i just sighed.

His eyes were gone, and what was left of his ears was being eaten by something or other. I’m gonna be sick, said Martin, but he wasn’t, he didn’t even really look fazed. I guess it’s just a thing you say. We had to shovel the mud away around the rest of him, more careful now, after the drive that discovered him, that thump, had left half his jaw hanging off. It was bound to happen. Once most of the mud was clear, I got my spade right up under him and leaned on it, so he rolled away from me, on to his stomach, like I was interrupting his sleep. I made sure I got in first, grabbed his boots and tucked the shovel up under my arm. Martin took his wrists and we trudged the hundred yards to the truck. His jaw came too, just barely, and Martin said Jesus, he’s got a gold tooth, Jesus, I’m gonna be sick, all the way. We threw him in the back with the wood, and piled the shovels in after him. Then we stripped down, covered him with our clothes and shoes and pulled on the fresh ones from the truck. I’m driving, I said, and Martin didn’t argue, so I drove. I was his older brother, even if he was bigger, so I guess I was in charge. The plan was to dump him in Richard Crawton’s back yard. Stupid plan really, looking back, any coroner with half a brain would tell that the mud in his veins was from the Okefenokee, and not the nourished soil you get at the estates of people like Crawton. Still, the plan was the plan, bury him with Crawton’s wife’s roses, so that’s what we set out to do. We should wait ‘til dark, Martin said, and he wasn’t wrong. I said, well we’ll need to get out of the sun, the bastard’s starting to stink. Martin suggested we pull over a ways off of Barton Street, so I pulled over a ways off of Riverside Drive and we waited. A time later, when we were both out of cigarettes and it was just starting to get dark, so you could see the steam rise up a little off the swamp and just hang there, a guy with a shotgun came strolling down Riverside Drive, twirling it like it was a stick he’d found. A shotgun was nothing special, he was probably just looking out for alligators, but me and Martin didn’t have a pistol between us. The man stopped to squint at the truck, and the minute he started walking towards us I knew there’d be two bodies in the back real soon, and I prayed neither of them was me. Martin swore, and I started the engine, and I guess if we had just driven away that would have been the end of it. The man had both barrels on his shoulder and walked toward the left headlamp, taking his time, so I waited a little longer and then hit the gas, knocking him down and rolling both left wheels over him before he could argue. It wasn’t ‘til after I got out and went to take a look at him that I saw it was a boy, not much older than fourteen. He went in the back all the same.

Martin really did throw up then, and I watched him, digging my fingernails into my palm so hard it bled. He wiped his mouth and looked at me all terrified, and asked what the fuck do we do. I turned around and punched the passenger window, which sent two long cracks up from the bottom corner, and helped no-one. We got in the car, flicked the headlamps on and drove into the night, and as we drove I told Martin that we had to bury the kid in the swamp, right where we had dug up the other guy. I told him don’t even think about it, said we couldn’t frame Crawton for two murders, not when one of them had tire tracks all up his shattered ribcage. He shuddered, and I regretted saying it like I did, but then he nodded and said Okay. For a long time we drove like that in silence, the fog sending the light from the headlamps right back in our faces. Then Martin asked me, have you ever killed someone before? I said yeah, which wasn’t true, and then I said, a long time ago, to make it sound true. He looked down at his hands and nodded again, like he knew what I was gonna say before I told him. I remembered Dad’s whiskey in the glove box and I reached over Martin’s lap to get it. I put the bottle in his hand, eyes on the bumpy road, and he unscrewed it and gave it back. I swigged it, retched, took a breath and swigged again. Martin took the bottle and went, sip, swallow, sip, swallow, over and over, like he was real thirsty or running out of time.

It was dark when we got back to where we started, under the bridge just south of Fargo on the 441, if you want to go looking. We didn’t have a flashlight, so we parked off the road and put the headlamps on, sending yellow light across the mud. We got back into our dirty clothes and went about digging what we’d just undug. The boy went in face down, sniffing somewhere around the same spot as the last one. I hate to say it, but to this day I can’t say for sure if he was dead before we buried him. I don’t know, it was likely just the whiskey, me seeing him twitch.
From there it was straight on to the estate. Dad wanted Crawton in jail for murder, said he’d killed plenty, even if it was Dad himself who dropped this particular man. We went the long way round – it can get real quiet around here at night, so we didn’t want to drive too near the house. Martin was drunk by the time we parked up on the dirt track around the yard, and I was heading that way. Still, we wanted to get it over and done with, so we took our shovels and Martin took the bottle, and we crept through the mangroves on to Crawton’s property. The hole took an hour to dig, all big rocks and tree roots blocking the path. When it was deep enough, Martin threw the empty bottle into it and we went back for our rotting friend. In the end, it was that bottle that put them on to us, the whiskey that Crawton knew Dad drank, but that wasn’t what got us caught. No, somehow when we heaved him out the back of the truck, and Martin dragged him by the arms while I tried to drunkenly cover the trail his boots left in the dirt, somehow as we piled the soil on top of him, patted it down, made sure it looked freshly done, somehow we didn’t notice his jaw was gone. There it was, in the back with the wood, that gold tooth still sparkling.

