Marvin, I’m Glad You’re Here
by Victor Kreuiter
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4 |
conclusion
Marvin held up three fingers, an involuntary response. Shame? Did he even have any right to feel shame? He felt lightheaded. He felt like he could cry. He didn’t want to think anymore about what he’d already done. He didn’t want it written down in a book for anybody to read.
He didn’t want to work with Miller anymore, or spend anymore time sitting around waiting for some crazy plan to pull some crazy job and wind up with next to nothing. He didn’t want to be Big Marvin anymore. He didn’t want to dodge the other bums just like himself. He didn’t want to see people looking right past him. He didn’t want to see people crossing the street to avoid him
Why was breathing so hard?
Was Randall Miller — Randall used to be Allan Pierce, remember? — was Randall Miller proud of all this? Was he going to write about it? Tell everybody what he did? What they did?
Miller was still talking, still going, enthusiastic. “Okay,” he said. “I’m shot dead, what? Four times! You tell me the world don’t want to hear about what that’s like? No way! This thing could work!”
Marvin shrugged. “I don’t know...” He looked away; he was having trouble focusing. He looked down at his hands, big hands with thick fingers. He thought about the crimes he’d done. He thought about the times he’d shot somebody — somebody like himself — and he thought about the times he’d been shot. Who would want to read about that?
Marvin walked to the front door and looked out, hands in his pockets. A rundown neighborhood. Boarded-up windows and doorways. The absence of any kind of life out there that anyone with any sense would want. Was that his life?
Over his shoulder he heard Miller say, “We can do this, Marvin.”
Marvin reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out two sheets of paper, walked to Randall Miller and set the papers on the desk next to him.
Miller picked them up, read them and laughed out loud.
“You got a Kill Permit on me?” Miller lifted his chin and laughed harder. He looked down at the permit, then back to Marvin. “Wow! You’re thinking!” He laughed again, opened the briefcase, pawed through it, pulled out two sheets and showed them to Marvin. On the TARGET line was Marvin’s name.
“This is great!” Miller said. “This is how we end the book!”
Randall Miller rolled his shoulders and straightened up. For the first time in a long time he felt like a mobster, a genuine capo. It was the feeling he always wanted to feel, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt it so intensely before.
He stood up, walked out onto the sidewalk in front of Miller Racketeering and scanned the entire block. Nobody there. One car parked further down the street. Abandoned? Was the car abandoned? Miller thought he’d walk down later — maybe he could at least get the tires or something. Maybe the whole car.
He heard Marvin step out behind him. When Miller turned, he was looking into the barrel of a cheap handgun. He blinked. “Marvin, come on,”
Marvin shrugged. “You know,” he said, “I don’t know why I got that Kill Permit. Fear, I guess.”
Using the gun, Marvin motioned Miller back into the office and got him back behind the reception desk and seated.
“Marvin, come on” Miller said. He had his hands on the desk, flat.
Marvin, deflated, turned and walked to the front door, stared out at that bleak neighborhood and all he could think about was getting out. Could he do that? When he turned around, Miller had a gun pointed at him. Marvin’s gun was dangling from his hand, pointed down.
“Aw, man,” Marvin said.
Miller laughed and put the gun down on the desk, stood up and backed himself away from the desk. “Look,” he said, “see my gun? Not even in my hand. Don’t want it. Know why?”
Marvin shrugged. He looked at the gun in his hand, walked over and set it on the desk next to Randall’s.
“That’s the spirit,” Miller said. “Now listen... this book thing. Listen to me. We can do this, Marvin. And here’s what we do now. Ready for this?”
Marvin took a deep breath and scratched at his pants leg, and it hit him that he was imprisoned. He’d been imprisoned for as long as he could remember. Didn’t they do away with prisons? Wasn’t that part of the deal? Had he missed something? There hadn’t been a trial. No judge. No jury. Why was he imprisoned?
“Look at me,” Miller said. He waited. “So you got a Kill Permit on me and I got a Kill Permit on you. That’s good. Really, that’s good. That’s perfect.”
