A native of County Leitrim, Ireland, James Rogers lives in New York and is a math teacher at the United Nations International School. His short fiction has appeared in a number of literary magazines, including The First Line, The Galway Review and Inscape. His debut novel, Flight of the Eternal Emperor, was published in November 2023.

Solitary

By James Rogers

He stands at the window. Helicopters hover over the twinkled towers on the far side of the river. He looks down at the supermarket in the street below. No one has gone in or out for quite a while. He knows it will close soon.

He walks down ten flights of concrete stairs. Only one elevator is working and it stinks of piss. Anyway, he doesn’t like the closed space, the sliding metal door with its tiny window of toughened glass that’s scratched so much he can’t see through it. He suffered a panic attack once in the elevator when the lights went out. He thought he was back in his cell. When the door had finally opened on the ground floor a woman with a walker had yelled at him. “Get up off the floor, you old fool! You’re lying in dog pee.”

He forces himself to stop thinking about the elevator. He stands at the corner, waiting for the lights to change. It’s a quiet night, but still he waits for the white man to tell him it’s ok to cross. He preferred the old signals. He used to read them aloud. “WALK … DON’T WALK.”

His knee is troubling him again, worse now because of the stairs. He knows he should rest it more, but he feels compelled to walk around his apartment. He can’t sit still for more than two minutes so round and round he goes.

He’s thinking of the elevator again.

He arrives at the supermarket, his eyes fixed on the black arrow within the green circle. The door rolls open, wheels grinding over the last few inches. He is again reminded of his cell.

He steps inside. There is no one around.

Bananas are on sale. A dollar for six. He considers buying one or two, but he heard somewhere they cause constipation.

He moves to the cereal aisle, glancing at the cashier as he rounds the corner. He feels her eyes upon him as he walks along a kaleidoscopic wall of two-dimensional bowls overflowing with flakes and hoops and squares. Milk like paint drips from spoons as jolly cartoon characters compete for attention. He stops at the tiger and wonders again at the red bandanna. Does the tiger use it to hide his identity? Are those flakes stolen? He smiles at his own silliness. He takes two, three steps more, to his favorite, the bee dribbling honey onto little brown hoops that will crunch in his mouth if he doesn’t add too much milk. Sometimes he eats them dry. He picks up a box, looks closely at the letters. The first one he knows; it’s the same as his name. And he likes how one of the hoops is used for the dot on the i.

He looks at the stick the bee is holding and wonders why it’s used for honey instead of an ordinary spoon. He’d like to know what it’s called and is saddened by the fact that he’ll never have the courage to ask.

His mind is slipping again in a direction he doesn’t like so he shoves the box under his arm and moves on. He likes the soft sound of the hoops resettling. His taste buds awaken in anticipation. The sweet buds. What about the salty?

He’s fond of the chips in the bright green bag with the onion on the front. A big bag too, which delights him; often there are none left at this late hour. He picks it up and wonders again if it’s a real onion or a drawing and in the corner of his head he hears a snigger. It angers him, but he tries not to acknowledge it. He remains calm, even though the snigger makes it harder than ever to pretend he’s alone in the big supermarket with its wide-open spaces and its bright lights and anyway, if the snigger’s so smart why doesn’t he step to the front and take charge instead of skulking in the back with his nudges and his snide remarks?

He picks up a plastic carton of milk, the one with the red label. He knows the red one is full fat. He heads back up the aisle, steeling himself for the cashier. A woman with a trolley enters the aisle from the other end. He doubles back, tries the next aisle. He counts his steps to the other end, hoping, hoping. He’s so pleased to get through untroubled, like he’s won some sort of game. He is suddenly reminded of running through the schoolyard with his friends and the trick he would play when cornered: catch them by the sleeves so they can’t tag you, then spin them around and off you go again. No wistfulness accompanies the memory, no longing. The boy is not him. It’s as if he is remembering a long-cancelled TV show.

But the memory helped him forget the cashier, for a moment or two. Now he’s before her. He stops. She is young, pimpled, slouched. And she’s wearing a bandanna. A red one, but unlike the tiger, she has it over her mouth and nose. It is bright against her pale skin.

He takes a step back. She taps a sign by the register. He looks at it, looks at her. At the bandanna. The milk is making his fingers cold. He switches to the other hand, almost drops the cereal. She lifts herself out of her slouch. He sees she is tall, taller than him. She glares, stabs the sign. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you read?” Though her words are muffled, her anger is not.

Confused and embarrassed, he turns around and goes back down the aisle. He puts back the cereal, the chips, the milk and tries to go out the way he came in. The door won’t open. The arrow is on the other side. He looks at the exit, down past the registers. The cashier has resumed her slouch.

The snigger sidles forward. What’s the matter, afraid she’ll bite?

He shakes his head, looks at the entrance again and is relieved when a shadow falls upon the door and it slides open. He steps forward, eager to escape, then sees the shadow belongs to a policeman. The cop has his face covered, like the cashier. “Where’s your mask, buddy?”

He doesn’t understand the question; the words barely register. “Yes, sir,” he says, a conditioned response.

“What? I said where’s your mask?”

A second cop enters, face uncovered.

He becomes frightened. Though newspapers and books tell him nothing, he can read this face, knows it well.

He tries for the door.

“Where you goin’, dude?” says the face.

“Hey,” shouts the cashier, “that guy didn’t pay.”

“Hold it!” The face reaches for him. He slips by, gets himself wedged in the closing door. The face places one hand flat against the glass and grabs his jacket collar with the other. He wriggles from the jacket. The door slides open, catching the hand. “Ah fuck you, you goddamn asshole!” the face yells. The hand is pulled free. “Stop, shithead! Stop right there!”

He dashes into the darkened street, not waiting for the white man this time. A misty rain swirls in a light breeze.

“Stop!”

He runs for the corner. Shots ring out. Several shots. He only hears the first one.