We put on our clean clothes, the ones that had only handled one body, and headed to a payphone to make the call. We’re both of us gonna burn forever in hell, I know it, said Martin, but he didn’t really look fazed. I guess it’s just a thing you say.

“It’s, an old Nokia. White, with a crack on the screen.”

“Then why are you looking for it?” The man asked, his enormous fingers crowding the pen as he wrote. He was left handed. “Why not just buy a new one?”

“I don’t really have the money to just-“, said Rafal. “It’s got all my stuff on it.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. What was the number?”

Rafal rubbed his eye with his knuckles for a long time. “I don’t. My mum will have the number, if I can use your phone I can call her and ask.”

The man sat back and looked up. His chair creaked. “If you’re sure you can remember hers. I don’t really need it anyway, just a number to reach you on if it shows up.”

The man was looking past Rafal, out through the glass sliding doors at the rain. Rafal turned too, resting his elbow on the counter, and they both stared for a long time.

She helped him with his bags through the door.
“How was it?” she asked. She had already asked in the car.
“Oh, you know. Boring.” he said.
She didn’t ask any further. He wasn’t a talker, she was used to that. She loved him for it.
They put the bags in their room, and he settled in his chair at the kitchen table while she made two cups of tea. They drank together in comfortable silence.
“I think I’ll take a shower.” she said.
“Would you like me to come with you?”
She grinned. “I’d love that.”

He followed her into the bathroom, watched her pull the curtain shut and turn on the water. He leaned against the sink, and waited for her to completely undress before he started. He didn’t take his eyes off her, as she shyly let her bra fall to the floor, stepped out of her underwear. He took his turn then, and she stepped forward and removed his belt while he unbuttoned his shirt. She slid down his pants.
“You’re not hard!” she mocked. He laughed, and held her hand as she stepped in. They stood face to face in the bathtub, the water falling onto her back, and they shared a kiss. He reached his right hand over her left shoulder and felt the warmth of the water, before cupping it behind her neck. He placed his left hand on her hairline and gently tilted her head back, soaking her hair in the running water. He ran his fingers through it, slow, calm. He made sure it was wet through.
He reached for the shampoo bottle – she had bought a new one since he’d been gone – and she turned her back to him. He massaged the shampoo into her hair slowly, methodically, inhaling the scent of roses with the steam.
She let out a soft moan. “I missed you so much.”
He didn’t reply, watching a stream of soapy water trickle down the curve of her spine. After a long minute, he kissed her shoulder softly, and she turned to rinse away the shampoo.
He felt cold, and was barely wet, but he tried not to show it. “Were you going to shave your legs, too?”
She nodded. He picked up the bar of soap and her razor, knelt down in the tub before her.
“You don’t have to-“ she started, but he was already soaping her left calf, ankle to knee. He noticed a little red dot on the inside of her thigh, and wondered if it had been there before. He moved the razor up her shin, bottom to top, around in a circle, and then started to lather her right leg. She had her eyes shut, and leaned back into the warm water.

After he had finished, he looked up at her. “Here too?” he asked, resting a hand on her thigh. She smiled, and nodded again. He carefully lifted her left foot, and placed it on his right shoulder. She giggled, embarrassed at how exposed she was, and touched the top of his head to keep her balance. He started to run the bar of soap up and down her thigh.

When they had both showered, and water was beginning to drip from the ceiling, she asked if he was ready to get out.
“You go on, I’ll stay in by myself a little while.” He reached for a towel and wrapped her in it. She kissed him softly on the lips.
“Thanks for this, it was so nice,” She said. “I’ll see you in the bedroom.” She turned and stepped out of the tub.

He turned the tap to scalding hot, and bowed his head under the water. He stood there for a long while, eyes closed, skin on fire. He didn’t feel any cleaner.

‘What was I talking about?’ asks Tony. ‘Oh yeah, suicide in Denver. It hit fifty percent.’

‘Fifty percent?’ I sip my beer.

‘Yeah, half of deaths in Denver were suicide, that year. They’d managed to ignore it ‘til that point, more or less. I mean, the news channels all had a story lined up, waiting for the rate to tick over forty-nine. But until then, no measures had been taken.’

‘Half of all deaths?’

He laughs. ‘Life expectancy in that town was something like 30 years below the national average. They couldn’t work out what was causing it. So they hired a bunch of guys, statisticians, to survey people.’

He starts lining peanuts up on the bar, single file.

‘At first, they said it wasn’t money. Rich and poor, no correlation. What they said it was, was working hours. The more hours you work in a week, the greater your risk of offing yourself. So, the mayor appealed to the governor, and after some back and forth, the governor agreed to impose a state-wide law – no one in Colorado was allowed to work more than thirty hours a week. The three day weekend was mandatory. The state would cover the lost income with tax breaks.’ He smiles faintly. ‘It didn’t help.’

