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Bystanders

Matthew Snyderman

PAM

Pam Dobbs almost dropped her morning cigarette when the crack of palm hitting countertop caused her to look without looking at the paunchy, middle-aged man. He was glaring down his oddly crooked nose at yesterday’s Chronicle, the one she’d saved for him so he could do the Jumble. But while the small handful of customers in the seedy skid row coffee shop kept their eyes glued firmly on their Danish, she wiped both hands on a dishtowel and ended her break five minutes early.

The veteran waitress’ instincts were fine-tuned to tell the volatile from the harmless, and this guy, one of her regulars, was definitely harmless, if a bit odd. Always wandering in at some ungodly hour. Always smoking. Always drinking cup after cup of their bad coffee. He tipped, though, and was polite, which went a long way in her book. His only sin, sneaking the occasional packet of Sweet & Low.  “You alright, hon?” she asked, employing the disarming tone of a hostage negotiator. All she was able to make out from the upside-down newspaper was a headline: “Esteemed Teacher Retiring After 50 Years.”

“Know her?”

“You could say that,” he murmured. Waving off her offer of more coffee, he flipped a buck onto the counter and stood to go. She watched him step out into the morning fog and zip up his faded Members Only jacket, steam pouring from his nostrils. No additional customers had wandered in, so she settled onto his still warm stool to read the story. It brought to mind her elementary school days and the many kindnesses of Sister Catherine, who was often more maternal than Pam’s own mother. “About time,” she thought at the prospect of a teacher instead yet another big shot enjoying a first class send -ff. Puzzled by the man’s reaction, she shrugged and began buffing a few tables so they would be spic and span for the morning rush, not that anybody ever noticed such niceties. Little did Pam know that she’d be reading about her just-departed customer in the paper soon enough. On the front page.

MIGUEL

RAMON THE COLLECTOR made Miguel nervous, no matter how broadly the self-proclaimed ex-Marine smiled or how hard he laughed. It wasn’t the MMA buzz cut and the tattooed cobra coiled around his neck. There was always something lurking beneath the surface which had the Sunshine Arms’ diminutive night clerk hoping a couple of drunken hookers would start duking it out on the sidewalk. Even a burst pipe would have been welcome. But happenstance rarely afforded him such graceful exits, especially around the first of the month when Ramon kicked off his pursuit of delinquent rent payments on behalf of a faceless landlord.

There Miguel stood, stroking his goatee to hide his shaking hand when Jackson Baum lumbered in wearing his Members Only jacket and almost tripped over the legs of a man sprawled across the lobby’s decomposing sofa. Fresh, no doubt, from that shabby diner round the way, he was en route to his 12′ x 12′ fifth floor walk-up, the one on which Miguel knew he owed 3 months rent.

Luckily for Jackson, Ramon seemed too busy bragging on his latest sexual conquest to notice the new arrival. Nor that his captive audience was silently directing Jackson toward the deadbeats’ entrance down the side alley. Miguel quickly cranked the volume on the TV behind the counter to mask the sound of Jackson climbing the rickety fire escape and wedging open the window to the second-floor stairwell, the one with a broken latch.

“Jesus!” complained Ramon, plugging his ears.

“Check this out, ese.”

An exasperated Ramon executed an about face punctuated by a curt “Later, Miguelito” and stalked out. The momentary calm evaporated when a disembodied voice floated in through the doorway…”Your pinche friend on the fire escape will find his shit in the street if he doesn’t come across!”

Jackson may have been a deadbeat, but their occasional chats about music had added welcome spice to a few otherwise tedious shifts. So he waited for his morning relief to arrive and then hustled upstairs with Jackson’s mail and a Ramon advisory.

Gasping for air by the fifth floor, he caught his breath while replacing the flickering light bulb on the landing before continuing along the hallway. Other than himself and the odd outreach worker lugging a messenger bag stuffed with brochures for various social services, Miguel doubted Jackson had ever had a visitor, even a prostitute, since moving in 2 years earlier with one suitcase and three crates of records. The music he heard seeping from under the tenant’s door wasn’t the usual jazz or classical. It was dark; darker than the Goth tunes favored by the local street kids. He wasn’t even sure if it was music at all. And it played again and again with Miguel’s knuckles poised an inch from the plywood door. Despite his concern, he decided against knocking.

