My legs are shaky when I walk up the stairs to the third floor. Unlocking the door, I’m grateful Johnny and Cliff are both gone. I don’t have it in me to interact, even minimally. When I remove the padlock on my bedroom door, I toss it, with the key still inserted, on a shelf next to my cassettes. My backpack is empty on my sleeping bag where I left it this morning. Unzipping it, I throw in only essentials: the money I’ve been saving for two years, and the sleeping pills I took from the medicine cabinet in 2A after the tenants were evicted last year. One will buy me a bus and cab ride to the mountains, and the other will buy me oblivion. Next I throw in a few things that I’d like with me when I go out because they remind me that sometimes the universe creates remarkable beauty: Nina’sPhysical Graffitialbum because it will forever remind me of her; my first editionDark Knight Returnscomic book because getting lost in someone else’s imagination and art provided a necessary coping mechanism for years; and a pencil drawing of Alice standing on the fire escape staring unseeing, but all-knowing, at a sky filled with stars only she can behold.
Zipping up the backpack, I leave it on the floor and quickly change out of my dress clothes and into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Everything is moving in slow motion now, maybe because the adrenaline has worn off and I can’t keep up with reality. Each movement is exaggerated, my senses dull and gauzy. Physical sensation feels sedate, like I’m so tired that my extremities are numb. I’m always tired, but this is a new level.
Before I leave, there’s one more thing I need to do. I need to leave the letter I wrote to Johnny last night in his room. It’s not a goodbye, it’s anI’m leaving to start over somewhere new, thanks for everythingletter. Short enough that he’ll think I’ve moved on now that I’m done with school, but long enough that my heart won’t have to take on an extra dose of guilt because I know he won’t suspect anything and look for me.
I’ll disappear and never be heard from again.
And everyone will assume I ended up as far as a bus ticket would take me and made a new life.
That’s all I want.
I don’t want people to worry.
I don’t want people to question.
I just want people to forget and keep living their lives. I’ll slip out of the daily flow the same way I lived in it…unseen.
Leaving the letter and the sunglasses I’ve been wearing all morning, but apparently don’t have the constitution to steal, on Johnny’s dresser, I walk back for my backpack in my room. I consider putting the padlock back in place on my door but then leave it where it is on the shelf because it doesn’t matter. Shifting my eyes from the padlock to the box of Nina’s stuff on the bottom shelf, for a moment I consider opening it one last time and looking at her things. But then I realize I’m stalling.
Delaying the inevitable.
You’re nothing, is the rallying cry from within that pulls me out of the past and into the moment. That and the phone on the kitchen wall is ringing shrilly. It’s instinct to answer it, to do my job, but then I remind myself that I’m on a mission. And that broken appliances aren’t my concern anymore.
By the time I reach the front door, the answering machine has answered the call. And by the time I open the door Johnny’s greeting that isn’t much of a greeting has ended and the caller is speaking, “Johnny…”
I’m pulling the door shut on what is no longer my problem when I stop. An internal war is being waged.Shut the fucking door and leave!is screaming over the top of,Something is really wrong!
I’m shaking my head because this cannot be happening. I have plans. This is it. I’m so close. And I’m so fucking tired. The tears have come again. They’re warm but the flesh they’re trailing over is beginning to feel raw and chapped. It’s burning.
I’m listening to the message through what is now only a crack in the door. I know the voice. I don’t understand the words. But I can hear the pleading and desperation and it cuts to the bone. It’s the kind of pain that’s almost impossible to talk through, but worst of all, it’s blinding fear. He’s terrified. He wants Johnny, but Johnny isn’t here. Clicking the door shut, I walk toward the stairs.
The first flight I descend, I tell myself,Johnny will probably be back soon.
The second flight I descend, I tell myself,You are such an asshole.
And then I’m knocking on his door and yelling his name, “Mr. Street, are you okay?”
No answer.
Thinking back, I haven’t seen him in over two months. He hasn’t called with any issues. His cab parked out front hasn’t moved.
I try the doorknob, but it’s locked.
I knock again. “Mr. Street?”
Nothing.
Anxiety has flooded me. I can hear his voice from minutes ago in my head.Do something!my brain screams.
My run back up the stairs is an out-of-body experience. I don’t know how my legs are moving but they are, and by the time I walk back into apartment 3A my lungs are protesting vehemently. I retrieve my keys, padlock and all, and run back down. My legs, lungs, and hands are shaking when I fit my master key into the lock on Mr. Street’s door and push it open.
“Mr. Street?” I yell again.
He’s not in the living room or kitchen, and the bathroom door is open and the small room is empty. Which only leaves the bedroom. When I open the door, I am not prepared for what I’m about to see. There’s a man in the bed who bears only a slight resemblance to the man I last saw months ago. Thin has transformed into gaunt. His eyes are ringed in shadows and sweat sheens his brow. Painful looking sores adorn his face and arms.
“Toby, thank God,” he whispers in a southern drawl I’ve never heard. Looking at him, not only can I hear the desperation, pain, and fear…I canseeit. The pairing is shocking.
I find that I’m nodding without making a conscious decision to do so. Frozen where I stand, I ask, “Should I call an ambulance?”
