Where the fuck did he go? The fluorescent lights on the high ceiling give off a soft and gross glow, the kind in a department store where you avoid looking at yourself in the mirrors they put everywhere. The lights make everyone look blue and fat and soggy. It makes me sweat. The lights cover most of the parking garage, but not all. There’s a black hole where they end and the parking garage turns to dark. Exactly the kind of place you wouldn’t want to venture if you didn’t want to get mugged, or murdered, or slapped in the face by some kind of species of bat that likes to scare the shit out of people.

I head in that direction.

Still using the wall as cover like a little mouse, I reach the dark area and allow my eyes to adjust. I know how to do this. I know what I’m doing. I listen for shuffling or footfalls but there aren’t any. Could he be just out of sight? Staring at me while my big dumb face looks around shakily? Probably. He’s probably a sneaky one. Knows that I’ve followed him all the way from inside his house. I saw his sad little soap and he probably knows it. Shit. I should have know this was going to happen. I reach inside my jacket pocket and feel the teeth of the key I took. I’m an excellent fighter. One time I batted a bird away from my head when I got too close to its nest. I bet no one has ever done that before. I can probably use this key as a weapon if I had to. Give him a slash with the ‘ol key teeth, open him right up like a door. I grip it tight and walk carefully forward, periodically slashing it in front of me like a little sword.

I go like that for a while. Then I see myself as if someone else was watching me. I look stupid, so I stop. How far does this fukkin’ garage go on for anyway? How many people work here that they need this much space? 8,000 people? There aren’t even any cars down here. Maybe it’s for a few really big cars, like extra big busses. Busses for business. I come to a corner. Well. That’s the end of the garage at least.

I fetch out my right hand and follow this new wall. I’m starting to get that bored feeling again. Even though the hotdog timer in my head has gone off, I don’t feel particularity interested in checking on the plumpdogs. I’m going to go all around this parking garage with my right hand on the wall until I hit the stairs again, then I’m going home. My hand hits a crack, then a smooth metal surface, then another crack. I keep walking. That was a door. Anyone can see that, even in the pitch black, but I don’t want to give up that I know it’s a door in case the man is behind it and heard my raspy fingers sliding on it.

I play it off like the slick bastard I am. Boop boop, nothing to see here, just walking along a wall in a parking garage for the fun of it. Definitely not going to go back and check on that door. I stop but still walk in place, slowly making my footfalls quieter and quieter until they aren’t making noise any more. See? Told you I was a sneaky trickster. Oldest trick in the trick book of walking. I slowly rotate my ankles and wiggle my toes and they crackle like cellophane. My feet are fukkin’ loud and crack all around. Can’t have that right now.

I crackle them around until they just give off little tiny pops in my boots. All good. These loud ass toes of mine aren’t going to give this smartyboy away. I heel toe it back the way I came, hand ever so gently caressing the wall like a cat pawing at water, lookin’ for that crack. There it is. I stop right away and wait, listening. No sounds coming from the other side. I slide my hand up and down the crack and there’s the knob. The good ‘ol knob. You know I know all about knobs, right? I explained it twice already.

I lean way over again, but it’s so dark over here that I can’t see what I’m dealing with, so I get in even closer and give the knob a sniff. Smells like garlic. That’s brass. I reach out one finger and touch it gently. It’s round. So we got ourselves a round brass doorknob. Cool. I touch the tip of the knob and it has a rough part, that’s the keyhole. I put my fingernail to it to get a sense of the roughness and it’s about what you’d expect. Pretty keyhole-ish. This isn’t going to work, but I try anyway. I take the key from my pocket and fumble for the keyhole with it. It sticks in a bit, but it doesn’t slide in like a key would if it was the right keyhole for it.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

That’s about it. I can’t pick locks. You know how hard it is to pick locks? forget about it. Don’t believe what you see on TV, there’s about a hundred million magical things that go on inside a lock and you have to be crazy to take that up as a hobby. I put the key away and give up on the whole thing. I’m going home to live my exciting life of fuckin’ around inside my apartment and watching TV until I get decrepit and can’t hold in my poop any more. Then someone can handcart me away to some place where I can play bingo with other old people who also can’t hold in their poops. Sounds good to me.

I start to hoof it, then the door opens. I hop back to the security of the wall and stretch my arms out against it, like an escaping prisoner. My eyes are closed because everyone knows no one can see you if your eyes are closed. A bright light shines through my eyelids and I hear someone call out “what the... what the fuck?! What are you doing?” I peep one eye open but all I can see is a bright light. I close it again. “You know this is trespassing, right?” I open my eye again and the light is pointed at my feet. I open both eyes. I say “how can you talk like that? How are you making sounds out of that crazy skinhole mouth of yours?” The light shines at the torso of the person holding the flashlight and I see a patch that has an eagle holding two guns. “I don’t know what you mean with the mouth comment, but you aren’t supposed to be here. See this here shield?”

A fat finger flicks the eagle patch “this means I’m the boss of this building and am in charge of keeping out the riff raff. Unless you have parking validation.” The voice gets sad, like it hopes I don’t have validation so it can take care of the riff raff. “What’s validation?” I say. The voice is throughly excited now. “I knew it!” I hear a beep and a fuzz sound “Breaker breaker, this is red fox one, we have a riff raff situation without validation, requesting backup.” The voice laughs “oh you’re in for it now, ‘ol buddy. My partner is gonna come on down here to give you a first class taste in not having validation and riff raff rousting.” I swallow loudly like they do in the movies. I say “I’m the owner of his building. Just doing a little peek around. You know. Looking for cracks in the walls and stuff. I don’t like to park anything in a place where the whole thing might just fall on my car. then I would have to take the bus. And busses smell like peasants.”

The voice goes quiet, then I hear another chirp and a fuzz sound and the voice says again “now we got a sneaky liar trying to do god knows what with this garage. This fancy new garage. Over.” The radio fuzzes back at the voice “did you roust him yet? tell me you didn’t. I ain’t rousted someone in a long time. You just hold sight of him until I get there. Over. Also. Don’t get started until I get there. Over. With the shocker stick or the cuffs either. Over.”

I take off running. I hear the voice calling from behind me “Hey!? You can’t do that!” But I’m pumping the ‘ol legs. I hear a huffing behind me, but it’s pretty far away and getting further. I come into the light again and see the stairs in the distance. Legs are coming into view, ostensibly belonging to the voice at the other end of the radio. He doesn’t see me yet. I slow to a walk and call out “there he is! He’s making a run for it!” The man bends down to look at me so I wave my arms and point behind me “back there! Your partner started to give him a rousting with the shocker stick and he’s running now! Back that way! Away from those stairs you’re climbing down!” The man hustles down the last of the stairs and says “where! Where! Goddamn it! I told him not to get with the roustin’ yet!” I point deeper into the garage “back that away!” I shout “he’s sure a fast runner so you better get to it before he gets too much of a headstart!” The man takes off running and I walk casually up the stairs. Told you I was sneaky. I hear confused voices behind me so I pick up my pace.

I exit the parking garage and head on back to my apartment. My sanctity. Sweet sweet apartment sanctity with all kinds of TV on inside and a refrigerator without a weird box of baking soda in it. I make it inside, peeking around from time to time, making sure I wasn’t followed. This time I put the stool in front of the door with three cans on it.