Michael Jeffrey Lee

The Shivers

It was a Monday so the restaurant was closed. In two days it would be my birthday, but I’d be back to work then, so if I was going to have a wild night it was going to have to be tonight. I sent messages to a few people to see what they were doing and if they wanted to come out and meet me, but they were all busy—they all had to work the next day. What are you going to do? I asked myself. It’s not late, just barely dinnertime. I went over to my drawer and dug out a few twenties and slipped them into my wallet. I wonder what I’m going to do tonight, I said to myself, walking down the stairs and getting astride my bike, I wonder where this bike will lead me. Well, the first place it led me was to a little dive bar down the street, and I had to flash my ID at the door to be admitted. I didn’t want to drink—I stopped drinking when I moved to town—but I did want to get some of the food that they serve. I hadn’t eaten all day and was starved. I gave a nod to the sexy bartender and went to the little window in the back and I ordered the beef special—I already knew what I wanted. The cook there is a whiz with beef and when I have the money I never miss a single one of his creations. I twiddled the knobs on a video game while I waited for my food, and when I saw the cook carry it out, I walked to an empty table and sat down and he put the food down in front of me. He told me to enjoy myself and I smiled and said that I would. I ate it quickly, burying my face in it and letting the juices run down. I didn’t drink any water because I didn’t want to bother the bartender. She knows I only come for the food and she can’t make any money off me, and it makes her upset. On my way out I got a napkin to give my mouth a final wipe, and I thanked the cook for everything. He asked me what I had going on that night and I told him I didn’t really know yet, although I was hoping something fun would come along. He told me it was still early, and didn’t see why it wouldn’t. Then I left and got back on my bike, but I didn’t get too far down the road before I remembered that I had a prescription that needed picking up at the pharmacy, so I went and did that. I thought I had refilled it by phone but when I went up to the window they told me I hadn’t, so I told them to go ahead and do it. While waiting, I wandered the aisles for a while, checking out some of the new medications that had arrived. Some things called Vita-Jolts were on sale, and they looked interesting. I was running low on allergy tablets and I considered for a moment getting some more, but I didn’t want to eat too far into my allotted money for the night. I did manage to pick out a tasteful sympathy card for my aunt, whose son had just died. Soon I was carrying out a black bag containing my prescription, the sympathy card, and a bottle of water, and I shivered for a second. It had gotten strangely chilly since I’d been inside. But I wasn’t half as cold as the people waiting for the bus across the street—most of them didn’t have any warm clothing on and they looked miserable. For some, it’s true, every day is like a wild night. A song that my brother used to sing about poor people suddenly flashed through my mind, but only the chorus: I love them, even if they’re messy. I don’t care, goodbye. I sent my brother a message then, telling him I just thought of his poor people song and asked how he was doing. Then while waiting for the reply I decided to bike back home for a minute and drop off my loot, so I headed back that way, letting the bag swing freely from one of my handlebars. The vehicles kept their distance from the bike lane and didn’t come close to clipping me, though they sped by really fast. I have a helmet but loaned it to a friend who had lice and didn’t tell me, and I kept forgetting to get the spray I needed. I got home without any issues, and knew it would be such a short visit that I risked leaving my bike unattended, leaning it against the side of my building. As soon as I was upstairs I ripped the top off of the medication and shook some pills out into my hand, then I washed them down with the bottle of water. They were for my cold sores, which I thought I had beaten once and for all, but they had recently made a strong showing down below. It felt good to be fighting back a little bit. I put the bottle into the drawer alongside my money and was about to head out but then remembered the sympathy card. I took it out of the bag and saw that some of the condensation from the water bottle had wrinkled the red envelope, so I took the card out of the envelope and threw them both on my bed and turned the fan on them. I grabbed a jacket from my closet and headed to the bathroom to urinate quickly, and then I darted back down the stairs and out the door. My bike was still there, as I hoped it would be. I checked my phone again to see if anyone had had a change of heart but none had yet, so I headed toward downtown. I had to watch out for potholes