SCENARIO B

Gronk opened the sack of guts and carefully counted spleens, determined not to be cheated again. Elbow-deep in grue, some bastard started pounding on his apartment door. Probably the guy who just delivered the sack. Well, he could wait. Gronk wasn’t going to get shafted again. Three, four . . . okay, five. All here.

Gronk walked to the door, unlocked it, opened it just enough so he could peek one eye out. “Alright,” he said. “They’re all in there. You can go now.” He slammed the door shut, locked it, snapped the chain on, walked back toward the sack.

More pounding on the door. “Money, Gronk! You ain’t fuckin’ paid yet!”

Gronk sighed, walked back to the door. “I’m not opening up again. You’ll probably shoot me or something. You’re a black-market thug and you’re going to shoot me. I know it.”

“I won’t shoot you. Open the goddamn door.”

“Like fuck I will.” He tried on the tough words, but they felt alien coming out of his mouth.

“Like fuck you better!” The man kicked the door, old wood rattling on its hinges.

“You’ll shoot me,” Gronk said. “If I open the door again, you’ll shoot me and take back the sack. I know it.” Gronk sagged against the door. “I just know you will.”

“I’ll shoot you if you don’t open the door. I’m done fuckin’ around, so just pay up and I’ll go.”

Gronk bit his lip.

Another sharp kick at the bottom of the door. Gronk flinched.

“I ain’t jokin’ around, son. You know how I roll and you know I’ll do it. Now open up!” The door thrummed with life, the thug’s fists pounding up high, his feet bashing down low.

Breaking into a cold sweat, Gronk backed away from the door.

“Alright, that’s it, I’m comin’ in—you’re gonna fuckin’ be sorry.” The thug threw his bulk against the door. Gronk backed farther away, nearly tripped over the sack of guts, bent down, picked it up, held it tight against his chest.

The thug threw himself against the door again, butting a hole in it with his shoulder, just above and to one side of the chain lock. More low kicks, weakening the hinges, then one final charge and the whole door crashed inward, sending up a plume of dust and crud.

The thug stood on top of the felled door. Gronk stared at him. Big black boots. Black leather jacket, lined with metal studs. Face like pitted concrete. Scarred, bald head, pocked with deep indents. Cigar drooping from his thick, wet lips. He munched on it once, twice.

“Gronk,” he growled, raised the gun at his side, levelled it at Gronk’s face. “Money or death, ya little shit.”

Gronk lifted the sack higher, curved his bony shoulders inward, squeezed his eyes shut, turned his head away, and whispered, “I don’t have any money left, thug.”

“Don’t call me that. You know my name’s Jimmy. Why you gotta call me ‘thug’? It’s fuckin’ juvenile.” He bent back the hammer on his gun. “It’s nothin’ personal, you know? You know what I’m sayin’? I got people Igotta pay, too. No hard feelings, alright? Just stand still and take it like a man.”

Take a bullet like a man? Gronk thought. What a ridiculous—

Jimmy fired and Gronk’s right leg exploded in pain. The bullet tore into the flesh on the side of his calf. Gronk bellowed, dropped the sack. Jimmy fired again, missing as Gronk fell over sideways. He landed hard on his elbow. Fresh pain shot through his arm, racing up into his shoulder, covering his head like a hood.

Then, something Gronk hadn’t felt in a long, long time suddenly rose in his chest, dulling the pain: Anger. He’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to be severely pissed.

Somewhere far away, Jimmy apologized half-heartedly, walked into Gronk’s tiny kitchen, opened his fridge, and rooted around for something to eat. “Fuck, man, what the hell do you eat? There’s nothin’ in here.”

Jimmy turned casually and fired again from across the room, this time driving a bullet into Gronk’s left hand. He gritted his teeth against the scream that wanted to burn up his throat and tear through his vocal cords. He fell over on his side and bled.

You will not ruin this for me, thug. The words felt honest. Crisp ice chips of truth. But then, just as quickly, as a new wave of pain coursed through his system, those ice chips melted, drowning his courage.