That same tune was playing upon his return the next afternoon, when he did knock. “Go away, Miguel!” burst from the other side of the door with a force he felt more than heard. “At least he’s alive,” Miguel muttered to himself as he considered phoning the Crisis Hotline, a number everybody who worked at the Sunshine Arms knew by heart.

NICK

EVEN A LITTLE CULTURE CLUB was too much for Nick Gramsci, who ground his teeth to “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” while filing the latest cache of 45s to come through the doors of Noir Vinyl. New Wave Claire had been disrespecting his eardrums all morning with musical choices that should have disqualified her for life from setting the in-store playlist. He breathed in the aroma of old cardboard as if it were incense and prayed for her traipse off to the neighborhood taco truck for an early lunch. Seconds after his prayer was answered, he was dropping the needle on Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen’s “Lost in the Ozone Again.”

Nick liked his job. Music collectors were an idiosyncratic yet interesting lot and he enjoyed those adventurous customers open to friendly suggestions. It also amused him to play the novelist, conjuring backstories for those selling record collections based on their appearance and what they were selling. Who was unloading an unwanted inheritance. Who was raising money for their kid’s tuition. Who was getting divorced. Or getting even with an ex. Who was desperate. He figured his batting average at a hair north of .600. Downtime was even more fun. What could be better on a rainy day than chilling in the back room, listening to whatever struck his fancy?

He had just put his feet up on the boss’ desk, grooving to “Hot Rod Lincoln,” when the cashier called out “Yo, Commander, customer!”

Emerging from behind the curtain, Nick found himself staring at a boxer’s nose attached to a man in last night’s clothes who looked as though he’d never seen, let alone worked, heavy bag. “Morning.”

The man nodded in return and nudged forward a stack of LPs. “Nice mutton chops. Very … Commander Cody.”

Impressed, Nick donned his reading glasses and reached for the albums as if he’d filled an inside straight. “Let’s see whatcha got.”

It didn’t take long for him to appraise this seller with a collection that far outclassed his wardrobe. These records weren’t inherited or stolen. This was a fire sale by a veteran collector. He was unloading obscurities and a handful of first printings, one of which was quite rare, that had probably taken decades to accumulate.  “You don’t see this kind of stuff every day,” Nick said, sliding each record from its sleeve and tipping it this way and that to assess its condition. Every one had been pampered and bathed like the babies he figured this guy’d never had. They were his family; wife, kids, and dog rolled into one.

A collector himself, Nick abandoned his customary clinical detachment and leaned on his elbows to ask, not unkindly, “You sure about this?”

“Afraid so.”

“OK. I’ll take everything. Most for the store and these three for me. Let’s say $575.”

Another nod.

Check cut, Nick hoisted the records and in turning to cart them away, heard a ragged sigh followed by the door banging shut.

LEAH

BAREFOOT AND SHRIEKING, the little girl fled her pursuer, blond hair unfurling in a tangled mess as she ran. With the gap between them closing fast, the roar of oncoming wheels blocked out all other sound until she unexpectedly veered left into the bathroom. Her brother’s Big Wheel skidded past and slammed against the wall, leaving skid marks on the hardwood floor. The shadow that fell across the boy might as well have come from a bank of thunderheads. “That’s it, junior,” she growled minus a trace of the indulgent grin that usually signaled a mild punishment. Leah Schade folded her arms and waited. A lifelong Clint Eastwood fan, she knew a well-timed silence often produced the desired reaction better than a red-faced rant.

She caught a reflection of her 6-year-old provocateur mugging at her brother in the hallway mirror and called without turning her head, “Get your Jewish ass over here, missy…Now.” Both kids began to wish they were still at school.

Knock … Knock … Knock.

“Don’t move,” Leah ordered before opening the door. A stranger with a nose that had obviously been on the receiving end of a few haymakers and wearing the same teal-colored Members Only jacket favored by the building super was standing there, shifting his weight from foot to foot like a 3-year-old in need of a bathroom. “Can’t you read?” she said sharply, inclining her head toward a sticker on the door warning that salesmen were shot on sight.

“Cute,” he replied. “Lenny sent me. I’m Jack.”

