“You reading comic books, Harry?”
I looked up above the pages I had on my desk under the glow of broad TVs showing the stiff turns and complacent views of the security cameras. My shift had been too long already. Since 5 o’clock, I had sat watching the cameras record the doings in corporate hallways of the Madison building and trying to keep peace between the usual office rivalries. LAND Games design always was at odds with a tiny little tourist company across the hall named Meteor, but they had been quiet for most of today. It had been boring, so I answered the security guard that’d take over the rest of the shift for today flatly. “Yes.”
He finished stringing himself up with the walkie-talkie system we wore, and sat down beside me. “What is it this time?”
“Do you mind?” I said, moving the comic back and away.
“What, you don’t want me to see?” he asked with sarcasm slipping out of his lips.
“Since when did you get so interested in comics, Will?” I said, testing him and slipping the comic by my brown leather jacket that I would wear outside of work.
He sat back, bored. “Fine.”
I nodded back to him. “Fine. You’ll let me read in peace?”
Will picked up the controls of one of the cameras and started watching the screens. “Yeah, sure.”
He was a big lummox. Lummox isn’t a word often used, and it’s usually wasted on people better described as ‘oaf’ or ‘troll.’ But Will Vandyke was really a lummox. He had a big way of moving, and, like most of the people in security work, was difficult to wrestle. The best way I found around him was to not try. His attention was easily taken or distracted, and I was often saved from talking to him by some other item of business.
And so I returned to my book.
It was right in that tight moment that the villain, a long-armed and strong character, was pummeling the hero back into a brick wall that crumbled and sank in from the force. The dust settled for a moment and the villain strode coolly to the pile where the hero lay, arms and legs spread in a limp mess.
“I was going to destroy you, you know.”
A muffled grumble from the rubble heap.
“It was going to be the greatest time of my life, really. Having finally conquered one of those troubles that so few people ever get to solve.”
The hero’s hands started to move, pushing some of the small bricks and mortar away.
“Maybe that’s the gift of my life. Every life is lucky in some way, and cursed in some way. My gift may be that I am allowed to have you as my central problem. It’s painful to me, but some people don’t have the joy being able to really wrestle that which plagues them.” And he kicked the hero, who crumpled down slowly.
“That which invades their lives,” the villain continued. Getting more and more angry, the villain was kicking harder and harder. “That which defies every attempt at a decent life I ever have tried!”
And for a few dark minutes in that basement, the kicks kept coming. It was in the last minute that the final kick was given and the hero’s strength came back to him, and he caught the foot. Twisting, he brought the lanky villain down, and stood up quickly.
“If decent means getting rid of your life’s troubles,” the hero said, rising and catching the long arms that immediately went out to grab him. “If that’s what you think is decent, then you’ve learned nothing from life.” The hero’s arms flexed hard and he wrestled around the villain into the corner. “It’s those troubles that shape us, and make us stronger. And it’s up to us to decide what to do with that strength.” With that, he kicked the villain solidly in the chest, who fell back into the wall. Far from being knocked out, he sprang back up and stretched out his arms to reach across the basement for the hero. Waiting with a smirk, the hero bit his lip until the arms were just a second away. He ducked and sprang forward.
The momentum of the villain’s hands smashed into the brick wall and fuse-box behind the hero. Smoke, light, and sparks sprang up and around the room for a moment and the villain’s cry filled the page. In the end, he crumpled down with his distended arms strewn on the floor. The hero got onto his knees, taking a breath.
“How’d he know that’s where the fuse-box was?” Will asked.
I looked up from the page, annoyed and shaken. “What?”
“The fuse-box.”
I elbowed Will, who was conveniently placed after reading over my shoulder. “Is it time for my shift to end?”
“Huh? Yeah. Yours ended a while ago. It’s 11:10 now.”
