Chapter 3

He saw the subway train again. Still the woman was there, and so was the man who had taken it upon himself to sit beside her. There was a long beat of stillness, during which neither of them spoke. The only sound came from the rumbling of the train, and the only light came in abrupt flashes through the windows.

            When she could bear the silence no longer, she asked, “Do you know where we’re headed?”

            Without looking at her, the man answered, “Yes. But it’s no concern of yours.”

            She tried to stay calm, but her hands were trembling against her will. The man did nothing but sit beside her, but somehow that was enough to give her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She felt unsafe, but also like he would attack her if she tried to move away from him. She looked back down into her purse and stared at the tiny pistol at the bottom. Would she be able to shoot him before he did something to her? Should she? Was she being paranoid?

            As she thought, the compartment door to her far left opened. Into the compartment stepped another man, but this one was huge. He stood at least seven feet tall. Over his head was a burlap sack with eyeholes. As if that didn’t unsettle her enough, she slowly moved her eyes down his body to see that in his right hand, he had a fire axe.

            The moment she saw it—as he did, seeing through her eyes—Adam was awoken by the alarm clock next to his head. Half-blind, he reached out and slapped it a few times until he happened to hit the snooze button. But the alarm didn’t stop, and it took him a second to realize that it wasn’t the alarm at all; it was the ringtone of his cellphone, which was lying on the table beside the clock. Then he wasn’t sure how he’d mistaken it for the alarm at all, since it was his iPhone’s default ringtone (titled “Marimba”), and it sounded nothing like his alarm clock. Only then did he realize that the ringtone meant someone was calling him, and he grabbed the phone. The screen showed that it was Jesse calling, so he answered the call and brought the phone to his ear.

            “Hello?”

            “Hey there, buddy!” Even this early in the morning, Jesse’s voice still boomed with enthusiasm. But how early was it? Rubbing the sleep out of his left eye, he used his right to look at the clock and saw that it was half past eleven.

            “Oh, shit. Am I late for work?” he asked.

            “It’s Sunday, dumbass,” teased Jesse. “We don’t work on Sundays, remember?”

            Adam didn’t say anything, because he had been fairly certain that it had been Friday yesterday. Then he remembered that he hadn’t slept on Friday, and that yesterday had therefore been Saturday. But even so, he was still somewhat confused on what date it actually was. “It’s Sunday?”

            “No, it’s Zorgday the 67^th in the great, never-ending month of Glorp. Of course it’s Sunday.”

            “Ah, Glorp,” remarked Adam, “my favorite month.”

            “Because it’s the only month.” Jesse then changed the subject with no segue, which wasn’t uncommon. “I’m going grocery shopping. You wanna come with?”

            Adam glanced over at the other side of the bed. Larisa wasn’t there, but he felt comfortable in assuming that she had been until eight. She still had to go to work on Sundays. It was somewhat unusual, but the day of the week that she got off was Wednesday.

            “Adam?”

            “Yeah, sure. Why not.”

            “Good, ‘cause I’m already at your house.” To further prove this, Jesse honked his car’s horn. Adam could hear the sound not just through the phone, but also faintly from outside.

            “I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”

            “It’s chilly,” warned Jesse. “And raining. Which is a damn shame, because it was so nice yesterday.”

            “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

            “Yeah.”

            Adam waited a second before hanging up. The first thing he put on was a pair of socks. Then, jeans, and then a black t-shirt. With his cellphone in his front right pant pocket, he left the bedroom and headed downstairs, to the first floor. In front of the door, he put on a pair of brown work boots. He heeded Jesse’s warning and, somewhat reluctantly, threw on a black leather jacket.

            When he stepped out into the rain, he saw Jesse’s car in the driveway. As he approached, his friend’s head poked out of the driver side window.

            “I thought you’d died,” he joked. In a voice mocking an old woman, he proceeded to croak: “It’s been eighty-four years . . .”

            Quiet but amused, Adam shook his head. He got into the passenger seat and strapped himself in without a word. Then, without warning, he said, “You’re an idiot.”

            Jesse got a kick out of his remark, and he laughed at it as Adam smirked.

            For the first two minutes of the drive, both men were quiet—Adam lost in thought, and Jesse waiting for Adam to stop looking so serious before saying anything himself. The silence that hung between them wasn’t awkward, though. Through it, Jesse amused himself by whistling the theme of Mission Impossible.

            Finally, Adam consciously glanced over at something—the rearview mirror. Or rather, the plastic rosary wrapped around its base and the dangling cross that was attached to its end.

            “Like it?” asked Jesse.

            “You aren’t religious,” Adam pointed out.

            “I know, but I saw someone who had a rosary tied around their rearview mirror like this, and I got inspired.”

            “Why?”

            Jesse shrugged. “I don’t have to be religious to have a tiny crucified Jesus hanging around in my car, do I?” He flicked the cross. As it swung back and forth, Adam finally noticed the small, metal figure of Jesus Christ “nailed” to it. “There’s something comical about it,” concluded his friend.

            “Comical? Some might argue that keeping an image of Christ in your car to flick for amusement borders on sacrilegious.”

            “Well, you know.” Unfazed, Jesse flicked Jesus again and giggled. Meanwhile, Adam wondered when his friend became such a child. Oh, wait, he realized, he’s never not been a child. Then he felt silly for having thought of Jesse as anything but childish.

            The grocery store that they shopped at was past the train tracks that ran across South Wallace Street. Adam had always wanted to shop somewhere closer, but there was no point; the prices at this particular store were better than anywhere else in the city. But today, as Jesse’s car neared the tracks, Adam furrowed his brow. Something in the back of his mind was trying to come back to him. Something about trains. What was it?