“Ah. Hold on.” A chain rattled and then he was inside. While barely 5’4″, Leah’s demeanor and sturdy shoulders made her seem taller than her visitor. With their mother distracted, the kids resumed their chase, nearly cutting Jack’s legs out from under him. “Pipe down!” Leah hollered half-heartedly while leading him into the master bedroom, smoothing her navy business suit and liberating her strawberry blond hair from its ponytail. “Whatever you do, don’t have kids.” Door firmly shut, she kicked off her pumps and dragged a steel suitcase out of the closet, the kind with industrial strength combination locks. “How is Lenny, anyway?” she asked, blowing her bangs from her eyes and deftly dialing the combinations.

“Full of shit,” Jack replied.

“Ha! What else is new? Smoke?” she asked, tapping out a Kool, “The kids think I quit.”

“So I hear you’re a PI.”

“Yeah; when I need a break from motherhood.”

Jack plucked one from the pack as she flipped open the lid and they surveyed her assortment of handguns. One at a time, he examined them and sighted along their barrels, trying to appear knowledgeable: a 40 Sig Sauer, a Glock 9. She even had a cute Derringer. Finally, he selected a Colt .357 Python and spun the cylinder. “Hmmm…”

“Ah; nothing gets people’s attention like a magnum. I’m kind of attached to these bad boys, but it feels weird having so many with kids in the house. And I can use the extra cash for day care and Bar Mitzvah presents. I’ll keep one for work, probably the Sig.”

Tucking the pistol in his waistband, Jack said, “This’ll do. $600 ok?”

“Let’s try $750.”

“750?! Lenny said — “

“Do I look like Lenny? 700. I’ll throw in a shoulder holster; no extra charge. You definitely don’t want that falling down the back of your pants.”

Jack methodically peeled the bills from his bankroll, and they completed their transaction.

“Hey!” she called, tossing him a box of hollow points before he reached the door. “These might come in handy. Say ‘hi’ to Lenny.”

AVI

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Avi Zanger pressed the red button on the column to his right. Then he pressed it again; harder, this time. His third attempt produced an electric hum and a 2 by 3-foot paper rectangle hissed toward him on a wire, coming to halt 12” from his nose. He frowned at it. One of the bullets had missed the Osama bin Laden target’s bullseye by an inch. “Gevalt!”

Ejecting the clip from his Baretta and checking the chamber out of habit even though he knew it was empty, the big Israeli holstered his gun and stepped back from his firing lane.

“Whoa!” A man stumbled backward out of a neighboring lane, almost crashing into him after firing a round from the biggest gun he’d seen all morning. Avi didn’t have to look to confirm this obvious newbie’s Osama bin Laden target was still in perfect health. Arms folded, he stood back to watch, also out of habit. Only when he was sure the .357’s last bullet was discharged did he tap its owner gently on the shoulder. “Hello,” he said with a smile. The newbie, his protective headphones as askew as his nose, had to peer up into the taller man’s face.

“New to shooting?” Avi asked without a trace of sarcasm.

“Is it that obvious?”

Avi shrugged. “Can I give you a little free advice? It’s been a few years, but I was a firearms instructor with the IDF…That’s the – ”

“Israeli army; I know. Sure, fire away.”

“HA! First, forget whatever you learned about shooting from the movies, with all respect to Mr. Eastwood. Second, forget whatever you learned about shooting from the movies.” He went on to explain how ammo with a less potent charge generated a more manageable kick before showing his new student how to set his feet and hold his weapon. Then he bummed a fistful of compatible, more beginner-friendly cartridges and had him load them.

By the third go-round, the newbie had advanced a level or two; he no longer lost his balance when firing and had even managed to wing Osama bin Laden a time or two. “Well done, Mr.…” he said, eyebrows raised.

“Jack.”

“Well done, Jack. Now remember, you have to practice if you want to rid the world of terrorists. And stick with these lighter rounds for a while unless you plan on piercing an engine block.” A slap on the shoulder and Avi was off to his favorite breakfast spot for some baked eggs in a zesty tomato sauce.

MEGAN

“THANK GOD for free hors d’oeuvres,” thought Megan Sevareid, shamelessly piling her plate with onion tarts. Flat out of caffeine fumes to run on, she needed a pick-me-up, and these snacks were delicious. The wine probably was too, but she was on the job and an empty stomach. A dram of something with considerably more kick awaited after she filed her story.

Settling into a seat near the dais to fully take in the proceedings, the second-year reporter for the Chronicle’s society page scarfed with one hand and texted her best journalism school buddy, the one covering foreign affairs for a feisty left-wing journal, with the other.