Jimmy slammed through the cupboards, chucking onto the floor a jar of Nutella, a ziplocked bag of pistachios, four crumbled crackers, and a slightly crushed box of Weetabix. He stomped over to Gronk, loomed over him, pointed the muzzle of his gun directly at his head. “Before you die, I wanna know one thing, freak. What do you do with it all? Huh?” Jimmy poked Gronk’s forehead with the muzzle of the gun. “What do you do with those sacks of organs, the crates of limbs? What sick shit do you get up to with that stuff, retard?”

Gronk frowned, chewed on his lip. Now was his chance to come clean, tell someone about what he’d been doing. He was going to die either way, so why not at least get it off his chest? But a hard nugget of resistance had formed in his heart, his throat. He wouldn’t give up his secret. Not to this thug.

“I won’t tell you.”

Jimmy threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, I beg to differ. You will fucking tell me.” His breath smelled like sewage and his teeth were long, dark yellow, and crooked. He leaned back and puffed on his stogie, smoke snaking around his greasy head, curling up to the ceiling, then flattening out and drifting into water-stained corners.

And just when Gronk felt that bolt of courage rising again in his chest—his synapses popping and sizzling, that stubborn determination gripping his will, creating a solid path of defiance—Jimmy’s shoulders slumped a little. He pointed the gun at Gronk’s head again. “Ah, fuck it.”

Gronk squeezed his eyes shut.

Jimmy pulled the trigger.

The hammer did not fall. The gun just sat there, jammed, in Jimmy’s giant mitt.

Jimmy squeezed the trigger again. Still nothing.

“Cocksucker!” Jimmy roared, pulling the trigger over and again, to no avail.

Gronk thought he should feel happy, elated, perhaps even graced by God to have been given such a reprieve. Surely, someone Up There was watching over him. But instead of feeling blessed, charmed, or divinely intervened upon, Gronk just felt sad. Because he couldn’t save himself. Instead, he had to be saved by events that had nothing whatsoever to do with his actions.

Gronk sighed, and let pain wash over him.

When he was just about to black out, he saw Jimmy—through a surreal haze of smoke, grimy light, and watering eyes—finally give up on the weapon and throw it against the nearest wall.

Finally discharging it.

The bullet made a neat hole right where Jimmy’s heart should be; a thin trickle of blood oozed out. Eyes wide, mouth open, Jimmy keeled over.

Thoroughly disappointed in his performance, Gronk frowned and passed out.

When he came to, Gronk tried to wiggle the fingers of his left hand, tried to move his right leg—severe pain in both directions.

Someone must’ve heard the gunfire and called the cops by now. I gotta get outta here.

Lifting his head from the floor, he looked at the sack. With his savings gone, it was probably the last one he’d ever get his hands on.

In the distance: sirens.

When the police arrived, they found a broken-down door and a dead thug in a pool of blood.

No Gronk.

No sack of guts.

I can’t ever go back.

Blood trickled down Gronk’s leg and off the tips of his fingers as he struggled down the alleyway behind his apartment building. He held the leak-proof sack in his right hand, slung over his shoulder. It was tied at the top with wire and filled with ice to keep its contents cool.

Gronk’s thin brown shirt and dark gray sweatpants were slicked to his skin with sweat. Almost there now. Gronk smiled despite his injuries. Swanny would take care of him. He didn’t know for sure, couldn’t remember for certain, but he thought maybe Swanny had always taken care of him.

He rounded the alleyway’s corner and lurched under a dirty-green, torn-up awning. “Swanson’s Knife Shoppe” was stencilled in Army font on the shop’s little window. Beneath the words: a crudely drawn picture of a sharpening stone.

Gronk dropped the sack to the cracked pavement and felt alongside the edge of the metal door for the buzzer. He had no idea what time it might be, but hoped to hell Swanny was home. His fingers found the buzzer. He pushed it for ten full seconds.

Footsteps coming down stairs. The door swung open and Swanny stood at the bottom of the staircase. Wearing a dark red bathrobe and light green sandals, her short hair was held back here and there with clips.

