1.2 Night Walk
I decided to go in a different direction than usual. Instead of south toward Central Station, I headed north. It was warm — not the oppressive warmth of a summer day but the relaxing warmth of a summer evening. The buildings glittered against the deep, rich blue that follows sunset.
The roads were overflowing with cars. Were these people on their way home from work? 8:55 p.m. was surely a bit late for rush hour. But I had never been a part of the workforce, so I didn’t have a concrete idea of when most people’s jobs let out. All I had were bits and pieces of conversations with strangers. I existed outside the whole world of employed people, with its framework of temporal and spatial and financial constraints. That world is the world of the city, because almost everyone in the city is employed. This great chaotic beast of light and noise — it runs on the fuel of employment.
It was precisely because I existed outside of the beast that I could look at it with such admiration. The infinite maze of walkways, stairways, ramps, fences, barricades, underpasses, skyways, bridges, tunnels, and the towers that rise from out of this maze, covered in lights so bright and colorful that you almost can’t look at them, and the thick polluted haze that spreads the lights into the air, and the highways cutting through it all like great angry rivers. Compared to this, I meant nothing. The beast wouldn’t blink for a second if I vanished.
I crossed a huge intersection at the end of the plaza. Some girls next to me were filming a video as they crossed: three of them were dancing while the fourth walked backwards and filmed on her phone. At first they were moving together, hitting the steps in unison, then they twirled off into their own individual dances. As they reached the end of the crosswalk, they all stumbled toward the camera and started laughing.
“Was that good?” said one of them.
“Oh my God,” said another one.
I walked with them for a few blocks. The details of their conversation were drowned out by the rush of surrounding traffic, but it seemed from their body language that they were happy with the video. At the next big intersection, they parted ways with me.
Waiting for the light to change, I stopped and pulled up the “Miscellaneous” document on my phone. I typed out what came to my mind.
city = great beast
freeways = angry rivers
lights on buildings
thick polluted haze
compared to this, im nothing
beast wouldn’t blink
I would develop it more when I got back. The light changed and I crossed, glancing over at the armada of cars stopped at the intersection. They could see me, but I couldn’t see them. I never knew what kind of people populated those massive vehicles. If they were in fact on their home from work, then it was must be annoying to have to wait for a drifter like me, who strolls leisurely across the intersection with his hands in his pockets.
As I moved further north, I found myself on a big thoroughfare lined with late-night restaurants and internet cafés. I had never even been in this area before. Under the street canopy, a crowd of young couples moved against the countercurrent of anxious delivery drivers racing from their motorcycles into the restaurants and back.
Feeling a bit parched, I dipped into a 7/11. The air was cool inside, a sharp contrast to the muggy streets. A schmaltzy orchestral rendition of a Billy Joel song was playing softly from a speaker, and there was the rustling sound of an employee restocking the snack aisle.
I wandered over to the beverage section to survey my options. The main contenders were diet Coke, a peach-mango juice, or a straight bottle of water. As I pondered the decision, my phone buzzed with a text from Kurt.
bro i decided to go to the thing
it’s lit in here
I texted back:
You went alone?
He replied immediately:
nah felix pulled up
I said:
Damn for real?
There was no response for a moment. I stood there in the otherworldly electric glow of the beverage section.
He sent a video. It was a dark and chaotic scene inside Caravan, with The Popes thanking the audience after one of their songs. A lot of people were in attendance. The camera panned over to Felix, who was clearly drunk. He laughed and said something that I would have had to turn the audio up in order to hear.
I responded:
Bruh
Is the music actually good
He said:
decent
but the vibe is immaculate rn
you shoulda pulled up
I rewatched the video one more time to see if Mr. Pavone might be somewhere in the background. It was too blurry to tell. Pocketing my phone, I selected a peach-mango juice and paid up at the counter.
Back in the swarm of the street, I took a sip. It wasn’t nearly as good as I was expecting. The consistency was weirdly chalky, like a smoothie instead of a liquid juice. Anyway, it was enough to quench my thirst.
I kept walking for a long time, moving with the crowd down the convoy of restaurants. It felt like the thoroughfare would never end. Eventually I had had enough and turned onto a side street with fewer people. I passed an elementary school whose windows were dark; the last student had left this place hours ago. Adjacent to the school was a small playground encircled by a locked gate. The swingset stood perfectly still in the sickly light of the street lamps.