(M) Bonjour, Sylvie. How r things in Gay Paris? Plz tell me you hate it.

(S) I hate it. How’s that?

(M) Covering ANOTHER thrilling human interest wingding.

(S) Anything juicy?

(M) Ha. Some fossil retiring from an elementary school that costs more to attend than Stanford. I should have been a dog walker.

(S) Come on, you’re just getting started.

(M) That’s what I’ll keep telling myself until the next time one of those newsroom cigar chewers calls me honey and gets a lap full of hot coffee.

(S) They do that here 2.

(M) At least it’s in French. And in Paris. Ooops … Gotta go.

Guests were starting to trickle in. Berkwood Academy teachers and administrators, past and present. Students, all seemingly under 11 and stuffed into suits and dresses that would easily set her back a week’s pay. There was even a member of the Board of Supervisors in attendance, with his son but not his wife. Intrigued, she noted that detail for future reference. Hugs aplenty were going around accompanied by air kisses to both cheeks.

Grand chandeliers made the women’s dresses shimmer against the background of red velvet curtains, accompanied by an accordion and violin combo running through a bistro-style set list. Demolishing her last baby artichoke, Megan deposited the plate absent-mindedly on the nearest table, wondering whether Donnie, her usual photographer, had gone AWOL. Images of him and some busboy blowing the smoke from a joint out the men’s room air vent quickly dissipated when he ambled in, camera bag and a trio of Nikons bouncing against his torso. “Glad you could make it,” she said in her best “WTF, dude” voice, sniffing for traces of Tic Tac. “Let’s get to it, shall we? Remember Supervisor and cute kids, first. Oh, and that lady with the hair and solid gold dress.”

Each interviewee, even the kids, gave the journalists a skeptical once over until realizing the underdressed pair might land them in the Sunday paper. Megan knew Donnie would rather join the Marines than put on a tie, which was OK for a photographer. Her face growing hot, she silently vowed to invest in a presentable evening outfit, even if she had to eat ramen for a month to pay for it.

The quotes were predictably pedestrian, especially the Supervisor’s, which was destined for the article no matter what he said. There was one guest, however, lingering on the fringe of the crowd who activated her journalistic divining rod. His ill-fitting corduroy jacket and chinos might have been standard issue in the newsroom, but not here. And while clean shaven, a fragment of blood-stained toilet paper was stuck to his jaw. It was his damaged nose and stone-faced expression, though, that really didn’t fit. Megan sensed a possible story and tugged Donnie in the man’s direction by his tangle of camera straps while a string quartet heralded the grande dame’s arrival with the opening bars of the La Marseillaise.

Madame Josette, however petite, commanded attention.  Everything about her appearance was perfect: the chic black dress with white silk stockings, the black stiletto heels, and the immaculate makeup, from nails to lipstick. Her silver hair, with not a strand out of place, was arranged in a severe bun. “That must really hurt,” thought Megan, watching the soon to be former teacher deploy an indulgent front throughout an eternity of banalities. The throng was charmed, but the reporter knew a politician’s mask when she saw one. “Hey, Donnie, how many of these grown ups do you think are former students?”

He grinned. “Like, none.”

Chitchat at an end, Madame Josette silently parted her admirers with a wave of her hand.  Donnie withdrew to snap a few photos of the honoree approaching the dais past ranks of unsmiling children practically standing at attention. Megan pictured a ramrod-straight drill sergeant, riding crop lodged in his armpit, scrutinizing a line of cowed recruits while she shouldered her way to their table.

First came the testimonials to raised glasses of Bordeaux and Chardonnay. Fulsome praise for her unmatched record of achievement with nary a mention of fun or laughter or one of those never to be forgotten field trips. And all offered by adults, with the exception of a girl who reeked of teacher’s pet. “No way she wrote that herself,” murmured Megan to herself. Twenty endless minutes of this had her wishing for that glass of wine. She was well into her third imaginary Viognier when Madam Josette finally took the mic. “There is no greater privilege or legacy than shaping young lives and I want to thank all of you for trusting your sons’ and daughters’ development to me. Their considerable success has been more a testament to my life’s work than any plaque or scholarship fund. And I take great pride …” she droned on, gripping the sides of the podium and rising to her toes at the start of each sentence.