“You’re beautiful, Swanny.” Gronk managed to smile a little. It was the same thing he said every time he came over.

Swanny looked him up and down quickly, alarm registering on her features only very slightly—the hint of a raised eyebrow, a tightening of the lips, the tiniest widening of heavily mascara’d eyes. But that was all.

“Come in,” she said. “Hurry.”

Gronk grabbed the sack with one hand and hobbled inside. Swanny shut and locked the door behind him.

“Leave the sack here,” Swanny said. “I’ll come back down for it.”

She helped him up the stairs one step at a time, opened her apartment door, and led him through. She retreated down the stairs, grabbed the sack, came up again, dropped it beside her coat rack, locked all five of her deadbolts in quick succession, hooked her three chain locks, and sat down opposite Gronk on a wicker rocking chair.

“Do you want me to help you, or do you want to just bleed to death?” Swanny’s arms were folded across her chest. Gronk didn’t blame her for her attitude; he’d more than imposed on her these past couple of years. Free food, free money, free rides to and from his secret place.

Free knives.

Gronk leaned back, eyes shut, his head on a small pillow embroidered with elephants. Plastering her walls were framed posters of Harry Houdini and other magicians Gronk had never heard of. A battered old chest sat in one corner of the living room—her trunk of tricks, she called it. A deck of cards was spread out on top of the trunk; a dog-eared book of amateur card tricks sat open next to it.

Swanny believed there was magic in everything.

“You’re bleeding on my couch,” Swanny said, her tone chilly. Maybe he’d really worn out his welcome this time.

She pursed her lips, disappeared down the darkened hallway, flipped on the bathroom light, returned a minute later with scissors, a washcloth, a length of gauze, and some metal clips. “Leg,” she said, moving her chair closer to the couch. Gronk used his good arm to help Swanny prop his bad leg onto her knees. She cut away his sweatpants, cleaned the bullet wound as best she could, then wrapped the gauze around, cut it, and clipped it securely.

“Hand.” She moved her chair a little closer to the couch, but didn’t raise her eyes to meet Gronk’s. He gently maneuvered his hand to her knees, rested it there, hissing through his teeth. She cleaned and bandaged it, too. “That’ll do till you can get treated at a hospital.”

Gronk nodded, looked away. “Thanks.”

The ensuing silence was more than Gronk could bear. He knew this was the last time he’d be able to lean on Swanny. Felt it in the cold space between them.

“You’re not going to die,” she said. “At least not yet.”

“Swell.”

More silence.

“I suppose you need a ride,” she said.

“No, I’ll walk. Don’t worry about it. You’ve done more than enough for me already—and over the years, too. I don’t deserve a friend like you.”

“We’re not friends, Gronk.”

No, I suppose we’re not. Not really.

“Well, whatever we are, Swanny, I want to thank you for it. You’ve been kind when you didn’t have to be.”

“I’ve been curious, that’s all. You’ve become mysterious. Still dorky, but mysterious.” Swanny cracked a small grin.

“Gee, thanks,” Gronk said, and smirked.

The clock in the living room chimed four times. Gronk craned his neck to get a look at it. “Four in the morning?”

“Do you have time to sleep? You should really rest.” Swanny crossed her legs, leaned back in the rocking chair. She produced a cigarette seemingly from thin air. Lit it with a match she plucked from the same place. It unnerved Gronk every time she did it. Whenever he asked her how she managed it, she’d just say, “Magic. I’m entitled to some mystery, too, you know.”

“The cops will be looking for me, so yeah, I guess I should lay low for a bit.” Gronk winced. Again with the tough-guy talk. Sounded so corny coming from him. Why did he even bother?

Swanny looked like she was trying not to laugh. “I’ll get you a blanket, then, ya big criminal.” She stood up and disappeared down the hallway again.

Returning with a blanket, she found Gronk already asleep.

