The Canyon Killer
by Ron Sanders
part 1
The night rears, and I sag.
It’s all a mad stampede of staring pedestrians, of dueling traffic and crisscrossing helicopters. Headlights fry my eyes, but I’ve got to keep moving.
There’s Oscar, loitering in the half-light between street lamps. I know he sees me coming: his left eye gleams and drops. He backs against a kitschy restaurant’s gaudily painted wall, feigns nonchalance, casually peers left and right. When he gives that discreet toss of his head. I follow him down a short flight of concrete steps leading to the restaurant’s street-side deliveries door. At the bottom, a pool of pitch obscures us from the sidewalk above.
Oscar glares. “Remember what I told you, chump? Don’t come shuffling around here like the walking dead. Put on some decent clothes, wash your face and hands, and comb your damn hair, for Chrissake. You’re a total bust, man. So get your funky act together or go score somewheres else.”
“I need a dime,” I mumble, avoiding his eyes. “Just a dime. Just a roll.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need a dime, I do the time. Don’t play with me, dog. Make this worth my while.”
My fingers knead the twisted steel handrail. “But it’s like I really need a dime, right? Because I really need to stay awake.”
Oscar sneers. “What you really need, dude, is to chill out. Then you need to realmente clean up your lice-happy self. After that you can let your Holmes hang out in that snarky afeminado espresso bar over there. Don’t forget to say ¡Hola! to all the little bareeestas. Or, if you’re really so fagged-out all the time, just cop to the mainstream and start sucking down some of them ‘like totally bitchin’ new energy drinks y’all be jonesing over. Hey? Learn to pace your homeless ass, or do a boatload of NoDoz. I don’t give a crap. Show me some real green or get the hell off my turf.”
“C’mon, man! This is like a life-or-death thing here. If I fall asleep again, I’ll go off again, right?” I’m talking to a wooden Indian here. “I really, really do not want to snuff any more people. I try my hardest. I do my absolute damnedest to control it. But I can’t stop myself. It’s like my rage, it escapes. It goes off on people.”
“Your rage? Shit, homey. What do you mean, your ‘rage’? Grow a set of cojones, will you?” Oscar isn’t sure whether to shake his head or spit. “You gonna start on me again, like some kinda freaked-out broken record? We all got rage.” He taps his temple. “You keep him up here where he belongs.”
“And I’m telling you, man, it’s way heavier than all that. It’s called random eye movement sleep. I read about it. It happens to everybody, but it has a way of messing with my head when I’m in, like, really deep sleep. Right? It gets me up, but it doesn’t wake me up. I mean it only wakes up that primitive side, you know, that darkest part of a man that should never wake up. It makes me furious. And it makes me do things.”
“Makes you do things?” Oscar snaps his fingers in my face. “Who’s awake here, little vato, you or me? Why you gotta come at me all loopy and pinch-eyes instead of like mi clientela exclusiva? Hey? When my groovy colegas check in, they know my street rep’s like totally golden, so all our righteous negociaciones come together just as clean and smooth as my sweet baby’s tush. No freaky space-rap. No stinky rags. And no excuses. Hey?
“You’re like this hobo spazzdick who’s just begging to be fried. Ain’t a brother on the street can’t see that. So school me in, chamán. ¿Compren — eh, how you white boys say — capiche? Edúcarme, and I do mean here and I do mean now. Tell me how you gots how you gots. I just gotta know, zombi loco, but from the heart, this time.” He thumps his chest. “Hey?”
It’s coming up, I swear it’s coming up. My fist burns round and round on the handrail. The bad side of my head begins to throb. “I don’t know how I gots how I gots, man. I only know that it’s been coming on really hard, and I mean really fast. And it’s like I really, really need a goddamned roll, man, like right on the dime, and like right now, because I know if I fall asleep again, I’ll go off again. It’s that simple.”
“Simple?” Oscar backs away melodramatically. “That’s some heavy bullshit, Sleepy. And it’s the same bullshit you ran by me last time, and the time before. You don’t need no more uppers. What you need is a good headshrinker.”
“Hell with you.”
“You too, bitch! Don’t you be dissing me! Here I try to give you your props, and all I get back is more grief and promises. So scram! Beat it! ¡Vete a la mierda! Take a hike, puta, and I don’t wanna be seeing you no more. Right?”
It’s coming up again. Like way, way up. Like bile-boiling. Like lava-pissed. But I’m wrung so thin the very act of framing a retort leaves me clinging to the rail. My hammering head lolls against the wall. Can’t afford to blow it. Not now. “Please. It’s like I’m... um, truly, um... realmente sorry. So just this once?”
