unless we were leaving permanently. If they found us, they would take her away instantly. That would be worse than anything else they could do to me.
I watched the movies on TV without sound. I could be caught off guard if I wore headphones, so I either watched them with subtitles or left them silent and tried to guess the stories. It wasn’t too bad except I couldn’t hear the scores and they were often my favourite part. Music could be married to an image to create a mood with perfect harmony to pull at your heartstrings. I knew it was an illusion but Grace didn’t understand the trick in her naivety. She’d just sit and look at me with tears in her eyes.
I let two weeks pass and I felt like a dog beaten into a corner. It’s not that I didn’t have plans, I had wriggled out of trouble my whole life and I was a quick thinker. Thing was this time, the first part of my plan was simply to wait. I had no idea who I was up against and so I couldn’t predict behaviour. But I could let time eliminate options. Now I knew it probably wasn’t a cop. They’d have taken me when I came in or they’d have got a warrant by now. Besides, if they’d even gone to the police in the first place, a missing person’s case would most likely be as good as ignored by now. If it was a hired professional in there, he couldn’t keep getting paid for bringing back nothing and would come off the daily clock eventually.
See, I thought about those words over and over in those two weeks. Pretty much in the first 24 hours, I had it pegged that this was some kind of interfering stranger. What’s my secret? That’s not the question of an aggrieved family member. No detective would reveal themselves in that way. I just had to wait to be sure.
I stared at the note for so long that I went through every possibility. Maybe everyone in the building got one from some crazed psycho or bored kids. Maybe it had been attached to the bottom of the box and fell off as I dropped it to the floor. Hell, maybe I wrote the damn thing and I’m fucking crazy. It sure feels like it as I look around the apartment.
I’d waited my two weeks and now it was time for action. I was violently anxious as I paced the floors to prepare to carry out the plan. I was pretty confident though. Even if I had been spotted in this city, I was always careful to not give away where I stayed. Only the landlord knew. He was just some deadbeat and he didn’t worry me.
Number 79 had been vacant before and maybe someone had actually taken up the place. Could have been the owner cleaning the place or checking it out. That sound could have been anything. Maybe I really was losing it.
I’d ordered the chains maybe a month before to the mail box. I liked to be prepared for any situation that might arise and it was at times like this that I felt good about that. Best to be a step ahead. I had no choice but to hide Grace and chain her to the wall. It hurt me to do it, because, well, I loved her. If they came in while I was gone and tried to take her, I would be back before they had even gotten close. They would be dead in minutes.
On the ground floor was a room for the concierge. He was hardly ever there, I’d see him smoking outside most of the time he was working. Other times, he would put up notes saying he was on vacation or out of the building. He didn’t seem to do a lot anyway. He wouldn’t be in and it was unlikely anyone would see me do it.
I left it until the early hours to go down there. As I turned the corner toward 79, I walked along the wall on the same side and kept low beneath fisheye view of the peephole as I passed. I kept the perfect balance between moving quickly and quietly.
I was always pretty good at taking things. That’s why I was in this mess to begin with, I guess. I picked the lock of the concierge’s door and took the tapes for the last couple of weeks and threw them in my bag. I was sick with nerves and so eager to get back upstairs that I nearly forgot the tape in the machine, incriminating me. I ejected it and took that too. I closed his door and walked calmly away. I’d return them before he knew they were gone. He would just think he had left the door open and I’d label an old tape with today’s date.
This time when I passed 79, I ran by. If they had been there, they wouldn’t be now and I had to get back to Grace.
I came in and locked the door behind me. I saw Grace was still there and then I replaced the towels and tape as swiftly as I could. I was breathing heavily and felt nauseous, so knelt in front of the toilet bowl. I wretched continually but didn’t vomit and was in so much pain that as I was beginning to feel sorry for myself, I remembered Grace. I got up and went to unchain her. I couldn’t believe I had left her there for so long. See, when Grace died, I promised us both that she couldn’t be hurt again.
