Knockout. John Jodzio

kids, if I went blind or lost my legs would you stick by me, what is your spirit animal, what’s a perfect day to you, how long is a long backrub, do you have any hang-ups about psoriasis?

      Other than the psoriasis question, these are the kinds of things I often ask Atomic. He gets annoyed at me when I do this, calls me “Magazine Quiz.” Jesus, he’ll say, we might not be alive in five minutes and here you are wasting your time with this?

      When I run out of questions on the napkin, I start making up some questions of my own.

      “How do you want to die?” I ask Graham.

      “Fire,” he says immediately. He seems like he has actually prepared for this question, which I appreciate.

      “Really?” I say. “Me too.”

      “It would hurt for a bit,” he says, “but then it wouldn’t really matter, right?”

      After I’m done with the questions, Graham goes into his bag and pulls out a cardboard tube and spreads some onion skin sheets out over our table.

      “This is my latest project,” he explains. “Here’s the green space, here’s the ample parking. The bottom floor is zoned for mixed use.”

      I can tell he’s testing me, seeing if I like the same things that excite him. So I show him that they do. I run my fingers along the edges of the blue-lined paper. I ask him questions about his project, I smile and nod at his answers.

      “Things get torn down,” he tells me just before the bell rings again, “and then new things push out of the earth to fill the void. It’s like a new tooth cutting through your gums to replace what’s missing.”

      I sit down across from Atomic. His nametag says “Willem.” It has started to peel off his chest, but he presses it back down, smooths it out.

      “Jesus Christ,” he whispers, “I told you to wait outside.”

      “I got bored,” I say.

      “You always get bored,” he says. “What if I got bored with how bored you get? What would happen then?”

      A few months ago Atomic tied me to a chair. He said it was an experiment to help me learn more about myself. When he left to go get some cigarettes, I chewed through the twine he tied me up with, something he hadn’t figured I’d be able to do. The next time he was more careful. He handcuffed me to the door of our refrigerator.

      “You’re going to ruin it,” he says. “You’re going to fuck up the plan.”

      I look around at the other people here, lonely people trying to put their best foot forward, people who weren’t ready to meet someone when they still looked good enough, people who work too many hours, people who drink too much or can’t stop themselves from doing weird shit, like going to grocery stores and breaking all the candy bars in half when no one is looking.

      “Let’s go live in the country,” I tell Atomic. “We’ll open a restaurant. You’ll flip the burgers and I’ll bring out the plates. We’ll grow some weed in the basement of our house and sell it to all the high school kids. We’ll have a kid and name it Atomic Jr. and call it Tommy for short.”

      He shakes his head no.

      “This is going to work,” he says. “It’ll work if you’d just have a little patience.”

      The bell rings twice in a row and the speed dating ends. We fill out an index card to say who we liked best. I give Willem the highest rating, even though I know he doesn’t exist. Graham is my second choice because at least he and I know how we want to die. I watch as everyone gathers up their coats. Some of them look giddy, but there are other ones, ones who haven’t made a match, who slink away. Atomic makes his way over to the bar with the blonde woman with the horse teeth. I sit across the bar from him now, wrapping and unwrapping my coat.

      Don’t, I think, don’t. I try to make this word enter the blonde woman’s brain—get her to stop. It’s not working though, my telepathy; the blonde woman keeps twirling her hair, gulping her margarita. My powers of suggestion are weak and the waiters, dressed in those stupid Cuban shirts, keep cutting through my view, running baskets of chips, huge drinks, sizzling and steaming platters of food, their trays held up to the heavens like they are offering up a sacrifice to some enchilada-loving god.

      “You’ll follow me back,” Atomic told me, “and after I tie her up, I’ll let you in.”

      Don’t, I keep thinking, but this woman isn’t listening. She’s happy to be talking to Atomic, so beautiful and so interested in her. She’s drunk and she’s telling herself this is real. She’s probably telling that to herself over and over because that’s what she wants to believe.

      I run to the bathroom and while I’m there, I think about ruining the plan. I think about walking up to Atomic and saying something like, “I’ve been looking all over for you. Your mother just had a stroke.” Or maybe I’ll just yell at him like I’m a jilted lover.

      When I get back out to the bar there are now two women sitting next to Atomic, the woman with the horse teeth and a new woman with short black hair and glasses. I wonder where she came from, but I don’t have long to mull it over, because all three of them stand up, put on their coats, and leave.

      They walk out the door and down the street, arm in arm in arm. They skip for half a block. What the hell is he doing? Is he going to tie both of them up, bleed both of their bank accounts dry?

      The three of them walk past that coffee shop where I worked for a week before I got fired. They duck into a loading dock. I stand across the street and watch Atomic kiss the blonde woman. After he is finished kissing her, he kisses the brunette. Then the two women kiss. They pull apart and giggle for a second, but Atomic takes the back of their heads and pushes them back together.

      “Whatever you see isn’t real,” Atomic told me before he went into the restaurant, “whatever you see is just acting, okay?”

      They stumble down the block. Soon both of the women guide Atomic up the steps of a condo. I see the lights turn on inside. I crouch right underneath the window. There are no cars around and I hear the clinking of glassware inside. It’s snowing now, huge flakes.

      I wait for Atomic to tie them up and let me in, but there’s nothing. I wait ten minutes, twenty minutes, still nothing. While I’m standing there, a car pulls up across the street and honks at me. And then it honks again. I hear someone call out for Rita.

      “Rita?” he says again. I do not answer him because that’s not my name. I do not answer him because I’m hiding in some bushes outside a stranger’s condo.

      “Rita?” he yells out. “Everything okay?”

      I climb out of the shrubbery and see Graham sitting in his idling car.

      “I saw you run out of the bar,” he says. “I’m not normally this creepy. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

      I try to look inside the condo, but the blinds are closed. All I can see is the flicker of candlelight; all I can hear now are murmurings, maybe some light moaning. I know that I need to go now, that waiting here any longer will be horrible for me.

      “Hold on,” I tell Graham.

      I grab a piece of landscape brick from a retaining wall in front of the condo and I rear back and throw it through the window. I watch as the glass explodes and then I hear the screams from inside. I sprint to Graham’s car.

      “Drive,” I tell him.

      A few blocks later, I realize I’m still wearing my nametag, “Ms. Rita Johnstone,” and I rip it off me. I crumple it up and throw it out the window.

      “My real name’s Ellen,” I tell Graham.

      Graham turns left, heads back toward downtown.

      “Nice to meet you, Ellen,” he says. “Where do you want me to take you?”

      “Show