A Person Apart - by Ismael Munguia

“Goddamn it,” Thomas mumbled to himself as he reached over me to slap any button on his alarm clock. He missed repeatedly and his bony body was starting to annoy me. Each ring seemingly louder than the ones before it, and each pathetic stab at the alarm clock had him further insert his elbow into my side. He yawned and threw off his covers as he sat up, leaving his skinny frame completely naked on this cold November morning. Slowly and carefully, almost mechanically, he took each foot off of his bed and placed them inside his waiting shoes.

“Why are you still so weird?” I asked him.

“You never know when they’re gonna be there, waiting, just to get you,” he would often tell me very serious when I questioned him about his constant need to wear shoes inside.

“You’re a grown man...” I started

“I’m only 26." Thomas interrupted.

“As I was saying, a grown 26 year old man scared of tiny spiders just does not make sense.” I finished, smiling as I emphasized ‘grown man’ once again. Thomas walked off toward the closet to get dressed and re-appeared showing me his new shirt. The same shirt he went on endlessly about. I walked up to the mirror with him, to see if I could see what deluded version of himself he was seeing.

“I know how you feel about it, I just don’t like the look on you.” I told Thomas leaving him standing in front of the mirror alone.

He had bought the orange and gray striped shirt for this occasion, for our date tonight, that much I knew. There was no other purpose for it. He hated orange. He said he wanted to do something nice for me, but he failed at that too.

“But what about how sexy it makes me look? The salesgirl at Old Navy said it made me look distinguished, you know, sophisticated and what not.” Thomas said defending himself.

“That’s what people say when they are trying to sell you a shirt, and you got it at Old Navy? Cheap doesn’t equal distinguished.” I told him, breaking his last hope at getting me to like it.

He jumped on the bed next to me and tried a little dance. It was not really a dance, it was something he used to do and look cute during. Not anymore, he was changing. I still felt I should be a little nicer.

“Listen Tom, I know you think it makes you look ‘sexy’ but it doesn’t, that’s just not you. It’s hard to see you in that.” I said

“It’s always hard for you to see mein anything,” he replied looking sad.

“You are transparent to me. I told him. “Listen, I have to go. I have something I have to do, but I’ll see you tonight, ok? Just, get another shirt.”

Then I left, as soon as I could. He would probably mope now. This wasn’t always how it worked out. The relationships did not start like this, and before, it was different. He hadn’t changed. He begged me to come back after we were done. After that fight full of lies and half-truths he begged and begged. He said all the nice things guys say and I fell for them like all the girls do. Only I made a plan, I wanted to become him, but I could never be that cruel.

------

Thomas used to be cruel before, but it wasn’t his fault. Not to him at least. He could always blame the deterministic account of life he spent his academic life refuting. It is all pre-determined, it is all absurd, and it is not up to ‘him.’ It was easier for him to skip moral responsibility. It was a coping mechanism, one he had not chosen to adopt. It was the circumstances of his life. His unique perspective shaped him, his character was accountable, but that was not his fault. He would accept this, even if it also cleared his dad. As long as he benefitted from something he could care less about the implications, that was one of his problems.

In the early days Thomas could have loved Tammy because she was easy to manipulate. She never said no to him, and if she did, he always had some sort of argument to get his way. Thomas could have been justified in behaving this way, as he told Tammy the day she broke up with him:

“You only went to UCLA.”

Thomas took the break up a lot harder than he let on. Not once did he allow her to see how much he was hurting. Tammy knew this was likely, but felt that if he could show he really cared, the relationship might still be salvaged. But Thomas, sticking to his script did not budge an inch. Tammy had all but mentioned things were not working out as planned when Thomas said,

“We lead two different lives,” a line he heard and stole from a soap opera he had watched just two days prior. Thomas said it without emotion,;he was barely even present. He was transparent. Tammy looked up at him, and with tears forming she quietly said,

“We do.”

It was not the break up that was hurting her; it was rather the lack of response on his part. She had wished, imagined almost that he would respond differently. That he would realize what was at stake and fight to keep her. Thomas did not do this; he was just not that person. Tammy had tried many times to make it work, but the problem was always the same. Thomas was simply not much of a human being; he lacked necessary characteristics.

“I don’t know what you expect from me, I think you need to put down Ibsen, you need to educate yourself.” Thomas said, meaning every word directed at his most detested playwright.

Thomas fought back his tears with ease . It was not so much a fight, as much as it was a triumph of what he had been practicing since he was really young. He sat and watched Tammy cry, looking at him with those eyes he didn’t want to recognize anymore, at least not today. Thomas thought he knew her act was well rehearsed. This was always the problem. Thomas never knew.

