Repo Men - By Eric Garcia Page 0,3

get a smile in return. The streets were mine, to do as I pleased.

Today, I’m Mr. Smythe. I’m the one with his pants around his ankles, stumbling backward, hands raised, hoping and praying that the first shot will miss and give me a chance, however slim, to see tomorrow.

Hi-fucking-larious.

CHAPTER 2

All proper jobs—at least, every job I’ve ever had—begin and end with a full accounting of the materials at hand. Though my current daily activities amount to little more than huddling in the corner of this abandoned hotel and peeking furtively out the boarded-up windows every two minutes, I figure I might as well keep to the routine. It’s sustained me so far.

My possessions:

One typewriter: an Underwood. Pale blue paint scraped down to the metal, worn from years of neglect and disuse. Found in the rear office of the hotel lobby, atop a file cabinet sporting a rats’ nest made from decades-old newspapers. The ink strip is fading but otherwise in working order, which is more than I can say for the keyboard itself. The shift key is missing, and every time I hit it, the rough shaft of exposed metal spears my finger. Any run-on sentences are unlikely to be accidental; I’m simply wary of capitalization.

Alternately, the typewriter could be drawing blood on purpose. An autonomic machine, testing for my type, preparing for the inevitable surgery to come. For all I know, it’s been stashed here by the Credit Union people as a sick joke. It’s the kind of thing they’d do. It’s the kind of thing I might have done. Perhaps there’s a camera inside. A homing beacon.

The typewriter clacks, that’s for sure, which is enough of a homing beacon in and of itself. Makes an awful racket, rat-a-tat-tat-ting away like a failing machine gun. What I wouldn’t give for the soft strokes of a keyboard and the glow from a plasma screen to brighten my lonely nights. Clack-clack, clack-clack. It’s sure to give me away, but I’m feeling saucy just now. How long this outlook will last, I can’t say. It’s not exactly up to me.

These sounds, these pages, are my sacrifice. For three months I’ve been holding down my breath, suppressing my sneezes, inhaling every cough. I move only at night, only in short, shuffling steps. This is what you do when you’re hiding. The floorboards creak. Noise is a no-no, an amateur slipup. All noises. Any noises. Call up the Appropriate Government Officials, these noises say. There’s a man hiding out in the abandoned hotel on Fourth and Tyler, these noises say. Can’t have that, no sir. The last thing I need is to have to change apartments again. What with the housing crunch, it’s getting tough to find abandoned buildings that adequately suit my elevated tastes.

This will be my typing regimen: One hour on, two hours off. This gives me a one-third chance of being detected, but I’m confident that anyone who truly cares to find me will do so without the help of the old Underwood here. They have radar, infrared, scanners beyond compare. Perhaps, if I’m lucky, those gadgets will be their undoing. No one thinks lo-tech anymore.

Let’s keep going.

Paper: Half of a rodent-chewed ream of three-hole punch, found near aforementioned filing cabinet. Gum wrappers, tossed in a pile beneath the desk. Bottles of cleaning solution, long since emptied, but the labels are easy enough to peel off and feed into the cylinder of my trusty Underwood. The varying length of pages may pose a problem, but I’ll attempt to fit my words to the medium at hand. I am nothing if not flexible.

Body: Eyes locked and loaded, full wide open. At night I have learned to sleep as the sharks in the ocean, lids propped up and attached to the top of my forehead with pilfered Scotch tape. I am ever-vigilant, the ultimate watchdog, protector of my domain, and I owe it all to the 3M Company.

Ears straining at every silent moment, so finely tuned they can pick up the cry of a dormouse amid the tide of midmorning traffic. Nostrils in a permanent state of flare, sucking up the available air, inspecting it for the slightest whiff of ether, and expelling it out again unscathed. Clean. Nothing. So far.

I need to reload my shotgun.

Weaponry, orthodox or otherwise:

Shotgun (1), double barreled, 23 shells remaining

Mauser (1), hand pistol, 16 shots remaining

Bowie knife (1), stolen from tent at Bear Scout campground

Scalpel (2), perfectly balanced to fit my hands and joint tension

Bone saw (1), worn