and pieces of debris in the road, but I didn’t have any issues. I decided to see what was happening in the square, so I rode over there, and it was the usual batch of people: drug addicts, mostly, definitely not my type. I was hoping to run into someone I knew, but I didn’t, and after a few laps around the square I decided to push on. I lingered for a few minutes at the edge, hoping to see that fortuneteller that I like, but I couldn’t locate her. She’s very striking, with a look that could swallow a person whole, and she usually works Mondays. She’s given me a few readings before—they have all been bad—but she wasn’t there, so I kept on. I went by some of the more expensive stores in town and did a little window-shopping as I rolled by in the middle of the street, but there was no traffic behind me, so it didn’t matter. I wasn’t sure where I was going next, although I felt myself pulled in the direction of the casino. I liked the casino fine, but didn’t really want to go there on my night off, at least not this early, because it doesn’t tend to get wild until later. It wouldn’t be bad as a plan B, I decided. But in the meantime I was on the lookout for other fun activities. There were bars on just about every corner and I could hear laughter coming from inside them—dark laughter. I like to have a good time just like anyone else, but there is a kind of laughter that you hear downtown in some of these bars that makes me think that it is not a person laughing at all but a skull without skin on it, laughing at the fact that it has no skin, and it gives me the shivers. Then something unexpected happened: I don’t know if it was the food I had eaten or the medicine I had taken, or the fact that I had washed it all down with that enormous bottle of water, but I felt myself having to go. I’ve never minded squeezing in between two parked cars and letting it fly, but this wasn’t that, this was going to take a little longer. Rather than risk it in one of these bars—you never know if the locks on the stalls are going to be working—I decided to ride back home and do my business there, so I headed back that way and got there just in time, and some minutes later when I was back in my bedroom, feeling myself take another twenty from my drawer, I saw that the red envelope had completely dried. I turned off the fan and raced back downstairs, hopped back on the bike, and sped off toward downtown again. My next stop was the casino—I had decided while inside I wanted to go to the casino after all. It was still early and it would just be a starter to the night. I was there in less than ten minutes and I flashed my ID at the door again and the greeter noticed that it was only two days until my birthday, and she said she hoped I’d come back to celebrate. I told her that unfortunately I had to work on my birthday, so this was going to be my wild night for the week, if not for a while. She nodded and wished me luck in whatever game I chose to play. I thanked her and told her I liked her low-cut dress, and she gave me a coy smile. I decided to play blackjack. I wandered over to the tables, choosing between a few before I found a good one. I wedged myself between two high rollers, and it was a good spot to be in. They coached me on certain hands, told me when to hit and when to stand. I drank an energy drink while sitting there, which was placed before me without my even ordering it, and it definitely helped increase my focus. There was a no-nonsense lady on the button, too, and she didn’t make one false move. She liked me, I think, even winking at me every time I won a hand. I battled up and down for about an hour—I went as high up as a hundred, and then as low as my last twenty, but finally leveled off at around eighty. Eighty dollars in pure profit. I decided to call it quits. I thanked everyone and told them goodnight, although I knew of course that my night was just beginning. Because my last meal had gone right through me, I was suddenly hungry again, so I slipped real quick into the buffet area. I made a small plate for myself—garlic bread and French fries and a few nuts—and ate near the exit. I rode back home straightaway because I did not like the idea of traveling with those extra twenties in my pocket—they made me feel out of my mind. As wild as I wanted this night to be, I didn’t have any business blowing money I needed for the bare necessities. But on the way back I couldn’t resist stopping for ice cream—it felt right, after my victory. I love ice cream and once the thought gets in my head and I see the scoops there is no stopping me. While seated in the parlor I took some pictures of myself licking the cone and then I sent them to my friends, and then one of them wrote back and said that it looked like fun. I ate it quickly, taking big bites, even, and I caught a real buzz from the sugar. I got on the bike again and charged back down the street and made my house in almost record time. But there was a creepy person rooting around