Thursday, July 30, 2009

1:11 PM HAYES APARTMENTS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

In her second floor efficiency, Saundra’s bed was made neatly with worn sheets and an old patchwork quilt, a gift from her grandmother. Scattered on the bed, and some on the floor, were dozens of scratch-off lottery tickets. She had won seven free tickets, plus a total of six dollars, all unclaimed and some crumpled and torn in frustration. The carpet was a dirty tan, with deeper black smudges on the walkway from the bed to the tiny kitchen. The linoleum in the kitchen peeled in all the corners, and was scuffed in several places, but its yellowing cream color was clean, as were the faux marble counters and the pockmarked plaster walls. A hand towel with an embroidered snowman hung on the oven door handle. On the counter lay an old cookbook, this one her mother’s, open to a page on baking chocolate chip cookies, the source of the recipe for the plate of three cookies (all that were left from the batch) that was carefully wrapped in cellophane and placed in the refridgerator. Oddly, there were no chocolate chips in the cookies; Saundra preferred just the plain cookies. They weren’t sugar cookies, no they tasted different. Just chocolate chip cookies without the chips. No nuts, either. The bathroom was opposite the kitchen, a simple toilet, sink, and cast iron bathtub on top of spotty teal and cream tiles. Everything was well kept, though older than Saundra herself. The tiles were getting older every day, but Saundra wasn’t. Her body sat upright in the grimy recliner facing away from the window beside the bed. The window heater was silent, the shades were closed; the room was icy cold. Her right hand held a twenty-two gauge pistol limply, dangling over the edge of the seat and nearly falling to the floor. Her face was peaceful, and, without the pistol in her hand, would have been mistaken for someone taking a quick afternoon nap. There was no blood. Eleven tenants had heard the gunshot, but no one had called the police. This wasn’t that kind of neighborhood. You minded your own business here.
On the nightstand by the bed, a small paperback lie open, its spine cracked, and one passage was underlined. The paperback was Titus Andronicus. There were no other marks in it:
"Here lurks no Treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges, here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and Eternal sleep"