Stagnant

I am drunk at 3 am when I have the thought that having something to lose is burdensome.

Mindy is asleep next to me, buried in a knit blanket, smelling of beer. I study her features, her cupid’s bow, her thin hands with bitten nails, the curl of her lashes. The house creaks softly around us. It’s a full moon and the light cuts through the blinds.

This is just an accidental thing, this love affair. I met her at a bar one night, spotted her loading coins into the jukebox. She wore a tank top that showed off freckled shoulders and when I approached she tossed blonde hair out of her face and leaned into me. She was pretty, but no prettier than any other girl I had taken home at the end of a beer-soaked night.

It was a miscalculation, I muse. Something about her weighs my thoughts down. A problem.

I palm my lukewarm beer from my nightstand, finish it off. I need to focus. Need to remember my priorities.

My laptop is dead when I get to my office so I plug it in and wait on it to start up. I open up a folder, scroll through hundreds of photos of a man.

I have been hunting him for weeks. Watching him. Photographing him. Studying. So much of what I do requires patience. I feel it tugging at me always, the impulsivity quivering like a living thing that I have to keep tamed. The anticipation grows into an ever-constant hum in my veins.

Jeremy Kline. I pore over the photos. Zoom in. Notice the way his gray hair is thinning. The dark spots under his eyes. He’s cheating on his wife and hasn’t been sleeping much. I don’t fool with making a moral opinion. It’s information, something to be tucked away. Clues to his routine.

Humans are predictable in that regard. Always disappointing. Always spending each day doing the same things, a half-assed sort of living. Work, bills, taxes. So encumbered by responsibility, so weak. They reach for things like alcohol, weed, other women. Anything to make them feel like they’re living, even if it’s a lie.

I wonder if that’s what I’m doing with the girl in my bed. I scroll through a few more saved screenshots, glance at a picture of the man’s bank statement and shake my head. Definitely not that, I decide. Mindy is… something different.

There’s a chill in my office, the hardwood cold under my bare feet. I light a candle, continue my research. I hardly notice time slipping by. The sun slants languidly through frosted window panels. I feel a tired sort of ache, the alcohol making the edges of my mind fuzzy.

“Logan?”

I don’t slam my laptop shut, even though my wrist flexes for a second. Mindy stands at the doorway, hair mussed. We’ve been sleeping together for three weeks, usually at her place, but for some reason I invited her to my house this time.

“You okay?”

She rubs sleep out of her eyes, pouts her lips. “Lonely.”

She looks beautiful with a green silk robe tied around her, eyelids heavy from sleep. I go to her, press my hands against her cheeks, kiss her. She softens under my touch.

“You still sleepy?” I say this into her hair, smelling her Suave shampoo.

“A little.” She blinks at me, her brown eyes warm amber in the rising light of the sun. I let her lead me back to bed, feeling like a moth that’s discovered a flame.

***

It’s a cloudless, wind-swept day and I decide to ride my bike through Agamont Park, where I know Jeremy will be. The paper birch trees are scarred bones against the silhouette of evening sea fog. The air smells of salt and woodsmoke. I leave my bike in the parking lot and walk the sloping hill, watching the osprey circling the pier, searching for dinner. There are just a few left, most of them having migrated to warmer climates.

I have always had a respect for the way osprey hunt, gliding in slow, lazy circles, taking their time until they have their prey picked out. And then with wings tucked back, they plunge to their feast, violently tearing the unlucky Pollock from the ocean.

Jeremy stands close to the pier, looking out at Frenchman Bay. The waves swell and crash into a shoreline draped in the bleeding fire of October maples. The dark, slick heads of the harbor seals break the surface of the water. Autumn seeps across the bay, staining everything a gorgeous red. I stand behind Jeremy for a long while, just watching. His head tilts up, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.

He seems to come to himself as the sun starts to dip down behind Porcupine Islands, casting long, sharp shadows. He fumbles for the burner phone tucked in his pocket that he uses to stay in contact with his mistress.

I could do it now. The park is mostly quiet, everyone gone for the off-season. It would be quick and then it would be over with and this humming dread would be over.

I’ve never before considered a last time, but this time I wonder at the implications. Jeremy shifts, holding his phone with his shoulder while he scrawls something in a notepad pressed against a park bench. As much as I want to right now, it’s not time yet.

I snap a few pictures and then leave him there. I can feel my blood running hot despite the plummeting cold of a Maine fall. I have to force myself to walk a steady pace to my bike.

