by a child’s weak memory. “Do you remember the sun much?”