Oscar appears to seethe. Finally he says, coldly, “Where’s my dime?”
I stuff my free hand in my trousers pocket, pull out a few crumpled bills and a mess of change. “Eight dollars and thirty-nine cents. It’s all I could scrounge up. I’ll square it with you next time.” In a minute I feel the handful scraped away and the slim foil-wrapped roll take its place.
Oscar gores me with his eyes. “There ain’t gonna be no next time. Now split, fool.”
I conquer the steps one grueling lunge at a time; a strikeout victim again, a frustrated, street-broken, enfeebled old man. Deep in the well, Oscar curses my ancestors and any descendants to come.
And I’m staggering down the sidewalk, storefront to storefront. Every nerve’s on fire, and it won’t hang, it just won’t hang.
Rip open the roll. Pop the little handful dry.
Seconds later I’m sitting on the curb, knees pressed together, tears squeezing from my eyes. Saliva floods my mouth, but I refuse to heave. I swallow again. The bitter, bitter mouthful slowly dissolves and works its way into my bloodstream.
The sound of brakes. A bright light slams into my eyes. The officer’s voice is chilly: “You all right?”
I wince and nod. “Something...” I manage, “something caught in my throat.”
“Do you need medical assistance?”
I shake my head and make a great show of swallowing. “Better,” I say, and open my mouth wide.
The beam breaks from my face, searches the curb and gutter. The light is switched off.
“Move along.”
I stand and raise a grateful hand... stretch and yawn... innocently amble down the walk pretending to window shop... waiting... waiting. Waiting for the uppers to kick in.
There’s a minute — or is it an hour — when I completely lose my train of thought while staring through some miscellaneous window.
And then the night’s all over me. Moonlight spatters and pools... lovers furtively weave their overeager eyes... cafe-bound shoppers, burbling en masse, jollily join in the evening’s refrain. And then there’s... Me! Stupid eyesore freak, stumbling in circles, half-asleep, half-alive. Sit down, you damn idiot, or fall down, you damn idiot.
It’s a dead-end alley lit only by the moon. A shithole for sure, but at least it’s off the grid. Tucked behind a leaning plywood panel is a bed of flattened cardboard, stained by booze and pee and God knows what. A wino’s crash pad. My arms begin to tremble, a white-hot flash cleaves my chest.
And I’m rushing, rushing, rushing. Get down, dickhead, behind the wood and out of sight. Close your eyes or they’ll sizzle right out of your skull. Rest. Ah, please. Only for a minute. Only for a breath.
Just rest.
* * *
There he is, on the move. We’re creeping down an alley in a REM nightmare, one shifting shadow after another. I follow him over a drooping chain-link fence, a fence that, like everything else, fights my every move. Now he’s inching around a building to study the street.
I can sense what he’s after. He’s found a man walking alone; a little old man in a nice suit, tapping a silver-knobbed birch cane. His excitement grows with each approaching tap. I can’t reach him, can’t stop him; my limbs are tangled up in some kind of sticky invisible web.
I can only howl soundlessly as he grabs the old man and yanks him headfirst into the alley, bashes his skull repeatedly against a cold brick wall, chokes him to death and hurls the body down. He checks for a pulse before frantically rooting through the dead man’s clothes, then leans back on his haunches to examine something important in the hazy glow of streetlamps. He peers all around, his blank eyes squinting when he looks my way. A moment later he drops out of sight, savaging his prize.
The background begins to revolve. The periphery dilates and contracts. The curves and angles collapse as the night caves in around us.
* * *
A stinking bed in a starlit, roach-ridden room. A smashed-in pane framing a dirty false dawn. I must have broken in, must have climbed in from the alley. It’s an old abandoned hotel; rat carcasses on the floor, cobwebs in the corners. Just as spooky as spooky can be. But eerily familiar.
Those uppers had to have been cut with something; chalk, maybe, or maybe baking soda. That underhanded son of a bitch Oscar. Still, notwithstanding any personal revulsion for that weaselly creep, I have to give his stuff points for its long-term effects: jaws and fingers are jazzed, teeth grinding for the pulp.
My groping hand chances upon an open matchbook, and in the sudden glare of a struck match, a half-memory challenges me. I reach under the bed to retrieve a fancy billfold stuffed fat with cash and credit cards. Twenties, fifties, hundreds. Some “real green.” The driver’s license reveals a distinguished, elderly gentleman smiling pleasantly for the DMV. Just a face in the crowd. But he knows me, and he fears me. As I guiltily pocket the bills, my palms begin to sweat, my fingers itch like crazy.
Who the hell am I?