I shut the book and pulled off the walkie-talkie wires. “Thanks.” After getting out of most of the uniform, I pulled on the jacket, left the Madison building through the back, and started walking down to the bus stop at the end of the street. The shops I passed were closing or already closed, and only a few people were out on the sidewalks. Even fewer cars zipped by on the road. The near-empty street reminded me of the apartment I didn’t want to walk home to, and still did. Privacy was there, but that was the only thing. A few ferns in the window that a friend gave me were the only things that kept the lonely home at all interesting. I was thinking that the flat, beige carpet would make a good difference when I reached the bus stop. The few quarters in my pocket still jingled there, and I waited. According to the schedule, I had five minutes to wait.
The din in the street was quieter than usual but there were still distant voices, two or three shouting at once, and the water from today’s rain dribbling down into the drains with sloshing splashes. There seemed to be so many things out there that the silence in the empty apartment I was imagining was a constant reminder that I was missing something in my life. That there was some reason why there were no sounds in my apartment, except for the fan that clicked when I left it on. I probably did this afternoon. Tomorrow wouldn’t be too different. Brighter, busier, and moving like a living thing that wakes for a little while, but when the time comes, it slows down and rests back into the apartments and houses. I touched the rough, ticked edge of a quarter. There was that serrated edge to life that we never can pick ourselves out of. But why do we try? Can we just wait for other people to lift us out of the morass that we wade through and can’t swim out of? And why can’t we wait, if that’s the only way out? I looked at my watch. How long should we wait?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short and stocky woman step out into the dark streets. She seemed oddly alien with a yellow-and-white polka dot dress and the dank brownstone buildings behind her with orange streetlight showering down. In one of her outstretched hands, she dangled a skinny boy with bushy hair and no shirt. It wasn’t cold, but it was night and the boy seemed miserable in the grips of the shouting woman. Her words were distorted by the time they reached me from a half-block down, but her finger-shaking and release of the boy onto the steps of her door told me he wasn’t allowed back in. She slammed the door, which made a crisp sound in the street. The boy stood still in front of the door, and scratched his back after a second of waiting. How long would he need to wait? The boy’s skinny white arms swung sadly as he stepped down onto the street and waited. What mother would leave their child in the night as a punishment for very long? The boy stepped down and around, not remembering to look down the street, and was exploring the sidewalks, picking up little bits of trash. How long should he wait for help?
I took my first steps toward the block, when the thunderous approach of the bus stopped me. After a hiss and a jerk, the door folded open and the engine waited, chugging. My bus home. I turned to face the bus driver, who raised an eyebrow at me, and I looked back at the kid, who sat on the stoop, curled up under orange streetlight.
“You comin’?” the coffee-riven voice said out of the bus.
I stuttered for a moment. In that second, I saw the door open again behind the boy, and the yellow-and-white polka dot dress reached out and hugged the boy, who fell into his mother’s arms. “Yeah, I’m coming,” I said.
I pulled myself up on the rails, quickly putting in two quarters. I grabbed one of the rails on top with my free hand, and turned quickly to watch the boy and the yellow-and-white polka dot dress disappear into the yellow light beyond the door. The bus jerked sharply starting, and with a hiss and pull, the bus rocked down the road to my next stop.
I didn’t think to sit down, but instead waited and stood, watching the bus driver sip his coffee precariously while driving. After a few slow turns and long, hypnotic straightways, I reached my stop, and made my way down to the folded door. Stepping down on firmer ground, I looked up to face my own building, looking not unlike the boy’s home. Except, outside, a few boxes were stacked, and furniture was being loaded in from a truck on the sidewalk. A hiss, jerk, and clank, the bus roared and whined its way down the road and out of sight.