I shut my eyes a while. On my fourth or fifth beer, my head always starts to swim. Tony keeps talking.

‘The rate kept climbing, pushing 60% in six months. Now the statisticians are saying, go to therapy. People in therapy are five times less likely to kill themselves. Free therapy for everyone, says Mr Governor, compulsory for teenagers. We’ll foot the bill. Of course, we both know what happens next.’

I open my eyes, check if he’s expecting a response. His growing trail of peanuts takes a detour to avoid a puddle of spilled beer.

‘The therapists start killing themselves. One by one, dropping like flies. Took their patients with them of course, though I’m sure they didn’t mean to. And because almost everyone was a patient, things were worse than ever. The population dropped by almost fifty thousand in a year. People started to panic.’

When she fills our drinks, the bar girl swaps the empty bowl of peanuts for a full one, smiling. She’s pretty.

‘Thing is, this wasn’t like a horror movie, or some contagious disease or anything. Mostly, life was pretty normal. But there was a sort of darkness around. When you go to park your car, and there’s a different guy in the ticket booth, and you know why. It’s a bad feeling.’

I frown. This story isn’t true. I’ve never been to Denver, but I’d have heard something. But if it’s a joke, I think I’m missing the punch line.

‘So people start talking. What are they gonna do about this? Obviously having Mondays off work didn’t solve the problem, so what’s next? And they were doing things, little things. The raised the arts and culture budget, put up statues and installed gardens. They stopped chasing unpaid fines, gave everyone free parking. But the people were saying, it’s not enough, that the mayor needs to stand up and take action.’

I swill the warm beer around in my glass, around and around.

‘You know, when the deputy mayor walked into the mayor’s office, when he saw him hanging in the closet with his suits – you could feel the change in people after that. The whole city’s spirit seemed to just fall apart.’

I nod in sympathy. Swallow bile.

Tony sighs. ‘They promoted the deputy straight away. Had him make all his decisions while on 24-hour suicide watch. He had to sign every bill with a safety pencil. He found a loophole though, as politicians do. Crawled out the bathroom window, only a week after being appointed mayor. Fell nine floors.’

I want to stand, to go to the bathroom, or somewhere. But the room is a blur now, I can hardly move. Try to string a sentence together. ‘How does, it end?’

He drains his glass, fading in and out of focus, and shrugs. ‘The statisticians, the ones that were left, they told us, move out of Denver. They said, you’re a hundred times less likely to kill yourself if you go away and don’t look back. They said, we’re leaving too, good bye and good luck. I wasn’t gonna disagree with them. So I got on the Greyhound, and I came here. Far away as you can get, without border hopping. And I’ve been here ever since.’

I look around, blinking. The bar’s empty, and the pretty girl is wiping down the tables, slow and easy.

i downloaded an app

that retrieves every text message we’ve sent to each other

since we first met.

it tracks down our facebook history

our emails,

it takes all our petty conversations

transcribes every phone call

lays them out as a film script

automatically sends a copy to universal

for immediate production.

for ninety nine cents

i can get the version

that finds the remnants of whispered conversations

had on the beds of parents’ guest rooms

in primary school days.

it takes them from scattered radio waves

prints each on to postcards and

automatically

sends them to rest homes around the world.

i would upgrade but

i’m a little scared

of what i might have said.

and that’s a dollar i

just can’t spare

right now.

“Nice dress,” he offered.

She shrugged, leaned back in her chair, kicked her foot back into her shoe.

“Yeah, it’s all right.” She rubbed the fabric between her fingers.

Her back ached. It had been four days since she’d done yoga, or ran. Her eating and sleeping patterns had been shot to shit, and it was starting to take its toll.

“Where’d you get it?” He sat next to her in the hospital waiting room, both staring off into space. Her in red, he in black suit and matching red tie. They were waiting for her friend to finish getting stitches, having lost a drunken fight a few hours earlier.

“Dunno, a thrift store maybe.”

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, his trousers rising to reveal worn gym socks. Rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Said something like, “crazy night, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I just want to go to bed.”

He smiled slyly, as if she was hinting at something. She didn’t see him, busy gazing at a potted plant down the hall.

“Same,” he said.

After a time, her friend emerged, exaggerating his limp only slightly. His silver tie could be seen, balled up in his pocket. She stood and asked if he was all right.

He stayed sitting, elbows and knees.

“I’m fine,” said the friend, her friend. “Just a cut.”

i took an early lunch

went down to the river.

light rain washed over me like ocean mist, and i

took off my shoes before entering the water.

smallman & co.

leather

imported.

the hems of my trousers wavered in the current.

ankle deep,

i looked at the stones around my feet.

the hills. the highway.

i used to be different.

used to be interested.

the rain became uncomfortable, soaking me through.

the tie felt tighter around my neck,

the cars on the highway less romantic now.

take my hand.

or i’ll.

or i’ll.

take it or.

i wrote a three-part story. you can read it here, if you want.

Part I

Part II

Part III