Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007

Personal Space by Jerry Sykes

Copyright © 2007 by Jerry Sykes

Jerry Sykes is a two-time winner of the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s Short Story Dagger, the most coveted award for short crime fiction in the U.K. Early in 2007 he will be making his debut as a novelist with the book Lose This Skin, to be published by Five Star Press. A true devotee of the genre, Mr. Sykes has also edited a book of crime stories. See Mean Time (Do-Not Press/1999).

As soon as I turned the corner I could see that he was there again, the third time this week. Sitting at the curb in his battered red Sierra, just staring out across the street.

I had first noticed him a couple of months back, flipping between the A-to-Z on his lap and the terrace houses on the far side of the street. He had been around a number of times since then, as much as three or four times a week, but he still seemed to be looking for that elusive something. It was clear that he wanted people to think he was looking for a particular address, referring to the map and then squinting up at signs and numbers, and it might even have worked for that first week or so, but after two months I was sure there was more to it than that.

Give or take a car-length or two, he was often parked in the same place, sometimes with the engine running, sometimes not, just a couple of doors down from the house where I lived alone.

I had never seen him get out of the car and so I had no idea of his potential, but from what I could make out from just walking past, he was in his late thirties with pink jowls that suggested he carried a little too much soft weight and was therefore not too much of a threat. At first I took him to be a sad sack of a man who couldn’t handle a change in his circumstances, his girlfriend ditching him for someone with a bigger wallet or something, but the longer he kept on appearing at the curb, the more it dawned on me that he might be some kind of head case looking to inflict serious retribution. I knew that it could not be me he had in mind because he had seen me often enough and still not made a move, but the more I saw of him the more I began to resent him being there and encroaching on my personal space.

Personal space is a strange concept. Subjective and elastic and the one thing that if it is not quite right can nail me to the ground in righteous anger just as sure as if I had been struck with lightning. I just cannot bear to be in too close contact with someone other than through choice.

I don’t mind pushing onto the tube in rush hour because that’s what it’s like, that’s the space, and it’s not as if there are one or two people down at one end of the carriage while the rest of us inhale each other’s odours at the other end. But if I’m out walking in the park and the sole other person for miles around is close enough for me to be able to hear them breathing, then as far as I’m concerned that’s tantamount to stalking.

Back when I still used to go to the cinema, I would sit and wait until the film had started before I took a final seat, moving as far from the munchers and chatterers as possible. But no matter how careful I was, a few minutes into the film, without fail, a small group of people would enter the cinema with their loud voices and their loud food and sit right in front of me. No wonder I can’t remember the last film I saw at the cinema.

And this kind of behaviour is not just confined to customers, either. In restaurants I often make sure that I am the first person there, taking a table in a far corner where no one can intrude on me. But as soon as someone else appears, each time the waitress will sit them at the table right beside me, ignoring the rest of the clear tables in the place. As if not understanding that having them so close to me and having to listen to their conversation will do nothing but irritate me.

And no matter what time I leave home for work in the morning, someone from down the street will have stepped out of their front door just in time to be able to trail me down to the tube station at a distance of no more than a couple of feet, the sound of their feet and their breathing polluting the air.

None of this is natural, of course, this cramming people together, this people wanting to be crammed together. No, the need for personal space is one of the most basic laws of nature.

I remember an experiment concerning Brownian motion back in school, Mr. Burke lighting up a filterless cigarette and blowing smoke into a glass-topped wooden box. The smoke particles didn’t gather in one corner of the box, or in clumps, but spread out evenly to fill all the available space. This is a law of nature, a lesser one, perhaps, and one akin to nature abhorring a vacuum, but a law of nature nonetheless. Simple and logical. So what’s the problem with human beings sticking to it?

Coming home from work one night a week later, the sight of the red Sierra at the curb again filled me with such a raw frustration that I knew it was time to confront the driver.

A little warmth had leaked into the spring air and the driver had his window wound down, his forearm resting on the lip of the door. I slowed a little as I approached, and as I came up close I stopped short and took out a pack of cigarettes. He glanced at me for a fraction of a second and then returned to the A-to-Z. I put a cigarette to my lips and then made a point of tapping around my pockets for some matches. After a couple of moments I stepped up to the car and leaned down to speak.

“Sorry, I don’t suppose you’ve got a light, have you?”

He turned to look at me with a blank face, folding the open pages of the A-to-Z into his chest as he did so. “You what?”

“A light,” I repeated, the cigarette bobbing in time.

“I don’t smoke,” he said.

“All right, thanks,” I said, removing the cigarette and pointing to the A-to-Z with it. “You looking for somewhere?”

“Just… y’know,” he shrugged, peeling the A-to-Z from his chest and glancing down at it. I could not see what page it was open to but I would have put cash on it not being the one for the area around here. “I was looking for a friend,” he continued. “He lives around here and as I was in the area, I thought…”

“You know his address?” I said, leaning forward a little.

He smiled a grim little smile. “That’s the thing,” he said. “I know it’s around here somewhere, but as soon as I turned off the main road I remembered that I didn’t have it with me. I thought I might be able to find it with the A-to-Z, but…”

I straightened and looked up and down the street, being helpful. “You at least remember part of the street name?”

“No, it’s all right,” he said. “Some other time, perhaps.”

“You want to tell me his name?” I said. “I’ve lived around here forever. I might know him, know where he lives.”

“No, it’s all right,” he repeated, firmer this time.

I stared across the street for a long time, making a point of just standing there, remaining there. I could hear him fidgeting with the A-to-Z and muttering under his breath. After a couple of minutes he fired up the engine, put the car in gear, and pulled out from the curb. I waited until he had turned the corner and then continued on home.