After many blocks, I reached another intersection. This one went five different ways: four big roads blocked off by fences, and then right down the middle, a highway bridge that led into a whole different part of the city. There were not so many people on foot here. I had reached a transitional point of some kind.
Which path would yield the most interesting walk? I had made the wrong decision with my drink; now I was determined to make the right one.
Before I made a decision, I needed a quick smoke. I scanned my surroundings for a good spot. There is a certain sense that every smoker has for which places are acceptable locations to smoke. I’m not talking about where it’s legal or where it’s polite, I’m talking about where the vibe is right. For example, you never feel comfortable smoking in an open space. You need to something to lean against. And you need a view of something. Smoking without a view is not smoking at all. At the place where the bridge intersected the main road, there was a corner with a street lamp; that seemed like my best option. I waited for a lull in traffic and ran across the four-lane road.
One pull and I instantly felt more relaxed. The smoke in my lungs defused whatever tension had been building up. I leaned against the railing, standing away from the light. Cars raced over the bridge. In the distance, the skyscrapers were half-hidden in the smog.
I finished my cigarette. As I crushed it into the sidewalk, my eyes drifted over to the bridge railing. It ended in an oddly abrupt way.
At the point where the railing ended, I discovered a flight of stone steps going down. In my zeal for a smoke, I had passed the entrance to these steps without noticing. They apparently led into a group of buildings, although my view was obscured by the trees.
Gripping the railing, I descended the steps.
At the bottom was a street with houses on either side. I realized that there was an entire neighborhood concealed in the ravine beneath the highway bridge. From ground level, I couldn’t see how big the neighborhood was, but it seemed like a busy, well-kept area: the buildings were nice and lots of people were out and about.
I walked through the neighborhood. The houses were in an older style: they had big stone gates and slanted roofs instead of the flat roofs that I knew so well. I thought about how inconceivably big the city really was. I had taken so many thousands of walks, drives and train rides without even coming close to this place.
Soon the streets became less residential and more commercial. I walked past fruit vendors and secondhand clothing stores. Young men rode through the crowd on their scooters. Old men sat al fresco outside late-night restaurants, smoking and drinking. Brushing by me was a mother with groceries in one hand and her whiny daughter’s arm in the other. There were more children and families here than in the area where I lived.
I came out of the winding streets into a slightly wider area, a kind of public square. I heard music from somewhere and traced it to a man breakdancing for a small audience under a tree. Next to him was an upside-down bowler hat full of coins and a portable speaker blasting Latin hip-hop. I stopped for a moment to watch him dance. There was a grace to his movements that was clearly the result of countless hours of practice.
I took a video of my surroundings and sent it to Kurt. He replied immediately:
where you at bruh
I said:
I don’t know
Wandered into some cool area
I thought for a moment, then continued:
How’s the event?
He said:
drunk asf
I said:
Off what
He said:
idek
I hearted his message and put my phone away. Looking around the square, I realized that I had truly lost my bearings. The highway bridge where I had entered the neighborhood was no longer visible, and I couldn’t remember which way was north. Maybe I should head home, I thought.
I tossed a coin into the dancer’s hat; he was too caught up in the moment to notice. As I headed back in the direction from which I had come, I gazed at the three-story building in the center of the square. People were eating ice cream on the steps, their bicycles casually strewn nearby. The establishment on the first floor was a bustling chicken restaurant. The establishment on the second floor was much less busy; from its dim lighting, it looked like a bar.
I could use a drink, I thought. So I headed inside and went up the stairs. There were old movie posters all over the stairwell. They must have been put up a long time ago, because they were peeling off. Above the entrance to the bar, a green fluorescent LED flickered. I pushed open the door and entered.
The whole bar, as it turned out, was themed around Hollywood movies from the ‘70s. It was pretty crowded. I went to the corner and sat down at the bar between two people.
I got the bartender’s attention. “Whiskey sour.”
He nodded.
To my right was a couple engaged in conversation. To my left was an old woman. Not wanting to stare at her, I snuck a glance out of my peripheral. She was really old — in her eighties or even nineties. The skin hung from her face. She was sipping from a glass of what looked like milk.