In Gronk’s old apartment, Detective Jeremy Fintner squatted over the inert body of Jimmy the thug. People meandered about, dusting this, bagging that. Bells had rung in his head when he’d found out the identity of the renter, but he couldn’t quite place the name.

Fintner stood, walked to a ratty desk set deep into one corner of the room beside some empty bookshelves, broken hockey sticks and tattered movie posters. He slipped on latex gloves and pulled open the desk’s drawer. It squealed in protest, the wood having expanded in the record-breaking heat of the past week.

Inside were photographs. Piles of them. They’d been cut apart and taped together again with other photographs, placing people from one picture with people from another. Fintner flipped through the various pieces, unable to discern any pattern. Some pictured smiling women, relatively recent judging by the hairstyles; others showed teenagers, definitely older, probably from the late ’70s or early ’80s—rocker-types with studs on their leather jackets, or the names of metal bands stitched into their jean jackets. Smoking, laughing, hanging out, goofing off. But all of them jumbled about, creating dif- ferent scenes than the ones in which they originally appeared. Sometimes body parts were cut out and rearranged, creating different people.

When he neared the bottom of the drawer, he flipped to one picture in particular and stopped dead. A photograph of a thin young man.

“Holy shit,” Fintner said.

One of the forensic investigators asked him what he’d found.

Fintner tapped the photo lightly and said, “I know this guy.” He turned the picture over. The name on the back confirmed it.

He scraped the bottom of the drawer, picking up the last few cut-up pieces of photos—and realized he recognized someone else in them, too.

When Gronk woke the following morning, he watched Swanny move around the kitchen like a hummingbird, mixing scrambled eggs in a bowl, flitting to the stove to check on the bacon. She put down toast, poured two glasses of orange juice, brewed coffee. A pretty blur bathed in yellow-orange morning light.

“What time is it?” Gronk croaked.

“Time to go to the hospital,” Swanny said, grating cheese over the scrambled eggs.

“Yeah, yeah, the hospital, I know. What time is it, Swanny?”

She glanced at the kitchen clock, too far away for Gronk to make out. “Eleven.”

Gronk wiped crud out of his eye. “Can you give me a ride?”

Swanny knew he didn’t mean to the hospital. She didn’t reply.

“Swanny, can you give me a ride?” An impatient edge crept into Gronk’s voice.

“Sure, yeah, okay, but you gotta eat something first.”

“No time.”

The sound of bacon fat popping.

“Besides,” Gronk continued, “I thought we weren’t friends. Why so much concern about my well-being if we’re not friends?”

She turned. “Oh, fuck you, Marcus. You know what? Do whatever the hell you want. You always did before, so why should now be any fucking different?” She slammed the spatula down, turned the stove off, poured herself a cup of black coffee and walked away. When her bedroom door slammed, it knocked a framed photograph off the wall. Glass shattered in the hallway.

Gronk blinked.

He sat up slowly, eyes scrunched tight against the pain. He stood up, limped to the bathroom—careful to avoid the glass—and rifled through the medicine cabinet. He found some extra-strength pills for the pain, took a piss, hobbled into the kitchen.

The toast popped.

He scooped up some scrambled eggs and cheese with the spatula, popped it in his mouth, dumped some piping-hot coffee down his throat—the burn taking his mind off the pain in his limbs for at least a few seconds—and snagged a dry piece of toast, stuffing it in his mouth as he headed back to the hallway.

Picking up the photograph and broken wooden frame from the floor, he glanced quickly at the picture. It was Swanny and some guy Gronk didn’t recognize, though faint bells rang in his head. Swanny looked about ten years younger. Neither she nor the guy looked very happy, but they didn’t really look sad, either. They had their arms around each other, so he figured it must be someone close to her. Could have been a brother, a friend, a lover. No way to tell, and the tiny bit of recognition he felt looking at the guy wouldn’t focus for him. He flipped the picture over, but nothing was written on the back to give him a clue.

You have many such pictures yourself, don’t you, Gronky Boy. Sure you do. Except you don’t frame yours; you cut them up and move the pieces around like a jigsaw puzzle, ’cause you’re a fucking spaz.

