Into the Mystic (part one)

She can hear him turning circles around her. She knows this is a motel room. She can smell it, like rotting flowers dusted with vomit cleaner. She imagines he's holding his hands behind his back, much like a worried Michael Caine (or Prince Charles). She can hear his mind muttering, even though he isn't saying anything

—————————————————————————————————————————————

She starts singing. It's stupid. She feels her stomach fold in on itself. Coping, she tells herself. I'm just coping. She starts with her dad's favourite Van Morrison "Into the Mystic". She figures all men feel anchored to his mustache.


He takes off her blindfold. This is it, she thinks. Someone's knocking on the door with a badge and a baton. They aren't.


He wants her to keep singing. He doesn't look too good. His hair is flat against his forehead. She suspects he hasn't slept. There isn't any alcohol in sight. There's an old carpet bag leaning against a cot at the other end of the room.


She needs to breathe, but she doesn't stop singing. Her mother found her lessons after watching the Sound of Music for the first time. She hates her voice.


They make their way through Van, to Winehouse, all the way to Elvis Costello. Standing there, her blouse still tucked into her slacks, hands tied above her head. He sat perched on the corner of his cot, hands in his lap, like a well trained public school boy.


He cuts her arms down after about two hours. It doesn't feel like the release she's expecting. It's really more of the same, neither of them say anything, except to hear her almost unconsciously sing incredibly low Spice Girls.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

He orders Hawaiian pizza at eleven. They eat in silence, on the floor. "What are your demands?" she tries for nonchalance, but her voice is hoarse and loud at the same.


"Sorry?"


"I mean for my release."


"Oh. I'm... No."


"Sorry?"


"I'm not demanding anything."


"Oh."

—————————————————————————————————————————————

She sleeps in the cot. He doesn't seem to have even touched it since check-in. She dreams of work. Her arms extended in front of her, crossed one on top of another. TAC vest digging into her armpits.


She used to have panic attacks, when she was in the Academy. The kind of earth shattering realization that target practice is <i>practice.</i> She wonders why she feels so calm. She doesn't really want to go back. She doesn't want to stay, but she doesn't want to go back.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

<i>
"Hey sweetheart, what can I do you for?"


"I'm looking for Captain Feinerman?"


"Down the hall, to the left. What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?"


"I'm Det. Sergeant Ota? You should have been briefed about me?"


"No shit... I didn't have you pegged boss lady."
</I>

—————————————————————————————————————————————

She rubs the ligature marks on her wrists where the rope cut into her. It isn't morning, it's probably just past 11. She doesn't know the date anymore.


"So what do you do?"


"I rent boats." He's packing his bag.


"Where are we going?"


"My house."


"Why?"


He straightens up. He hasn't taken off his waistcoat in what must be three days. He looks at her, then back at his suitcase.


"I can't afford the room for more than three days." There's a pause, he tugs at his ear. "I thought they'd've found us by now."


He's still standing, halfway turned towards her, hands limp by his sides.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The first thing anyone would notice about his apartment, is the grand piano wedged into the doorway between the kitchen and the minuscule front room, leaving no room for more than a plastic fold out chair. And the mess.


The floor is covered in a layer of grime, save for a trail of footprints leading straight to the weathered piano stool. She watches him fit his oxfords to the prints, as if picking his way through a bed of expensive flowers.


There is a limit to the level of absurdity a person can bear, without losing all sense of reason they might be clinging on to.


She can feel herself floating ever closer to that ceiling as he climbs first onto the feeble bench, and strolls right into his kitchen. Over his piano.


She screams. She screams until she can't hear herself. Neither of them move, although they aren't looking at each other.


Nothing happens. It's New York, who gives a shit about your weird kinks.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

She stands in the door for a long time. A long time. Then she turns around and makes to walk out the door.


"You can't do that."


"Why not?"


"Because I kidnapped you."


"I don't want to be kidnapped."


"Oh. Still I insist you stay."


"I'm just going home now."


"Don't you want to know why?"


"Why what?"


"Why you're here."


"I don't think I'd like the answer."


He doesn't seem to be breathing.


She can't leave. Not yet. Something fucking weird is cooking behind his thick coke bottle glasses.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

She stays where she is, leaning against the door frame, while he brings her a cup of tea. He flips on the radio in the kitchen. It's a jarring static, the first sound she'd heard in more than three days that hasn't come from either of them.


Her chest seizes suddenly. She hasn't brought in the coffee in three days. She's probably been fired. Then she remembers. She's missing. She's a Detective Sergeant, who's gone missing, she isn't fired. They're probably right this minute tracking the license plate on his car off the CCTV.


She hasn't felt this kind of cold in years. It starts in her left shoulder, and spreads to her toes. She's invincible.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

"Can you play that damn thing?"


"Sorry?"


"The machine between your legs."


"Oh, the baby. The baby grand. I can play Yankee Doodle."


"Let's hear it."


He hits the bench with an audible thump, slouched over, as if the action cut his spine in half.


He fits his hands over the keys in an awkward manner, head held where the gaping jaws of the instrument could swallow him whole in an instant.


He begins to beat out an old melody, a ragtime number, clunky and slow, misplaying a number of notes.


She scrutinises the stitches down his back. There's a row of crude patching in the bottom left corner of his waistcoat. As she traces his figure, she notices his left foot balled up in his shoe, straining with tension.


She walks towards him. She plants her feet with determination, raising a cloud of dust behind her.


