Crazytimes Read online

  Crazytimes © 2020 by Scott Cole. All rights reserved.

  Grindhouse Press

  PO BOX 521

  Dayton, Ohio 45401

  Grindhouse Press logo and all related artwork copyright © 2020 by Brandon Duncan. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Scott Cole © 2020. All rights reserved.

  Grindhouse Press #065

  ISBN-13: 978-1-941918-68-5

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author.

  Other titles by Scott Cole

  SuperGhost

  Slices: Tales of Bizarro and Absurdist Horror

  Triple Axe

  Dedicated to the people of Philadelphia.

  More of this story is based in reality than you might think.

  1

  THE ALARM GOES off and I want to kill someone. This is true on most weekdays, and Mondays especially.

  Not that there’s anyone here to murder. Isa moved out months ago. No warning, no note, nothing. We ended up texting a little bit, once it became clear she didn’t plan on returning. That’s when she told me I would have seen this coming if I hadn’t had my head so far up my own ass.

  So now I’m all alone in this giant house.

  It’s way, way too big for one person—or at least too big for only me. There are three floors, plus a basement and an attic. It’s an old Victorian twin, meaning it’s narrow and attached to the house next to it, like a mirror image. Every house on the block is like this, although there are also rowhouses in the neighborhood, where each one is attached to the next all the way down the block.

  There are rooms I rarely visit—rooms that probably never would have been cleaned if not for her. Although, now, if I keep the doors closed and don’t go into them much, they don’t get too dusty.

  I never would have even agreed to buy the house if not for Isa’s nudging. Not that I’m blaming her or anything. We were happy here for a few years, and happy together for a few more before. We had plans at one point in time. Careers. Maybe a dog. This house.

  I remember thinking we were going to turn the first floor into an art gallery. We had dreams of opening it up to the world—or at least our friends and neighbors—and exposing them to the greatest unknown or underseen artists we could find. Isa had a knack for that. Lots of connections and a mind-bogglingly good eye. It wasn’t so much of a business venture as it was just something we wanted to do. But we also figured if anything sold, we’d put that extra cash toward the mortgage and hopefully pay it off that much quicker.

  We thought about having concerts here too. Nothing huge, just some lo-fi house shows. If not in the first-floor gallery space, then in the basement, once we got that finished. In the summer, we’d throw parties in the backyard and gather around the fire pit when the sun went down. We planned to build taller fences and just have this little secluded space where we spent time with our friends.

  “Our” friends. I haven’t heard from any of them since Isa left. Guess they all made their choices.

  I was planning, someday, to turn one of the third-floor rooms into a massive library. Floor to ceiling bookshelves, except for two of the corners, which would house the most comfortable chairs we could find. We’re both big readers.

  I wanted a studio space too, where I could paint and maybe get back into sculpting, even if only on a small scale.

  None of this ever happened, though. On the first floor there’s a living room that nobody lives in, instead of an art gallery. The third-floor library is just a couple warped particleboard bookcases and a floor that can’t be seen because of all the books piled haphazardly everywhere. The studio never happened either, despite the fact that it would’ve taken the least amount of effort to put together. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a paintbrush. And the backyard . . . well, let’s just say I’m looking forward to winter, so what little grass there is dies, instead of me having to go cut it.

  I’ll probably sell the place soon, and maybe someone else will start a gallery and build a fire pit and assemble a room full of bookcases.

  It’s way too much space for one person, and I just don’t have the inclination to keep up with it. I don’t really want the responsibility of homeownership, especially not without a partner.

  I barely slept, but since there’s no one here to murder over that, I might as well get up. I could fall back to sleep, but my boss probably wouldn’t look too favorably upon that, the prick. So I roll off the sagging decade-old mattress, untangling my legs from the sheets, thinking, Damn I really need to change these, and catch myself in a sort of squatting position, just before face-planting on the floor. It’s just the kind of jolt I need to fully—okay, partially—wake myself up and get the day started.

  I shamble over to the bookcase where I rest my phone at night, a few steps away from the bed—an intentional choice to keep myself from staring into its glowing rectangle too deep, too late, in addition to being a measure designed to help me get the fuck out of bed in the morning. The alarm is still blaring, maybe even getting louder, although that could be all in my mind. Either way, I stumble in that direction, one eye half-open, the other still closed, and I mash the surface with my finger a few times until I hit the orange spot that makes the noise stop.

  The bookcase is a short one, about waist high, painted black and covered with a film of gray dust, except for the spot I place my phone each night, which has slightly less dust. I can’t even remember where we got it. Probably a yard sale or something, years ago. It’s not in good shape—the back panel is barely hanging on and there are nicks and dents all over—but it serves its purpose.

  The shelves are a mess of books I haven’t gotten to yet, old receipts and other paper scraps, a few plastic toys, and a bunch of miscellaneous junk I’ve found in my pockets. There’s a movie ticket, a crumpled paper sleeve from a plastic straw, and a pile of loose change. Why haven’t I done something with this crap, I wonder, and promise myself I’ll clean it all up later.