I took out my phone to look up the final score of the game. Barracudas 145, Lightning 113. They had really dropped 145 points on our heads. To be fair, they had probably run up the score in garbage time to make the lead more ludicrous than it really was. Still, what a trouncing. I wondered whether Kurt had been sober enough to remember to check the score. Even if he had, the veil of drunkenness was probably thick enough to dull the pain. And after all, it was only a regular-season game.
The bartender brought over my drink. I stirred the toothpick a few times and took a sip.
I looked over at the old woman. She was staring off into nothing.
“Do you live around here?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
I was surprised at the abruptness of her answer.
“It’s a cool area,” I said. “It must be very old.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“How long have you been here?” I said.
She looked at me. I couldn’t tell what was going on behind her eyes.
“A super long time,” she said.
“Is that so,” I said.
She nodded.
“I gotta be honest,” I said. “I’ve never seen someone drink milk at a bar before.”
“I always drink milk. Don’t you?”
“I guess not.”
There was a pause.
“Is it a health thing?”
She shrugged.
I took another sip of my whiskey sour. She looked at me again.
“Can I have your cherry?” she said.
“Sure,” I said.
She reached her fingers into my drink to take out the Maraschino cherry and ate it with enjoyment.
“You like cherries?” I said.
“Everyone likes cherries, stupid.”
“Cherries and milk, then.”
For the first time, she laughed. “Ewww!”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s gross!”
She placed the stem neatly on her napkin.
“So how long is a super long time?” I said.
“What?”
“You said you’ve been here a super long time. How long is that?”
“Since I was born.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“And have you been to this bar many times?”
“I haven’t ever.”
“Mm,” I said. “Is this place, like, new?”
“You smell like smoke.”
I looked at her. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“I like that smell.”
“Most people don’t.”
She sniffed my shoulder. “It’s a good smell.”
“Do you smoke?”
“Well, I’ve smoked before.”
I nodded. “I do it too much.”
“You’re allowed to smoke in here.”
“Oh yeah?”
Only then did I notice the smoke in the air and the cigarettes dangling between index and pointer fingers around the bar .
“Do you mind?” I said.
She shook her head. I lit up and exhaled.
“It’s rare to find a smoking bar,” I said. “I’m sure back in your day it was the norm.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think about it?”
“I think people should do what they want.” She looked at the burning end of cigarette. “Can I try it?”
“Sure.”
I handed her the cigarette. As soon as she inhaled, she erupted into a violent coughing fit.
“Shit,” I said. “Are you okay?”
I put a hand on her back.
The bartender came over. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She slammed the table with a fist, coughing even harder.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” said the bartender.
She didn’t answer.
The bartender and I looked at each other helplessly.
Eventually she stopped coughing and took a sip of milk.
“Are you good?” I said.
The bartender refilled her glass of milk. She took a sip.
“We good?” said the bartender.
“I think we’re good,” I said.
The bartender walked off.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
There was a pause.
“Who are you?” she said.
“I’m Paul.” I extended my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
She shook my hand without telling me her name. Her grip was stronger than I expected.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“My name’s Maggie Lynn.”
“That’s a nice name.”
She smiled. Her teeth were good for her age.
I smiled back.
“So what brings you here tonight, Mrs. Lynn?”
“I wanted some milk.”
“You don’t have milk at home?”
She shook her head.
“Are there not a lot of grocery stores around here?”
“I don’t like going into grocery stores.”
“Why not?”
She smiled again. “You know.”
“Not sure I do.”
“Yes you do!” she laughed.
“Okay.”
I stared at all the bottles on the wall. They had quite a selection: mostly whiskey, but also a whole shelf for gin.
“When is the next storm gonna be?” said Mrs. Lynn.
“I mean, it’s the rainy season,” I said. “So it’ll be soon enough.”
“How soon?”
“Let me check.”
I pulled up the weather app.
“It says it’s gonna rain on Friday.”
“Okay. Friday.”
I sipped my drink. “Why do you ask?”
“Last time there was a storm, the thunder was so loud. My house was shaking.”
“You mean the one a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah.”
“I imagine it must be intense if you live in one of these old houses. I live in a big building, so I haven’t really experienced that.”
“How big?”
“Twenty stories.”
“It must reach up to the clouds.”
I chuckled. “On a cloudy day, yeah.”
“But if there’s an earthquake, that kind of building will be destroyed.”
“There hasn’t been an earthquake here as long as I’ve been alive.”
“You never know.”