Tammy talked quietly about how she needed a change, or some time alone maybe. What she said did not matter, not anymore. She had hurt him by wanting a change. She was, essentially saying “you’re not good enough the way you are now.” Thomas was not listening anymore; he was simply scanning his mind for carefully constructed weapons.

“Was it because of that cat I killed?”

“Of course not, you know that,” she said a bit surprised he brought it up. “that happened so long ago, and it was an accident too.”

It was not an accident. They had been camping in the woods behind her house one night. Thomas sat alone by the fire as Tammy ran inside to get a ghost book or something else. The stray walked right up to him and purred, twisting its small body around his legs, the warmth felt nice. He picked it up and placed it in the fire. The cat was caught off guard and the whining lasted all but seconds. He needed to do this; he needed to know what would happen. If he could write a story, it would have happened in the fiction, but he couldn’t write. When Tammy returned he said,

“It jumped in, I wanted to reach it, to save it, but I was scared. Something was chasing it, it had no chance.”

She did not imagine he had thrown it in, but she resented he didn’t try to save it.

“You just sat there?” she asked him for days, not really expecting a response, just trying to elicit some emotion.

“It’s not the cat, we just…”

“Lead two different lives, I know,” Thomas interrupted. Although Thomas said this just to interrupt, he was still right. He hated everything she loved. He made no attempt not to.

“Listen Thom, I just don’t want… this isn’t… I don’t want us to get more mixed up, the sooner the better I think, I thought of waiting... of…”

“It’s the dog isn’t it? Because I ran it over.” Thomas again interrupted her. He was angry now, he wanted to hurt her. He would hurt her. For now she just appeared confused.

“What are you talking about?” Tammy asked.

“Ruffles. Remember when I found him on the side of the road and I called you. I did it. That’s why he was still warm when you arrived. I didn’t mean to, but I was happy after the fact. You cried and only I could console you, now you only had me.”

“It was a contest with my dog?!?! This is your problem, you just…”

“What?”

“It’s just frustrating, why are we talking about this? Do you even know?”

“Because that’s why you’re breaking up with me.”

“No, it’s not, its because you would make something like that up, just to hurt me, that’s why I’m breaking up with you! You’re a child!”

“I’m much younger than that.” Thomas answered back. It was hard for her, because he put up no fight. He simply acknowledged he was nothing, that was his trick.

She was yelling at him now, she did not get mad at him often, it was hard to. Not because Thomas was undeserving, but because he did so many things that would drive most people crazy, but not her. That’s why she had been with him. She used to be able to overlook them.

“I’m not just saying that to hurt you, it’s just true.”

“No it’s not!” she yelled.

Tammy was right. Thomas did not run over her dog, and he was saying it just to hurt her, but it worked. It was obvious to Thomas that she did not believe him. But it did not matter to him then. She was hurting.

“I’m done! We’re done! I’m leaving… I just can’t take this” she said. Thomas watched her pick up the green bag she had set on the floor. He had always hated that bag. She was waiting for him to say something, but she knew better now. And she just waited for him to lead her to the door.

She was pretty when she was uncomfortable. Behind her smeared mascara, her blonde hair was still perfectly in place. Her jaw was twitching and her nose wrinkled. Her skinny frame was uncomfortable in the large room and she shifted her weight around, not wanting to sit down again. Realizing he had just lost her, he noticed everything he hadn’t before. It was too late to try and say anything. That was his problem; he was always reacting and never in time. He never fought the battles that he should. He didn’t even try. It had to be done; he couldn’t reverse now even if he wanted to. He walked her to the door.

“I hated being Tommy and Tammy anyway.” There was no blocking of the door on his part. There was no crying and pulling at her bags. He had done that when he was really young to try and keep his father home. And that did not work out as he had hoped. He had learned from that.

Thomas took off the shirt Tammy hated and walked out to the living room. She couldn’t even stand to have coffee with him anymore and would just rush out. His work partner, Curtis, said he saw her with some tall guy at the mall, and she had avoided making eye contact. Thomas suspected she could be cheating, but she was out of his league, so there was not much he could do.

He paced around the placed glue traps along the walls, checking them as he did every other morning. He inspected each one with both fear and excitement. It took Thomas two weeks to decide whether to buy them or not. As he reached the last trap he noticed the brown hairy spider still stuck. The similarities and possible metaphors between them would be obvious to an English major from Yale, but Thomas did not catch on. It was not dead yet, and he could see it struggle to move its legs. Thomas was torn whenever he encountered a similar situation. He was happy the spider was dying, he was happy he had won this battle. However, seeing the brown spider struggling was proof that they were still around. A reminder that they did not give up, that he had not yet won this war.