  I check my notifications, hoping my boss has texted to inform me of some freak blizzard that rolled in overnight, cancelling work so I can go back to sleep, but no luck. Instead there’s a weather advisory that consists of an icon I can’t seem to figure out and a friend request from a bikini-clad woman who supposedly lives in some tropical place I’ve never even heard of. No snow.

  I mean, I probably shouldn’t have expected a freak snowstorm in September, but we can always dream.

  I hear a loud boom outside and for a moment I think, Shit, it’s trash day and I forgot to take the can out to the curb. But no, that’s tomorrow.

  I set the phone back down, keeping it plugged in even though it’s fully charged, and head into the bathroom.

  I nearly fall back asleep in the shower, just standing there comfortable in the warm water, not even washing myself. Then I snap out of it, not realizing how much time has actually passed, and give myself a quick once-over with the soap and scrub the smallest dot of shampoo into and out of my hair. When I climb out, that’s when I really wake up, the cooler air shocking my system into full alertness. Fuck.

  The wooden floor of the bedroom feels tacky to the soles of my freshly washed feet. I glance at the clock and see how late I really am. Double fuck. I do a quick sniff-test on some pants, throw on a definitely-clean-because-I-just-washed-it shirt, gather my things and run.

  As I speed-walk down the street, adjusting the strap of my bag on my shoulder, I realize I forgot the leftov
ers I planned to eat for lunch. Oh well. It’ll be dinner instead, and I’ll have to buy something this afternoon, even though I’ve been trying not to do that for a number of reasons.

  I also realize the sky looks weird. There’s a rusty haze hanging over the entire city. Maybe there is a storm coming. Wouldn’t that be nice. A few hours late, but still. If it’s something apocalyptic, maybe Rick will send us all home early. Hahaha. Right. He would never do that.

  I dash past a Little Free Library, one of those dollhouse-looking things some people construct in front of their houses, offering books that people would rather pass along to strangers than keep for themselves. The idea of getting rid of books is unfamiliar to me, but I’m happy other people do it. I’ve filled plenty of gaps in my collection this way.

  I stop and peruse the offerings at this particular one pretty much every day, looking for any new arrivals from my neighbors. Although I don’t talk to most of them, I’m generally curious about what people are reading these days. In theory, these take-what-you-like offerings are supposed to be recommended books, although just as often, and maybe more so, it’s a bunch of junk people are looking to get rid of. Still, I usually find something worth grabbing once a week or so, and it goes back to my shelves at home to sit among all the other books I haven’t gotten around to yet. I definitely read, but I amass far more books than I have time to get through. There’s a word for this in Japanese, but I can never remember it. In any event, I don’t have time to stop and look now.

  I’m a block away from the corner when I hear the bus coming. It’s tough to tell which direction the sound is coming from, but the anticipatory movement of the people on the other side of the street are my tipoff. If the light changes, I might actually catch this one and not have to wait ten minutes for the next, which would be a small miracle and possibly get me to work close enough to on time that no one would care.

  The light does change, but I don’t catch the bus. It doesn’t matter that I’m not quite to the intersection because the bus just zooms through the red light, its deep bassy horn blaring. The people on the other side of the street scream and wave their fists through the cloud of black exhaust the vehicle leaves in its wake. Guess we’re all going to be late for work.

  “What the fuck was that?!” an angry woman shouts when I get across the street. She’s looking right at me as she says this, her eyes piercing, as if it’s somehow my fault. It startles me for a second, but I realize she’s just upset at the bus driver and needs to vent to whoever is within earshot. And maybe she’s a little crazy. She is wearing a thick wool scarf, after all. In September. Maybe she was hoping for that blizzard too.

  I move past her and a guy with a big beard screams “Motherfucker, motherfucker!” as I cross his path, and again I almost take it personally. Damn, I’m tired. As late as I’m going to be already, I’m gonna have to get some coffee in me before I get to the shop.

  It’s another twenty minutes before the next bus arrives. The car in front of it, an old powder-blue hatchback covered with political bumper stickers and dents, stops short at the light, and the scent of patchouli oil hits me in the face. The bus screeches to a halt, lurching forward before tapping the car’s back bumper. The bus driver stands up and hangs half his body out the side window, screaming at the driver ahead of him, and I realize he probably would’ve gone right through the light if it hadn’t been for the hatchback. The guy in the car has no reaction other than to bob his head along to the muffled music on his stereo, and the bus driver finally gives up and sits back down.

  The angry woman on the sidewalk starts screaming again—did she ever stop?—because the bus driver hasn’t yet opened the door.

  “Let us on, you fuck!” she yells. “My taxes pay your salary!” I try to resist the urge to make a quizzical face at her remark, but I fail. When the driver doesn’t comply with her demand, she decides to unravel the scarf from her neck—which to my surprise reveals a second scarf underneath—and wraps it around her hand. Then she punches the center hinge of the door a couple times, hard enough that it actually gives inward. The big beard guy steps up to help, sneaking his fingers in along the edge of the slightly-opened door, and slides it all the way open.