***

Mindy is sitting on my porch when I get home. She is wearing one of my hoodies, her hands tucked into the sleeves. There’s a half-smoked joint in the ashtray on my porch railing and I light it up, palming her Bic.

“What are you doing here?” My words sound stilted in my head and I clear my throat, trying not show how unnerved I feel at her unexpected presence.

“I’m sorry. I should have asked first. I just missed you and wanted to see you.” She speaks in a baby voice, softening the edges on her vowels. I unlock my front door, gesture for her to come on in.

She’s done her makeup, her eyes lined heavily, her lips painted a nude color. She chews absent-mindedly on her lip ring, follows me around while I change clothes, settle in. I turn on a couple of lamps, put on a Bob Seger vinyl.

“It’s cold in here.” She shivers as if for emphasis. I get to work starting a fire in the fireplace and then when I’m done I wrap my arms around her, pull her close to me.

“I missed you, too,” I say finally, reeling inside at the honesty of my confession. I feel unfocused, unsettled, and I reach around her, pour a glass of whiskey. I drink it all at once, relishing in the burn on the back of my throat.

Her eyes reach mine and I ignore the concern in them, press my face into her neck. I have this sudden, bursting feeling in my chest and I wonder then, if it’s time to break things off.

But then she presses her body close against mine, the curve of her enchanting. I scoop her up, carry her to bed.

***

I went to a seminar in Chicago a few years ago. My current hunt, Michael Lamb, flew there unexpectedly and I had to empty my savings to get a ticket for the flight last minute.

Chicago was wind-whipped, alive. The city bustled with energy, color, noise. Street vendors sold cheddar cheese popcorn and charred, smoky onion blossoms. I shouldered around people, trying to keep up with the man.

The seminar was held in a sweltering room with steel gray walls. My chair scraped as I sat in it, three rows behind Michael.

I hadn’t looked into the actual seminar in the rush of getting everything ready for the impromptu trip. A man with thick glasses and a brown plaid jacket stood in front of the small group and cleared his throat.

I only paid attention to Michael at first, watching his facial expressions, taking note of his reactions to the speaker.

And then I heard what the man leading the seminar was saying.

“Our biggest mistake is thinking we know it all. Arrogance is the biggest threat to ambition. The minute you think you’ve hit your ceiling, you stall. You become stagnant. You have to accept that growth means always chasing a sort of transcendence. You can rise way past your boundaries if you don’t get in your own way.”

I was enraptured after that. I had gotten comfortable in my hunting, that was true. Was my comfort hindering my experience?

When I was seventeen, I thought I was smarter than everyone else in the room. And then I turned twenty-five and realized that at seventeen I had known nothing. Now at thirty-three, I feel like I have a deep well of knowledge to drink from, but perhaps it’s as shallow as seventeen year old me was?

What could I be? Who could I transcend to, if I removed my own shackles?

I was delivering some semblance of balance to the world, righting the wrongs of humanity. Michael Lamb had failed a test and so he had to die. They were my rules, but they were set in stone, ingrained in me since childhood. I couldn’t fight it, and so I trained it. I tore apart my mind, analyzed every corner of it, and found out that I am who I am, for better or worse.

***

The test goes like this. I drive to grocery stores around Bar Harbor. I wait in the parking lot, watch for someone who looks like they have some kind of money. And then I approach them. Explain to them that I can’t feed my kids. Ask them for help buying some food.

If they agree, they get to live. If they don’t (and as much as I fear admitting this to myself, I always hope they won’t) I begin the hunt. I collect as much evidence as I can against them, carefully construct the proof in a way that will be easy for their loved ones to find afterwards. I lay out their flaws for the world, uncover the crafted illusions that they have created in their lives.

I was shocked at first by the atrocities people commit, the carelessness they extend towards their families, wives, children, friends. Everyone has a secret. The cancer of humanity, growing silently. Eroding the naive hope I once held on to. The shock quickly gave way to a numbness that has never really gone away.

***

I decide today is the day. I have prepared for emails to be sent out to Jeremy Kline’s wife, mistress, mother, boss, his two sons.

It is a week before Halloween. I have never liked to kill around Halloween. The red maples and sugar maples of the Acadia Canopy have hemorrhaged fire across Bar Harbor. Evenings cast a bone-deep chill over everything and it isn’t unusual to wake up to frosted grass that crunches beneath your shoes. The sea becomes alive, the waves almost angry, searching. The feeling akin to a scene in a horror movie, right before everyone dies. There is a certain paranoia I have noticed in people close to Halloween, however commercialized of a holiday it may be.

