David first saw him on the bus. Not the six-oh-five crosstown, that was just it. He’d gone straight to Nabob’s after work and had already come up with a table (fireside, of course, he would finally get the fireplace tonight of all nights) when Christina had called the restaurant, apologized a blue streak and scampered off to OR to clean up after the appendix-bomb that had gone off in some poor kid’s stomach twenty minutes earlier. Not having the spirit to engage in any real meaningful battle over a cab, David hopped aboard the seven-twenty, which was loading on the corner just as he left the restaurant.
The guy was one seat up and across the aisle. He glanced back once early on, then again, a light in his smoky gray eyes that David recognized as a particular kind of uncertainty. I know you, I think. Do I know you? A youngish guy, maybe a little younger than David himself. Late twenties. Dark hair and soft features, a day’s worth of stubble, and besides looking only vaguely like the guy David had seen on a Grape Nuts commercial, completely unfamiliar. When he looked back the third time, David decided to give him the nod—that polite and general one that covers those situations where eye contact has been made with a stranger and something seems like it should be done. Then he unfolded the evening edition he’d grabbed from the machine outside Nabob’s and turned to the comics.
The guy looked back again right around thirty-fourth and Warburton, started to stare.
By the mid-fifties, it was time for another decision. Look up? He toyed briefly with the idea of screaming “What?” into the guy’s face, decided ultimately to give social cues another chance and stay with the comics. Try to look really engrossed. See, man? I’m reading. I’m reading so hard that I don’t even notice you.
They pulled up to the stop, a six-block stroll from his apartment building, ten minutes later. The guy watched him all the way off the bus.
Ike’s was on the corner, and after getting off the bus David looked at his watch, saw that it wasn’t even eight, and decided to duck in for a beer. It turned out to be Karaoke Nite inside, as luck would have it. He downed a Heineken and made it out just as a middle-aged couple in matching sweaters began bellering “Unchained Melody,” staring drunkenly into each others’ eyes and holding the mike between them.
He was pressing the button at the crosswalk when a voice just behind him said, “Hi.” David turned and saw the Grape Nuts guy from the bus looking at him intently.
“Hi,” he said, and realized he was pushing the button repeatedly. He made himself stop.
The guy continued to watch him, saying nothing. David glanced at him again. He was wearing a sweater, fraying but bulky. Jeans. Sneakers. The night was cool enough that David could see vague tendrils of breath wisping from the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do I know you?”
The guy kept looking at him, expression pleasant, deep gray eyes revealing nothing. Just interest. David looked back and then, with a mental slap to the forehead, thought, Christ. I’m being picked up, here. He almost smiled.
“I saw you on the bus.” The guy gave a small smile, as if in explanation.
David just nodded, slowly. The way you nod to someone telling you about the poltergeist in their laundry room. “I… yeah. I noticed that.”
The guy nodded back and they just stood there, nodding at each other, two people who don’t share the same language giving each other directions.
The light was what saved the moment. It turned, and David gave a final nod and started across the street. The guy came right along with him. When they hit the other curb and David turned right, heading up the walk in the direction of his apartment, the guy didn’t miss a stride.
David gave a sigh of exasperation and stopped dead in his tracks. “Look, can I help you with something?”
At last, the gray eyes filled with warmth. The guy took a step closer. “Kill me.”
David felt his eyes fly open like window shades and he almost tripped backing up. “What?”
The guy repeated what David had thought he’d heard. Soft and definite. “Kill me.”
David began walking away very quickly. He kept one eye over his shoulder as he did. The guy jumped to catch up.
“Get away from me, man.”
“You can do it.”
David walked on, increasing his pace. The guy, whose stride was shorter, had to work at it a little. But he kept up. They covered the next block, and David stopped again. He faced the guy and tried to make his voice calm and friendly.
“Look. I’m sure you are a very nice person, but I’m seriously warning you, here. Get. The hell. Away from me.”
The guy just blinked and kept staring with that maddeningly passive gaze. Well, I’d like to, really. But I can’t do that. How come? Because I’m a raving fucking psychotic, see?
David shook his head and started on again, and when the guy stuck with him for another block he said, “Don’t make me break your goddamn nose, okay? Just leave.”
The guy put a gentle hand on his shoulder. David shrugged it off like it was something with maggots.
“Don’t break my nose. Break my spine. Kill me. You can.” He locked his gaze on hard, and the next time he said it he was whispering. “Kill me.”
David heard sharp footsteps up the block, their echo clock-clocking in and out of the alleyway between Fritz’s and The Golden Carrot. Beat cop.
Thank you, God.
“Officer,” he shouted. “This man is bothering me.”
The cop turned, cocked his head, and began walking in their direction. David felt himself cringe.
Beautiful. How very damsel-in-distress of you, Dave.
The cop strolled up, eyebrow suspiciously arched. At him. That was when David noticed the guy had gone.
Again. Beautiful.
“What’s that?” The cop looked to his right, then his left, all around them. A heavyhanded little piece of sarcasm, David thought, if ever there was one.
“Nothing. Never mind. Thanks,” he said, and walked on quickly, feeling the cop watch him all the way to the next block before the hollow clock-clock started up again.
David caught himself looking back every second or two, realized he was watching his back for the Grape Nuts guy.
I’m sure somebody’ll kill you, sport, he thought, then prayed as he reached the front steps of his building at last that there would be aspirin. Weirdness gave him a headache.
There were no aspirins, as if he couldn’t have guessed that, but there was a single, lonely Heineken in the fridge, which he uncapped and took with him to the shower. He cranked the thing onto Nearly Unbearable, closed the door and let the place fill with steam, stood under the spray, setting the head on massage and letting it bombard his forehead, the back of his neck. He stayed until the water began cooling in incremental shades.
Worked, by God. And the beer hit the spot well enough that he decided to throw on jeans and a sweatshirt, hop down the block to Sammy’s for another six. Saturday tomorrow, and if he was forced to spend Friday night Christinaless, might as well assemble himself in front of the tube and buzz the evening happily away. He made it back in roughly eight minutes, had popcorn ready in ten, and plopped into the sofa group, with blankets and pillows, in twenty minutes flat.
He had three dead soldiers and nothing but unpopped kernels in the bowl when he heard a key snick into the doorknob. Letterman was just getting underway.