Do the Weird Crime, Serve the Weird Time

THE GAME

In all other respects he is a benevolent conformist. He decided that all men are allowed one vice. Open or hidden. The best vices—although, he would admit that one doesn’t rationally choose one’s vices—the best vices are the ones that do not destroy the practitioner or permanently injure his victim. Although he gave little thought to his victims. He dealt in fear. He stalked women. He never did anything to his victims. He never even caught them. Or attempted to do these things. Or thought of these things.

Anytime can be a beginning. He would sit on a bench in a park (or an airport, or a shopping mall) and wait. Something would catch his eye. A startling silhouette or a dress ablaze with purple. Then he would rise—quietly, discreetly. He would follow the woman. Never women or a woman with a man or men. Such things could lead to consequences that could disturb his real life. His eight-to-five job forty-nine weeks a year. He relished the backward glance. He could detect the whole continuum: notice, curiosity, confirmation, alarum, fear, flight. The women didn’t cry out to security guards or passersby. He never pressed that close. If she paused to study mannequins, he paused to review the wares of B. Dalton. If she stopped for a drink in a fountain, he would admire the maidenhair tree. If she ran, he would return to his bench. Never, never run in public. The woman would go to her car, he to his (in his college days a ten-speed racing bike sufficed). He would follow her to her house or apartment through labyrinthine suburbs and careful turning tricks. The more elusive she was the greater his excitement. He can’t stand it when some great event occurs and interferes with his ploys.

Today, this brilliant Friday, seemed as good a day as any. Summer chases could be very long as wily women led him into the twilight. He sat on a boulder in a pocket park in LaGrange Park. He waited. It had been a busy day bristling with office politics, vague corporate depravities, and hour-long calls to Japan. All of this tension slid from his back into the gray slate. He was ready. He spotted a young woman feeding pigeons. She looked intelligent, enough. Hope she doesn’t live here. She looked up and smiled. He smiled. She glanced up from time to time. Each time she caught his eye. Nervousness began. She quick walked to her car—a red BMW a sign of upward mobility and great resourcefulness. Good.

He went to his baby blue Continental—slightly revved up—slightly improved. A man has to spend money on his secret vice. That’s how you measure his devotion to it.

To his glee, she quickly left LaGrange Park heading northward for the lake. She might even be from out of town. Illinois plates. Soon they were on the Miracle Mile.

Traffic was very dense today. Soon everything came to a standstill. Something had gone wrong. Her car was two cars ahead. He could see her watch him in her mirror. This wasn’t how the game was played. It wasn’t any fun anymore.

He resolved that when things started up again he’d just drive straight home. Unless she followed him. No that was unthinkable. People began turning off their motors. He checked his tank—one quarter full. With the modifications the LTD consumed great quantities of gas. He turned off his car missing the air conditioning instantly. Windows went down everywhere. Not his. When he played the game he liked to feel cut off. Remote. Frankly he felt dirty. There’s a lot of dirt in a solitary vice, a vice that no one else even thinks of—let alone practices.

People began to talk. No doubt filling the silence with the cheap inventiveness of the bored commuter. He could hear the waves of the lake. It had been a long time since he had heard them. How long? Memory seemed uncertain. He was losing touch. Too much detritus from the gray world of the office. How could you tell Monday from Wednesday, or March from May? How could you tell what happened in which May or how many Mays had gone by? He needed real experiences. He would do the things he’d done as a child. He would begin as soon as this traffic jam was over.

No boats on the lake today. Some people, some irresponsible people had begun to leave their cars. How would these vehicles ever get moving if some of them were abandoned—blocking key lanes? He began to inventory his childhood experiences deciding which to re-create first.

Perhaps a noise, a siren or a gong sounded during his reverie. Everyone seemed to be leaving his or her cars. Let them. He had a good idea. When they were gone he would walk up to the young woman. Make a contact for once. A real human contact. In only seconds all the cars were empty. He walked to the BMW. It, too, was empty. He had expected her to stay, although he wasn’t sure why.

Suddenly he was afraid. A child of the nuclear generation he could imagine only one disaster. He ran for the nearest building, a tall round hotel topped with a rotating restaurant. It looked like a giant child-proof bottle. The lobby was empty. No emergency instructions crackled over the PA system. He went to the elevator. He must get down. To the core of the earth. It arrived and he descended to the sub-basement. Fluorescent light showed a jungle of brightly painted pipes. Maybe it was safe here.

Where was everybody? He returned to the lobby. He shouted. Shouting did not come easily to him. He had to warm up to it with several half-shouts. Finally he achieved full volume. No one here. At least, no one answered him. He walked to his car. The radio stations were off the air, except for one FM easy-listening station that was entirely automatic.

He came back to the hotel. He borrowed a room key. TV was still going. It lasted about half an hour. He locked his room but he didn’t know what he locked it against. He read What to Do in Chicago and the Book of Revelations. The lights flickered about nine and then went out. He was hungry. He made his way in the dark to a vending machine. He smashed the glass with a chair and picked up the display candy and peanut butter-filled crackers. He unwrapped them carefully—feeling the chocolate with his blind fingers afraid of swallowing a fragment of glass. He returned to his room, drank a lot of water, and locked his door.

The next day he ascended the fire stairs to the restaurant and ate a smoked chicken from a warming refrigerator. He watched the still city. The empty lake.

He decided he was singularly deficient of survival skills. He neither hunted nor fished. When he ran out of food—he would visit a nearby pharmacy.

The phone was dead.

He hadn’t thought of it ’til now.

He returned to his room. He could steal everything. He could be the wealthiest man in the world. Tomorrow he would explore things.

He went to all the shops of the Miracle Mile—seeing all the luxuries his life had denied him.

On the third day he woke to the sounds of motors starting. He ran out of his room. People had returned.

They were silent. They avoided his eyes.

He would never, never bridge the gap.