Hope I'm not too late....



Wayne flipped up a channel. He wrinkled his nose in disgust: a Western film. Stupid horses, he thought. He had always found horse chases anticlimactic to the extreme. Of course, he was one to think of climaxes, though most people didn’t know that.

He flipped it up again. A soap opera. He snorted this time. A bunch of false loves and people crying over each other and killing each other for nothing. There were better reasons than that to kill, though he never would have told that to anyone.

Another change of channels brought him to an oldish film, one that Wayne had seen before. The colors were somewhat drab, but he remembered it had been good, excitement and adventure bursting from it. It was almost to the car chase scene, his favorite part. He left the remote on the sofa and walked to the kitchen to make some popcorn to go with the movie. As the kernels popped, he grabbed a beer. Once, the popping had sounded enough like gunshots to make him jump every time one burst, but he was safe now, or at least safe enough.

He got the bag and the can and walked back to his living room. The car chase was on and the bad guy was shooting up all the buildings around the good guy’s car. His aim was terrible, as it was in every movie, but if the good guy got killed, what would be the point in the car chase?

Wayne didn’t spend much time mulling that over, rather laying back and enjoying it. He threw a piece of popcorn in his mouth. He chewed on that instead.

Both of the bad guy’s cronies fired shots at the good guy again, this time with better aim, their bullets bouncing off the sides of the car or digging into the bumper. Wayne sipped his beer. He wouldn’t have been able to watch this a few months ago either, not with the guns going off all over the place.

The cars on the screen screeched around a tight corner into an alley with construction work everywhere. Mysteriously, the workers were nowhere to be seen, just like in any good movie. Near the beginning of the year, he had been trapped in an alley much like the one on the television, except he hadn’t been in a car. He’d been walking to work when a policeman came up to him.

Wayne Kace? the man had asked. Wayne had nodded, not knowing what else he could do. Can I see your briefcase? the man had pressed on. No formalities, no accusations; just a straight-up inquisition.

The good guy’s car jumped about 20 feet in the air after flying off a ramp conveniently located at the end of the alley. The bad guy followed suit. Wayne put the beer down and sighed. All of a sudden, he heard a noise downstairs, in the basement. He shot up, almost knocking his beer over in his haste. He did not notice, though, instead running to the door of his basement and yanking it open.

Wayne had held his briefcase close, knowing what the man was looking for. No, he had said, this is mine. The policeman had known this was coming. Give me your briefcase, sir, the man said. The last word had not been a formality, but rather a chance to inject some venom in his order.

Wayne ran down the wooden steps into the darkness of the basement as he heard tires screeching from the TV. Dammit, I’m missing the good part, he thought. He got to the bottom of the steps and started searching for the light switch. He found it and flipped it up with much more urgency than he had flipped channels earlier.

No, he said again, holding it even tighter. You can’t do that. You need a search warrant or something. He fought down panic and did a fair job of it, or as fair as he could, considering he was being questioned by a man with a shiny badge. The policeman reached in his pocket and for a moment, Wayne thought he was getting a gun.

He looked around the basement. The posterboard with the pictures stuck on it was in its place, a camera on a desk right next to it. Further away, a dozen cardboard boxes were stacked up against the wall. A couple of them had red splotches on the sides, but that could have been mistaken for ink.

The policeman pulled out a piece of paper. You’re right, he said. I do need a warrant. Wayne was about to run when he remembered that he had put his latest pictures on the posterboard in his basement at home. Relief coursed through him. He would have looked suspicious if he had not handed the man his briefcase anyways.

He walked around the medium-sized room slowly, eyes darting everywhere. He knew he had not been imagining things. Someone, or hopefully, something had made a noise down here. He did not know what, though. Wayne started to pull down boxes. He would have to check them all. Upstairs, some innocent bystander screamed, hit by one of the bad guy’s bullets.

The policeman had taken it and knelt, keeping a wary eye on Wayne the entire time. The man had clicked the locks on the sides and raised the top. Wayne knew there were only papers from the insurance company he worked for in there, but the man would not have believed him. Otherwise, he would not have had a search warrant.

He opened the first box. Grace was in her place. He moved on. Ellie was too. And so was Carrie. Wayne paused for a moment when he got to her, glancing from her to the pictures of her on the posterboard. She had been his favorite so far. Such a pity, such a pity, but it had to happen. He moved on. A pretty young girl of about fourteen whose name he had never learned. Jane, one of the boxes with red spots on the sides. Amelia, the other.

The man meticulously studied all the papers, Wayne praying he had not forgotten something in there. The policeman took his sweet time about it too. At one point, Wayne got impatient and said he had to get to work. The man had looked up and given him a glare that burned despite its remarkable iciness, perhaps even because of it. Wayne shut up.

He moved on to the second row of boxes. Roxanne with her pretty curls, Stacy with her straight hair. Nothing in either one of those. Helena and Henrietta, the twins. A fun time. Upstairs the car chase ground on, more insane stunts, building to the climax. Yvette, the oldest at twenty, had a scar on her neck, dried blood forming a necklace. He pulled the last box down.

The man gave the briefcase back after half an hour, clearly disgruntled. Alright, he had said, you can go. Wayne was terribly happy, but he did not let it show, instead muttering about how he was late for work. That night, he had moved all his stuff to the basement. The following morning, he met Grace.

Stephanie lay in her box, angelic despite her contorted position. Wayne smiled. He had met her last week, his most recent love. Her silver hair was unstained, though her neck was covered in bruises. And in her box, he saw the culprit of the noise: a huge black rat at her feet, gnawing away. Fury rose in him. How dare it disturb her sanctity! He grabbed it and pulled it out, feeling its bones crushing in his hand. The animal squealed as an explosion rocked the screen upstairs. It fell limp as the echoes of the blast faded.

He turned back to Stephanie, the dead rat in his hand, and smiled again. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, briefly nostalgic for when they had been warm. As he stood back up, he heard police sirens. Wayne shrugged. Dammit, he thought. I missed it. The car chase was over and the police were due to catch the bad guy and sort things out. He walked back upstairs and threw the rat in the trash bin, right next to an old broom.

Then he noticed the movie was over and the sirens were still going. In desperation, he grabbed the broom and threw it across his front door, a pathetic barricade against the police. This thought crossed his mind and he started laughing. Wayne laughed and laughed, increasingly hysterically, resounding off the walls. Tears were rolling down his face when they came in, but he did not care, because he had defied with an old broom and a dead rat.






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"The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say." Anaise Nin