First You Try Everything (21 page)

Ben

T
he last
time Ben had a gun pointed at his head he was seven or eight years old, and it
was a toy pistol. A lot of boys played at war, but the next-door neighbor
pretended with disturbing passion.
“
Bang, bang,
you're dead! Say Sayonara!” the boy would say, trying to make his voice deeper,
louder. In a cold flash Ben sees the neighbor boy's face as it appeared in the
window of the boy's mother's car the last time he saw him. It was a lost,
bloated face, a face that had soaked up the atmosphere in a family that was
infamous for being rowdy and broken. They'd moved suddenly, running from the
father, there had been violence in the home that leaked out onto the street the
night before. From his bedroom window Ben had seen the mother crouching in a
nightgown like an animal, and nobody running to help her, though Ben's mother
had shouted to his father, “Do something!” The woman sprang up and ran back into
her house, and her husband told everyone to mind their own goddamn business, and
everyone did. And now, even though this man in his office tonight has a real
gun, a Dracula mask, a deeper voice, and is saying, “Don't say a word” instead
of “Say Sayonara,” Ben hears the old neighbor boy's words swim up and ring in
his head. Part of Ben, nervously laughing, eyes roving the office looking for
Evvie, hopes the man with the real gun will suddenly step back, rip off his
mask, and say, “It's a joke, dude, we're checking your reflexes.”

But Dracula mask stays utterly still and presses
the gun harder against his temple. Hard, cold, insistent. Ben closes his eyes
and feels his stomach drop. He thinks of falling to his knees, desire for his
own life bursting inside of him like a great fire. Please. No. This can't
happen. He hears the man breathing behind his mask. He opens his eyes. The man
is wiry, of medium height, wears white, feminine-looking gloves and black
clothing. The bottom of the mask has been sliced off, so he can see the man's
real mouth and chin. Was it someone he knew? “Dude, who is it?” Ben tries, but
feels something in his heart tumble and rise, circle around and do backflips
just to reach a single strand of hope that this is someone's sick idea of a
practical joke. But it doesn't feel like a joke, and where is Evvie? “Please,”
he manages, but the man drills the gun harder into his head and tells him to
shut up once and for all and keep his eyes shut. The night's turn of events has
the feel of something utterly random. They—he and Evvie—are someone's playthings
now, and knowing this, he feels his spine turn to water, and his throat closes
up.
God help us God please help us God help us.
He
hears another man saying to Evvie, “You'll keep nice and quiet if you like
life.” Someone bored, crazy, and cruel is going to have some fun with them, then
hack them into pieces and throw them in a Dumpster somewhere out of town. Such
things happen somewhere in this world on a daily basis. Again he thinks of
hitting his knees, pleading for mercy, but somewhere he's read that revealing
weakness in these situations lowers your chance for survival. Weakness was
something people like this could not stand for. It would all be over unless he
could find some strength.

“Open your eyes.”

Trembling, he looks across the room to where Evvie
stands. She is by the black window in her dark coat, her head pressed on the
glass. “Evvie?”

She turns around, stricken. Her face, always pale,
is sickly looking.
Evvie!
It was as if the fact of
her had never made it all the way through to the center of his consciousness,
until now, in these tunneling moments, when she opens her mouth to speak but no
words emerge. The other man, a bit larger and wearing a raincoat and a Wolf
mask, stands several feet away from her, but has a gun pointed at her head too.
Evvie clenches her eyes shut.

The men had come out of nowhere; he hadn't heard
their footsteps, hadn't sensed anyone coming into the office, and is now furious
with himself. Why hadn't he locked the fucking door downstairs? Why hadn't he
had the modicum of vigilance that might have prevented this nightmare? He'd
locked the door most other nights, why not tonight? Evvie had been visiting
again—she'd dropped by twice this week, and he'd almost enjoyed her company, now
that she was less desperate. She'd told him about a new friend at the animal
shelter, how she was thinking of a documentary about crows, how she'd actually
been going out at night sometimes, to hear music, and some funny stories about
Tessie, the landlady he hadn't thought about in years. Tonight she'd shown him
photographs of her extended family, but that now seemed to belong to another
day, another year, even. One of the photographs was very old—Evvie at two,
anxious and alien, sitting alone on a patch of grass. The back of the photo read
Fourth of July! Evvie!
As he looked at her now,
he saw that strange child in her face, and for an instant he somehow seemed to
blame her for the gun at his temple. Somehow she looked like the kind of person
this would happen to. He'd known that, always. Or so it seemed in these few
moments.

