Phoenix I

Preparation was key. You can’t go kill a man without the proper things. I read the list outloud. And double checked if I had everything laid out on the bed. 

“Let’s see. Food.” I said to myself. 

Splayed out on the purple sheets were containers of yogurts and exactly twenty nine rice krispy treats. 

“Good source of protein, good source of carbs!” I checked that off.

“Water,” I had filled up eight bottles of various sizes. One had the words pee marked across it on a blue piece of tape. I wasn’t drinking pee, but once it was empty it would take on a new task. I don’t have to say what exactly that would be, that should be obvious. 

“Check! Clothes...” I had my blue shorts on and black tee shirt. I looked at the thermostat that was featured on our satellite alarm clock next to the bed. 109 degrees and it was still the morning. It was wild to be wearing black on a day like today. But when I sweat, the stains don’t show on black. Seems I’m always sweating, when it’s 109 degrees or just 9 degrees. The thick belly on me didn’t help. 

I gripped it with both hands and gave it a jiggle. I remembered how she would rub it and call it a bear’s belly. “Before or after hibernating?” I’d ask. The thought made me sick now, I can't believe she’d never laugh with me again. Also, sadly she was probably referring to after hibernation. I sighed, half-expecting to hear her giggle behind me. To come up behind me and kiss me on my neck. I was off to search for her in a way. Not just her killer.

I got back to work. “Clothes, that’s right.”

Looking over myself I decided I needed more than just this. I threw in a couple more black shirts. A pair of cut off blue jeans, a pair of stained sweatpants. I then took out and emptied my underwear drawer. A dozen pairs flopped over my shirts. 

“I probably don’t need that many,” I went to pull some back but… well you never know what can happen on the road. You misread one fart in Hawaii and you always overpack underoos from then on. 

The real question was if I should take some shoes. I looked at my hairy toes in my sandals. Just some brand store plastic thongs that had tanned my feet around the bands. I wriggled my fat digits. I opened my closest, shying away from the mirrored reflection that was on the door. I didn’t want to see the bags under my eyes, my thinning hair on top. How disheveled I was. I looked crazy. I felt crazy. Maybe I was crazy for doing all this?

But I dodged that question like I dodged my mirror and found my only pair of closed toed shoes. Work boots for my short stay as a contractor. I threw them on my pile. I noticed the hanging pressed  clothes in the closet. There was a white shirt, black tie, black pants, all creased and saran-wrapped from the cleaners. A note pressed to its sheen. 

“We are all thinking about you. Just get through today.” I read it aloud. I stared at the note and the hearts hand drawn around the words.

“Nope,” I said to myself as I crumpled it up. Tossing it over my shoulder I took the dry cleaned clothes and threw them onto the bed with the rest of my things.

You never know when you need formal attire. I didn’t know the rigors involved in tracking and killing someone. Maybe I would be like James Bond sneaking into a gala? The reality was I looked more like a mall cop and I was hunting down some junkie. I probably wouldn’t even be driving out of town. I just had to find the right people. Find this plague of a man. 

I’m packing for after, as well. 

The distance to where I was gonna end my life would be farther, most likely. No riding off in the sunset for me. There was no damsel in distress. The only person I cared about was dead and in ashes. Although it didn’t feel like that. It felt unreal, like everyone was lying to me. Hiding her from me. 

I looked back to my list, snapping back to reality. “Medication?” I tapped the line a couple of times. Thinking. Why had I put that there? I didn’t need my blood pressure medicine; I no longer needed to worry about my health seeing as I wasn't going to get to retirement age anymore.

That’s right! I realized. 

I ran to the fridge and opened it. There were a dozen prepackaged meals all in different Tupperware. All untouched and starting to turn sour. I threw some to the ground to get a better view of the back of the fridge. Nope. Not in there. Just a half eaten pie was uncovered. My shameful handy work. I ate it through many tears and snot that ran down my face and mixed with the peach filling, strangely it made it better, which only made me weep more.

 I opened the freezer and saw it. Still in its plastic bottle I pulled out the vodka. Full too. I swirled it and watched it foam just a bit.

“Medicine!” I smiled.

“What else?” I said as I returned to my ruined room making a wide berth of the stain at the bottom of the stairs. They tried to get the blood out of the carpet but to no avail. They had just turned it into a dried brown smudge. An inkblot. And in all the different lighting I only saw her face in it. And how I had let her die there. Beaten and helpless myself.

I looked at what was next. “Gun,” 

I pulled the revolver from my beltline and kissed the barrel. Feeling a little excitement rise in me. Pointing this at him. That might make everything make sense. And pulling the trigger might make her come walking back through that door. I aimed down the silver sight. Pretending his head was being drilled by my shot. His hat fluttered to the ground with strands of blood. 