Thomas had to be at work by ten, though he could probably be late and not encounter any punishment. Grown men did not get punished. And Thomas had managed to grow old without ever growing up. He sat and waited for his coffee staring at his bookshelf overflowing with books he hoped someone would see and comment on. He would feel smarter this way. Because of his ivy league education he always felt entitled to more than everyone else.

“You don’t go to Yale without being better than most people.” he would often tell Tammy.

It was getting late, and he had to go. He set down the paper and swallowed the bitter remains of his fourth cup as he headed out the door.

“What took you so long?” asked Tim.

“Ah, you know how Thomas is, I got here as soon as I could. Plus, don’t get too excited, he and I have a ‘date’ tonight, so I have to be out of here early.” Tammy said, mocking the word date as it escaped her lips.

“Ohh, but I had plans for you later too. And, its always better with me, come on, just call him, tell him it will have to be much later.” Tim said as he grabbed her around her small waits and pressed his face into hers.

“Oh, alright, let me just call,” she looked up at him, “no answer.” “I’ll leave him a message, shhhh.” Tammy preferred Tim, he reminded her of Thomas when they had just met. She refused to break up with Thomas twice. She couldn’t do that to him, it would hurt him too much.

Thomas arrived soon to find Pierre waiting at the door.

“Jennings, my man,” said the old security guard.

“How’s it goin’? the fifth huh? About fucking time. No more election shit, no politics’, nothin’. Because listen Tommy, we know already…” he said expecting a response.

“We know?” Thomas asked unsure what was expected of him.

“Yeah, we know, everything stays the same, all of this shit, everyday is exactly the same, ain’t it, Tommy boy?”

“Sure is,” Thomas responded, “exactly the same.”

Thomas walked slowly over to his locker, greeting some of the other workers he had managed to build perfect relationships with. He was friendly, but inconvenient enough to not be invited anywhere and to keep himself outside of the team. The person he was closest with at work was Curtis and that was only for necessity.

“Hey yo Thom? About time huh, you’re 15 minutes late?” yelled his boss Sam.
“Curtis is out today, you’re on your own.”

“Alright” Thomas yelled back. “just fucking great” he muttered under his breath, not low enough.

“Aw, quit your bitching, you only got the mall to work today, so won’t be too bad. Nice girls to look at. I think the high schoolers take their lunch at 11, that’s when I’d make my way, if you know what I mean.”

Thomas and everyone else knew exactly what he meant. Whoever had the mall shift made it a priority to go when all the high schoolers were out on lunch break.

“The younger the better, eh Tommy” Sam told him the first day he recommended the mall at 11.

“ I don’t know about that,” Thomas said, “what about babies?”

“Think about it Tommy, as soon as they start crawling, their already in position.” Sam said to the delight and cheer of the other workers.

He often wondered why he worked here, but it hurt to give it serious thought. Although Thomas did find the mall at 11 to be a pretty good perk. However, he felt like less of a pervert because he was good looking and only 26. Sam was 50, married and had two teen-age sons. Thomas often thought how horrible it would be when they started bringing girlfriends home.

The locker squeaked as he opened it. It was an ancient building with only three windows near the ceiling. This made the summers in the building unbearable, and after this summer Thomas said he’d rather get shot than work in here again next summer. The lockers themselves had never been replaced. They were rusted and it took more than just the combination to pry them open. Thomas had the worst. He worked with beefy men who could pry theirs open with ease, Thomas always struggled, and that just fueled their laughter.

“So that’s where this was” he said as he found his cell phone and checked for missed calls. There was a missed call from Tammy along with a voicemail, but he was feeling good now and he didn’t want to ruin it. She was probably just apologizing for being such a bitch about his shirt. He put the phone in his uniform pocket, grabbed his weapon, holstered it and headed for his van.
Thomas stepped in the cold metal van and shut the door behind him. He put the heat on blast and turned on FM radio. A loud cheery voice startled him,

“A dark, cold and cloudy day in Missoula, and in the studio we have a world renown author joining us who will discuss the art of dying in fiction-“

Thomas flipped off the radio and headed towards the mall. As he drove south he saw the fog just lifting over the city. There might be some sun today, it might not all be so dark. His phone was beeping intermittently. It was indicating it was about to flat line, so Thomas was compelled to check his voicemail.

