I started ahead. Each step made a precise, distinct sound. Behind me I heard those kids laughing and then one of them hooted, "Jesus, man, whose side you on?" and they all laughed some more. The man in the windbreaker passed by me on the far side of the street; up ahead, the two men with the laundry bags disappeared in the dark. And then I could see the garage. Quiet. Recessive. Like some forlorn crossroads gas station on a lonely stretch of road in the bush. There was a sign on top of it, braced by a wooden scaffold — commercial lot for sale murphy realty 543-6454—and beside it was an overgrown yard and a boarded-up house.
I slowed my pace: but no one showed himself. Coming even with the station, I angled across the asphalt apron toward the two skinny pumps. I stopped there and looked around. The dark building, the black asphalt, merged with the gloom. The whole street seemed to recede. And still no one appeared — indeed, the street was now completely deserted, for, looking back, I could see that even the man in the windbreaker had gone on his way. Stepping closer to the pumps, I realized that their hoses were cut and the glass over their gauges was broken. Inside, you could see the faded seals from the Michigan Department of Commerce. The dial was set at 39.9 cents a gallon and the last sale had netted $12.94.
Dark. Cold. And I had that sense of being out in the open… But he had to be able to see me. I began to fidget, tugging my gloves over my fingers, putting my hands in my pocket, taking them out again. Then — what the hell — I lit up a cigarette and let the Bic's flame show off my face. Still no one came. I smoked slowly, standing still but looking around in every direction. Shadows. The wind… Not too bad, I thought; or it wouldn't be if Grayson Street was a film set, I was Humphrey Bogart, and Lauren Bacall was back home fixing dinner. As it was… A couple of minutes slipped by. I smoked the butt down, then ground it out. Where in hell was he? I walked across to the gas station's office, thinking that he might be inside and still hadn't seen me. I stopped in front of the window. On it, one letter for each pane of glass, the words b-a-r-g-a-i-n g-a-s were spelled out in white paint. Close up, you could see the mark of the brush, and when I shaded my eyes and looked through the "r," the old, dusty glass filled my nose with a dirty, coppery smell. It was dark inside, hard to see, but I could tell no one was there. The place was a shambles. A plywood counter had been turned over and there was rubbish everywhere — bottles, flattened cartons, old cans, plastic jugs. No one had been here in weeks. I stepped back. But then I tried the office door and the knob turned easily. I hesitated, then stepped inside. It was darker. Colder. I stood in the doorway, feeling the darkness and emptiness of the street out behind me. I stared ahead. In the corner of the room was an old Coke machine, that kind with the white enamel lettering, and a wire rack for empties beside it. Feeling an urge to call out, I repressed it, then changed my mind. "Hello? Hello? Anyone there?"
Whistling in the dark… Now the silence left me feeling more than a little foolish. There wasn't even an echo, just grit grinding under my heel as I shifted my weight. To the left was the gray patch of the doorway in to the service bays. Now that I'd come this far, there was nowhere else left to go, so I stepped through; but just inside, wanting a clear line of retreat, I waited again. Open space stretched before me. It was very dark, but enough light leaked in from the street to make the darkness swirl and eddy like fog. It is just an old garage, but from there we can go somewhere else. I looked around. I could see two greasy pits where they'd taken out the lifts, a length of rubber hose dangling from a hook on the back wall, and right by my head there was a pasted-up picture of Miss Rheingold, 1955. But nothing more. Slowly, I edged into the gloom. The floor was cement, but huge chunks of it had chipped or crumbled away, so that patches of damp earth showed through. Smells: oil, that smell that cold concrete gets, the sour smell of wet earth. My toe nudged a can. I flicked it into the darkness, where it rattled away. Pivoting slowly, I looked back toward the street. Most of the panes in the service doors had been broken; on the others, scrawled in the dust, were the usual obscenities, and at ticktacktoe, "x" had won three times out of five… Deciding that no one was there, I flicked on my lighter and looked at my watch. Five thirty-eight. Was I being stood up?
Irritation. But I felt myself relax a little as well. I was certain now that no one was about to step out of the darkness and that made it easier to pretend I was being ever so brave. The trouble was, the obverse of fear isn't courage but boredom. I stamped my feet. Lit a cigarette. Began checking my watch every two minutes. Maybe he was lost, I thought, though that didn't seem right for a real Peter Kirillov. Peter was a mythical figure from the days of the Old Believers, holy Russian pilgrims who dreamed of a mythical Kingdom of the White Waters where righteousness reigned. The road there was hard and long, but in a certain village, if you could only reach it, Peter Kirillov would show you the right way… A car came up Grayson, casting a huge net of shadow around me — very melodramatic, but then it passed silently by. Five forty-six… He wouldn't come; I was sure of it. Or perhaps he was being subtle. Perhaps he was already here, watching, waiting for me to leave; then he'd follow me and present himself when I least expected it.
Actually, that was not inconceivable — and it made an excellent excuse for leaving right now. But I told myself to wait. Till six. Give him that long and then go.
Five forty-nine. I began moving around, just to keep warm. My eyes were getting used to the dark. I realized that the place had been abandoned for years; half the floor had crumbled away. There were a few plastic jugs and quart oil cans littered around a squashed cardboard carton or two, but the interior had been stripped to the bone by a generation of kids. Everything useful was gone. At some point vagrants had built a fire in the corner; tossing my cigarette onto a gray pile of ash, I continued along the back wall… and that's when I heard a slight sound. It wasn't much, barely a rustling… though more metallic than that. Yet not exactly a scrape. It came again. I stepped further along till I reached another doorway. The door itself was gone, but it was hard to see out because something was blocking the way. I went closer. It was just one of those big metal dumpers for picking up trash. I stepped outside, into a dark, cold zone that smelled of wet cinder and ash. I listened again, but didn't hear anything — it was probably nothing more than a rat — and then, deciding to walk around to the front of the building, I began to edge sideways between the dumper and the back wall of the garage. Old burdock. Gutter, dangling from brackets. An electric meter, all smashed to hell… Finally I squeezed around the edge of the dumper — and then the sound came again, from inside. A settling sound, a weight shifting. I hesitated — I don't much like rats or dark holes. But then I reached up, grabbed the top edge of the dumper, and pulled myself up. I looked in. Dropped back. I wasn't sure what I'd seen. I took out my lighter. Clumsy with my gloves, I adjusted the flame as high as I could, then hoisted myself back up. The damn thing was so rusty that the metal felt like sand under my fingers. With a grunt, I stretched forward, leaning my chest across the top rail, and stuck out my right arm. The orange flame of the Bic hissed and bent in the darkness. I looked down. The bottom of the dumper had rusted out years ago; now weeds poked through the filmy metal and a black puddle glistened in the mud. There wasn't much to see: a pile of old Quaker State oil cans, bits of muffler and pipe, half a door panel, and a painter's plastic drop sheet that was wrapped around something. All twisted and folded, the clear plastic sheet was shot through with wrinkles and fissures, like an ice cube. But the wrinkles were wet and red. And frozen at the center was the body of a fat, hairy man with no head, hands, or feet.