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I had a VCR because as much as I liked old movies, my favourite was our wedding video. That and a few old photographs were the only constant possessions Grace and I had, aside from our wedding bands.
We weren’t married by law though, it wasn’t possible. So, we bought what rings we could afford and I stole a video camera. I told Grace it was my Aunt’s. We drove out to the coast when her parents were sleeping and exchanged our own vows. If we were to be married in the eyes of God, he was surely watching. We stayed out and filmed each other talking about the future. My favourite part is when she looks down the lens and says “I’ll love you forever and we will always be together, no matter what anyone says”. I watch it over and over.
The tapes I stole were dated and ordered. Tapes of one hundred metal mailboxes, 1 to 101. No number 13 in this building and I liked that. Not much to see but people collecting their mail, I supposed. I put on the tape of the last 24 hours. I needed to know that nobody was living in 79. I fast-forwarded through and watched 79’s box through the lines of static. People came and went but no one to 79. I knew it was flawed and that if they were really here just for me, they wouldn’t be collecting mail. Your average tenant checks the mail daily but I watched the tape from the previous day to be sure and got nothing. Still, I had the key to 79 from the concierge’s conveniently numbered hooks, so I would soon know.
Everyone around me would be sleeping. I was familiar with their patterns from hearing the TVs and stereos blare out and die from the spaces around me. No daysleepers or night shift workers here it seemed. Just work-a-day Joe’s like I used to be. I didn’t have much choice though, I had to quit school and started making a living any way I could. Grace was smart and was meant to go to college but she couldn’t take her parents’ strictness anymore. She said we should go someplace else together and though I tried to reason with her about her future, I had no argument with her deep down. We left town separately, I went ahead to get us somewhere to sleep whilst she went home to leave her parents a note telling them everything. About our marriage, how her future was her own and that she wouldn’t be coming back.
The knife in my boot was cold and awkward, as I left Grace to go to 79. I thought of knocking but I didn’t want to make a sound for the neighbours to report. The apartments were all the same and so I slid the key into the lock in the same old silent way and entered. I closed the door quickly and put my back to the wall. I went for the main light immediately. I was in and there was no point facing any enemy in the dark. The light illuminated an empty hall and living room. I pulled out the knife and checked the bathroom and the bedroom. Not a soul. I checked the place thoroughly and it was just empty drawers and bookcases. The fridge was empty, no sign of anyone, just as I had thought.
I left 79 as I had found it and returned home to go through the rest of the tapes. I went through them in reverse order. I wanted to see the last time it had been occupied and I couldn’t watch the tape of that night two weeks ago, not right away. I was nervous about it but I had always taken the route of making things harder for myself rather than seeing it through immediately. I was speeding through them as quickly as I could. Time was running out for me. As I put in the last tape, I had a sinking feeling that no one had ever been in 79, that the last two weeks had been wasted. I was right.
All I could think to myself over and over, the phra
se, ‘Fucked if I know what to do now’. It wasn’t true though, I always had a plan but this time I was hard up seeing it. I used to be eloquent, a guy of words like a used car salesman. I’d always been fluent in romance before and Grace loved the letters I wrote and the things I whispered. Since then, I’d been in this damn fog and was pretty blunt to find a phrase. Last time I spoke to a real person was a guy in a bar, when I said “That ain’t none of your concern” before I knocked him off of his stool and broke his nose. He’d eyed my wedding band and said “Take it easy on that stuff pal, your wife’ll kill you when you get in”. My vocabulary had left me and now it seemed my good judgement was fading away.
Funny thing is when your own mind is turning in on you, it’s noticeable. I always thought those mad old fuckers I drank with must have been born that way, woke up that way one morning or just slipped into some delusion gradually. Maybe not. I’ve been fighting madness since Grace went. I question my own actions and still know right from wrong but I know I’m not all I once was