“I guess that’s true.”
She stared at me.
“Have you experienced a lot of natural disasters in your lifetime?” I asked.
Then I thought maybe it was a rude question because it implied that she had been around a long time. But she didn’t look offended.
Her eyes were wide. “Yeah.”
“Like what?”
“Storms coming in from the ocean. Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Wildfires.”
“There was a tsunami? Here?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“A big one.”
She gestured at its size with her hands.
“I guess you’ve been here a lot longer than I have,” I said.
“I literally thought I was gonna die,” she said.
“Wow.”
“I think God’s angry at us.”
“And he sent the tsunami as punishment?”
She nodded. “The storms and the tsunamis.”
“What makes you say that?”
“People do so many bad things. Don’t you think so? And he’s watching it all, writing it all down. I can feel it.”
There was fear in her eyes.
“I’ve seen people so some bad things,” I said. “I don’t know if they’re bad enough to warrant a tsunami.”
“No, I think they are.”
“What stuff are we talking about?”
“Bad stuff. Bad people. They’re all over the place. Believe me.”
“I believe you.”
“You’re not one of them."
“Thanks.”
“So many people are just mean, you know?”
I didn’t know what to say. “I guess every place has rotten apples.”
“I hate those people.”
“Are you talking about people in this neighborhood?” I said. “By the way, what’s this neighborhood called?”
“Well, I do bad things too. Everybody does bad things occasionally. But I always apologize.”
“That’s good.”
She took the last sip of milk. “Do you?”
“Do I always apologize?”
“No — do you do bad things?”
I looked at the melting ice in the bottom of my glass. “I’ve done plenty of bad things.”
She put a hand on my back. “It’s okay.”
“Thanks.”
“Nobody’s perfect, you know?”
“Mm.”
She smiled. “I like talking with you.”
“I like talking with you as well.”
Mrs. Lynn tried to climb off her stool and stumbled as she dismounted. I quickly supported her with both hands.
“Are you leaving?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Do you want me to walk you home?”
“Yeah.”
She said it without looking at me. Getting the bartender’s attention with a wave, she paid for what had been several glasses of milk.
“Alright,” I said.
I paid for my own drink. It was five dollars — much cheaper than it would have been in my area.
“Thanks,” I said to the bartender. He nodded back at me. Then I left the bar with Mrs. Lynn, keeping a hand on her back as we descended the dimly lit stairs.
We came out into the square. The breakdancer was still dancing under the tree, though his audience had shrunk to two.
“Look at that guy,” I said.
We went over to him. Mrs. Lynn looked at me, at the dancer, then back to me. She seemed to be gauging my reaction.
The dancer’s moves were becoming slower and clumsier. I had already given him money, but I didn’t want to look bad, so I dropped another coin into his hat. This time he noticed and thanked me.
“Should I give him money?” said Mrs. Lynn.
“If you want to,” I said.
She fished out twenty dollars from her wallet.
“You want to give him twenty dollars?” I said.
Without answering, she shuffled over and dropped the money into his hat. He smiled a big smile at her.
“Many thanks,” he said.
She retreated from him as if he were a source of danger.
“He’s not gonna bite,” I said.
She looked up at me.
“Alright,” I said, “you lead the way.”
“Okay.”
We turned onto a side street. The 24-hour groceries were still open, but most of the restaurants were beginning to close. The windows in the two-story houses were dark. Even in this sleepless city, there are nooks and crannies that do go to sleep.
I didn’t know it was possible for a person to walk as slowly as she walked. Each step was like a jolt to her system, forcing her to pause and gain control again. I realized how different the world was for old people. The walk from my apartment to Caravan, which I did several times a day, would be a serious journey for this woman.
“I bet you know this place like the back of your hand,” I said.
“Sometimes I get lost,” she said.
“Really?”
“It’s scary.”
“I think I might be lost right now.”
“You’re lost?”
“Well, I’ve walked a long ways from my home. And I’m not exactly sure how to get back.”
“It’s okay.”
“Let’s hope so.”
We entered a backstreet full of parked motorcycles. The gas tanks glistened in the yellow light.
“Can we play hide and seek when we get home?” she said.
I looked at her. “Hide and seek?”
“That’s my favorite game.”
We walked in silence.
“Are you being serious?” I said.
“Yeah!” she said. “It’s so big.”
“What’s so big?”
