The Haze by James Hall Page A

Place nobody looked. The Godfather, that scene with whoever it was.
    But here in the home, there was no gun. No gun anywhere.
    Okay, fine. He’d find another way, maybe bribe somebody to unlock a door.
    He needed to get on a schedule. He always had a schedule. It was another hallmark. A schedule: first this, then that, bing, bing, bing. In bed by eight, lights out at nine, up by four. Wake in the dark. An hour or two when nobody was up. He’d plan his day. Map out the hours ahead. Print it in a Month-in-a-Glance calendar. He’d never been good with dates and times and days of the week, had to see it written down for it to make sense. Maybe the haze had started early. Or was that some other guy, some guy from a book. Elmore whatever his name was.
    So there you go. That was his problem. His big mountain to climb. Not sure if he was remembering shit he actually did or shit he read.
    A plan. A sneaky plan, that’s what he needed. He walked around the room. Trying to outwalk the haze, get some blood flowing into his skull. The room was tiny. He’d been in bigger jail cells. Spent years in a couple, one down in Florida, Raiford, he thought, counting the days, finding ways to cope.
    That was all it was, all any of it was. Ways to cope. Doing things to fill up the hours, make them pass. That was the big secret. You climb a mountain, claw your way to the top, finally you’re there at the summit, there’s a wise man up there, you ask what’s the secret and he says, hey, find something to fill up the hours. That’s all there is. You can pay on your way down.
    She came, his daughter. She smiled at him. Brought him some books. His weekly ration. Four hardbacks. His eyes weren’t good enough for paperbacks.
    â€œYou’ll like this one, Pop.”
    A red cover, the shadow of a man looking down an alley.
    â€œAlready read it.”
    â€œJust came out this week, Pop. No way you read it.”
    â€œI’m on top of things. I read it already. What else you got?”
    She showed him the other three. Covers used to have dames on them. You could stare at the women, imagine sinking into them. You could fall in love. Stare for hours before you even started to read. Every time you closed the book, there she was and her cleavage, her legs and hips. All those curves.
    Now it was all shadows and shit.
    â€œThat all you got? You work in a bookstore, you bring me this crap?”
    She left. The books stayed behind.
    There was one written by a woman author. A photo of her in the back. Blonde, nice rack, trying to hide them under all those fluffy clothes like she was embarrassed by them. But still you could catch the outline. Just barely. But worth looking at. Better than the other photos, guys trying to be tough, slouching against walls or against the hoods of old cars, wearing leather jackets, mean ass dogs with spiked collars. Big deal. They were writers for christsakes. How tough could they be, sitting in a room all day, writing down the shit in their heads, make-believe shit.
    His pills came at six. Right on time. Javier, the Puerto Rican, shiny shaved head. Earrings.
    Christ, he’d lived too long. Guys wore earrings now. Guys married guys. He’d lived a century too long.
    He palmed the pills, faked slinging them into his mouth. Then talking to Javier, showing him the photo of the woman writer.
    â€œHow big you think her tits are?”
    â€œI saw what you did with them pills, Mr. Connors. You need to take them. They’re good for you.”
    â€œLike vitamins?”
    â€œBetter than vitamins.”
    â€œYou live in the haze, Javier?”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean.”
    â€œThe haze, this shit.”
    He swung his arm around through the air.
    â€œLet’s see the pills, Mr. Connors. I help you with them.”
    He swallowed the pills. The haze hung on.
    In bed by eight, reading the book by the woman. About a serial killer. Like there weren’t enough of