  “I had it, you know,” the woman snaps, upset at the man’s oddly chivalrous act. He steps aside, making room for her to board first. She doesn’t thank him. “I’m not fucking paying,” she says to the bus driver, who responds with a hand gesture that seems obscene, although it’s something I swear I’ve never seen before. “I already pay! Plenty!” she screams, halfway down the aisle.

  The beard guy gets on next. He takes a dollar bill out—less than half the fare—spits on it, then slaps it against the plexiglass partition that keeps the bus driver safe from people like him. I imagine the guy’s hoping it will stick, but it just falls to the floor instead.

  “Good morning,” I say. I always greet the drivers of whatever public transportation I’m taking—specifically because most people don’t. I bend down to pick the beard guy’s dollar up, but the driver yells for me to leave it, so I do. I wave my transit card in front of the sensor on the front of the fare box to pay, and he turns to look at me. His eyes narrow and the wrinkles alongside them deepen. Once again I’m taken aback by human interaction this morning. He looks hard into my eyes, almost through me.

  “Boopy-doopy-doopy-doo,” he says, soft and calm. Then he brakes, bursting into a cackle, and he slams a hand on the horn, even though the light is somehow still red. I move back to take a seat as he steps on the gas. The bus nudges the blue hatchback forward, then maneuvers around it, and into the intersection. Horns blare. A red pickup runs up a curb and crashes into a metal signpost. I grab a pole but still fall into the scarf lady, who’s hanging out into the aisle even though the window seat next to her is unoccupied. She is not pleased. She starts screaming at me, but her words don’t register as I try to right myself and scope out the seat farthest away from her.

  It’s gonna be one of those days, apparently.

  2

  BEFORE I KNOW it, we’ve left my mostly residential neighborhood and reached downtown, and I feel like I might actually get to work at a reasonable time. Late, sure, but not so late that it’s offensive.

  The pace of the bus slows on the Center City blocks, though, so we’ll see. I look out the window instead of at my phone, always interested in people-watching and admiring the architecture of the city.

  At a stoplight I see a guy holding a big sign on a stick. In large hand-painted block letters, it proclaims:

  CLIMATE

  CHANGE

  IS REAL!

  Then he spins the sign around to reveal the second half of his statement:

  BECAUSE PENGUINS

  KEEP PISSING

  ON ALL THE

  GLACIERS!

  The guy has a huge grin on his face, and his big belly shakes as if he’s laughing.

  It’s the sort of thing that makes me miss Isa. Hard. We used to talk, practically every day, about how crazy everyone else seemed to be. “You and me against the world,” we used to say. Our home used to feel like an oasis in the middle of the city. As wild a day as either of us ever had, we always knew we’d be back there with the other one at the end of it, and we could relate our tales of strange encounters with the general populace to each other. Not that we thought we were better than anyone else—it just seemed like a lot of other people were falling out of touch with reality.

  She used to wonder if there was something in the water. And if so, was it just a city thing? “No way,” I would tell her. “Haven’t you been to the ’burbs lately?”

  I remember one day she told me about a guy who came into the bakery asking if they could cut a loaf of bread lengthwise, which she agreed to do, but after the fact, he tried to only buy the left half. When she tried to usher him out the door, he protested, claiming his wife would be by later to purchase the other side.

  We made garlic bread that night. While the oven preheated, I told her
about the guy who came into the print shop insisting we make duplicates of all his keys because he saw the word “copies” in the window.

  The bus driver does his best to never come to a complete stop, but eventually there’s so much traffic clogging one particular intersection that he’s forced to halt his progress. Even then it takes a bunch of people yelling to get him to open the back door and let them out. It’s technically two stops earlier than I need, but the way things are going, I decide to jump off at the last second too. The accordion door nearly closes on me, but I make it through.

  It feels more humid downtown than it did in my neighborhood. Funny how that always seems to be the case. I guess it’s all the concrete, all the buildings and machinery and steam grates venting underground utilities, the subway, and whatever else is down there keeping the city running.

  A loud boom echoes in the distance, and for some reason the image in my head is of a crane dropping an I-beam. Construction is a constant down here, projects large and small. I doubt there’s any land left, actually, but there’s always a new building going up somewhere; it just happens where an old building used to stand. Maybe what I heard was actually a wrecking ball destroying some of Center City’s architectural history. Sure, why repurpose an old building with some character when you can knock it down and start fresh with something flat and gray and boxy?

  The coffee shop I used to frequent was turned to rubble a couple months ago for this reason. The owner of the building—I never figured out if it was just one guy or a boardroom full of people—decided he/they didn’t like the art deco look of the building. So it’s gone now, and a condo is supposedly going up in its place. Yay.

  So I recently had to find a new coffee shop. No easy task these days, because fuck Starbucks. There are still a few others left, but frankly, some of them really ought to go out of business for what they try to pass off as coffee. I finally found one I like, though. It’s actually more like an oversize kiosk in the lobby of one of the more historic buildings in town—an old department store, oddly enough—but hopefully that means it’ll be here for a while. Who the hell knows. I run in and there’s a line, of course. I wonder if all these people are late for their jobs too. If they are, they don’t seem too worried about it.