“The house. There’s a million places to hide.”
“But I’m a stranger.”
“You’re not a stranger!”
“We met an hour ago.”
“I’m happy we met.”
“I’m happy we met too, but I don’t know you that well.”
“What do you wanna know?”
I rubbed my chin. “First of all, why do you trust me so much?”
“You’re nice.”
“And that’s enough?”
She gave me a funny look. In her eyes, I saw a mixture of fear, amusement and fascination. Or maybe it was none of those things.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t trust me. But I just grew up learning not to trust strangers. Maybe it’s different in this part of town.”
She didn’t respond. Her breathing was heavy.
“Are you tired?” I said.
“No,” she said. “I don’t need to go to sleep yet.”
“When do you usually go to sleep?”
She shrugged.
“Me too,” I said.
“You’re a night owl?”
“I guess we’re both night owls.” I looked around at the dark windows behind the stone gates. “We might be the only ones around here.”
“A parliament,” she said.
“What?”
“That’s what a bunch of owls is called. A parliament.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know a lot about animals.”
We headed deeper into the residential part of the neighborhood. There were no restaurants anymore, just narrow streets lined with tightly-packed houses. Occasionally a figure would shuffle by on their way home, but mostly it was desolate. And it was dark. No street-lamps or anything, no sign of electricity. This was the darkness that the old poets had been writing about. I tried to peer over the rooftops, searching for a sign of the highway bridge, but I couldn’t see anything except the tips of the skyscrapers in the distance.
And it was quiet. Even the hum of traffic had faded away. This made the sound of our footsteps palpably crisp.
We reached a path that ran alongside some a grass field full of dilapidated metal structures. I think it was an abandoned railyard.
A lot of animals must live in those train cars, I thought. But probably not a parliament of owls. More likely a mischief of rats.
“How much further?” I said.
“It’s right up here,” she said.
At the end of the path, we turned onto a dead end street. Squeezed between a tall chain-link fence and the edge of the railyard were a few houses. All the windows were dark.
The house she approached was nicer than what I had been imagining. It was a two-story unit with a car and a few bicycles in the front lot. Not a shanty by any means. The only negative thing about it was the location.
She opened the gate door. I followed her up the steps.
“Nice place,” I said.
“I told you,” she said.
“Do you drive?”
“No.”
“Then who’s the car for?”
“My husband.”
She opened the front door and stepped inside. Then she turned back to look at me.
“Are you leaving?” she said.
“I don’t wanna play hide and seek,” I said.
“We can just eat some snacks.”
I stared at her and she stared back. A warm wind passed over the railyard, rustling her cardigan slightly.
“Come ooooon,” she said. “It’s too early to go to sleep.”
“I have to walk all the way back,” I said.
A smile came over her face. “I have green Oreos.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Double Stuf.”
Standing in the darkness of that tall doorway, her hunched body looked especially small.
“A few minutes,” I said. “Then I gotta go.”
She smiled.
I followed her inside, shutting the front door softly behind me.
In the foyer, I removed my shoes. Mrs. Lynn was upstairs turning on all the lights in the house. When she came down, there was a new energy in her demeanor.
“Kitchen!” she said.
She led me out of the foyer and through the living room. Entering the kitchen, she opened a cupboard to retrieve the extra-large pack of Double Stuf green Oreos.
“Sit down.”
I took a seat at the kitchen table. She sat down across from me and peeled open the pack. It was half-empty.
“These are the best,” she said.
I ate one.
“Are they mint-flavored?” I said.
“Are they?” she said with a curious look.
I checked the box. “Doesn’t say.”
“I’ve tried every kind. These are the best.”
“Mm.”
There was a silence.
“Is your husband asleep?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“He goes to bed earlier, then?”
“Way earlier.”
“That’s marriage, I guess.”
I wondered if my comment had crossed a line. But like before, she didn’t seem to notice. She was splitting the Oreos in two and eating the halves separately. First the side with no cream, then the side with cream.
“So you’re an Oreo-splitter,” I said.
“It’s better that way,” she said.
“I prefer to eat them whole. For the full experience.”
She shook her head.
“You disagree?” I said.
“You need to save the cream part for last,” she said. “That’s the reward.”
I nodded.
The kitchen window was open. I heard crickets in the yard outside.
“It gets pretty quiet around here,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“You ever put on music?”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s okay?”
