By Timothy S. Miller

I know he’s dead because part of his skull is missing.

I know he’s dead because the room smells like blood.

I know he’s dead because a sudden sadness overwhelms me.

I forget if Bob’s someone I know, or perhaps I’ve stumbled onto the death of a stranger.

The only time I feel this way is when there’s a death in the family. Bob isn’t really family. Then again, he is.

I’m dizzy. My gut’s burning up. My head’s about to disconnect from my spine. I forget things I’ve known forever. I have pain in new places. Old scars start to fester, turning into new wounds.

This is what happens when I need to face up to something. I compartmentalize it. I forget it. I move on with my life as though what I’m going through at this very moment isn’t happening at all.

His eyes are glazed over. No one’s home. Not anymore. He’ll never see light again through those eyes. They’re empty. He’s hollow. He’s a shell. If I hold him up to my ear, I’ll hear the waves of a thousand oceans.

I’m tempted to take the gun, to pry it out of Bob’s hand. It doesn’t belong there. If I take the gun, will it feel like a gun or will it feel like something else?

But none of this matters, because I don’t take the gun.

Instead, I run out of his apartment, down the stairs, and vomit in a pile of leaves. I rid myself of the dim room, the dank air, the bloody prologue before decay, the reek of soiled clothes. I’m running to my car, speeding off down the block and the Dallas skyline’s getting smaller and smaller. The only thing I know for sure is that I need to get away. I’m not comfortable here.

This city turned on me.

Driving down Ross toward my apartment—the evening bringing darkness—everyone I see wants nothing to do with me. Drivers. Passengers. Pedestrians. Mechanics working on their cars. Women—their hair all dolled up, nails done—leaving the salon.

Or they’re immediately hostile.

They want nothing to do with me; they want to tear me apart.

I’m afraid.

I’m opened up—exposed—face to face with death.

I feel nothing at all.

Death found Bob quick and swift. It gave him little warning—not a creep but a pounce. He hadn’t struggled. He hadn’t fought it one bit, hadn’t—at any moment—begged for mercy or forgiveness. There wasn’t a trace of any of that. No trace of light. Only darkness. The tried-and-true viciousness of death.

I ignore stop signs.

Which means I’ve made it two blocks before a cop pulls me over.

I watch the reds and blues mixing into oblivion—grip the steering wheel until it feels like it’s going to break off in my lap, rotate my eyes from the rearview mirror to the windshield, from the rearview mirror to the windshield—until every scenario that I can possibly go through has been ridden into eternity.

He gets out of the car. He walks toward me with his flashlight, his hand on his gun. He does all of these things slowly—almost floating—the wind scooping his boots off the pavement, sitting him at the side of my car.

He asks me why I’m in such a hurry that I would so brazenly disregard the law of the land and the safety of others.

I tell him I discovered my best friend dead in his apartment. Although it was staged to look like a suicide, I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s cold-blooded murder.

That isn’t true. I tell him nothing. When he asks me why I’m in such a hurry, I tell him that I need to piss. I’m in a hurry to get home so I can take care of business. I say nothing about finding Bob dead in his apartment. I can’t tell you why. I wish I knew.

What are you running from, son?

Is this a hypothetical question? When running my plates, had he produced a history of flight—incident after incident—where reality was aversion, drinking myself into oblivion, when avoidance of everything went into overdrive? Incident after incident where alienation became me, when even marriage to the most beautifulwonderfuldreamy woman imaginable couldn’t tear me away from my self-destructive tendencies.

What am I running from?

* * *

At least I would have the brains about me to confide in someone I could trust—maybe like Gerald—someone who could give me good advice as to what I should do next.

Again, the big answer is no.

Instead, I drive to Lemon’s apartment.

He just got out of a twenty-eight day stay at rehab because he got busted for exposing himself in Tietze Park in front of an entire Girl Scout troop. The judge said he could go to jail or rehab. He chose rehab. Lemon can’t stay sober to save his soul. A thirty-five-year-old man who never grew up. He’s one step away from moving back into his mother’s house. And I’m going to ask him for help.

These kinds of decisions don’t make sense. I’m out of control, making random decisions without fear of consequence. I’m living my life by total chance. Heads: I do something rational. Tails: I do something irrational. Tails every time.