Gronk frowned, shook his head. He bent down and put the photo against the wall. Straightening up, he leaned in close to Swanny’s bedroom door and said, “You’re beautiful, Swanny.”

No reply.

Gronk quietly left the apartment.

Four hours later, Detective Fintner rang the apartment buzzer located beside Swanson’s Knife Shoppe. Swanny came downstairs, ready to listen to Gronk’s apology. When she opened the door and saw that it was not Gronk, but a detective, her expression hardly changed a bit.

“Sorry to bother you on the weekend like this, Ms. Swanson, but I’m Detective Jeremy Fintner. I’d like to ask you some questions about a murder. It involves someone I believe you know.”

Swanny shifted her weight a little, stared down at the detective’s shoes.

“His name is Marcus Gronk.”

Swanny lifted her eyes a little. Behind the detective, she saw dime-sized blood droplets on the sidewalk. Neither she nor Gronk had thought to clean them up when he came in last night.

“Why do you think I know Mr. Gronk, detective?”

Swanny’s voice remained steady, sounding almost bored.

“I came across some photos in his apartment. One of those photos was of you. I remembered seeing you around the neighborhood with your knife-sharpening cart, ringing your bell, trying to drum up business.” Fintner attempted a smile, trying to loosen up Ms. Swanson.

Swanny continued staring at the blood on the sidewalk. She didn’t look behind her, but she knew there’d be more blood on the stairs, leading right into her apartment.

“And that’s the only way you connected us, detective?”

Fintner cocked his head to one side, scratched his cheek and grinned. “Should I have connected you in some other way, Ms. Swanson?”

Swanny raised her eyes to meet Fintner’s. “How about the trail of blood leading from the sidewalk right to the front door of my apartment?”

Fintner looked behind him tentatively, peeked around Swanny, then turned a deep, dark red. His hand crept to his holstered gun. “Shit, is he—”

“He’s gone. I can take you to him, but you have to promise me you won’t hurt him, detective. Do you understand?”

On the bus, Gronk thought for the millionth time about all the places he should have been, could have been, would never go. Looking at all the other people around him, he wondered if any of them ever felt the same way. Surely they must have. But what do they do about it? How do they deal with the lives they never had?

The bus rumbled along, bouncing over potholes, inexplicably blasting heat out of what was supposed to be its air conditioner. Deeper into the suburbs, deeper into the kind of place where half-built, forgotten subway lines languished, affording failed teachers and historians like Marcus Gronk a glimpse into a life that should have been.

Gronk had written about the abandoned subway line. He’d tried to sell the article to magazines, websites, even to just the local newspaper, but—as with most everything else he created—no one wanted it. So he shelved it, along with a dozen other articles about interesting, lesserknown parts of the city.

Factory Road. Time to get off.

As he stepped off the bus, he wondered briefly if the guts were now too warm to use. He generally assumed it didn’t matter much, anyway. Not really. Not for his purposes. Slightly warmer guts would probably work as well as cold guts, but you just never knew. Maybe whatever magic they contained when they were cold leaked out when they got warm. Maybe whatever remnant of the soul was in the organ realized it was no longer attached to its owner and promptly fled the scene.

Sometimes Gronk tried to feel bad about what he was doing. He really tried to feel the indignation that he knew others would feel if they knew what he was trying to create. Sometimes he’d get a very small twinge of it, but as fast as it appeared within him, it was gone.

They’d more likely just be jealous, if anything. Taking control of my life is what I’m doing. Giving myself a second chance when no one else will.

Life is made up of scenes. People create their own scenes, their own realities, every day—through their choices, skills, talents. In the abstract, they work towards the life they feel they deserve, trying to create a mirror in the physical world of what’s in their mind’s eye.

I’m no different.

Heading toward the bread bakery under which the forgotten subway line ran, he saw etched into a badly dented and faded sign the familiar logo he’d grown up with as a child. His mother had always bought the same brand of bread. Even now, picking it up in a grocery store and thumbing the logo felt like slipping on a comfortable T-shirt, one that felt smooth against the skin. It brought back memories of a time when he felt his choices still had the power to decide his path.