“And none of us says another word,” Dracula says.
“That's something we all have to understand. We ain't nothin' but four church
mice walkin' down the steps and out to the car to take a ride with Jesus.
Nobody's wayward. The correct car is a white caddy with the back door open. Now,
put these masks on. Whoever sees us needs to think we're four people going to a
little costume party. If someone asks to join us, you say you wish everyone
could come dance, but it's invite only. You say you're feeling lucky and can't
wait to get where you're goin'.”

Dracula hands Ben a cheap plastic mask from a
child's SpongeBob Halloween costume. He swallows down a streak of hysteria that
threatens to become laughter and tears. “I can get you a
lot
of money,” he tries, but Dracula shakes his head and moves the
gun so that it rests on the side of his throat. He gives Evvie an even
cheaper-looking mask, some kind of brown squirrel or chipmunk.

They walk out of the office, two by two, Evvie and
the Wolf up front, with his hand on the crook of her arm, as if using her for
balance. They leave the lights blazing, and walk down the stairs, then single
file out the glass door at the bottom of the steps. In the dark street the air
smells like someone nearby is having a real wood fire. Ben takes a deep breath,
and then another. Across the street a young woman in very high heels walks
quickly, talking on her cell phone. Other than this, the street is empty for two
blocks. In the distance Ben can see an old white-haired man standing alone on
the corner near the Dairy Queen. The man is walking slowly toward them, like
someone in a dream.

“Get in,” says the Wolf, smiling, and Evvie slips
into the car.

“Get in,” says Dracula, in the deepest voice on
earth, and Ben obeys, but not before taking another gulp of the air, then
looking up at the sky, and all around at the street, as if some last-minute
miracle might reveal itself. He wants his life! It takes everything he has not
to cry out in terror.

In the three seconds that he sits there alone with
Evvie, while the kidnappers are opening the front doors, he says, “We'll get out
of this. Don't worry.” But his quavering voice says otherwise and he wishes he'd
stayed quiet. She, Evvie, has gone still and silent as stone. He's never seen
her that way. He is worried she is in a state of such shock that it's physically
dangerous. People can die of shock.

They drive a few blocks down the street and he
says, “I think she's sick. I think she needs to go to the hospital. She's not
very—”

The Wolf turns around with the gun. “You speak when
you're spoken to, boy. And both of you fools can take the masks off and breathe
easy. Right now.”

Ben and Evvie take their masks off and look at each
other.

“Can you tell me why us?” Ben says, still looking
at Evvie. “Why you're doing this? Is it just for kicks? If I knew I maybe
could—I have a lot of cash. We can go to the ATM machine.”

The car screeches to the side of the road. Dracula
puts the car in park so he can turn around with his gun too. “Who's in charge?”
he says. “Who's the master of the operation here? Is it you?”

“No.”

“Shake your head no, you don't need to say it!”

Ben sits there, blinking. The man's voice is raspy;
it's unclear if he's old or young.

“I said shake your goddamn head no,” Dracula says,
softly, in yet another voice.

Ben shakes his head no.

“Now, let's all go on, all of us quiet. Beautiful.
Pretend you're in church. A little church of mice on wheels, checkin' in with
the risen one.”

“We'll tell you everything you need to know, once
we get there,” says the Wolf. “If you follow directions, you'll be fine.” This
was punctuated with the Wolf's high-pitched giggle. Then he turns around to
stare at them for a moment. “You people can swim?” Ben looks at Evvie and sees
she has her eyes clenched shut. “Yes, we swim.” He instinctively reaches for
Evvie's hand, and squeezes it tightly. In this moment, he can't imagine ever
letting go.