She begins to sing again.


Gilbert and Sullivan. It's an experiment.


He freezes. He digs his right foot into the floor. He picks up the beat in his left. His fingers seem to quiver, and form the shape of the chords. He tickles the beast into a waltz.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

It's raining outside. The lightning reflects off the stainless steel fridge into their eyes, at the keyboard. They sit cross legged on the stool, she now realizes is mainly held up by four stacks of worn books. He's playing Rachmaninoff, his face hardened into a concentrated mask. She just watches. He moves with the music, playing it all rather soft, with none of the drama the piece requires.


"Why?"


"What?"


"Why am I here?"


He miraculously keeps playing, so quietly the runs drip out of his fingers like ink out of a leaky pen. He looks up, at his stovetop, suddenly sitting straight and tall.


"Why shouldn't you be?"


She does not want to know why she's here. She does not want to. She wants to go back to her apartment and sleep under her hideous stuccoed ceiling. She wants to stare up at those protuberances that look so alien, if an alien were to attach itself there, she probably wouldn't notice.


"Why are you keeping me here? Why?"


He stops. The p.


"I need to talk to someone." He doesn't turn to look at her.


"What does that mean?"


"It just means."


"Who do you need to talk to, about what."


"I need to talk to someone you know, about something that does not, quite frankly, concern you."


There is a pause. It's a loaded pause. Nothing happens, they sit side by side staring at the cooktop. She feels a sudden itch at the back of her neck but she can't move.


"No. It does concern me. I'm effectively your captive. I'd like to know what the fuck is happening. Why can't I just leave, who do you <i>need</i> to speak with, and what in the fuck is going on." She keeps her voice level, and her head parallel to his. "No, more than that. I'd like to know where I am, who you are, and what day it is."


"Well."

—————————————————————————————————————————————

There used to be a kid, who lived across the street from her in Suburbia. He used to play in the gutter, every day. Every morning she'd flip two quarters at his feet, they'd land next to his little toy dump truck. He'd toss them up and up, until they rolled away from him into the mess of rainwater and leaves at the corner. She'd pick them up, on her way back from school. Placed them carefully behind a pot on the stoop, until the next day. One day, the boy kept the change. She knew because he'd bought himself a lollipop from corner store. He kept running his hands over the wrapper, instead of his tiny truck. She'd turned around and buried two new coins back beneath the azaleas. She hadn't thought about those coins in years, lying there in the dark, unused and shiny, sitting under the weight of a millions of billions of particles. She felt like the soil underneath the flowers. Fermenting and digesting the metal, shifting and spilling around the change, soaked dry of nutrients and <i>water</i>.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

He teaches. English, at the local middle. Everyday.


He tries to look the part. He dresses sharp, midcentury. He carries around a briefcase, filled with weathered books.


He starts every class leant on the corner of his teacher's desk. He never does the reading he assigns for them, the students. The most eager of them seem to have it covered. He doesn't think anymore, outside his house.


He begins with a lecture, and ends with writing time. He assigns readings and he goes home. He makes himself a cup of tea.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Three months ago, the landlord changed the carpet in the hall.


He doesn't like change. He cried over that tattered, trampled, threadbare red carpet.


The old woman next door died. Maybe it wasn't because of the carpet. It might have been.


Breathe. In. Out. In.


The newest tenant on the floor is tall. He's taller than Harry. He has a new door frame put in, for convenience. He's very tall.


Harry has never seen his face. He wears a trench coat. The collar always covers what little might have been seen of his face at this height.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The first words they ever exchange, standing at the ATM on the corner.


"Don't you think the carpet could use some colour?" The man is bent over at the waist, eyes still hidden under the shadow of his hat. He seems somehow both earnest and sardonic, talking out the side of his mouth with a smile.


He falls half in love.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

She can't leave. She's tried. He left for work. For work. And she can't get the fuck out.


She needs to be at work. She needs to restock the printer, because it's Thursday and none of the other detectives have ever touched it, and they'll be testy when the arrests stop going into the files.


She doesn't know why. It's like the room is her whole universe. Every time she gets it into her head to just open the door and walk out, she's distracted by something in the endless crannies of the apartment. She found half a globe pressed into the corner, like the walls had been built around it. She found a hamster. A live hamster. Hidden behind the wainscotting.


She tries a running start, but she's tripped by an empty glue stick. Filled with glitter.


She can't remember feeling this <i>furious</i>.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

She makes lunch. The fridge is surprisingly well stocked, with enough vegetables and cheese to throw a bunch of things in a bowl and microwave the living shit out of it. The mush she ends up with tastes spicy, but not pleasantly. The kind of heat that tickles the roof of your mouth, that moves your heart around in your chest.

There was a time when all she ever wanted to do was work. All she could see before her was a life of coffee in the morning and tea before bed. Spending her days working the beat.

She never asked to move up. They just assumed she'd like to. Major Case, a desk job. More than that, she'd have a partner. It's fair to say that everyone works better alone.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Her partner isn't handsome. He's just tall. He solves cases, she supposes that's how he got to where he is. He never speaks except in a low voice on his cell to someone who seems to care whether or not he's eaten today.

The captain can't seem to get enough of him, spending hours in his office, over cheap whiskey, presumably in silence.

She takes to decorating her desk out of spite. She bought a santa mug. A santa claus mug. She lines it up with the only space on his desk not covered by a case file.

end of part one