The pills he’d taken this morning were already wearing off, the pain in his leg far worse than before. He stopped walking and sat down on a wooden bench someone had placed near the graffiti’d sidewalk in better times—perhaps when the factory was still open and there were more businesses on the street. He lifted his pant leg and confirmed his suspicion: his wound was bleeding again. Blood soaked through the sodden gauze. The bullet hadn’t hit the bone, but was still lodged pretty deep. Blood came from his hand, too.

Gronk picked up the sack and continued toward the bakery.

Twelve blocks away, Detective Fintner and Swanny got into the detective’s car and headed to the same destination.

Gronk limped the final few feet to the bakery’s side entrance. The crack in the rotten wooden boards through which Gronk had entered the factory back when he’d been researching it had needed to be significantly widened. Originally, it had only been large enough for the skinniest of men to get through—clearly not a problem for Gronk’s 130-pound frame—but the sacks and the portable generator had posed the difficulty. He’d broken off a few more boards and brought the wood inside, hoping no errant beat cop would notice and start snooping around. He realized very quickly that his reservations were unfounded: he’d only ever seen a handful of vehicles pass through this part of town on their way somewhere else, and only the most serious cyclist or jogger from the city ever dropped sweat on this sun-blistered asphalt.

Gronk stepped inside.

The grayish light coming through the hole created more shadows than it dispelled. Fishing around in his pocket, Gronk retrieved his Zippo, rolled the wheel with his thumb, squinted his eyes against the sudden flare of light. When the flame died down, he looked around. With his leg next to useless, he waited a few minutes for his vision to adjust. If he fell with no one around to help him, he worried he’d never get up again.

In addition to baking bread and cakes, the bakery once doubled as an ice cream shop, so Gronk had his choice of several sizes of cooling units. He had settled on one of the larger ones—a walk-in freezer measuring about thirty-six square feet located near the back of the bakery. It was a good fifty or sixty feet away from the entrance. He headed there now, carefully picking his way through fallen bits of drywall, broken glass, and overturned chairs in which sons, daughters, parents, and grandparents once sat lapping ice cream and gnawing on cones from 1910 until the business closed down several years ago.

Sometimes when Gronk crossed this stretch of floor, he imagined he faintly heard The Subway That Never Was running beneath his feet. Echoes of his life, of his loves.

Fighting off dizziness, nearly tripping over debris more than once, he finally reached the cooling unit. He set the sack down beside the freezer’s door, then moved around back of the unit to power up the generator he’d installed—more research done, more articles no one bought.

Stumbling around to the front again, he picked up the sack and opened the door. When the foot of his bad leg came down lightly on the cool, smooth-steel surface, he felt something warm squish between his toes. He tried to concentrate on the new information, tried to generate concern about his shoe filling up with blood, but the vapor-proof light overhead showed him his creations in such stark clarity, he immediately forgot what it was he was supposed to be concerned about. His mind drifted, swept away in the icy new climate. He closed his eyes, wavered where he stood. Dropping the sack at his feet, he reached his right arm out where he knew his little wooden chair to be and eased himself into it.

After a few minutes of soaking in the cold, the thrill of possibility threading its way through his body, he opened his eyes, leaned over, opened the sack.

And got to work.

Detective Fintner’s car turned down Factory Road. He stopped a good distance away from the abandoned bakery, but close enough that he could see most of the building.

“That’s the place?” he said. “You’re sure?”

“Definitely,” Swanny said from the backseat. “I’ve driven him out here quite a few times over the past couple of years.”

Fintner turned and looked at her, brow furrowed.

“Do you know what he does in there?”

Swanny dropped her eyes. “I don’t know what he does; I’ve never asked. I don’t want to know.” She pulled her eyes up again to meet his. “I prefer it that way.”

Fintner nodded. Through the windshield, he quickly assessed the building. Lots of places to hide. He called for backup.