“Music.”
“But you don’t listen to it every day?”
“No.”
“So you’ve learned to live with silence. I admire that. For me, it’s like … I need some music at least once a day. It’s a real addiction.”
“I mostly like the music on YouTube.”
“Oh yeah? What kinda stuff?”
“Daft Punk.”
“Interesting.”
“Do you like Daft Punk?”
“I used to listen to a lot of Daft Punk, actually. When I was in high school. I haven’t in a while.”
“You should.”
I listened to the crickets.
“But I guess it’s not true silence,” I said. “All these insects in the summer.”
“They try to get inside,” she said.
“Like, crickets?”
“Mosquitoes. They’re hungry for your blood. That’s why you have to always keep the screen on the window. Never pull back the screen.”
“Mm.”
“They always bite my arms. And then I have to scratch them, even though that just makes them more itchy.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your opinion on killing mosquitoes?”
She looked at me quite earnestly, munching the second-to-last Oreo.
“I mean, I think it’s fine,” I said.
“Isn’t it bad to hurt them?”
“But they’re hurting you.”
“It’s not justified to take revenge.”
I stared at the near-empty pack of Oreos on the table.
“Do you want the last one?” I said.
She nodded and snatched it from the tray.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said. “Maybe I just don’t value the life of a mosquito that highly.”
“But what if you’re bad and the mosquito’s good?”
“How could a mosquito be good?”
She ate the second half of the Oreo. “A mosquito can be good.”
“You seem like a compassionate person.”
There was a pause.
“I think it’s okay to kill them,” she said.
“Really?” I said.
“I don’t value the life of a mosquito that highly.”
“Uhh … then I guess we agree.”
She picked up the empty plastic tray, spilling some Oreo crumbs onto the table.
“You’re supposed to separate this from the other kinds of trash,” she said.
“Yeah. I don’t follow those rules, though.”
“You don’t?”
“Nah.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
I shrugged. “I think the cops have bigger problems to deal with.”
“I always separate my trash.”
“That’s good. You’re a responsible citizen.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
“I don’t really know. I just never started. That’s what explains most of the stuff in my life. Inertia.”
“Inertia.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s that?”
“It means that things tend to stay the same. Unless something comes in and changes the situation. My habits were formed a long time ago.”
“What are your habits?”
“I mean, I have all kinds of habits.”
“Like what?”
“Smoking. Drinking tea. Brushing my teeth. Uhh, taking long walks at night. That’s how I ended up here.”
“Do you brush your teeth twice a day?”
“Sure.”
“Me too. And I floss as well.” She smiled proudly.
“Nice,” I said. “Yeah, once you start flossing, it’s kinda hard to stop.”
“I can’t use the floss where you have to hold the string, you know? It’s too thin to wrap around my fingers. I prefer the little picks.”
“Mm.”
“I just got a new toothbrush. It feels weird on my teeth.”
“Mm.”
We sat in silence.
“You can smoke in here,” she said.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just had one.”
“How often do you need to smoke?”
“I can go a couple hours, and then I start to feel it.”
“That’s a habit.”
Sitting on the table, the plastic tray slowly uncrinkled itself.
“So what about you?” I said. “What are your habits?
“I don’t really have habits,” she said.
“Everybody has habits.”
“Really?”
“Like, you clearly have a habit of eating Oreos. Unless this is your first time.”
“It’s not my first time.”
“Exactly.”
I felt a weight on my body, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Like something was pressing on my insides. Then I realized that I just needed to piss.
“Can I use your bathroom?”
“Sure.”
She rose from the table with some effort. We went back through the living room and into the pantry, where she pushed open the bathroom door.
“Thanks,” I said.
I closed the door behind me.
When I was done pissing, I sat on the toilet and took a breather. It was nice to escape the strange conversation and the infernal droning of crickets in the background. Here in this sealed chamber, there was pure silence.
I picked up one of the books on the stand next to the toilet. It was called “The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert.” The cover art was a painting of a Greek statue. I flipped to a random page.
22. The just, the beautiful, the good, the wise, is that which is in conformity with the ideas that God has of the just, the beautiful, the wise, and the good. Take God from the higher philosophy, and nothing clear is left. He is its light and its sun. He it is who illumines all.
I turned to another page.
