THE MAN UPSTAIRS

I haven’t left my apartment in two years. I hadn’t left my parents’ house for six before that. I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. 

The only reason I moved out was because my parents left their brownstone for a bigger house an hour away. I couldn’t risk losing the mailman, my therapist, and my professor. I could live without my parents, but I couldn’t start over. My parents found a studio apartment across the street from our old house to make sure that wouldn’t happen. I mean, try explaining to anyone that you won’t step outside the threshold of your front door—I was lucky that these people had listened. The mailman comes all the way up to the thirteenth floor to make special deliveries. My therapist makes house-calls. My professor homeschools me. They’ve all done this since after it happened. 

Eight years ago, I was in the grocery store with my mom. It was a Tuesday. I remember that because I had just gotten out of ballet class and was still in my pale pink leotard and matching tights, my hair slicked back into a bun so tight it was giving me a headache. I had gone to another aisle to grab a bottle of ketchup we had forgotten to get. As I passed the canned soup toward the front of the aisle, my eyes scanning for the tall, glass bottles, I heard screams. They came from a few aisles away, but they soon surrounded me. I pushed stacks of SpaghettiOs out of the way so I could crawl into the bottom shelf. Leaning out only far enough to see around the cans, I saw a man by the registers wearing all black with a faded blue bandana wrapped around his face. He was holding a gun. 

I walked out of that grocery store with my life, but also blood on the bottom of my pointe shoes and trauma that would never leave me. 

…

I haven’t met very many of my neighbors. Just the old lady next door, Fran, who I swap books with every Tuesday, and the young parents on the other side of me that just brought home their second bundle of joy and my second bundle of sleepless nights. It’s a mystery to me who lives above or below me.

I’ve only used the elevator once—the day that I moved in. I don’t think I could make myself do it again because I’ve seen videos of what happens when girls are in elevators alone and someone else gets on. With my luck, the same would happen to me. 

I don’t necessarily think I have bad luck—I mean, I live in a forty-story apartment building on the Upper West Side, for God’s sake. I just think that if there was a God, he would go to hell for all the sick jokes he plays on me. 

On my brother’s eleventh birthday, we continued our tradition of getting ice cream from his favorite place, only six minutes away from home. I got in the car while it was still in the garage because it was raining, and I sat in the back seat between my mom and my brother—he was two years older than me. We were two minutes from home, stopped at an intersection, when a drunk driver ran into the side of our car. I don’t remember anything after we were hit, just waking up in the hospital with a broken rib and bad whiplash. What actually broke me was being told that my brother didn’t make it. The car hit his door straight on, crushing his head that was leaning against the window. 

Exactly a year later, on our way to visit his grave, we stopped to get balloons from the corner store down the block. We were right outside the door when we got held at gunpoint by a man in a red ski mask, yelling at my parents to give him their wallets. That was a year before the grocery store shooter.

It’s like someone out there—or up there, I should say—couldn’t let me catch a break. The whole grocery store thing happened right when I was about to go into sixth grade. I had finally gotten up the courage to go back outside after being held at gunpoint. 

Like a week and a half ago, I thought I heard a gunshot. It was a really loud pop— probably a car backfiring, but it sounded so close. It happened in the afternoon, so it could’ve been construction next door, too. It set off my PTSD so bad that I had to call my therapist three times that day.

…

From what the mailman and Fran have told me, my upstairs neighbor is a grouchy old man who’s lived in the building since he was born in 1935. Apparently, just like me, he doesn’t leave the building anymore. That kind of makes me like him, plus, I’ve never had any problems with him. Except for last night. 

It wasn’t the biggest deal ever, but he started pounding his feet when he walked. The issue was that it was midnight and I just wanted to go to bed. Maybe he just started using a walker or something, I don’t know. I’m trying not to hold it against him because I can’t imagine being that old. I took an audio recording just in case it continued so I could have proof enough to file a noise complaint to my building manager. It’s almost 3 p.m., though, and I haven’t heard it again. 

…

That’s the weird thing about apartments—we share walls, but that’s it. For the most part, we don’t share lives. I don’t even know what the insides of my neighbors’ apartments look like. The other studios have the same layouts as mine, but I don’t know what knicknacks fill their shelves or what color sheets they have on their beds. When I look around my apartment, I know it tells my story. What stories are within the walls that surround me? 

I don’t have any pictures on my walls. If I did, the ones with friends would end after I stopped going out. My friends never came back around once they went to middle school. It turns out you need to be social to have friends—groundbreaking, right? Talking on the phone wasn’t exactly their idea of a good time, so after a while, they stopped picking up. I know it’s my fault for not going to the mall with them or walking around the city anymore. It’s called hanging out for a reason. 

The only person I still talk to—besides my family or my therapist—is Mila, my best friend since I was three. She’s the only one that treats me the same as when we were younger. She moved to Maine when we were sixteen, but Facetime has saved us. The only problem is that blurry screenshots from Facetime don’t make very good wall decor.

The only things I have on my walls are what I've made. Most of them are collages I’ve cut out from magazines. Every time I open a new magazine, I like to picture how I would’ve gotten it if I still went out. 