My dog barked at me and jumped up on the bed. He was a small Blue Heeler named Chewy. He whined at me, dragging some of my clothes around unhappily. I told him to cut it out and he stopped. He sat, his tail slowing his wag to a halt. He had one black spot on his right eye and the rest of his fur was a steely gray speckled with black and white. He whined and barked again. 

“What? You want some attention?” I asked. His little eyes darted back and forth. Nervous “What? It’s not loaded,”

I cracked open the chamber and saw the gleaming ass-ends of six .32 caliber revolver rounds. 

“Shit,” I sputtered and started to unload them in my hand. The lever pushing the bullets back made a small clicking noise and it clicked something over into my tumbling thoughts. I stopped.  I can’t kill a man with an empty gun. I loaded the rounds back into it and gently placed the gun on my pillow. 

Chewy went to grab it with his mouth but I barked out a no and he whimpered and slunk back down to the ground. Laying down obediently with a yawn.

“Good boy, you little dingus,” I scritched him between the ears. I checked off gun from my list. I went to read the next thing but the list ended there. “ Hmm.” I pressed the pen to my lips. And turned the list over. The yellow lined paper was empty on the back. “Only five things huh? I guess I really didn’t even need a list.” I looked over my bed and tallied what was on it and the things I checked off. Chewy rolled on his back and wagged his tail. I ignored him.  

“I have something here that wasn’t on this…” I tapped the list over and over again. My brain trying to make the connection. I played it back in my head. Clothes, Food, Water, Alcohol, and a Gun. The essentials for the average American. 

Chewy made a little yap noise and I went and patted him on the belly. 

“Oh that’s right.” I dropped to one knee and looked him in the eye. 

 There’s no dog on my list. I couldn’t leave him here. I haven’t got a pet sitter and if I dropped him off at a friend then they might get clued in on my plan. Shit. 

“What do you say?” I asked. His tongue lolled out, he was still upside down, his face squished up by the carpet. “Do you wanna kill a man?” He shot up and circled me twice before tearing off around the room. Old junk food containers and dirty clothes and tissues were kicked up in his wake. Chewy jumped off the laundry basket knocking it over and then he flew out the room. 

I guess that’s a yes. 

~

I untucked the corners of my sheet, balling up the comforter and throwing the pillows in the center to boot. The gun clattered to the carpet. I winced. Waiting for it to discharge a round through my window. But it sat there cold and unfired. 

Phew.

“I should be more careful with this.” I said as I turned it over in my hand, the polished metal was icy. Waiting. I thought about putting it into the jewelry box on my nightstand. It would fit right in there. But I couldn’t bear to open that yet. So I stuffed it in my beltline hoping it wouldn’t blow a hole in my balls. Then I tucked the box under my arm. 

As I entered the hallway the rows of pictures of her and I watched me leave. Our eyes were smiling in all of them. Photographs from different times and places. Together on our adventures. It seemed so wrong. Like those people in those photos were strangers now. They judged me with their unblinking eyes. They saw me and my intent clearly. They knew I wouldn't be back. This was no longer a home. It was a mausoleum. Those happy photographed grins were now clenched, those tears welling up in our eyes now sadness not joy. Frames desperately holding in a time, a place, a moment that belonged to someone else. Encapsulating a person just as a coffin would. That’s all they were now, little coffins lining a home no longer a home. Although it felt wrong to say this I had to remind myself. The people in those pictures are dead. 

One just hadn’t caught up yet. 

Chewy sat next to the door, his leash already held in his mouth. He wagged his tail so hard his whole butt shook back and forth. I opened the door with one elbow, placed the car keys in my mouth, grabbed his bag of dog food by the side of the door and dragged it out. 

Chewy skipped and hopped around me, taking time to drop his leash and bite at this bag of dog food making it harder for me to shuffle out. Now in the garage I placed my stuff down and popped the trunk of my beautiful 1999 Subaru Outback. Its red paint was faded everywhere except one door, which had been replaced 5 years ago and was painted white. It might not have been fading but it was dented. Thanks to a drunk Prius driver. The college-aged girl bumped into me in a parking lot the day after I replaced the door. You can’t make some of this up. 

I threw my sack of goods in. The rice krispy treats tumbled out and fell behind the passenger seat. I let Chewy jump in and then gently placed the jewelry box right in the middle of the trunk space (which was also the back of the car if you're not familiar with this wagon). My baby was a wonderful piece of machinery but with over 200,000 miles on it it was gonna be dead just as soon as I was. Which was coming fast on the horizon, sure as shit. Least it would be on its own terms too. Really, we were kindred spirits.

I patted the leather steering cover. “Come on baby, get me where I gots to go.” 