T
hey
drive for well over an hour, and in the back they look out of their respective
windows, holding hands, and breathing. The Wolf and Dracula aren't saying a
word, except every so often when one of them says to the crazy radio talk show
host, “Fuck
you
.” Ben had considered jumping from
the car, even though they're speeding down the road at seventy or eighty miles
an hour, but how could he jump and leave Evvie alone with these two, even if he
could survive such a thing?

They change the radio station to some kind of polka
music.

“You said you bought chips,” Dracula says to the
Wolf. “These aren't chips, these are Doritos.”

“I'm sorry—I thought Doritos were a kind of
chip.”

“No, buddy. No.” Dracula eats the disappointing
Doritos anyway. “Doritos are not a kind of chip. Doritos are Doritos.”

Their lackadaisical way of speaking to each other
is terrifying. They must go on these sprees whenever they get a little bored.
Ben is afraid to speak up, afraid to jump out, and afraid that if he does
nothing, his heart will explode or just give way. He tries to listen to Evvie's
heavy breathing. Focus the mind, he tells himself, and then you won't do
anything stupid. Just focus your fucking mind.

With his finger he writes on Evvie's palm the
letter
U
, and then the letters
OK
. She doesn't respond.

A
fter
a while, he can see the rising moon, bluish, enormous, and perched above a line
of black trees that rim the field of rolling hills to the right. His window
view. He can't get enough of it. Evvie's view is similar, only the line of trees
is a bit closer to that side of the road, like a black wall. He sees a solitary
house, small and white on the hill with a single lit window. Do the people
inside know how lucky they are to be there? Lifting their forks? Evvie's hand is
cold and damp. He has an urge to put his ear against her chest to hear her heart
beat. He knows it's pounding, racing like his, but probably faster and
louder.

“Let's go to Warehouse X,” Dracula says. “That has
music.”

“It's still filthy, last time I checked,” said the
Wolf.

“No, no. I got Wilma.”

“That's not so good! Wilma's too old for that!”

“I paid her well,” said Dracula. “And I ain't about
to put on an apron myself. Though I did help her out.” He says this in a
high-pitched, mocking voice.

The Wolf laughed and said he'd have liked to have
seen that.

“First they swim, then Warehouse X.”

“First they swim,” the Wolf agrees.

“Give me one of those cheese sticks, and offer some
to our guests.”

The Wolf laughs, and briefly glances back at them.
“Cheese stick?” he says.

Ben shakes his head no. Evvie doesn't move. Ben
wishes they'd said they didn't know how to swim.

“I think Warehouse Y is better,” the Wolf says
after a silence. “I can get the music from X and move it in easy.”

Ben likes hearing this. Maybe these were just
perverts who captured people for some kind of sadomasochist disco parties.
Nothing involving death. It was unbelievable what people got off on these
days.

They're the only car on the road for a long while.
Finally one of them changes the polka station back to the talk show. The host is
speaking of Osama bin Laden.

“Jasmine thinks he's good-looking. She has his
picture up on the wall. Says he has eyes like Jesus.”

“Osama bin Laden,” Dracula says, and glances toward
the backseat for a moment. “Osama bin Laden can't help it. He's a pawn. He
didn't want to be himself, but that's what happened. We're all pawns! We have to
do what we have to do and it's a crying shame.”

The Wolf laughs. Then, as if to punctuate the
statement, rolls down the window and fires a shot into the sky.

Evvie squeezes Ben's hand so hard it hurts, and he
hears her gasp.

The Wolf rolls his window back up and says to
Dracula, “Remember that woman who walked all those dogs at the Point in
Pittsburgh? What'd she say when she fired at the sky that one night?”

“I'm shootin' God,” Dracula says. “You know that's
what she said.”

“I'm shootin' God,” says the Wolf.

“She was nice,” says Dracula.

“I'm shootin' God,” says the Wolf. “That wasn't
right. I mean, shoot the stars, shoot the moon. But shootin'
God
?” He's whining.