in my garbage can when I pulled up, so I decided to bring my bike inside this time, into the rat room where I usually keep it. There’s no light in the rat room—it’s just the place where I store my bike. The rats live there; it’s their kingdom, and as far as I know they’ve never come up the stairs to see about me. I raced up the stairs, then threw those four twenties I had just won, minus the ice cream and buffet money, into the drawer. I shook out a few more pills just to be on the safe side, swallowing them without water. No more water for me tonight after that first incident, I thought. Then before closing the drawer I took back one of the twenties and put it in my wallet, just in case. It wasn’t going to be a crazy wild night, maybe, but I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to travel with a little extra. I was in a hurry to leave, but my stomach started feeling a little rumbly again, so I put on some water for tea. While I waited for it to boil I went and sat down on the toilet and read a magazine. I didn’t actually have to use the bathroom that time, but I never mind sitting there, just in case. There’s no seat, but once the bowl warms up it can be a really comforting place. The magazine I read was actually just a catalogue called Red Cello, which has been sent to me every month ever since I broke my leg and shattered my pelvis a few years back, in another town—I think the hospital here must have slipped them my new information. It was assisted living products, neck straighteners and armchair-wheelchair combos, and glasses that allowed you to lie flat in bed but be able to read a book on your chest. I was only able to force a few drops out of my penis then, but still it felt like something. Then I heard the kettle screaming and so I went to the kitchen and dropped a tea bag into a mug and then poured the boiling water over it. I watched the water turn color, took a few sips, then carried it over to my bed and held the cup between my hands, sitting on the edge of the bed. The tea was already helping my stomach and I was ready to head back out into the night. I drank the rest down quickly, too quickly, then I set the cup down on the dresser and soon I was off, but when I was halfway downstairs I felt the need to double-check the burners, so I ran back up and checked, and sure enough, the right front one was still going, burning a little too close to the black bag I keep my oatmeal in. What is your next stop going to be? I said to myself. Here it is almost nine o’clock and so far your night has been fun, but not wild. I ran back down the stairs and flung the front door open, then rolled my bike out backwards. That scary person was still rooting around in the can, making a real night of it, so I quickly locked the door and sped off. I went riding down the busy street again. I checked my phone while I was riding but no one had gotten in touch yet. My brother, I knew, would come through eventually, even if what he sent was just gibberish—we liked to communicate through gibberish, most of the time. My head was pretty empty as to options at this point, and so I found myself pedaling back toward the first bar I went to. There would probably be a band playing now—a loud band, more than likely—and the whole bar would be begging for the band to hurt their ears more and more with every song, to almost kill them with their volume. I flashed my ID at the door again and the bartender didn’t even notice me this time. There wasn’t a band playing, but the bar was a little more crowded than earlier. I did see the fortuneteller that I like so much. She was sitting at the end of the bar, but she looked as though she was on a date and I decided not to bother her. I went back to the window again to say hello to the cook, but he wasn’t around—there was a different cook there and I like his cooking a lot less than the first one’s. He asked if he could help me and I didn’t exactly want to say that I had just been looking for the first cook, so I looked over at the menu instead and just told him I needed a minute. I was just a little hungry, not much but enough, and I realized that I hadn’t had anything green to eat in a while, so I ordered the pork salad. I was going to busy myself at the video game again, but there was someone already fiddling with the knobs. There was no place to stand and lean against the wall, either—there were spikes jutting out from almost every inch of space. In fact, the only available seat was at the bar, right next to the fortuneteller and her date. I sat down next to her and immediately she turned the other way. The bartender put down an ice water for me and then started walking away, but I waved her back and ordered another energy drink, and she brought that for me. I took out my phone again and wrote a little gibberish to my brother, and this time he wrote a little gibberish right back. We went back and forth for a few minutes and I felt happy, and then the pork salad was placed before me and