The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

The razor blade

The stadium is enclosed by an earthen wall. The grass has been so eroded by the autumn that soil shows between the blades. Also rocks. The apartment blocks in the housing settlement beyond the stadium are squeezed together, from across the empty parking lot they seem no higher than the shrubs that reach up along the earthen wall — lilacs, mock orange and rose of Sharon that are never pruned because they don’t venture over the wall itself. The plants sneak into bloom early, and by spring the flowers have faded and summer growth is already well under way. But now they stand naked on the earthen wall, shaking their twigs and branches, unable to shelter anything from the gusting wind.

The long-distance runner over the entrance to the stadium is nothing but a picture painted on stone. But during the bare season there are no hurdles to slow him down. When the branches have no leaves, the long-distance runner is a winner. He looks down at the bread line in front of the store, at the screaming faces and the thick padded clothes, but he doesn’t feel hungry. Over the stadium the sun has turned away, a ring of milky white that gives no warmth. But the long-distance runner doesn’t feel the cold. With naked calves he runs overhead, past the little people and into the city.

A car pulls up to the parking lot. Two men wearing windbreakers climb out. One is young, the other older. They glance briefly at the blind sun. Their pant legs flutter as they hurry across the lot, their shoes shine. They’re eating sunflower seeds and spitting the black shells onto the well-worn path that leads them, the older man followed by the younger, between the garbage bins and mountains of empty boxes, toward the apartment blocks of the housing settlement.

* * *

The older man takes a seat on a bench, looks up at the windows and munches his sunflower seeds. Behind him, high up, is the window with the petunias. The younger man points out a window in a building on the other side of the settlement the same height as the petunias and says, that’s her apartment. One room and a kitchen. The room is in front, that’s where the fox fur is, the young man says, the kitchen is off to the side.

The wind sweeps over the bench. The older man rubs his legs and turns up his collar.

* * *

The younger man unlocks the door. His key does not rattle. He bolts the door from inside. He doesn’t trip over the shoes in the entrance hall, he knows exactly where they are, the sandals with the black traces of her toes. The bed is unmade, the nightgown folded on the pillow.

* * *

He goes to the window. The woman with the chestnut-red hair done up in big waves is standing behind her petunias. He signals to her with his hand. He crosses to the wardrobe, kneels on the floor. He takes a razor blade out of his jacket’s inner pocket. He unpacks the razor blade and places the paper wrapper next to his knee. He slices the right hind leg off the fox. Then he licks his fingertip and wipes the cut hair from the floor. He rubs the hair between his thumb and forefinger into a firm ball and drops it into his jacket pocket. He wraps the razor blade in the paper and sticks it in his inner pocket. He slides the cut-off leg back against the belly of the fox.

He stands up and checks to see if the cut is visible. He goes to the bathroom. He lifts the toilet cover. He spits into the toilet. He pisses and closes the cover without flushing. He goes to the door of the apartment and unlocks it. He quickly sticks his head into the hall and steps out. He locks the apartment door.

* * *

The petunias are whiter than the sun’s milky ring. They will soon freeze. The bench down below is vacant. The ground in front of the bench is strewn with sunflower seeds.

* * *

Two men walk along the well-worn path that leads them, the younger man followed by the older, between the garbage bins and mountains of empty boxes. They cross the parking lot. The shrubbery climbs the earthen wall, higher and higher, into the bare season.