Miller carefully slid back into the chair behind the desk, picked up the phone and waited for Marvin to make eye contact. “I call it in right now,” he said. “I call Homicide and then I call ReTurn®, okay? It’s go-time, Marvin. We can make our future right here, right now. Listen to me ... this will work for both of us. I mean it. But we gotta do this right. It means we gotta go through reanimation one more time. Just one more time. Then, in, say, a year, we’re back. Healthy. We got the book done and everything changes for the better. I promise you, this will work.”
He could see the question work its way across Marvin’s face and he knew he had to help Marvin see this through.
“We step outside, Marvin, and we take each other out, one more time. We gotta do it. We got the paper. Then reanimation, and this is all behind us. We do this book thing. It’ll work. You gotta believe me. But first, I know, it’s painful, but first we gotta go down. One more time.” He paused and watched Marvin take it in, dull-faced, looking miserable. “Marvin, we can do this.”
Marvin didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to listen, but he’d heard it anyhow. Madness? Degeneracy? Do what? Shoot each other? Murder each other? He felt exhausted and old; he was taking deep breaths. He turned his hands over, looked at the palms. His hands didn’t work so good anymore; they hurt a lot of the time. His arms. His feet, too. His legs. His back and his shoulders.
Miller stood up. “Look at me, Marvin,” he said. He was sure he was going to be a writer. He was going to be on TV and radio and on the Internet and in the newspapers and magazines. Maybe even in the movies. He was going to dress well and take better care of himself and associate with real human beings, the better class of people who went places and did things.
“Look at me,” he said.
Miller made a show of picking up the phone and making the calls. He called Homicide, then ReTurn®. He grabbed the guns and cajoled Marvin Schoenhorst out onto the sidewalk in front of Miller Racketeering, all the time thinking someone should get a photo of them together, in a pool of blood, with the door right there — his name on it. It would make a great cover for the book.
He got them situated, standing face to face in front of Miller Racketeering, each holding a gun, the barrel lightly resting on the other’s chest, right above their hearts. What was with Marvin? Didn’t he see the enormous potential?
“We can do this, Marvin,” Miller said. “We’re in this together, okay?”
Marvin thought, Shoot Randall Miller?’ No... no. Not that. What would that accomplish? Getting out? Would that help me get out? How?
“Look at me,” Miller said, and Marvin raised his head and looked right into Randall Miller’s eyes.
“Marvin, we go together, okay? On three, okay?”
Marvin shrugged.
“One.”
Miller wished he’d hired a photographer. He could see them dead, or dying, in a pool of blood in front of his business. Just like the real thing. Gritty. Marvin raised his eyes and looked deep into Randall Miller’s face and found nothing there. No past, no present, no future. Nothing. How could that be? He’d spent his life like so many others, looking for the easy way. Shouldn’t someone have warned him?
Miller’s heart was pounding and his pulse was racing and he was chattering away, actually smiling. Marvin wasn’t listening. He couldn’t listen anymore.
“We’re gonna do this, Marvin,” Randall said. “We’re getting out.” He smiled. “We’re on our way.” He paused before “Two.”
Marvin was breathing hard and Miller was licking his lips and bouncing on the balls of his feet, excited, eyes wide open and blinking rapidly.
“On three, Marvin. We both go down, they scoop us up and we both come back, we write the book and presto! More money than we ever made in our lives. Legitimate money. Real money.”
Marvin took a deep breath, eyes glazed, half-listening. He could feel a gun in his hand and he hated the gun and he hated the hand holding it. He could feel the barrel of a gun resting on his chest.
“Three!”
Miller fired. One shot. He twitched, stepped back and watched Marvin collapse. It wasn’t slow. In his mind, all excited about the book, he’d been thinking it would be like slow motion: cinematic. It was nothing of the sort. Marvin collapsed. Then he slapped at his chest, feeling nothing. He looked down; he wasn’t shot. He stepped back quickly, looked down at Marvin, knelt beside him. “Marvin,” he said. “Marvin.”
Marvin was on the ground, on his right side, legs splayed, his right arm trapped under him, his right hand still holding the gun. His left arm was extended out, hand twitching.
Miller kept talking to him, working his way through Marvin’s clothes, looking for the paperwork. The Kill Permit. The ReTurn® certificate. Where were they?