            He didn’t have very long to puzzle over this, as Jesse reached down, plugged his phone into the dashboard, and picked a song to play. Right as the car rocked over the tracks, the chorus of “Cherry Pie” by Warrant started.

            “She’s my cherry pie,” Jesse hollered, headbanging slowly but rhythmically to the beat. “Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise! Tastes so good, make a grown man cry; sweet cherry pie!”

            “How haven’t we died in a car wreck?” Adam asked in rhetoric over Jesse’s singing. He caught a glimpse, to his right, of the row of pale wooden power poles that seemed to continue forever, but were obscured down the line by trees. “You always do this. You’re not even watching the road.”

            “—Looks so good, bring a tear to your eye; sweet cherry pie!”

* * *

They had been shopping for ten minutes when Jesse noticed the ATM machine at the back of the store. His face lit up in sudden realization, and he handed his basket to Adam, in a hurry all of a sudden.

            “I just remembered,” he began, “I have to withdraw some cash. Watch my shit, all right?”

            “Yeah, sure,” Adam agreed, despite his slight confusion. He watched Jesse rush to the machine before deciding to wait where he was. When he looked around—at the fruit stand behind him—he noticed the stray apple that sat between the bananas. Were he Jesse, he realized, he might have come up with some sort of immature remark about it. Instead, he snarked at the relatable dilemma of wanting to return something but not wanting to be caught doing so. Figuring that he had nothing better to do, he pulled out his phone, snapped a picture of the apple, and posted it to Twitter with the caption “Just one of those days.” He only wished that he was quick-witted enough to come up with something funnier.

            Jesse cursed at the machine, removed his card, and then reinserted it. While Adam wondered what his friend could possibly be screwing up about something as simple as using an ATM, he skimmed through his Twitter feed. Then, he got a comment on his apple-banana picture. A pang of anxiety washed over him, relieved only slightly when he noticed that it was a comment from Evangeline.

            “OMG!” her comment read. “I did that!!” Again, she used the heart-eyed emoji.

            Really? Surprised, Adam glanced at the apple as if it had an answer for him. What were the odds that he shopped at the same grocery store as her? It was convenient enough that they both supposedly lived in Chicago . . .

            When he looked back at the screen, he saw that Evangeline had sent him a direct message. “Are you there now? I just left half an hour ago!”

            For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to respond. But then he thought, what’s the harm? “Did you really put the apple there? – Adam”.

            “I do it all the time to bother the stockers. I’m so happy that you saw it!”

            She did it all the time? Adam looked again at the apple—had he just never noticed it before?

            “If you’re still there now, I’ll go back!” she insisted. “I want to meet you!” Grinning emoji.

            Suddenly, Adam felt nervous. “I’ve left already,” he lied. In replying so quickly, he forgot to add his signature, but by the time he realized that he’d forgotten it, it was too late to add it.

            “Did you? Aww.” Disappointed emoji.

            He didn’t like being so brusque with a fan, but something about Evangeline’s enthusiasm made him feel uncomfortable. He stood up straight and tried to shake his bad feeling off. She was a 19-year-old girl—him, a 34-year-old man. Why was he so afraid of her?

            Jesse finally returned, slipping his wallet into his coat pocket. He reached out for his basket and grumbled, “It didn’t recognize my card the first two times. Can you believe it?”

            Adam smiled, rolled his eyes, and handed Jesse’s basket back to him.

* * *

On the way back to Adam’s house, the men chatted over the sound of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard. Rather than sing along, Jesse reminisced about past events.

            “Do you remember that time I bet that I could beat”—he laughed—“Eric Dane in an arm wrestle?”

            Adam thought about the question and remembered what Jesse was talking about. It had been back in 2013, at a party held by one of Jesse’s friends: Tylor Sherman. Adam didn’t know Tylor very well, nor did he frequent parties, but Jesse had insisted on his presence. As everyone else got drunk, he’d stood by one of the walls with a red Solo cup in one hand and the other in his pocket. Tylor had left halfway through the party—his own—with some guy that Adam knew even less. He hadn’t been able to think anything of it other than that they had probably made the getaway to have sex somewhere.

            Only half an hour later, Jesse had drunkenly bet that he could beat another person at the party, Eric Dane, in an arm wrestle. Eric was at least seven feet tall, and he was an aspiring bodybuilder. Needless to say, he was ripped from head to toe, at least when compared to someone as scrawny as Jesse. As Jesse boasted that he “was awesome” and that Eric Dane “wasn’t shit”, Adam’s glance had shifted from one to the other at least forty times. He was an acquaintance of Eric’s, and a friendly one at that. But while part of him wanted to tell Eric to at least go easy on Jesse, the rest of him, morbidly curious, wanted to see what would happen if he didn’t.

            “I remember that he broke your arm,” Adam answered, “and that I had to drive you to the hospital.”

            “Man, I’m a moron when I’m drunk!”

            “You’re always a moron, Jess.”

            “Touché. But you didn’t even try to stop me!”

            Adam shrugged. “Well, you sounded pretty confident.”

            Jesse scoffed in amusement and blindly punched Adam’s shoulder. “Dick.”

            As they approached the train tracks again, Adam’s smile slipped away. Again, he felt like there was something that he wanted to remember, but this time it was more clear a feeling. When the front tires bumped over both sides of the tracks, he saw everything: the subway train, the woman, the two men, the gun in the purse, and the axe. When the back tires completed the same journey, he shot back in his seat with a low gasp.

            Jesse, startled by the sharp movement and the noise, looked at him. “Hey, you okay?”

            “I think I just had an idea for a video,” answered Adam.