“The cuffs too tight, Ms. Swanson?”

She shook her head. “They’re fine.”

They passed the rest of the time in silence. Three squad cars arrived quietly. Fintner moved to stand, but then turned again in his seat, his left hand gripping the roof of the car. “Look, I want you to know I really appreciate your cooperation with this.”

Swanny stared straight ahead out the windshield. “Remember your promise, detective.”

Fintner got out of the car, slammed the door, told one of the backup officers to stay behind with Ms. Swanson.

Drawing his gun, he walked toward the bakery.

He passed the decrepit wooden bench on which Gronk had checked his wounds. This time, he did not fail to see where the trail of blood led.

Not expecting company, Gronk hadn’t bothered closing the door to the walk-in freezer. When Fintner’s eyes adjusted to the relative darkness inside the bakery, he had no trouble seeing exactly where Gronk was.

Gronk sat sideways on a wooden chair near the back of a walk-in freezer unit. Something gleamed in his hand. Fintner moved slowly closer, motioning the other officers to get out of view.

Gronk calmly sawed into something with a large knife.

“Drop the knife and put your hands slowly above your head,” Fintner’s voice boomed in the enclosed space.

Gronk turned in his chair. He squinted past Fintner, saw the backup officers behind him. For a moment, Gronk thought it had worked, thought his creations were finally moving, that everything had been worthwhile. His second chance come to life.

Then he heard the sound of shells sliding into shotguns. He blinked, frowned. Looked around the freezer, saw everyone from his new life sitting right where they were a moment ago.

“The knife, Marcus. Put it down. You’re under arrest for murder.”

Gronk’s eyes swam in his head. He found Fintner’s face again, but was unable to piece everything together.

“Put the knife down or I will shoot,” Fintner said.

Behind him, one of the officers bent over and threw up on his shoes. The others shuffled uncomfortably, but held their positions.

Fintner had been so intent on Gronk, he hadn’t really taken in his surroundings. When he did, his mouth opened just a little bit, his gun wavering ever so slightly from Gronk’s midsection.

“Jeremy?” Gronk whispered, his knife apparently running on automatic, separating layers of cold flesh while he spoke. “Jeremy Fintner?”

Fintner’s eyes watered as his brain finally interpreted the scene. “Stop sawing, Marcus! Jesus Christ, just stop!”

Gronk’s hand slowed, slowed, stopped. He glanced down at it, as if it weren’t his own. “Long time since high school, huh, Jeremy?” Gronk mumbled. The blood in his shoe had spilled out and pooled around his foot. His face was chalk-white, his cheekbones sunken. Breathing shallow.

“Yes,” Fintner said, his mouth dry, stuffed with cotton balls, stuffed with memories from well over twenty years ago. “Long time.” His gun hand shook.

Spread out on a small, beautifully sculptured round oak table in the middle of the room were knives of all different sizes. Some covered in blood, others showing no signs of having been used. A sewing kit also sat nearby, all sizes and colors of thread spooled out in disarray. But what kept everyone at bay was the handgun nestled in with the knives. Both the knives and the gun were easily within Gronk’s reach.

“Hell of a mid-life crisis, huh Jeremy?” Gronk muttered. “But it’s okay. It’s okay, Jer, ’cause there’s magic in everything.” His eyes closed and his head swung side-to-side slowly from his neck like a sunflower too big for its stalk.

“Marcus Gronk, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an att—”

“Jeremy, be quiet. Listen to me.” Gronk’s eyes cleared up just a little, sharpening enough to actually look Fintner directly in the eyes. He put down the knife and held up his one good hand in surrender, said, “I’ll come with you wherever you think we need to go. But just wait a minute, okay? Just listen to me.” Gronk’s gaze wavered again, his face scrunched up in pain. “I promise not to be long.”

Fintner kept his gun trained on Gronk; Gronk took this silence as agreement.

One of the younger officers said, “Sir, shouldn’t we—”

“Shut up, Officer Garrett.”

“Do you know what Scenario A is, Jeremy?” Gronk said.

