The apartment was hot, damp, smelled like sweaty socks were preheating in the oven. The place was obviously a hermit's, just like all the other hermitages Snowden had bagged up in the months before. The way people lived, the way people really lived when they were alone, when they didn't think anyone would ever be coming by and shame had no hold on them, was like this. The smell, the curtains pulled to hide from satellites and God, the dishes kept in a dirty sink jam and cleaned one at a time as need arose, the total absence of a bare surface of any kind. We resent rats for their similarities to humans, not their differences.
The clothes lining the narrow hallway made it easier for Snowden to walk down it without being heard, but not much. The toilet top wanted badly to swing out and bang into the wall, and Snowden's left hand threatened to drop the thing altogether if it didn't start cooperating. Snowden's right hand held the gun and it was pretty comfortable with that. A string of slow steps to avoid creaking on the hardwood floors. Snowden was doing well until about eight feet in when his foot went down and made a sound like a giant eating wooden cereal without milk, echoing down the hall to the room of the man he was supposed to be surprising. The only thing Snowden could think was, Oh poop.
It couldn't have been as loud as he'd heard it, that was silly, no mere footstep could thunder like that. I'm not Paul Bunyan, I'm Cedric Snowden, the second (the first one didn't turn out quite right). Snowden calmed himself and he felt, in a way not familiar with rational thought, that if he could focus hard enough he could calm his entire surroundings as well. As he concentrated, it seemed to be working. No shadows started moving toward him, no new sounds, creaks responded, just that sound of the radio and the constant call of sirens outside. I have nothing to fear, Snowden reminded himself. Then, without warning, the music stopped and a man Snowden immediately recognized as Ryan Waters (smaller in person) came screaming down the hall, an ax held above him.
Irving Howe's hairpiece served as a pretty good shield, composed as it was of good old-fashion porcelain almost an inch thick. It was heavy and hard to lift up to meet the repeated blows, but Snowden found just enough strength in his arm to do it. Snowden's lid was at almost no risk of even chipping, because even though Waters's weapon was a blur as it rained down, up close Snowden could see that it was not actually a metal ax head at the end of the wooden stick but instead the question mark crook of a cane. Emboldened by the revelation, Snowden pushed Waters back with each pounding, yelling several fragments such as, "I mean you no — ," "I come in — ," "I'm trying to — ," "Oh for the love of God — ," all of which went unnoticed as Ryan Waters kept screaming, "Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!" at the top of his lungs.
A block stronger than a blow and Ryan Waters went down the short distance to his feet. It was a hard fall, a leg caught completely off guard shot out from beneath him and Waters went straight down on his tailbone. That crunching sound, it wasn't just a product of loose floorboards. Snowden almost leaned his toilet top against the wall and offered a hand, but instead offered, "Ryan Waters, I'm here to help you." Maybe Ryan didn't want help, at least from Cedric Snowden.
Maybe the look on Waters's face was just because Snowden pushed his own face to mere inches away and was talking in the lightest audible whisper to keep Lester from overhearing. Maybe it was simply the fact that this intruder knew his name that sent Ryan Waters running down the hall, but it didn't matter because, like that, Waters had scrambled away and was gone.
Snowden stood, gun in one hand, oversized potty protection in the other, stunned at the spurning of his offer. It took a good three seconds of Waters not coming charging back for Snowden to remember himself and chase after him.
It was the decor of the bedroom that caught Snowden off guard. It was a mess, more so than the rest of the apartment, but it wasn't the clothes that lined the floor that were so startling, it was the clothes affixed to nearly every inch of the walls. The man had taken women's panties and nailed them up as trophies. Huge panties, most of them, Snowden saw the big thick and dull fabrics and was imagining the big thick and dull women who'd been in them when Waters popped up from behind and slammed his cane full force into the back of Snowden's skull.
The reason Snowden didn't pass out was pure physics, and the luck that he'd looked up to see the drawers hanging saggy from the ceiling so that the cane hit where his head was the hardest. Snowden's legs did buckle, a hand did reach out to find this world again, but when Snowden righted himself, even Ryan Waters seemed a bit impressed as Snowden managed to lift the gun and point it at him.
They went into the bathroom because Snowden found the bedroom disgusting and he was the one with the gun in his hand. It was a good choice — it was the least cluttered room in the apartment and the slight smell of urine actually canceled out some of the more aggressive odors of the place. Snowden told Waters to sit down, nodded the gun barrel at the lip of the tub, and Waters did it. Now we're getting somewhere.
"Look, I am sorry for this little unannounced entry, but you have got to believe me, it could be worse. I've been hired to kill you. If you listen to me, I can help you save your life." Snowden used Lester's gun as part of his hand gestures and Ryan Waters stared at it like it was a ventriloquist's dummy. Sweat dripped down Snowden's face in a long stream, he could feel it. Only when he followed Ryan Waters's growing eyes to the floor did Snowden see that it was blood instead.
"Hey man," Snowden touched his scalp with his gun hand; his hair was like a wet sponge. "You almost freaking killed me."
"What are you bitching about? You're the one that just broke in my place, ain't you?" Waters asked. "Oh man, that's disgusting!" The last thing Snowden wanted to see, as his vision began to blur, was the face of revulsion on this man, curator of the bloomer museum. "Goddamn, brother," Waters cringed. "You're bleeding all over my floor. Why don't you put some toilet paper on that shit or something?"
Snowden the Snowman felt as pale and cold as his nom de guerre. Looking down at the blood referencing Pollock on his shoes, Snowden felt pathetic too, powerless to stop the flow, one hand refusing to drop the gun that kept his captive at bay, the other refusing to drop its heavy shield in case the first hand failed its objective.
"You want me to get a tissue for you?" Waters asked, grimacing.
"I came here to help you. There's someone out there who wants to kill you. You have to get out of town."
"Sure there is. I really appreciate you coming out here and sharing that with me. Could've just looked me up in the phone book, I'm listed, but you know, that's your thing, I can dig that. Come on, let me get that tissue for you. Maybe you should put that shirt in cold water so it don't stain."
It was a really nice shirt. A nod, more defeated than permissive, and Ryan Waters was wrapping toilet tissue around his fist, nearly two inches worth when he was done, which in no way buffered the blow when instead of wiping off the blood from the floor the little weasel chose to punch Snowden as hard as he could in his groin.
Males spent lifetimes watching other men simulate taking direct, deliberate, forceful blows to the testicles. Sitcoms, women's self-defense shows, children's movies, it didn't matter how inane or stupid the presentation, men would cringe every time they saw it because they knew somewhere out there this most painful, incapacitating of attacks was waiting for them. It turned out that Cedric Snowden's was biding its time in the bathroom of Apartment 24 of 433 West 128th Street, sitting patiently on the toilet like his balls were Godot.