Apeiron Review | Issue 18

The Suicide Man Tom Mizell Michael didn’t trust the mid-day rain. It was good cover, sure. Folks kept their heads down, tried to keep the water off their faces, never stopped to take long looks at the other passerby. But he thought the sun was always preferable. Customers were like to sympathize with the rain, let themselves get washed in the gloom of it. If a feeling was real, it was at its realest in the sunshine.

All the same, he liked to keep a schedule. He popped the hood of his jacket over his head, weaved through the foot traffic, and tried to keep his feet dry. It was his third job on the West side in as many weeks. All men, not that he minded.

It was a gray part of town. Folks shuffled between half-empty shops and half-empty food joints, catching up with each other in convenience store parking lots. It was a dying place, like so many places were now. It was the like the bomb had already dropped, but no one had bothered to notice.

Numbers clung to doors with duct tape. Michael scanned for 1324 but the rain made it difficult to tell between the buildings. They’d been cookie-cutter houses once, back before anyone living could remember. Now each had been carved into at least three or four dwellings that could only be distinguished by how many bicycles with missing wheels were chained to the front steps.

It took three rings before a scratchy voice answered Michael on the intercom.

“Hello?”

“Courier,” Michael answered, the agreed upon lie.

“Come on up,” said the voice, followed by the mechanical buzz of the door.

Carpet had turned yellow from years of stains on the creaking staircase. Michael did carry a courier bag, one of those insulated totes for food delivery. He often thought that this was being a bit too cautious, no one had ever really noticed him on the job. All the same, he took some comfort playing the role.

Sometimes he would fancy himself a real courier, fantasize about scraping tips together from pizza deliveries.

Michael’s customer was waiting in the doorway on the second floor. He looked maybe fifty, with thinning hair and smoker’s teeth.

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