This is different.
Waking in complete darkness like this, it lasts longer. It feels less like waking and more like you’ve just begun dreaming – the type where you know it’s a dream and you can control your thoughts within the dream. That’s what this feels like at first. Then, it slowly drips into the realization that I’m wrong, this is no dream. I feel my body, the tape, the pain. I kick my bound legs out and shake myself around. I can feel the duct tape across my mouth now, the throbbing in my head. I’ve been hit on the head. I know where I am. I’m locked in the trunk of a car. I don’t know why. I don’t remember – I know I was at dinner, then I was walking home. That’s it, as far as I can remember. I don’t know even if there IS anything more to remember – if I was hit suddenly, or if there was more to the story but the concussion erased it. That’s the funny thing about not remembering.
I assume I’m going to die. I’ve done things in my life that have made people mad. I know there are people who want me dead. I don’t know who’s taken it upon themselves. So I’m waiting; there’s nothing else to do.
I had a friend who knew he was going to die. The doctor gave him six months and the sonofabitch was right on the money. So my friend had this period in his life where he knew his own end. He lived, boy; he enjoyed that time. He spent it the right way, doing all the things people would figure they would do in that situation: fulfilling some of his dreams, spending time with the people he cared about, letting them know everything he wanted to tell them, all those things. I think we all have an instinctive desire, before we die, to say everything there is to say, everything we think or know. He had that chance. When you’re dying, nobody makes fun of you for talking about the things that matter. It wasn’t all Hallmark. He got laid. He did it right. This is different.
For a few minutes I argue with myself, trying to bring hope into the equation. I mean, I don’t know who did this, I don’t know what this is about. Maybe they’re not going to kill me. But they are. I know it. Like my friend, I know my own end. But what good is that knowledge to me? Should I be living my life differently now that I know my time is measured? Should I be squeezing the juice out of every last second of life, making the most of this precious gift? Bound and gagged in the trunk of a car? My options are limited. My life, what remains of it, is playing out in my mind, in the dark. My body might as well be dead already.
I hear a door close, and feet shuffling; somebody’s walking closer. I try to move to make noise, to get his attention, but I’m so confined I can just limply tap the side wall with my feet. It feels so impotent. Then the car door opens and I know that whoever it is doesn’t care. He knows I’m here already. He’s here to kill me probably. At least something is happening now, at least there’s more than my brain to listen to. The car is started, we’re going somewhere. Heh-heh. I wonder what my ultimate destination is. I’m scared now.
*
Car. Body. Me. My work is simple. I laugh about it as I start the car. I don’t think about the body specifically. It’s simple work if you don’t think about it. Anyways, it needs doing right now. The garage is dark and ugly and it always makes me feel kind of spooked, but pulling out, the sun is up, and we are on our way into a beautiful day. Me, car and body. The Unholy Trinity, rolling down the street, on the way to our day job just like everyone else this morning. Rush hour traffic in Toronto I can do without. Everyone’s got a place to go, though. I find this amusing. I know what I’ve got in my car. Hey buddy, what have you got in yours? What’s in your trunk? Ha. Who knows? Who knows how many sick bastards are running around in this city with bodies in their trunks? Look at my car, green Chevy Caprice. Old and rusted. In Toronto rush hour it looks different from the Audis and Civics and SUVs, but nothing too peculiar about it. Maybe every car has a story as interesting as this. Every window has something behind it. I have a long drive; I don’t think too much about the body specifically, just let my mind wander.
The traffic is murder. The Don Valley Parkway in summertime construction. I’ve got all day, though. It’s nice when I’m not in a rush. I feel like I get paid to just sit in traffic and do nothing. I wish that was all there was to my job. I guess I shouldn’t complain about the traffic then. It always ends eventually, and then there’s that other part.
North of Toronto, I pull in at a truck stop for breakfast. I’ve been here enough times before, but nobody knows me. The regulars seem to talk to each other, to the waitresses, so easily. I eat in anonymity. It makes me uncomfortable. Everywhere is like this now. You cultivate anonymity in this job, you don’t want to be noticed, right? But you feel like a ghost.
“’Scuse me, I’m heading up to ditch a body! Whereabouts are you from fella? Can I buy you a beer?” I want to shout.
I eat enough to fill my belly, know I’m alive. Too early for a beer anyway. I tip small, feeling angry at being unnoticed, then feel guilty after I’ve walked back out into the parking lot and the sun is back on my face and my belly is warm and full. It’s not the waitress’s fault things are like they are.
The car seat is nice and warm when I sit down. I need gas, put ten bucks in just to top off. Doesn’t take too much gas. Not like these truckers, with their heavy loads, eating their weight in fuel to get where they’re going. My load isn’t so heavy in that respect. I use my bankcard at the pump. No need to talk to anyone.
I wonder how four million people can live in the city and all pass through each other like ghosts. Or am I the only one? I guess it’s all a matter of degrees.
*
It hurts, bouncing along the highway like this. Been in this position, all my weight on these few points, for a while. If you’ve ever passed out on a hard floor and slept the night in one position, you can begin to understand what I’m talking about. The pain gets so bad in your shoulders and hips, but you kind of get used to it after a while. After a while, anything can become background noise. Then the funny thing is I can think about other things, forgetting the pain, but remembering again when we stop.
When the bouncing stops and I’m suddenly still, it feels like the pain is leaking from my body. I can’t think about anything else but my shoulder, all swollen up and leaking pain. After that pain passes, I finally process the fact that we’ve stopped. The car is quiet. And there are others out there moving slowly. I can hear cars. A parking lot, or a gas station or something. I try to bang on the side of the trunk but I just can’t get any force, I can’t do anything more than tap. I try to bang my head against the side, but I can’t get any traction; my shoulder slips a little on me. My god, I can actually hear people talk. How can they not hear me? My heart sounds so loud, my nose-breathing is so heavy, for God’s sake, how do they not hear me? The duct tape muffles my voice as I try to scream, but they should be able to still hear something. Why can’t I tap any harder than this? This could be my only chance and I’m so impotent. How can they not sense that there is a human being here, feet away from them, with just this thin sheet of metal separating us? I’m here!
I recognize his footfalls, his feet shuffling back over the gravel of the parking lot. His key is in the door. We’re going to move again. We’re going to leave here and he’s going to kill me, and these people are standing here close enough to fucking smell me. Oh God, I’m RIGHT HERE. Why can’t I tap any harder than this? The car is started. Please, there’s so little time left, and this is my whole life. We’re moving again. No. Stopped again. What… he’s getting gas. I can’t keep tapping, it hurts too much, my calves feel like they’re burning. Let him gas up in peace. He knows I’m here.
Back onto the highway. I wonder if there is any good way to run out a life without a body? I wonder if there is any good way to run out life at all? Maybe the whole point of life is not thinking about when you’re gonna’ die. Maybe, once you know you’re dying, the game is over. Maybe it wasn’t all so satisfying for my friend, all those things he did in his final months. Maybe he was really dead already, he was just going through the motions. Maybe when you know you’re dying, life is like scoring goals after the other team has pulled the goalie. Is that what it felt like to accomplish those things? In baseball, they don’t let you bat in the bottom of the 9th if you’ve already won the game. Life’s not like this. You keep going, scoring meaningless runs. Maybe I’m lucky, my body’s been put on the injured reserve, I get to watch the clock run out from the bench, don’t have to bother with meaningless exertions and Kabuki dancing. We’re off the highway now, onto a smaller road.