“Please enter your password, then press pound.” Instructed the pre-recorded robotic woman. He wondered if that was an actual persons voice that was recorded. It didn’t sound real.

“You have one message whose retention time is about to expire. You have six saved voice messages. First message: ‘Hey Thom, so I won’t be able to make it tonight for our special evening, I am really sorry, they just called me into work, maybe later? A lot later tonight? Listen, I’ll think of a way to-“ Thomas could hear a man in the background, but he knew it was probably just the radio. He was trying to be more positive these days.
His phone rang as soon as he closed it, he reached for it hoping it was Tammy, but it was only his mom.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, hey mom, what’s up? Yeah, we’re still set for tonight. I figured you would. Alright, well, I’ll see you tonight. Yea, I’ve been practicing my praying. Ok, bye”
He was not excited to see her tonight. He didn’t want to go to church and he was not feeling great about an entire evening of lying to his mom about his life. He remembered telling his mom he was going to be a lawyer. She was proud enough he went to Yale, but for law school she was ecstatic. He didn’t have the heart to tell her no respectable law school would accept him with his 2.6 from Yale. He had also failed to mention he had skipped his police exam, twice. She would understand, but he never gave her a chance.
Mrs. Jennings was a nurse for the local hospital, and on Wednesdays, her only day off she showed up at his door “just to chat.” Last week he pretended he wasn’t home when she arrived knocking. Since he had forgotten to lock the door she simply walked in.

“Jeez, Ma, what if I was in here with Tammy, you know, doing private stuff?”

“Well Tommy, you would have probably locked the door wouldn’t you? Now, why didn’t you open the door for your mama huh? She’s old, and her feet hurt. Huh? What’s wrong with you?” she said, smiling her beautiful smile that caused her eyes to squint, giving her a koala bear-like quality.

“Oh mom, I was listening to headphones, you know how that is? All the sound…” Thomas lied. As much as he would have liked, he couldn’t be really mean to his mom. Especially not after what they had all been through with dad. Sitting on the couch and kicking off her shoes she looked at him and said,

“You really need to clean in here, look at this mess? How does Tammy put up with you and your mess, huh?”

“I don’t know, I guess she loves me faults and all.” He said making himself feel worse.

“What a crazy girl, that’s why she likes you, how is she doing? You haven’t brought her over to mama’s kitchen in a while.”

“Yeah, sorry, she’s just been so busy with school and work, she doing ok though,”
Thomas lied again.

“Oh yeah, I remember, see I’m getting to be old and senile, she’s going to be a psychologist no? Like what you made me spend so much money on when you were a kid,” She said almost longingly.

Thomas did not remember what lie he had made up about her career plan, but his mom’s memory was getting worse so he just said.

“Yeah, a shrink.”

Thomas did not really notice the gradual aging of his mother until this day. She had been coloring her hair since her late thirties, but now the gray underneath was visible as was her scalp, since her hair was getting a lot thinner as well as falling. Her wrinkles had been concealed well by the fact she was overweight; it made her face rounder and plumper. Still her wrinkles were few, but her face was beginning to sag, and she even looked darker. She looked perpetually tired, she was starting to look her age and Thomas felt bad for her. She had been through so much, but her spirits were always high; it must have been that God thing she always flailed on about.

She broke the silence, but he hoped it would have remained.

“You’re going to prayer group with me tonight right? Your dad used to go with me, before…you know, and then your brother, so I never had to go alone. But now I go all alone, just me on my little lonely journey.” She said this while looking down at her feet, her hands playing with something she had picked up from the carpet. Thomas stood over her in the darkening room, the roles reversed. He couldn’t recall any specific moment in time, but he knew she had stood over him in the same way when he was the smaller, weaker one, only she actually comforted him.

“You know what mom, I can’t today. I have to prepare for a test…”

“Oh, the police thing?” she beamed.

“Yeah, that’s right mom, but next Wednesday, I promise you, I’m there.”
She looked up at him with such joy that he couldn’t help but feel good.

“That’s why I was always your favorite right? Thomas said jokingly.

“Oh, shut up, you know I love both of you the same, always have and always will. You’ll never know because you’ll never be a mother, but mothers, good mothers, always love their children equally,” She said, smiling.

“I guess fathers don’t.” Thomas responded with more harshness than he intended.

“Oh, sweetie, I know I should have done something early on, when he threatened to leave all the time, but what could I do? I didn’t have enough money to take care of you and your brother. It was so long ago too, he’s not even alive anymore,” she said back to him, sadly.