Instantly bored, Megan punched the record button on her phone and cursed not quite under her breath when it fell beneath her seat. She reached down as gracefully as she could, groping for it blindly until the teacher’s words were replaced by murmurs from the crowd.  The corduroy man, eyes locked on the speaker, was advancing slowly on the dais.

The board president gestured to one of his flunkies and sent him scurrying out a side exit, cell phone in hand. Rising to his full 6’1″, he approached the interloper as if he were an errant student. “Look here…”

A forceful shove sent him tumbling into the lap of a corpulent woman seated on the aisle, knocking her chair over backwards. Anxious parents hushed their giggling children while nudging them towards the exits to the rapid-fire clicking of Donnie’s camera. After a deep breath, the corduroy man began reciting something in French with the cadence of a nursery rhyme.

“Rien ne sert de courir; il faut partir à point. Le Lièvre et la Tortue en sont un témoignage… “

Megan noticed a flash of recognition on the old woman’s face, quickly replaced by an expression of disdain that spread across her features like an oil slick. “Ah, Jacques, my dirty little boy, I see you finally mastered that poem. Pity it took so long  ̶̶ ” she sneered until her former student produced a Dirty Harry sized pistol that cut the interruption short, allowing him to finish his recital.

“Merci beaucoup, Madame, for your attention. And thank you for remembering.”

“Are you recording this?” Donnie whispered to Megan.

“Shhhhh!”

“That grotesque excuse for a classroom certainly shaped my life. Daily humiliations for your third graders, like me, who struggled to keep up. And my classmates were more than happy to pile on. With your encouragement, of course. I still dream about getting the treatment on my birthday. My eighth! I wet my pants that day and everybody had a good laugh, including you. I wonder if Antoine had those kinds of dreams. Or Collette. Remember the girl with the birthmark who stammered when she was nervous? She killed herself, I hear. Some scars are too deep to be visible, as you well know.”

A solitary siren in the distance spurred him to quicken his pace and he fumbled a sheet of paper while trying to extract it from his jacket pocket. “And nobody took me seriously when I pleaded for help – not even my mother – because they were blinded by your unmatched record of achievement.” Then he thumbed the hammer. “Now, maybe, they will.”

The teacher’s steel gray eyes widened, then narrowed, accompanied by a sneer that widened into a smile when her accuser’s gun hand started to tremble, the only genuine smile Megan had seen cross her face all evening. “She’s enjoying this,” the reporter thought just before a shot rang out.

A cloud of pink and red mist hovered above where Madame Josette had been standing. All Megan saw of her now were those white-stockinged legs, one bent at an awkward angle, protruding from behind the podium.

“NO!” howled the corduroy man, whose outraged cry was the only thing Megan heard through the ringing in her ears. A petite woman in a simple evening dress and matching cloche hat was calmly taking her seat at one of the nearby tables while those around her stampeded for the exits. Both reporters simultaneously snapped photos of her placing a smoking .38 inside her Louis Vuitton handbag and fastening the clasp. Showing through a generous layer of pancake on her left cheek were telltale signs of a prominent strawberry birthmark.

What had become a chorus of sirens abruptly gave way to a commotion in the hallway and then a phalanx of police fighting against the tide of fleeing grandees. Half rushed to the fallen teacher. The others wrestled the corduroy man into submission before being informed that the actual shooter was sitting 20 feet away.

With handcuffs in place and Miranda rights being read, Megan scoured her surroundings for whatever it was the almost-shooter had dropped a lifetime ago. It was lying under one of the few front row tables that had not been upset in the panic. Three sheets of primary lined paper listing instances of emotional and psychological abuse of long-ago school children in a cursive that would have made the most exacting penmanship instructor proud.

Dabbing at the flecks of gore dotting her face with a linen napkin, she hustled after the pair being frog marched from the hall – the woman serene, the man, eyes aflame with bitter disappointment – already composing in her head what she knew would be the next day’s lead story.

▪ ▪ ▪

Matthew Snyderman lives in Northern California with his wife. When not writing, he enjoys swimming, watching old movies (preferably in a theater), and collecting music. His work has appeared in The Avalon Literary Review, The Berlin Literary Review, Dark City, Fabula Argentea, The Lowestoft Chronicle, The Opiate, and Twin Bill. Read the author’s commentary on his piece.

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