I clicked the garage button and the machinery groaned to life. The summer rays that feel as if they penetrate your skin to your bone greeted me, my dog, and my metal steed. People described Phoenix as hell on earth, but I didn’t mind. I would travel through both heaven and hell to kill this son of a bitch and I'd spit on both as I strolled through, flipping off Jesus and Satan alike. 

Fuck’em, fuck’em all. 

~

 Chewy crawled up into the passenger seat as I backed up and turned out into my suburban street. The noon day sun pressed on us and the A/C could not turn on fast enough, partly because it had been replaced four times, and partly because cars turned into ovens during July in Phoenix. My shirt was already soaking through. I cranked the A/C to high, banged on the center console and saw bits of Freon floating through. A cool-ish breeze met my sweaty brow and I relaxed some. 

She loved the summers. I called her crazy and she would laugh so hard at that. She said it was a sauna without the fee, and she would float around the pool for all the summer months. My little Lily Pad. Pathetic.

 “Why were we so gross Chewy?” I asked.

He looked ahead and planted his front feet on the dashboard before he realized it was hot and sat back down. He glanced at me, panting.

“Is that what love does? God damn it can make you into something you hate. You don’t even notice.” 

  But I did notice… and I didn’t hate it, I was drunk on it. She couldn’t be gone. It was too cruel… I had never had something like that before. I never thought I deserved it, deep down. And although in my younger days I would make fun of a mess like me worshiping her shadow. I didn’t care when I was doing it. She changed me. People sacrifice more for a lot less. With her it was right. A person like her deserves the entire world spread out before them, to be carried anywhere and all worries assuaged. Call me a fool for trying to do just that. And still, she treated me better than I could ever have treated her. But I did try. I did try and win that fight. It was probably the only thing I ever fought for. But I am still fighting now. Or at least trying to find the fight. 

 Out on the streets  I reflected on a funny thing. You see something happens in Phoenix during the summer. Midday turns to Midnight.

  The streets roast in the heat. The vapor waves rise off cement and pavement alike. You can cook an egg on a manhole cover. It’s like the world turns into this dust brown filter. One that enters your marrow. The heat makes your very soul twinge. Have you ever seen a house that feels empty from just looking at it? It screams in the summer rays and feels like a husk as you pass it, something rundown. It would be a perfectly good home anywhere else, or during any other season. But for some reason they look like corpses in death valley this time of day, bone dry and only skeletons remain. Because nothing could live here. 

  In Phoenix the smattering of beige houses show no signs of life, no one steps outside. Everyone is stowed away in their homes or their workplace. Journeying to your cars is an ordeal. One that only the brave do. So the entire town of millions slows down as everyone curls up into their A/C units waiting for the molestation of the sun to end for the day. Waiting in their bomb shelters because the best way to describe it is apocalyptic.

And people are still moving here.

They stopped renting moving trucks to folks coming to Phoenix from anywhere in California. They know they aren’t getting those trucks back. My gut reaction is because the tires melt off and leave them stranded. But in actuality it is because it’s cheaper here.

Speaking of money.

I looked down into my center console. The change rattled as I romped over a speed bump, turning out into the main street, where the only other cars around were lost souls like me. Passing by like ships at night. I counted the coins in my stained cup holder. About $2.90. I know I lost a quarter under my seat too when I picked up burgers for us. Only last week. That would be a gallon of gas right there. But I needed more.

  I still didn’t exactly know where I was heading. It could be a ghetto stash house around the corner where the man was laying low. Or he could have caught a flight to Timbuktu. Can you drive to Timbuktu? Fuck it, I would try anyways.

The police were no help to his location. Nor could they figure out who he was. They found no prints, because of course he was wearing gloves, nor DNA because of course we didn’t really have much of a fight. He stole nothing… Only her. While he heft me helpless and pleading and bleeding. Why?

And the description was too vague, they kept saying. They hadn’t picked up anyone around the scene like that. They needed more from me. I admit they were right on that mark. I wanted the same thing from myself. To remember more clearly. But I was blindsided, hurt, and in no state to remember a thing. 

I told them he had been tall, with skinny fingers, gloved. Wearing a hat with a feather in it. His face was a blur in my state. But he had that familiar look. It was in the shadows of his eyes. He looked like someone you knew once but hard living had broken them down. Scrubbed them away. Like they became less realized as time dragged them out of your recollection. Your memory leaching them until they were gaunt. Then you see them again and it's like seeing a phantom. A distant dream of a person you once knew. 

Anything else was hard to recall. It happened fast and I was beaten to a bloody pulp. My brain had been fuzzy since it all happened. Thanks to the concussion. Regularly it wasn’t in tip top shape. I have forgotten many-a-things in my life but I knew that I would not forget him. If I couldn’t describe him then I would know him when I saw him. And I had no doubt I would be seeing him again.

But let’s get some cash and gas. The next stop is Timbuktu. 

Hell, I think I’ll call him Tim for short.