High Performance

Joe Joe nods. "Yeah, that's it. You know him?"

I get an idea.

"Joe, can I borrow your cigarettes for a second?"

"What for? You don't smoke."

"I promise I'll bring them right back."

He hands me a soft pack and I walk slowly over to the row of columns.

When I get close to him, I knock a smoke out of the pack. I pat for a light in each of my pockets and come up empty.

"Hey buddy," I ask the guy next to the column. "Got a light?"

"Let me bum a smoke, I'll give you a light," he says.

I shrug and toss him the pack. In a few seconds he's smoking and I'm trying very hard not to puke.

"So what happened out here, man?" he asks.

My eyes are watering. "Some girl went off the roof."

"Ough," it is a guttural noise, meaningless.

I drop the cigarette and stub it out, "yeah, she was a nice girl. Everyone knew her."

He shakes his head, "I probably didn't. I'm new here."

"You didn't know Marla?"

"I've only been here a week. This is my first game."

I look down at his boots. "Are those steal-toed?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says, knocking one against the concrete column. "They're my shit-kickers. Had 'em for years."

I'm sick to my stomach, probably from the cigarette. I head for the restrooms, trying not to look green.

"Thanks for the smoke, man," I hear him call as I walk away. "My name's Jonah, by the way."

I wave and disappear into the men's room.

In the glow of the florescent lights I put my head against the cool metal of the stall and listen to the rhythmic thumping of people's feet above me.

They won't find a note on the roof.

After leaving the restroom I walk back out to the Ambulance. I get in and they unzip the bag. I get a moment alone with Marla.

She's still pretty. I run a hand over her forehead and through her short hair. Somebody had already closed her eyes.

I kiss her goodbye and get out before the ambulance drives away.

In the stadium there is the blow of the referee's whistle signifying the start of the fourth quarter. I tell Joe Joe, I'll be fine. He can go back to work. I'll find some other way home.

After all the cops have gone back to the command post, I walk over to the Burger Barn. I watch him smile at the customers as he hands them their food. When I close my eyes I imagine him pushing her off the roof. I know he did it…

***

A few nights later, when I come home and peal out of my clothes, I turn on the radio for the first time since it happened. The clothes go strait into the wash and with the music turned up I can barely hear it as I scrub myself red in the shower.

When I finish and wipe the fog from the mirror, Marvin Gaye is singing I Heard it through the Grapevine. I look at myself.

I haven't had a drink in two years. Not a drop since the night I got mugged. I wish I had a bottle right now. Marla is haunting me.

It is late. Everyone in the apartment building is asleep, I can feel it. Except for the radio it is all night and silence.

I turn off the light in the bathroom and crawl into bed. Her smell is fading from the sheets.

The song ends and one of the DJ's gets on. I half-expect it to be Marla but it's not. It's some guy. I met him at a Christmas party. What was his name?

He finishes the station identification and plugs in some Sinatra singing about how it's a quarter of 3 and nobody's in the place except him and me. It sounds like the prefect song for the end of the world.

"Make it one for my baby and another one for the road…"

When the music fades, The DJ reads the first of the news bulletins.

"A body has been found. A young male, left at the side of the road after an apparent drug overdose. A note was found with the body, apparently linking it to the death earlier this week of WKRL station employee, Marla Watts. Police are looking for anyone who might have any information…"

He wasn't hard to follow. I watched him all that day before I broke into his little house outside of town. It was run-down. The windows were coated in tin-foil and black paint.

Inside it was trashy with mold in the corners. I could smell the rot under the window-panes. I found him asleep on a couch at the back of the house.

He was already groggy when I tied him down. As I forced the pills down throat, I could see the confusion in his eyes. Why was I doing this? Who was I?

I bet he hadn't bothered to find out about the marriage. I guess he figured nobody would want her after she left him.

As he lay in the bed, slowly dying, I told him about my wife. I told him about my little demon, Marla. I plugged a tape she'd given me for my birthday into his stereo and showed him pictures of her. They were shots of the two of us visiting her Grandmother in Maine.

When he finally passed out, I untied him and loaded him into Marla's car. I went back into his house and found a pencil and paper.

I wrote the note, folded it and put it in his pocket. I dropped him at the nearest bus stop, knowing it would be an hour or two before anyone gave a damn about him.

"…We will bring you more on this story as it develops. In other news, it appears that our beloved Gators will be going to the playoffs against…"

I switch off the radio. I wish the smell on the sheets would last a little longer. It's vaguely like peanut butter and bananas, only there's something floral mixed in with it.

I'll have to wash them eventually. It's a simple fact. Tomorrow I will cook the chicken before it turns bad. Perhaps I'll call the supervisor and give my notice. I doubt he'll begrudge me the two weeks. I think of Marla on the slab, soon in the box in the ground. I remember her on top of me, beneath me, beside me in the bed, her voice on the radio, her breath in my ear, the sight of her eating fruit from the jar with a pair of chopsticks and I want to cry as the darkness grows and I finally, fitfully, fall asleep and dream of her.