Fintner shook his head.

“Scenario A is the life you’re living right now. The life based on the choices you’ve made from the day you were capable of making them on your own.”

Fintner’s eyes shifted to the cadaver to Gronk’s left, the one he’d been sawing at when they came upon him. It was one of five poorly sewn-together corpses seated around him with its mid-section exposed.

“Scenario A is the half-built, forgotten subway line that runs beneath our feet—intended to be useful, but never having the chance. Discarded. A failure.”

“I’m not really following what you’re—”

“Do you know what Scenario B is?”

Outside the freezer, Officer Garrett fingered the trigger of his shotgun. Wound tightly, he weighed his options, looked ready to act where the other officers just looked ready to run. He spoke again, perhaps morally unable to keep his peace. His words were hard, clipped: “Sir, we really should—”

“Scenario B is the life you think you should have had. The one you were denied. Either through the stupidity of your own choices, or . . . ” Gronk coughed, swayed in his chair, looked as though he might fall right out of it. Fintner and his backup tensed, ready to pounce on him if he did. “Or through the fact that you’re just plain useless, and any choice you could have made wouldn’t have made a single bit of difference anyway.”

Pausing, Gronk looked up at Fintner. Beneath his feet, he thought he felt the rumbling of non-existent trains.

Inside Officer Garrett’s head, a decision was made. He was unaware of it, but he had started to cry.

“I’m forty-three years old, Jeremy.” Gronk continued, the delivery of his words very deliberate. “By thirty I was supposed to have been a successful novelist or screenwriter or teacher or historian or hockey player or husband or any fucking thing at all. But I’m none of those things. None of them. I just fuck everything up.” He nodded toward the piecemeal cadavers. “But this . . . this is my Scenario B, Jeremy. This is the starting point of the life I should have had. These will be my loved ones and my friends. When I get the combination of pieces right, these people will come to life, surrounding me, proud of my achievements. They will love me exactly how I deserve to be loved.” He moved his good arm in the general direction of the table. “They’ll be there for me when—”

Officer Garrett stepped forward, lifted his shotgun, and fired at Gronk. The blast scattered a spray of lead across Gronk’s chest, blowing him off his chair against the wall. He slumped there, silent.

Garrett, red-faced, tears streaming down his cheeks, screamed down at Gronk’s corpse: “You fucking sick piece of shit!” He shuttled another shell into the chamber, raised the barrel to fire again, but Fintner lifted it in time, and the shot sprayed into the ceiling. Fintner ripped the gun out of Garrett’s hands, and then the other backup officers stepped in and helped Fintner hold Garrett against the freezer wall.

“He was going for the gun!” Garrett shouted, hysterical.

“Bullshit!” Fintner countered. “He was just—”

“How could you just sit there and listen to that, Fintner?” Garrett was inches away from the detective’s face. “Look at this fucking place—it’s disgusting!” He pointed to the mix of male and female cadavers propped up at the table. “Do you see what those are? Those are dead people cut into pieces and stitched back together with other people’s parts, Fintner. Why the fuck didn’t you do something? You just sat there listening to his sob story, like you were sympathizing, like you understood how—”

Fintner grabbed Garrett by the head with both hands. “Calm down, Garrett,” he whispered through his teeth. “Just calm. The fuck. Down. He was dying anyway. He was dying—and I had him covered. You didn’t need to do that. He was just talking, trying to explain his life.”

Fintner turned and walked out of the freezer.

Detective Fintner walked back to his car, opened the door, slid inside. Took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.

Swanny looked at him in the rearview mirror for a while, studying his face. “You broke your promise, detective.”

Fintner said nothing, just started the car and drove.

Swanny nodded, looked out the window.

She thought about the photograph that had fallen off the wall earlier that day when she’d stormed into her bedroom. In it, Marcus Gronk had his arm around his wife, looking neither happy nor sad—a honeymoon picture taken years ago, before the divorce. Before Gronk’s life had fallen apart, piece by piece.

When she got out, she would buy a new frame.