Zoning out. Suffocating. Temple pounding inside and out. Sliding down the wall a foot at a time. Barely conscious, all but unaware of the sky’s gradual lightening. Can’t stay in here. Can’t breathe, can’t think.
Next thing I know, I’m rolling on my belly in the alley, groggily scoping for looky-loos. In the distance are scrub-peppered hills growing distinct with the breaking day. They seem to be calling me... Why do I feel I’ve been tramping them all my life? The neglected terrain, the field mice, the litter: this whole back-section’s been going to seed for years but, once I’m on the sidewalks, I begin passing plenty of small businesses, even some nice homes. There are quaint shops and mom-and-pop retailers that look like they’ve been around for decades. It’s more of a cool little lost community than a big-city offshoot.
Yet... I don’t exactly feel like a stranger here. Faces other than Oscar’s peer in from the rim of my consciousness. I could swear I’ve seen this short row of exclusive chichi establishments before. And the deeper I go, the more intimate it all becomes.
Off to my left reels a wretched, raggedy creature who looks like he just crawled out of a storm drain. It’s my reflection in a plate glass window. The image is so disturbing I refuse to look again.
A convenience store, security cameras inside and out. A gas station, way too many people around the pumps. A beauty salon, blinds rising to meet the new day.
A 24-hour doughnut shop, only a few lingering customers anticipating the morning rush. I ricochet table-to-table to the counter, nervously thumbing my new fortune, and somehow summon the grits to order an extra-large black coffee. The amphetamine must still be circulating: aromas are smothering. The thought of food, of even sampling a pastry, makes me want to pitch into the restroom and puke. Cashier and customers regard me strangely, but is it only my wild appearance? This house brew is burnt motor oil. Got to get it down, got to force it down, got to keep it down. Can’t afford to pass out in plain sight.
On a tabletop covered with crumbs and coffee stains, the local paper’s banner headline screams up at me: CANYON KILLER.
Partial memories swirl like falling leaves. A jogger... a wandering bard... a young photographer who strayed just a tad too near. Regrets objectified and suppressed. Feelings bagged and buried. Victims mangled and mutilated.
Anxiety jangles my nervous system in little electric waves. Have they found the old man yet? Hastily gulp down the scalding coffee. Way too paranoid to order a refill, but sooner or later I’ll have to really hit the caffeine. Anything to keep me going.
Sunlight butters the hilltops as I wobble down the road. Jesus! The morning’s barely begun, and I’m already out of it. What makes the worst part of a man sleepwalk? And what makes him crash on his feet? Copters sweep the sapphire-to-gold gradient, their searchlights’ beams jerking this way and that. For one heart-stopping moment, the nearest of those lights abruptly swings my way. I pale and turn to stone, caught in imaginary crosshairs.
I won’t make it another hour like this. No way; not without chemical assistance. I’ll shrink or I’ll snap or I’ll swoon or I’ll freak. And Oscar’s never out before dark. Even assholes have rhythm.
To my left, an old woman sits slumped against a market wall. She raises a languid arm and smiles gummily. What does she want? A face to remember, an ear to bend, a shoulder to cry on? I blow her off until I see a sheriff’s car climbing the hill, then I gently slide down beside her, away from the road. She grabs my hand and jabbers her psychedelic whatnot while I blearily peer around her. The car slows before continuing up the road.
My mind refocuses.
“I read you,” she’s saying, gripping my hand with passion. “Sleep. Sleep is your problem.”
I cram a five in her molten Halloween gypsy face. “What do you want, man? Money?”
She snatches the bill like a bullfrog catching a gnat, shoves it in her bra with one claw, takes my paused hand with the other. “You are hiding,” she drones. “You are on the run.”
“Hell with you, lady. Let go of my hand.” I jack myself to my feet.
She’s trying to jack me back down when her eyes shoot open and her jaw drops wide. “No! It’s you!”
“I said, ‘Let go!’” Peel myself loose... grope around the market’s side; extremities going numb, brainpan brimming with sleep’s cement... bang down the wall one backbreaking brick at a time; a pointless, festering, pathetic pile of human debris.
Traffic picks up. Pedestrians pop into view. An ambulance streaks past. Ah, Christ... Oscar’s right: I’m a total bust. Shudder to my feet, fall back against the wall, butt-walk my way into a cul-de-sac between buildings... a space behind bins... no, don’t totter, jerkoff, don’t stumble, don’t stop. And don’t close your eyes. Mercy. Just a place to curl up. Just a newspaper pillow to cushion that pulsing pain. Just a cardboard box to black out the wracking day.
Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake! Do not close your eyes!
* * *
Copyright © 2023 by Ron Sanders