I walked over to see an apartment number on the box. B-43. Mine was B-45. Convenient. I picked up a pair of boxes, setting the comic book on top of the two, remembering to remind myself not to forget it’s on someone else’s stuff. The boxes were heavy, but of a manageable shape, and I made it quickly up the stoop and into the door with my key. The hallway light was on, but one of the bulbs was going out or wasn’t screwed in and the light was flickering slightly, making the effect of a strobe light. The boxes covered my view of my feet, but with the surety that comes of familiarity, I made my way up to the B-level apartments. I started the walk down the hallway, remembering the wall and hoping to bump into someone who would recognize their own box. B-31, B-33, B-35, B-37.… After a moment, I found the box to be very heavy, and, in moving it around in my hands for a better grip, knocked a few of the things out of place. It sounded like books.
After a lot of steps, I found I was standing in front of my door, and already past B-43. Making a small grunt, I turned around, looking on the cheap wallpaper for the break where a door is. B-43. Right next door. I hefted the boxes a little higher on my arms. It seemed a little impossible trying to knock with two boxes in my hands. But suddenly, the wooden door cracked open, and the woman that opened it sprang back and I caught a brief flash of brown wavy hair.
I tried to speak quickly, but I was so surprised my mouth was a little slow to work.
“Who are you?” she said from behind the quickly closing door.
“I’m just a guy carrying your boxes up. It’s the last load, I think. And I’m losing my good grip,” I lied, trying to sound more pathetic and non-threatening.
Brown wavy hair and one eye looked through the crack at me, and it blinked. “Hi.”
“Hi… can I set this down somewhere for you?”
“Um,” she stuttered. “Hold on a sec.” And the door closed completely on me. There was a small rustling going on behind the door, and so I tried to lean the boxes on the wall. That’s when I saw it. My comic book. A moment’s improvisation saw me grab the comic from on top of the boxes, consider putting it in my jacket where it would fall out, and then toss it onto the floor in front of my door. I stood back up in the hallway, not watching the comic book when the door opened again, and she appeared.
The night had obviously been long for her; there was no make-up and her hair was a little sweated-out in a toss that only wavy hair can do. A loose-blue tank-top was covered up by a nylon running jacket that didn’t match the sweats or the tank-top. But her breath was slowing down, and her thin face didn’t seem very angry or guarded.
“I’m sorry, but who are you again?”
“I’m your next-door neighbor. I’m B-45.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding her head. She swallowed and caught the last of her breath. “Sorry if I startled you. Come in.…”
“Thanks,” I said, lifting the boxes up a little bit for effect.
“Those very heavy?” she asked as she led me into a mostly empty room. The sofa and book-cases were already in place, and a large desk was off in the corner. Although none of the boxes were unpacked but in stacks, the place seemed already moved-in. I figured it had something to do with the rug in the front area.
“Not really heavy. But I wouldn’t mind setting them down.”
“Oh, um,” she looked at them for a second. “Books… There.” And she pointed to a small stack of boxes beside the hallway leading into the bedroom. I set them down steadily and wiped my hands of the dust that came off the boxes. The cream-white walls and beige floor gave the room the illusion of more light than the little lamp on the desk and the kitchen light to the side gave.
“It’s a nice apartment.”
She nodded, giving a small thanks, and tossed some of her tired hair away from her face. I wanted to guess that she hadn’t had the shoulder-length hair-cut for long, but it could have just been the long day. Or the intruder. I reached my hand out, with my casual smile, hoping that I didn’t look too tired from my own day.
“My name’s Harry.”
“I’m Carole. Would you like some water or something? I just finished unpacking the cups.” And she walked over to the kitchen, nervously pulling a cup out of a box that she hadn’t unpacked.
“No thanks. I probably should be on my way. It’s pretty late.”
Carole quickly popped her head out and walked up to her front door. “No, wait… I think – well, there’s one more box.…”
I nodded. “I can get it,” I said with a real smile. I was glad for something to do. When I brought that last box up, she smiled and I imagined that she was wearing a little more make-up. But I just helped her assemble her bed, so that she could sleep. By the time that I went to my own apartment, the clock on my mantle read 12:30 AM in broad, digital letters. And the noise of Carole moving boxes in the other room made the silence in my apartment a little less empty.