When you were a boy you had been nameless and now you unnamed each boy.
Anonymous then, anonymous now. You were not a name but a watcher, dedicated to a philosophy of watching, of inaction except for where action was necessary, and there was no way to put a boy into a house except by the taking. What else couldn’t be omitted? Food for the boy, food and drink. Whatever could be fed from a bowl, served with a spoon at room temperature. Even for yourself you wouldn’t make anything more complicated, couldn’t see the point of intricacy.
You read but you were not good with books. Every written word was an abstraction instead of the thing. What use were articles, conjunctions, prepositions. The way an adjective or an adverb revealed nothing except a wrong-named object or action. But who could know all the right names against the vagueness of the world, the insufficient exactness of nouns. You didn’t want a better system but rather a removal of all systems, the reduction of complex things to their simplest parts. What you wanted was the irreducibility of a centermost point, occupied by a single set of figures. The hollow inside, the blank at the heart of mystery.
The few people who saw you thought you were a mute or else slow, but you could talk, think for yourself. Only in the manner of your choosing. Only at a time of your making. You would talk only to the next boy, vowed silence against all others. Until then you revealed nothing. No one would ever know your names for the gone boys. The story others told about you would not be the story of the boys. For it was always the killer who was remembered, never the killed.
So grandiose: the killer, the killed.
You didn’t want to hurt the boys. Not until there was no other choice. And with the last boy, the intruder had made sure you hadn’t had to hurt anyone. The intruder saved the boy and also he saved you, because when you were finished with the boy you hadn’t had to hurt the boy to set you both free.
THE PAYCHECKS DIDN’T COME IN the mail. The office was at the front of a warehouse, a small rectangular room with a glass partition over wood paneling, separating the receptionist’s desk from the chairless waiting area. The receptionist was bleached blonde, tanned brown, embraced a certain brand of department-store professionalism. He could stand there grinning all day and still he’d never be invited past the glass, the locked door.
He opened the check in the truck, read the number lower than what he’d expected. The reductive mathematics of taxes, Social Security, Medicare. The bank was closed by the time he arrived but there was an ATM outside. In the dusk and the falling snow he pulled the new card from his wallet, followed the screen’s instructions prompt to prompt. He forgot he needed a pen to sign the check, jammed the cancel button until the screen reset. There was a pen in the truck, clipped to the case notes. He found it in the glove box, then shut the truck door, turned to walk back.
In three separate movements Kelly saw the gun, the hand holding the gun, the man who owned the hand.
He did what the man with the gun said. At his urging Kelly opened his wallet to reveal small bills ordered by denomination, some faded receipts. Back at the machine the man with the gun lurked out of the camera’s eye, told Kelly where he wanted him to stand while he worked the keypad, depositing the check, guessing at his daily limit. The mugger kept a stride’s worth of distance but occasionally he closed it for effect, pressing the barrel of the pistol into Kelly’s back, where Kelly could barely feel it through the thickness of his coat.
Each time the nub of the pistol’s barrel touched him Kelly felt a diminishment of effect. He could get used to anything, even a pistol snug against the small of his back. He withdrew another hundred dollars, watched the worth of his time pass into the mugger’s hands.
Now your keys, the man with the gun said. Hand them over.
No more, Kelly said. You’ve taken what I have for you to take.
Kelly turned. The man with the gun raised the weapon. Kelly wasn’t confused about whether or not the pistol was loaded but he didn’t think the man would fire it. The bank parking lot wasn’t the center of the zone. There were rules here, an expectation of law, punishment. They stood a couple blocks outside the most desperate geography, and maybe distance meant everything. It was dark and snowing but there were cars driving by on the avenue. Someone would witness whatever happened next unless the man timed it right. The police would come. Kelly had to believe this. The girl with the limp would send them, they would come by her voice.
Kelly laughed and the man with the gun started. Kelly remembered the school gymnasium, other incidents in other cities. How once the fight began there might be no stopping him. He took a step forward. The mugger’s face swapped expressions. At closer range Kelly could see the details were shaking.
Kelly said, You’re what I knew you would be.
The mugger spoke, his voice shifting. What are you talking about.
Kelly said, I would rather you were anyone else. Anyone different.
A surprise, said Kelly. That’s what I wish you were.
I’m not giving you my truck, he said. My truck is my life.
Kelly took another step forward and whatever sometimes happened to his heart happened again. All his blood gushing around and he could track every singing pint. Kelly’s face dropped its blankness for another expression, something sporting. He told himself it wasn’t the color of the man that made him feel this way. There were other factors. Dress and speech and something else, something learned. Greater than, less than. The beliefs of the town named like poison.
They were both sweating, breathing hard through the waiting.
Get the fuck out of here, Kelly said, with such force he thought the man with the gun would run. Instead the mugger slowly lowered the weapon, put it back into his pocket. He zipped his jacket, pulled the hood up, put it back down. It was a cold night but not that cold. Kelly waited next to the truck, fingers clenched around the keys, the metal carving his palms. He waited in the falling snow until the man with the gun had walked two blocks, three blocks, then around a corner. The pounding in Kelly’s chest continued, a fist trying to escape its slatted cage. He thought he wanted the feeling to last.
At the bar that night a man called another woman a cunt and the girl with the limp was there to tap the man on the shoulder, to register her complaint. She didn’t mind cursing but she wouldn’t put up with other kinds of comments, certain kinds of objectification. Her rude body had made her an object of curiosity and she had no tolerance for unwelcome comment. What was happening to her was vulgar but it was also hers.
To the man, she said, You can say what you want but don’t say it around me.
When the man called her a cunt too, then Kelly took her by the arm and dragged her from the room, leaving their drinks unfinished, their bar tab unpaid. Some people loved to talk and talk. Kelly didn’t default to the right words but if he talked slow enough he might say fewer of the wrong ones. On the way back to her place he tried to grope after the handle of the day’s story, the place to open it up, let it out. He was embarrassed by his victimhood. He knew he was angry but he was having trouble feeling more than some numb portion of the rage. He could see the man with the gun if he let his eyes close. She caught him blinking too much and asked if he was okay. He shifted his expression into a smile, made small talk about the new job he hated. The worst part about keeping a secret was anything going wrong seemed to be about the secret. But so little revolved around his gravity, held an orbit. The case was his secret, the mugger too. The latest in a long line of things he had done, would do, had had done to him. The confusion of past and present and future. He didn’t have to share. This was their agreement. They believed there was a certain kindness to keeping yourself to yourself.