Turning off of South he finally arrived and parked near the Sears entrance. It wasn’t even 11 yet, so he decided to wait a little longer. He scanned the area the way he was taught. Looking out for suspicious vehicles or people. The parking lot was particularly empty this morning, except for a few Buicks and their senior drivers. He hated the mall, especially after Curtis saw Tammy here with someone else. He didn’t even want to wait until 11. The sooner the better he told himself. He looked at his phone again, it was 10:54 AM.

Thomas had been in this mall many times before. The smell of disinfectant on the floor always persisted. Mixed along with the smell of pretzels and grease. He remembered when he first saw the mall he was struck by how oddly shaped it was. He believed then that this might be for the best. It had not been. It took him multiple times visiting the mall to get to know exactly where the bathroom was. He knew know, but he decided he would wait until 11 inside the mall. Just to see who he could see. Tammy had pissed him off that much. He sat facing the pretzel stand, and there were free samples this morning. He considered a smoothie, but it was too cold this morning.

After watching a poor selection of girls from some high school he collected the money from the first ATM and headed to the bathroom. This was against the rules, but he never really cared. He walked down the corridor to the bathroom looking at all the pictures of Missoula in its early days. He walked in the bathroom and saw a small a man at the urinal and headed for the stall. Before he stepped in he felt something on the back of his head.

“What you have pointing at your head is the cold barrel of my gun. Now, why would a grown man, a strong man if I might add be scared of a weaker person simply because he’s holding a gun? I saw you size me up when you walked in, I was no threat. When I woke up, I checked my traps and there was nothing. I knew I had to do this. Even if it feels unreal, does it feel unreal? It is.

Thomas felt no answer was obvious, so he shuddered instead.

“I want to tell you that you have no chance now, it’s all up to me. Your life is in my hands now. I determine your fate. You’re the spider caught in my trap. Nothing you ever accomplished matters now does it? The only thing that matters is whether I pull t his trigger now or not. And why shouldn’t I? I don’t know you, you mean nothing to me, but also, why should I? You have done nothing to me. You are just Mr. Joe Citizen who decided to take this shitty ass job because you always wanted to consider yourself tougher, didn’t you? Carrying lots of money, carrying a gun, but you knew it was less dangerous than being a cop, and look how you’ve ended up now?

“Just take the money, take it!! I haven’t even seen your face” Thomas screamed.

“How typical, that is exactly the response I did not want to hear, but I was betting on it being slowly formed in your throat until you had the courage to spit it out. What makes you think I want the money anyway? What will I do with these few thousand dollars, if that? It will last me a week, if I’m lucky. Then I will have to do it all over again, plus you would report me, and there are cameras around here. I would go to jail, for what?”

“What do you want then?”

“Ah, the important question, what do I want? That questions puts you in control doesn’t it? You can now meet my demands, and it will ensure your life. What you don’t know is that nothing you say has any bearing in what the end result will be for you. That has been pre-determined this morning. You want to find out?

“I… don’t, man… please… I have a kid” Thomas lied.

“Now what I don’t like is a beggar. I already told you, whether you beg or not, it’s been determined. It’s too late for words and laments.”

“So this is for fun?” Thomas asks, disgusted.

“Fun? No, tennis is fun; this is just amusing. I knew you would be perfect when I saw you. Your worried face, that unconfident walk, your vile attempt at some sort of individuality you just can’t seem to grasp. It was just too hard for me to resist.

“What is your point, what is the point to all of this? Why are you doing it?” Thomas asked.

“Oh come on, you should know this. What is the point of anything? It’s just absurd, all of it is absurd. There are no reasons and there is no answer. If it does not make sense it is because it’s not supposed to.

“If that’s all true, how do you know killing me isn’t doing me a favor?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“No, wait, I need to-

And with that one shot, one pull of the trigger, a release of the hammer, in that instant, that ordinary meaningless second for billions of people his head violently exploded, painting the stall in front of them a dark red. He was not dead yet; he was dying, and his attacker could see him struggle to move his legs. It could have been he was just twitching, a nerve ending that had yet to realize it should cease. But time did not stand still nor did it pause. It moved like it always has, with complete disregard for human life or feelings. Without regard for human emotion or sympathy, it moved like Thomas had moved for so long. Tammy would enjoy Tim and his touch, finding out the next day and regretting her decision only enough to make it seem appropriate.

“Our date was after he got out of work, so he it was not my fault he was killed.” That’s how she rationalized it, a technique she had picked up from Thomas. His mother would never know he wasn’t great. All this was irrelevant for Thomas, for his thoughts were no more.