187. Real and false diamonds have the same facets, the same transparency. But in the light of the real there is a freedom and a joy not to be found in the false. Nothing is beautiful but the true.
I wondered who had bought this book. Maybe the husband who was asleep upstairs. I would be surprised if it was Mrs. Lynn reading this stuff. Then again, she had talked about God quite a bit, so she was clearly religious.
As I washed my hands, I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked a bit haggard; my skin was pale and there was a sheen of sweat on my forehead. The slight buzz from the whiskey sour was dissipating into a dull throb. Despite this heavy feeling, I wasn’t sleepy at all. Actually, I was wide awake.
Shutting the bathroom door behind me, I passed through the living room and into the kitchen.
The kitchen was empty.
The Double Stuf green Oreo tray sat on the table.
“Hello?” I said.
No response.
I walked back into the living room. She wasn’t there, either.
As far as I knew, the first floor was just the foyer, the pantry, the living room, and the kitchen. But she wasn’t in any of those rooms.
“Mrs. Lynn? Hello?”
Only the crickets spoke back to me.
From the foyer, I could see into the upstairs corridor. The lights were on and the doors to several rooms were visible. But I didn’t particularly want to go up there. The last thing I wanted was some old guy waking up and asking why I was in his house.
I looked down at the shoe rack. Her sandals were on the bottom shelf, exactly where she had left them. That meant she was still in the house.
I walked into the pantry. I knew she wasn’t in the bathroom, but I checked anyway just to make sure. Then I noticed that there was a small door in the wall next to the bathroom. I opened it.
A staircase led down into the basement. The light was on.
I kneeled at the doorway.
The basement stared back at me.
I rubbed my chin. The stubble was already coming back.
After a moment of deliberation, I ducked my head and entered. I was about to close the small door behind me when the image of getting locked in there entered my mind. I decided to leave it open.
I descended the staircase and stopped at the bottom.
“Hello?”
I looked around. The basement was nice — carpeted floor, flatscreen TV. One of those basements that people spend time in.
I cleared my throat and spoke again. “Mrs. Lynn? Are you down here?”
It was dead silent.
I walked through the two main rooms. One was centered around the TV; the other was a smaller room with a desk. I opened the storage closets, finding only boxes and cleaning supplies.
She didn’t seem to be down here.
I stood by the staircase and surveyed the place one more time. It was stuffy because the ceiling fan was turned off. Its blades stood at rest.
“Mrs. Lynn,” I said, “I don’t want to play hide and seek. Can you come out?”
Nothing happened.
The basement was so still, it could have been a photo.
I walked up the stairs and came back out into the pantry, shutting the basement door.
On the shoe rack, her sandals were sitting in the same position.
Nothing had changed.
I looked up at the second floor.
She must be up there.
Grabbing the banister, I walked up to the second floor. Thankfully, the floorboards did not creak under my feet.
At the top of the stairs, I surveyed the corridor. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom. I started with the bathroom because the door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open and peeked inside. Empty and dark.
So she was in one of the bedrooms. From the gaps under the doors, I could see that the light was on in both rooms.
I approached the one on the left, walking on my heels like an Indian. I wrapped my hand around the knob and turned as slowly as possible. There was a click.
I pushed just a little.
Pressed my eye up to the crack.
There was a bed in the middle of the room. I couldn’t be sure from the sliver of visual information I was getting, but the bed appeared to be empty. It was hard to make out anything else about the room. I pushed open the door and walked in.
It was someone’s bedroom, that was for sure. And not somebody with a proclivity for cleanliness. The bed was unmade, covered in a tangle of blankets and stuffed animals. Propped against the wall was a collection of sticks.
I searched the room for Mrs. Lynn. She wasn’t under the bed. She wasn’t in the closet, either. That meant that she was in the other bedroom.
I walked back out into the corridor and turned the knob of the other door until I heard a click. Through the crack in the door, I once again saw a bed with nobody in it. It took less effort now to push open the door and enter the room.
This bed was meticulously made. The whole room had been organized by someone with a keen attention to detail.
On the dresser was a framed picture. A young couple stood on a bridge overlooking a canal; the man’s arm was around the woman’s shoulders. They were both beaming from ear to ear.
This must be what Mrs. Lynn and her husband looked like back in the day, I thought.
They were an attractive couple.
I stood in place, surveying the bedroom. The windows were closed, so I could barely hear the insects from outside. Just like in the basement, it was unbearably stuffy up here.