 

* * *

 

I knock on Lemon’s door. The barrage of lights being turned off and then on again, the routine of blinds being peeked through—these rituals of the paranoid, flawlessly perfected and carried out—until the nerves settle down and the door opens to a crack.

For the longest time, he just stands there—his long hair in his face, stringy and hopelessly unwashed—looking at me through the crack in the door, uncertain of whether he’ll let me in or not.

“I know,” he says. “I haven’t been to a meeting. I’m depressed—“

“Shut up, Lemon,” I say. “That’s not why I’m here.”

There’s this moment of silence when he looks at me—stunned, the kind of look reserved for the dead—like I’m not who he thinks I am.

He closes the door. Removes the chain. He opens the door again.

He’s in serious trouble, Lemon. It’s like looking at Bob all over again, but with a pulse. Barely. He hasn’t eaten. He hasn’t showered. He needs to be locked up.

“I’m suicidal,” Lemon says.

He motions me inside, motions me to take a seat.

“I’ve been thinking about blowing my brains out all afternoon and you treat me like I’m a piece of shit.”

“Why do you want to kill yourself?”

“Uh,” Lemon says, “because I have so much going for me? I’m depressed. How was I supposed to know they were Girl Scouts?”

“The uniforms?”

“So they were dressed alike. But that’s not all. I’m depressed because I’m under a goddamn microscope. They come into my apartment and tell me I need to clean up after myself. It’s like I’m in kindergarten. Cocksucking caseworkers.”

“I need your help.”

Lemon’s apartment is a mess. There’s shit everywhere. Lemon Pickens doesn’t give a rat’s ass that cleanliness is next to Godliness.

I move an empty pizza box off the couch so I can sit down. “Your caseworkers have a point. It wouldn’t hurt to clean up a bit.”

“Back off,” Lemon says.

“And if you’re trying to make a good impression with the court, you might consider taking the framed picture of Lee Harvey Oswald off the top of your television.”

“I’m sentimental,” Lemon says. “What can I say?”

“Do you have any cigarettes?”

“I thought you quit?”

“Just give me a cigarette.”

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”

“I’m in trouble.”

“Then why’d you come over here?” He walks over to the television, pulls a cigarette from the pack, sticks one in his mouth.

“I need to talk to someone.”

“What’s in the envelope?” Lemon says, handing me a cigarette. He finds his lighter in his back pocket—takes it out—chucks it at me.

“Bob’s dead,” I say, letting out a mouth of smoke, slowly calming, slowly coming around, slowly letting go of whatever it is that had wrapped itself around me.

“No shit?” He takes a long pull from his cigarette and collapses into the corner of his couch, puts his feet up on the coffee table and waits for details.

“I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days. So I went over to his apartment after I got off work.”

“And?”

“He was dead. The top of his skull blown off.”

I say this as though there’s nothing unsettling about walking in on your buddy with his brains splattered against the wall. I say this with the calm assurance of someone who’s in total denial.

“Gruesome. What’d the cops say?”

“I didn’t call them.”

“Didn’t call them?”

“Bob had stumbled onto something. One of his coworkers was missing. Bob thought it might be connected to an affair she was having with his boss.”

“So why not go to the cops?”

“Because what if Bob was right? What if Celia’s disappearance was foul play? What if whoever killed Bob decides I’m next. Maybe they think I know too much.”

“We’ve got to pursue this. I have resources. I’m well connected. I know people.”

“Let’s not overthink this one. Let’s do this one—”

“One day at a goddamn time. I’m sick of one day at a time. We’ve got a goddamn mystery to solve.”

“Calm down,” I say. “I’m about to show you something, but you’ve got to keep your mouth shut. You can’t tell anyone.”

“Jesus,” he says. “You took them from the crime scene. Pictures of her.”

“How do you know?”

“I watch television.”

“I totally underestimated you,” I say, opening the envelope. I lay them out in front of him.

“Can I keep one of those?” he says.

_________________________________________________

Timothy S. Miller lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and daughter. He’s been a ranch hand, waiter, contract driver, professional clown, and spent over ten years working in office services for two prestigious Wall Street-based firms. He graduated with his B.A. in Literature and Writing from the University of Montana, Western.