I would walk down to the bodega on the corner, grab the latest Vogue, and supplement it with a canned coffee or a pack of cigarettes—I don’t smoke, but maybe the me that goes outside would. I’d take it to Central Park to watch the tourists in between pages. 

If I went out now, I’d be a tourist too. I know nothing about the city that surrounds me beyond what I can see out my window and what I can picture in my memories.

…

One thing the twenty-somethings love about the Upper West Side is the nightlife—not me, though. It’s nights like these that remind me of that. There’s a new bar that opened up next door. Being on the thirteenth floor, I thought the noise wouldn’t bother me all the way up here, but I guess I was wrong. 

It’s called Prohibition, and according to Google, it's a “Supper club with Jazz Age-themed decor, a long cocktail list & nightly live music performances.” What it doesn’t say is that despite their posted closing of 12 a.m., the music isn’t turned off until around 2 or 3 a.m.. 

It’s almost 2:45 a.m., making this the second night in a row that I haven’t gotten to sleep in silence, so I start another audio recording to email to either the NYPD or my building manager— depending on how much sleep I get. The bass of the music is making my heart beat faster as I watch the noise level line move up and down like a heart monitor. I stop the recording after three minutes, and put on my headphones to play it back and make sure it’s as loud as what my ears are picking up. My heart is starting to race again, mimicking the beats of the base. In the back, I can hear the pounding of footsteps from my upstairs neighbor. This is definitely going to my building manager in the morning—or later this morning, I guess. 

I still get anxiety, just not as bad as when I try to leave. It usually comes on when my mind drifts and I start thinking about that day eight years ago when I lost my will to live a normal life. It feels like electricity—the physical indication of my anxiety—it starts in my toes and fingertips, working its way through my limbs, until it settles in my teeth. It makes me spin and feel out of control of my body. 

The electricity flickers and my stomach churns—my heart, still imitating the music.

…

Hi Mr. Campbell,

My upstairs neighbor has been pounding their feet during the night, so hard that it’s shaking my walls. I was wondering if you could tell them to try to walk a little lighter or something. Also, the new bar next door has been playing their music till almost 3 a.m. even though their hours online say that it closes at midnight. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about that. I’ve attached audio recordings of each instance as proof. 

Thanks,

Zella Mayfaire

…

It took three days to get an email back from him. That meant two sleepless nights—and not because of the baby next door. For an 87 year-old, the man upstairs is very active. It’s like he’s nocturnal or something. I opened up the email Mr. Campbell sent me last night. 

Hello Miss Mayfaire,

I talked to the owner of Prohibition as I’ve been getting complaints from a few residents on the lower floors, and he apologized and told me it won’t happen again. Let me know if he doesn’t keep his word. As for your upstairs neighbor, I’ll speak to him when I get back tomorrow morning. 

Best, 

Harrison Campbell

…

I waited two hours for good measure, then decided to see what Mr. Campbell found out. I dialed the number for his office and listened to the ringing tone. I was listening for his voice when I heard sirens outside. I started toward the window to see what was happening, but he picked up after the fifth ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi Mr. Campbell, it’s Zella. I was wondering if you talked to my upstairs neighbor yet?”

“Hello Zella…uh, I’m actually dealing with that right now.”

“Oh, you’re talking to him right now? Should I call you back?”

“No, no. I mean, that’s what the sirens are for. He didn’t answer the door when I rang earlier, so I let myself in with my key. I found him on his couch. He’s been dead for a few weeks.”

“Wha…a few weeks? He—He was pounding his feet last night.”

“Yeah, we don’t know what that noise was…must’ve been the pipes or something. I’ll let you know, um, if I hear anything you should know.”

I hang up the phone without saying goodbye. Everything’s spinning. The electricity has already made its way up my arms and legs. My neighbor has been dead for a few weeks. Those weren’t his footsteps. 

“God, if you’re up there, I just want you to know this isn’t funny,” I say out loud. “Just come down here and tell me it was just a prank. That you were making all that noise as a joke.”

…

Ten minutes pass before I can get my hands to stop shaking enough to call my therapist. As the dial tone rings, I stare blankly out of the window in front of me. Everyone walking on the sidewalks below has no idea that there’s a dead guy in this building. Every taxi that drives by is full of people who are unaware of the news I was just told. I would give anything to switch places with one of the oblivious people out there. 

“Zella…Zella, hello?”

“Oh! Hi…” I snap back into reality when I register my therapist’s voice coming from my phone in my hand. I lift it closer to my ear to catch what she’s saying. 

“What’s up, Zella? Is everything alright?” 

“Yeah, I just heard…I just heard that the man in the apartment above me is dead.”

“Oh, Zella, I’m so sorry. Did you know him well? I didn’t know you had started talking to anyone else in the building.”

“No, no. I didn’t know him at all,” I pause. ‘The thing is, they’re saying he’s been dead for a few weeks, but I’ve been hearing footsteps for the past few days.”

“Well, does he have a dog or something that could be making the noise?”

“We’re not allowed to have pets in the building.”