“Mrs. Lynn?” I said.
I was pretty sure that her husband was not in the house, so I no longer felt the need to be quiet.
“Mrs. Lynn, you can come out.”
No response.
“You win the game. I give up.”
Silence.
I looked under the bed and found nothing. There was a private bathroom, so I checked in there, but it was empty as well. The only thing left was the closet.
As I was about to open the closet door, I stopped.
My hand hovered over the doorknob.
I had checked every other room in the whole house and she wasn’t in any of them. Her sandals were still on the shoe rack. That meant one of two things: either she had left the house barefoot, or she had gone upstairs to her bedroom and was currently crouched in the closet. The first possibility struck me as vanishingly unlikely, which left only the second possibility: she was on the other side of this door, right now.
I stood frozen, trying to listen for her breathing. There was nothing. Not even the slightest sound.
“Mrs. Lynn, why are you hiding? I know you’re there.”
I stared at the the closet door.
“I know you’re there, Mrs. Lynn.”
Suddenly, a chill came over my entire body. I could feel a presence on the other side of the door. I knew that if I opened it, something bad would happen. This door was the only thing protecting me.
I walked quickly out of the bedroom. As I rushed down the stairs, my foot caught on the carpet and I fell headfirst, smashing my head on the floor.
A wave of intense pain blurred my vision. But I didn’t allow the pain to get to me. And I didn’t look back at the stairs. I had enough adrenaline to get back on my feet.
I grabbed my slides from the rack without putting them on and fumbled with the old-fashioned lock system on the door. I pulled one of the latches, but the door wouldn’t open. Sweat poured down my temples and into my eyes. Still, I didn’t look behind me.
I yanked the knob in frustration.
“Fuck fuck fuck!”
I pulled a different latch and the door swung open. I burst out of the house, down the steps, through the yard and out the front gate onto the street. The thick, humid air and the screaming insects were overwhelming. It felt like a mega-colony of crickets was surrounding the house.
I ran down the street. Instead of turning at the side path bordering the railyard, I just ran straight ahead. There wasn’t time to retrace my steps — I had to get as far away from that house as possible. I ran and ran and ran. My legs had run out of energy, but some intangible energy propelled them onward.
As I ran, I thought about how it must look from the windows of these houses to see a young guy sprinting frantically through the streets in his socks. In the absolute dead of night, too. They probably thought I was a criminal or a crazy person. But I couldn’t worry about that now. I had to get as far away from that house as possible.
I hadn’t run a long distance in many years. I walked miles every day, but running was a different thing altogether. Walking connected me with the world, while running disconnected me from it. As a result, my lungs were not prepared for this level of stress. I could almost feel them straining to exchange air for carbon dioxide.
After a while, the streets narrowed and started to incline; I was going up a hill. This made it even harder to continue. Still, there was no choice. I had to get as far away from that house as possible.
Finally the streets leveled off. I looked around and noticed that the buildings were different: not the traditional houses with the stone gates, but the three-story courtyard apartments that I knew so well. And the streets had grown wide again. It was comforting to feel the cars and motorcycles rushing by. I was back in the city that doesn’t sleep.
I stopped and put my hands on my knees, panting for breath.
How far had I run? It felt like far enough.
I checked my phone. It was 2:08 a.m. Only 5% battery left.
I thought about my options. I could call an Uber. I could try to find a train station and take the red line south. Or I could just walk for several miles.
My body was giving out, so walking the whole way wasn’t possible. Getting an Uber was possible, but it would be expensive, and also my phone was about to die. I decided on the second option — there had to be a station around here somewhere.
I put my slides back on.
The station appeared to me like a mirage. I rounded a corner and there it was: huge, lovely, glowing with white electricity. The lobby was empty, so I hopped the turnstile. My footsteps echoed down the motionless escalator and onto the platform, where it was cold and quiet.
I was the only person to board the train. I sat down, waiting for the three tones and the familiar voice that announced the next stop in English, Spanish and Chinese. The name of this stop was foreign to me, but I could see on the subway map that the line eventually stopped at Central Station.
The doors closed and the train shot through the tunnel. That calm whooshing sound, along with the jostling of the train car, was usually the perfect sedative. But for some reason, at this moment, I couldn’t fall asleep.
Quite spooky