I ate it. It might have been the smell of the dish that grabbed the fortuneteller’s attention because she swiveled her stool around and asked me what it was. I’m always so nervous around her: she has the oddest bone structure, and long black hair like my mother used to have. I told her what the thing was I was eating and she nodded and swiveled back around. Before I left I decided to do something bold. I tapped her on the shoulder and she swiveled back again and I asked her if she knew of any wild or fun things that were happening in town tonight, if she had heard about anything exciting going on. Her eyes were nearly shut and I realized just how intoxicated she was. She said there was supposed to be a party at the park, something commemorating the new slave statues. I asked if she was going there later and she said no, and I didn’t ask her anything else. I thanked her for the information and went out to my bike and started biking toward Riverfront Park. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier. I hang around there all the time when I’m not working. Usually it’s just children and dogs and I’ve never known it to be a wild place, but I was more than ready to be surprised. I pedaled faster and faster just thinking about it, and I stupidly took a turn too fast. I leaned left too hard and the bike started to go down. I was able to break my fall with my hands, and I lost some skin to the road. My head took a rather big knock. Other than that I was fine. I even laughed a little at all of it. You’re trying to have such a wild night, I thought. You’ve gone and endangered your precious body, the one thing that’s really your own in this world. My head was bleeding a bit, enough to warrant some sort of attention, so I knew I had to duck back home for a minute and treat it. Just for a minute, I thought, and then I would check out the party. I hadn’t danced in a while and thought that it would do me good. I was a little shaky on the bike for the first few minutes and was definitely extra jittery as the cars and tanker trucks blew by me on the road, but I made it home just fine. The blood had more or less dried by the time my building was in sight. There was no person rooting in the can this time, he was long gone, which unfortunately gave me a false sense of security. I was rolling the bike into the rat room when I heard a voice say ahem, and then I felt the cold steel at the back of my head. My luck in this town had finally run out. I heard the door close and I was instructed to simply walk up the stairs—the stairs I had walked up many, many times before. I was instructed not to speak, either. I asked the person what they wanted, but I did not receive a reply. Then when we were upstairs I was instructed to take down my pants and to bend over my bed. I did what I was told, fearing for my life. While bent over I heard my drawer open, and I imagined my twenties being found, and the bottle of pills, too. For some reason I worried about them being taken—I knew that the pharmacy wouldn’t give me another refill for a month. Then I heard a small tearing sound, which, in hindsight, was the sound of my attacker finding an old condom at the bottom of the drawer and unwrapping it. The next thing I knew, I was being penetrated, and while it was happening, I fixed my eyes on the sympathy card and the red envelope that I had bought for my aunt. I tried to stay in the moment as best as I could, saying This is really happening to you in my head over and over. In my memory my attacker had a very small penis—if it was in fact a penis—although it was still quite painful. It was over quickly, though: soon I was hearing my attacker tell me that he would kill me if I ever said anything, then I heard his footsteps on the stairs, and then I heard him banging around in the rat room and I heard my bike rolling backwards and then I heard nothing. I pulled up my pants and stood up and checked my phone and then I went to the stove and I put on water for tea, and then I went and sat back down on the toilet for a while and read more of Red Cello, basically determined to just get on with my night. I was bleeding a little from the anus, I noticed, so when I was finished on the toilet I disinfected both the cut on my head and the one down below. I wondered why my attacker had used protection—maybe he had seen my cold sores. I’d always considered them a curse, but who knows? After a cup of tea, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, feeling sore, and then for some reason I decided to take that moment to write the sympathy card for my aunt. I found a pen and I put the card in my lap and very calmly wrote: Hello, I was very sorry to hear about the death of your son. Suicide is maybe the saddest way to go and all it does is leave victims, so they say. I didn’t know your son very well because I live so far away, but even so I know how awful it must be to lose a child, and I hope it never happens to you again. If you ever want to text me