A couple of nights later I rounded the corner to see a traffic warden in the middle distance walking towards me. It was also the first time the red Sierra had been back since I had spoken to the driver. I do not own a car and so most of the time I do not notice these much-maligned creatures, although if truth be told I have a sneaking admiration for them and the blind rage that their pens can inspire. Mightier than the sword indeed. But as soon as I saw this particular one peering at permits in windscreens, a fat man in his late forties dressed in a uniform that looked as if it belonged to his much slimmer brother, an idea that had been formulating for some time became clear.

I increased the pace so I met the warden before he reached the red Sierra.

“Excuse me,” I said, putting on the flustered breath.

He looked at me with lowered lids, disinterested.

“Me and the wife live just up the road here,” I said, pointing over his shoulder. “The house with the blue door right there. We’ve just been to Homebase, the DIY store, to get a stepladder to help out with the redecorating, but we haven’t been able to find a parking space down here and so we’ve had to park up on the main road. She’s up there now, the wife, waiting for me to call and tell her she can come and park nearer the house.” I paused and took a deep breath. “Thing is, I don’t want to make a fuss, but there’s a car without a permit down here that’s been there over fifteen minutes now. I wouldn’t ask, but the wife…”

It was enough to get him going. He gave me a thin knowing smile and nodded once to let me know that he had understood. I stood aside and watched as he approached the red Sierra. As he stepped up to the driver’s window, the man looked straight ahead and caught me looking back at him. A crimson tide coloured his face and the muscle along the side of his jaw pulsed in anger.

Back upstairs I watched the street from the kitchen to see if he would return, but even after the warden retired for the night there was still no further sign of him. I remained at the window looking out for a long time, thoughts adrift on the night. I had seen enough TV cop shows to know that the police could trace people from the time and place of their parking tickets. That it was almost as good as CCTV in pinpointing someone’s location at a particular point in time. I thought of those TV shows where the lead character had a contact in the force and could find out in minutes the owner of a car and his address from the registration number. I wondered for an idle moment if I knew someone with those kinds of connections but knew as soon as the thought appeared that it was a rhetorical question… I thought of all these things and, watching people walking up and down the darkening street with their mobile phones clamped to their ears, or held out in front of them, thumbs working overtime, of how the world was getting smaller. Of how people could no longer bear to be alone, apart from others, different from others, forever checking their mobile phones or their e-mail to see that their crafted character was still on the radar. Wanting to be running with the pack, in constant touch, part of the global village. Afraid of being themselves, of being an individual.

What had happened to create this dull mass of humankind that struggled to maintain a cultural pulse? Where were the flashes of colour, the sights and sounds that lit up the heart and fired the blood? Where were the individuals capable of creating a neon orchid in the darkened swamp, something that could send our lives into glorious freefall for a few minutes upon just hearing or glimpsing it for the briefest of moments? What had happened to the things that made life worth living?

At the first door there was no answer. At the second an old man shouted at me through the door to leave him alone. The third one opened on a woman in her late thirties with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. I said hello and then pointed down the street to the red Sierra. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed him before, but that man’s been hanging around here for a few weeks now,” I said. “I don’t know, I might just be being paranoid, but I don’t think you can be too careful… You don’t think he could be a burglar, do you, checking on people’s movements to see when they’re out?”

She looked at me with a curious frown, and then took a step across the threshold and looked over towards the Sierra. She squinted a couple of times, and then stepped back into the house. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”

“You’re sure about that?”

She nodded, uncomprehending.

“Yeah, all right, thanks,” I said, and turned to go.

I followed this routine for a couple more houses, each time doing the best I could to make sure that the driver of the red Sierra could see me pointing at him. Of course, I could not be sure that he could see me — I could not see his face for the bright reflection on his windscreen — but it was not difficult to imagine him getting angrier with each door that I knocked on.

Ten minutes later I was almost at the end of the street and he had still not emerged from the car. It was clear that I had not connected with his target. I was beginning to think that I had misjudged the situation when I saw a woman in her late twenties pushing through the last gate in the street. She was not striking, small with mud-coloured hair, but she did look familiar. I was sure that I had seen her before, but not enough for her to have made a lasting impression. Thinking that she could be the last chance, I raised a hand and called out.

“You mind if I have a word…?”

She gave me a flutter of a smile and shuffled further up the path. I noticed a little scar on the tip of her chin.

I took another step closer, and then hooked a thumb behind me. “I don’t suppose you know if the man in the…” I stopped as I saw her pupils flare to black, an injection of fear. She was not looking at me but at a point in the closing distance. I turned to follow her line of sight and saw the driver of the red Sierra bearing down on us. On his feet he looked far different than he had sitting in the car, more menacing, bulkier, darker.

“John, no,” the woman cried, backing further up the path. “You know you’re not supposed to come this close…”

I stepped to one side, unsure of what to do. I did not want to get stuck in the middle of a domestic, but then I was not so sure that I could just stand aside and see the woman get hurt.

But it was not her that he was after.

“You little piece of shit,” he snarled, and punched me in the stomach through a weak shield of fingers. I felt a cold bomb erupt inside me, and when he hit me again I glimpsed the flash of steel in his hand. The third blow caught me in the ribs, and when he withdrew the knife his hand was covered in blood up to the wrist. I was too numb to feel the fourth blow as more than a weak pat on the stomach, and I did not feel the fifth blow at all.

I have enough personal space now. There is no chance that someone else will get too close. Until our coffins rot and the movement of worms through the earth shifts the bones of the person buried beside me up close to mine. To share a final resting place with the bones of someone else. That must be the definition of hell.

“I wish you wouldn’t go through my pockets, Darlene.”