It is to me.
What does a hit man look like? I wonder as I make my way off the bus and into the Red Line subway station. There, it’s poorly lit and dingy, my view of passersby bleary and vague. Everyone is in a hurry. They whiz by me with places to go, people to see. I stand, in a daze, trying hard to find my fare card, but instead appraise those around me, my feet frozen to the filthy concrete. Someone bumps into me, and barks, “You’re holding up traffic,” but still I can’t move. What does a hit man look like? I wonder again, growing more and more scared. Is he big, gruff, his voice guttural and rasping? WWF wrestlers come to mind. But so, too, do skinny men with facial piercings and a million tattoos. Drug-addicted, emaciated men. And then there are the balding, fat men with glasses. They, too, come to mind. Is a hit man any or all of them, some combination of these traits? Is he always a he, or can he sometimes be a she? Is there some sort of rule for how a hit man should look or behave, or is it better that they be unassuming like the nerdy, awkward man, dull as dishwater, standing ho-hum, reading a newspaper in the center of the platform as I pay my fare and make my way down the steps. Is it possible Esther hired this man to take my life?
His eyes rise up off the newspaper as I appear and he smiles. I’ve been waiting, say the eyes. I look closely for a weapon in his pocket or hand, for something that will kill, and then it comes to me: the “L” train will kill.
That’s the one thought that crosses my mind as I step foot on the platform, eyes spinning like a chameleon with three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision, making sure no one is hot on my trail. My heart beats quickly. I drop my fare card once, twice, three times before I manage to get it into the pocket of my purse.
There is the occasional mishap on the train, someone or other falls onto the electrified line or gets struck and killed by an incoming train. It’s happened before. I’ve seen it on the news. It’s not that common but it happens. Men or women electrocuted on the third rail; men or women run over by the train. More often than not, suicide. The CTA lines get shut down to investigate, and for the rest of the world it’s nothing more than an inconvenience. Just downright annoying and rude that some fool decides to off himself smack-dab in the middle of rush hour, on the city’s main mode of public transportation.
But that’s not what I’m thinking about right now. No, right now I’m thinking about what it would feel like to tumble the distance, to be fried with a thousand volts of electricity, to be flattened by one of the largest rapid-transit systems in the world. To be dead. That’s what I’m thinking about as I keep my distance from the man with the newspaper, the man with the tattoos, the man with the glasses and balding head and the fiftyish woman—yes, woman—with silver in her hair. One can never be too careful of anything.
What it would feel like to be dead.
That’s what I wonder.
The Red Line pulls into the station and I climb on board. I stand, ready to make a run for it if need be.
I could have taken a cab. Why didn’t I just take a cab? I wonder, but the truth is, safety in numbers. There is safety in numbers.
That’s something my mother would say.
Maybe she’s not so daft, after all.
She also told me to carry mace. A million times. I told her she was being ridiculous. A worrywart, I called her when she was terrified for me to leave the security blanket of our safe suburban life. She feared all the hooligans the city had to offer, the gangs, the high rates of crime. “Relax, Mom,” I told her. “You’re worrying for nothing.”
But now I’m not so sure.
I want mace.
More importantly, I want my mother.
Again I go through the evidence one by one in my mind: the fact that Esther’s gone missing, the notes to My Dearest, the obscure phone call on Esther’s phone about the missed appointment Sunday afternoon, the petition to change her name, the withdrawal receipts, the quest for a new roommate, someone to replace me after I’m gone. Gone? Gone where? The death of Kelsey Bellamy, which, in my mind, trumps all the other evidence, though I’m left wondering if any or all of these are genuine clues, or if they’re simply red herrings, misleading ploys meant to throw me off course. I don’t know.
When the train pulls into the station, there’s still one more bus ride ahead. I make haste down the street and to the bus station. I thank God Almighty that the bus pulls in just as I arrive, and that I don’t have to wait outside in the cold, dark night. I scramble in, up the steps, and claim a seat right behind the driver. The driver will protect me, I stupidly tell myself.
He takes off before I’m fully in my seat. I almost fall from the motion. Once seated, I dig through my purse to find my keys, and anything else that might be of use to protect me: a nail file, lip balm, hand sanitizer. I’m thinking ahead of next steps. When the bus pulls to my stop, I’ll hurry home. Up the three floors of the walk-up and into apartment 304. I’ll lock the door, but since Esther has keys, that will be futile. It will be of no use.
Then I’ll fortify the door with chairs, I decide, all the chairs I can find. The mod plaid chair, the kitchen table chairs, Esther’s desk chair. I’ll bolster it with the apartment sofa, too, the coffee table, a desk. Whatever I can find.
But then I remember that Esther doesn’t have a key to our apartment. Not anymore. Maintenance man John changed the locks. At this I breathe a small sigh of relief, knowing I’ll still bolster the door with the chairs and table, anyway. Just in case.
I won’t eat anything for fear it’s been poisoned with ricin or cyanide. I decide this, too.
And then there’s the fire escape, should Esther opt to return the way she left, up the fire escape and through her bedroom window, back into our home. The window is closed and locked, but that doesn’t mean she can’t slice through the screen and break the glass with a fist.
Or maybe she’ll just set the whole damn building on fire. That’s what I’m envisioning, our four-flat engulfed in orange flames.
And then I feel it: the gentle stroking of my long blond hair.
And there, on the bus, I scream.
Alex
That night, I lie down in bed, and just as I start to drift to sleep, I awaken. That jolt of electricity that comes before sleep, the body ready to retire for the night, the mind not. Or is it the other way around? A hypnagogic jerk, a night start. That’s what wakes me, or so I think.
It’s quiet and then suddenly I hear the chink of glass on glass. That’s what it sounds like to me. It takes a minute to get my bearings, and when I do, I figure out that the noise is coming from the window. I rise from bed and approach the glass just in time to see a small rock get catapulted into it, its trajectory taking it from the ground to the glass. It swats the window and tumbles down, rolling along the shingles of the porch roof.
I open the blinds and peer to the wilted lawn down below and there she stands. Pearl.
She’s cloaked in her black-and-white checkered coat, the black beanie set on her head. It’s murky outside tonight, making it hard to see clearly. But I see her; she’s there, standing in the quiet night like a figure in a blurry photograph. Hazy and imperfect, but still perfect in so many ways. She waves as I open the blinds and gaze outside feeling more than a little bit flummoxed. Why is she here? I don’t know why, but I thank the heavens that she is.
All my life I dreamed some girl would come to me in the middle of the night, and now here she is.