on the phone, here is my number, and don’t be afraid to contact me, day or night. Yours Truly, Mickey Shane. I read it over again and it sounded like a bunch of gibberish to me, and on top of that I hadn’t even written my real name. I closed the card and licked the envelope and then found a stamp in my drawer and slapped it on. The attacker hadn’t taken any of my money, nor had he taken any of my pills. I put all my twenties into my jacket pocket and with my pills I did the same. I found my folding knife in the drawer, too, and I put that in my pocket as well. Would it have come in handy earlier? Probably not. I put the sympathy card in my jacket pocket, too, and then I felt ready to go. But then I had a funny idea and I don’t know why. The rape had me feeling out of sorts, of course, but it doesn’t really explain what I did next. I went over to my small closet and dug around for a minute, and then I located what I wanted and pulled out a white bob wig that I wear sometimes on Halloween and other holidays. I put it on, then went to the bathroom mirror and fixed it just so. It was really transformative, and it would have taken someone that knew me really well to see that it was me under there. I was going to take a picture of myself and send it to my friends but then decided against it—they wouldn’t get how funny it was. It felt good to have something covering my head, and I made my way down the stairs, gingerly at first, but then I decided that I wasn’t going to let my pain stand in the way of a wild night. It was a little bit of a relief that my attacker had taken my bike, because the thought of that seat grinding back and forth between my legs was making me feel a little sick to my stomach. I set out again into the night on foot and started down the road. I got a lot of honks because of the wig and some trucks even pulled over, but I walked quickly, with a sense of purpose. I saw a mailbox and tossed the sympathy card in and kept walking. I found that my legs were carrying me back to the bar, but I knew that I wasn’t hungry anymore. I decided that I wanted a drink of something. I flashed my ID at the door one more time and went straight to the bar with a strange new confidence, and I sat down hard on the stool and told the bartender that I wanted three whiskeys. She looked shocked but she poured them out anyway and I gulped them down and I felt very focused. I took out a twenty from my jacket pocket and slid it across the bar and told her she could keep whatever remained. I left feeling brand new and ready for the night. On the street, I was extra alert to debris in the road and to potholes, and I didn’t stumble once on my way to the square. I think my body knew what I was going to do before my mind did. I took a seat on a bench, leaving plenty of space for someone else to sit should they want to. I sent out a few last messages to my friends, but I told them I was calling it a night. They were nice about this last message—I even got a few replies, telling me that we should get together soon. Everything was going to be okay, and I really didn’t have to wait long for the thing to happen. I sat there, running my fingers through my wig and taking deep breaths. Soon a horrible-looking man rode up on my bike—the red flecks on the frame gave it away. He rode around the square a few times, probably looking for someone he recognized, and finally, not seeing anyone, he slowed down and hopped off and brought the bike up alongside the bench and sat down next to me. He really had no idea who I was, even though, if he were paying attention, he would have seen that the jacket and the pants and the face were the very same. He made small talk with me about the niceness of the night, and then when I asked him what kind of night he’d had he said he’d had a wild one, and when he asked what kind of night I’d had I said I too had had a wild one, and then he admitted that sometimes he wondered if he could keep up these wild nights for much longer, and I said I felt the same, admitting that there were plenty of mornings when I wondered just how much longer my body could put up with these wild nights, and then I saw him reach out his hand for mine, and then I reached out for his and then gave it a squeeze, and I smiled beneath the bob, knowing it was time. I said, “Hey, look at the person doubled over on the cathedral steps,” and he did, and in one swift motion I had the folding knife out and had pulled his head over and was sawing deep into his windpipe. Actually, I sawed for quite a while, and almost managed to completely cut his head off before I realized it. The square was dark and quiet, and the only person that had seen my deed was the fortuneteller—she was staring at me from her table nearby. It had to be done, I said with my eyes. It had to be done, she nodded. When I got back on my bike, the seat had been lowered significantly, so I had to stand. I started pedaling towards home, more than ready to call it a night.

Suzanne Langlois