I watch Jeremy get coffee, hunkered down in a booth seat. He takes his coffee black, but I know it’s only because his mistress teased him about how much milk and sugar he likes to use. I plan on following him for the day in case there are any changes to his routine. I don’t like to be caught off guard on the day of.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I know without looking that it’s Mindy. She has been calling at random times throughout the day, just to check in. She laughed at me when I asked about it. “This is what normal people do when they’re falling in love, Loggie.”

My head is still racing with the mention of love when I answer the phone. “Hey, babe.”

“Hey, what are you up to?” There is an extra sweetness in her voice, a gentleness that rakes across my mind.

“Having coffee. You?”

“I was wondering if we could meet up in a bit. I have something to talk to you about, if that’s okay?” She sounds hesitant and her words put me on edge instantly. I peer over at Jeremy, see he hasn’t moved from his spot yet. He’s lingering today, his eyes serious, his fingers steepled together.

I sigh to myself. I know I should tell her no. I know that this is a break in a routine that has served me well. But then I think about the seminar, the transcendence. Maybe a break in routine is growth, I reason with myself.

“What about Lunch Bar Harbor at noon? It’s on Mount Desert Street.”

We go over the details and she agrees to meet me there. I hang up, feeling restless, like my clothes are too tight. I wrap my hands around my coffee, taking some pleasure in the warmth of the ceramic mug.

I bring my attention back to Jeremy and see him scrolling on his phone, deep in thought. Later, I promise him in my head. It’s almost over.

***

Mindy orders us both prosciutto and fig jam paninis served on Italian-style artisan bread before I get there. The gesture is unsettling, endearing. I sit across from her. I have made waiting an art form, but the way she’s tapping her leg scrapes my nerves.

Finally, she takes a deep breath, sits up straighter. “I looked you up.”

I feel a slip of anger rush through me, swallow it down neatly. “And?”

“I just wanted to let you know I found out about your mom. About what happened to her. The murder. And I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

I take a bite of my panini, savor the buttery bread, the bite of the sweet fig jam. I try to think of a way to excuse myself, a world-weary exhaustion settling into my flesh. I think about Jeremy, hope he’s having lunch right now at his usual spot.

“Logan?”

“I don’t need your pity.”

I can’t keep the edge out of my voice. I know it’s a line drawn in the sand. I watch the hurt glimmer across her eyes. “I don’t. I just…”

“This is too much, Mindy. We just met. I barely know you.”

“We’ve spent almost every night together since we met. I know it’s not been very long, but I thought maybe -”

“You thought wrong.” I realize I’m being cruel, know it’s probably for the best. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

Mindy is quiet for a moment, her eyes blinking at nothing, her lips quivering. “I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong here. I just wanted to know you.”

I shrug, hoping to seem indifferent. “Well, I don’t want to know you.”

Mindy shrugs her purse onto her shoulder, nods once, an air of finality about her. “That’s fine. Have a nice life, Logan.”

I watch her leave. The sun is warm in the sky, however brief, and I tilt my head to it, attempt to clear my mind. I know I need to get going, but I stall for a few minutes, allow myself to breathe.

***

I find Jeremy outside of a cheap motel. He meets his mistress there every Thursday evening, typically arriving about thirty minutes before she does. She has a longer commute, and he is too eager to get out of the house, away from a nagging wife and two teenagers.

The sky is the color of a bruised plum, sagging heavy with the promise of a downpour. I can smell the bitter river silt in the air.

I sit in my car for a couple of minutes, cleaning my hunting knife. I always clean it thoroughly before and after each kill.

I wait until he seems distracted by his phone and I walk determinedly over to his car, no hesitation in my step. I tug on his car door, pull it open.

The knife slides under his ribs easily, all at once, the opening of a mandarin on Christmas morning. I see his eyes widen slightly. His phone hits the dashboard. I twist my knife. A drop of blood spills from the corner of his lips. He reaches out as if to grab my arm. “Don’t,” he starts to say, an instinctive prayer.

“You killed my mom.” I spit the words at him. I am suddenly seven and back in the parking lot, watching blood blossom around her, her mouth wide with terror. She just wanted money to feed me. The guilt tears me out, back to where I am.

I know it wasn’t really him, I know, but it’s enough. The memory presses into my thoughts.

I tug downwards, slicing, opening him up. I watch the life leave his eyes, feel the weight of his body against the knife. I pull it out and then shut his door, make my way back to my vehicle, humming softly, act casual, act casual.

I am almost home when I have the thought that having nothing to lose is burdensome.