Oh yeah; the office. They were inside, on the desk.
Miller rifled through all Marvin’s pockets. Some change, a wallet, a couple keys. A subway pass. All the time talking to Marvin, looking for a sign he was being heard. Keep talking, he told himself.
He ran back inside, grabbed the Kill Permits and searched for the ReTurn® paperwork. His was in his briefcase. Marvin’s? He found the magazine Schoenhorst had been reading; nothing in it. Nothing on the floor, nothing on the desk. He opened every desk drawer, went into his office and opened every drawer. Nothing. Where did Marvin live? Did he even know? Could his ReTurn® certificate be there?
He went back outside and knelt again. “Marvin,” he said. “Come on, Marvin. Where’s your ReTurn® certificate? You gotta have one.”
Miller looked in Marvin’s eyes. Was there life there? Did he see that? He’d never looked into the eyes of anyone he ever shot. Never. It had always been two shots, Kill Permit down, gun placed on top of it, call it in. That’s what he had always done. Was the ReTurn® certificate his problem? No, certainly never in his past. But now? With Marvin?
There was wheezing in Marvin’s chest, and Marvin’s mouth was open and his tongue, Miller could see Marvin’s tongue tap-tap-tapping his lip. What? Was he trying to say something?
“What?” Miller said. “Marvin, what?” He started to push on Marvin’s chest. He’d seen that done. Is that what you do? Push down on the chest, right? Isn’t that what you do? He put a hand behind Marvin’s head and tried to raise him; was that a siren? Did he hear a siren?
“Marvin,” Randall said. He leaned close to Marvin’s face. “Marvin...”
* * *
Marvin Schoenhorst could feel something. He tried to focus, tried to turn his head and tried to open his eyes. Why the trouble breathing? He heard a voice say his name, then say it again. Who was that? He tried to concentrate, to listen carefully. He sucked in air — a gulp — and he felt a spasm shake his entire body. There was tapping on his chest, and he heard his name again, and suddenly everything was clear. He remembered. They’d talked about it. He could see it, feel it, understand it, just what they’d talked about. It came in a flash.
Was this Michigan? Minnesota? Could that be? He turned his head, tried to get his eyes to open. His chest hurt. Why did his chest hurt? He got his eyes open — why was that so hard? — and he saw a face and the face was his old buddy, smiling, and Marvin realized right then, right at that exact moment, that everything was different. Better. He relaxed. His body, his whole body relaxed and everything seemed better and he felt better and he realized, he was flooded with relief: everything was going to be better from now on.
He opened his eyes wide — it was easy — and he was looking up at blue sky. Him and his buddy, they were in a small boat on a small lake and there was a breeze and white clouds overhead and way off, on the shore, he could see green grass and flowers, trees and rolling hills. There was a dock. Some people were fishing off the dock, and Marvin waved and they waved back at him.
He was fishing. Oh, man! He’d couldn’t remember ever fishing before. Had he ever gone fishing before? The boat rocked just a little, gently, and it felt so good. Peaceful. It was good to be out on the lake, relaxing. How long had it been since he felt relaxed?
His buddy tapped his shoulder — he was wearing that big smile — and Marvin Schoenhorst looked into his buddy’s face and smiled right back at him and felt such relief. Relief like he’d never felt before.
“This is great,” he thought. He tried to say that. That’s what he wanted to say, but his tongue stumbled on the words.
His buddy laughed. “It’s something out here, ain’t it?” His buddy was glad to see him. “You enjoying it?”
Oh yes, Marvin Schoenhorst was enjoying. He knew that right away. What’s not to like? The air was clean and the breeze was refreshing and all his worry and all that other stuff, all that stuff that was bringing him down, where did it go? Was it gone? That fast? He felt such tremendous relief. Could he be that lucky?
He blinked and he could feel his chest burn a bit and he could feel his shallow breathing, but it was okay. Everything was going to be okay now. He was sure of that.
His watched his buddy look to the shore, look out over the lake, turn to him, smile and say, “Marvin, I’m glad you’re here.”
Copyright © 2023 by Victor Kreuiter