“Now I get why this is so unnerving. Do you need me to come over there?”

“No, I’ll be fine. Thanks for offering, though. I don’t know why I called. I have to go.”

“Okay, Zella, take care. Let me know if you need anything.”

I hang up the phone without another word. My mind is moving a hundred miles a minute. I need answers. I need to go up there. But the cops are probably still there. And I can’t do it during the day—I could run into someone. And I don’t have a key to his door. I bet I could look up lockpicking videos on YouTube. Is that tampering with a crime scene, though? I guess it’s not a crime scene if they think he died of old age. I don’t even know if Mr. Campbell told them about the footsteps. 

I exhale all of my air out of my nose, my jaw clenched so hard it hurts. I look back out the window. My heart drops, then quickens its pace. An EMT is rolling a gurney into the street. It has a body bag on top of it—not an empty one. I don’t even know his name. 

I open up the Notes app on my phone and start a new note, titling it “Things I Know.” I go to the format tab and make a bulleted list. I type Man upstairs is dead. Enter. Died a few weeks ago. Enter. Lived alone. Enter. Same apartment layout. Enter. I hover my thumbs over the keyboard. That’s all I know. Four bullet points on a note is all that I know about this man. 

…

I wait until just after midnight to leave my apartment. It’s a Wednesday night, so there shouldn’t be anyone coming back very late. I slide on my brown Ugg slippers and pull the hood of my black sweatshirt over my head. I take a deep breath as I look at the door handle. It’s different from all of the other times I’ve touched it, because this time, I’m going through it. I rest my hand on the cool metal and wrap my fingers lightly around the edges as if it’s breakable. Nothing will hurt me. I am safe. I grip tighter and turn the handle, pushing the door open at the same time. 

Even though I’ve looked out into this hallway a thousand times, it looks unfamiliar to me. The brown and green tartan carpet is dingier than I remember. The white paint on the walls has yellowed more than I’ve noticed. The door across from me has a welcome mat against it that I don’t recognize. The black cursive reads “Home Sweet Home,” but I’ve never felt less comforted. I step out of the doorway and look down each end of the hallway, half expecting to see someone. I exhale shakily when I don’t see anyone. For some reason, I thought the empty halls would make me feel better, but they don’t.

I’m thankful that I live in an old building because there aren’t any security cameras, but I can’t help but feel like I’m still being watched. I head towards the elevator because I think I’ll have less of a chance of running into someone. At least if I do, I can just tell the person I’m going down instead of up. In the stairway, they would know right away which direction I’m headed. I can see the shiny silver doors at the end of the hallway, the arrows above it unlit. 

I press the up arrow and shove my hands in my pockets. I pinch a piece of lint between my fingers and roll it around in an attempt to calm myself down. I whirring coming from the elevator, but I still jump when it dings at my floor. I don’t remember the hall indicator being that loud. The doors separate and I step inside the fluorescent-lit elevator car hesitantly, wondering if it’ll drop from under me like in the movies. I turn around to face the closing doors, and I can see my reflection in them like a funhouse mirror. My body is wavy and thin, and I realize I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror in a long time. Even when I brush my teeth, I stare at the bathroom counter. 

The ding catches me off guard again, even though I was holding my breath in anticipation. The doors part, and I step into the dim hallway. It looks the same as the one I just left, except for the different doormats and wreaths dispersed throughout the hall. I walk towards the door that would be mine if I was one floor down. There’s no welcome mat or wreath on the dead man’s door. I don’t think I was expecting him to have decor, but it somehow looks more barren than the other doors that aren’t decorated either. 

I pull the straightened out paperclip from the pocket of my sweatpants and try to remember everything the YouTube video told me.

…

It doesn’t look how I thought it would. Actually, I don’t think I pictured anything, but if I had, it wouldn’t have been this. Someone must’ve helped him decorate once upon a time. There’s a homeliness that could reasonably only come from a woman’s touch. I wonder if he was ever in love. If he ever shared this space with anyone. 

The stained glass lamps on either side of the worn sofa are covered in a noticeable layer of dust. Half of the needlepoint pillows are strewn on the floor—probably from the first responders that came through. I pick the remaining pillows off of the sofa to reposition them, but there is a dark stain underneath one of them. I pull the chain on the lamp to my left, and stagger backwards as the yellow light floods the room. It’s blood. The stain is blood.

…

I close the door behind me, turn the lock, and grab a chair from my dining set to wedge under the door handle. Walking over to my bed, I sit slowly on the edge, pulling my phone from my sweatshirt pocket. I relax my wrinkled eyebrows when I catch a glimpse of myself on my phone screen, and I’m relieved when Mila’s face replaces mine. 

“Zella, what’s wrong?”

“You know how I texted you that the old guy above me died?

“Yeah…”

“I was just in his apartment.”

Mila’s lips parted and her eyebrows furrowed. She closed her mouth and started chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know which part to focus on first, the fact that you broke into a dead guy’s apartment, or that you actually left yours.”

“Can we be proud of me later and just talk about how I found a big blood stain on his sofa?”

“Dude, what the fuck? Maybe start with that next time.”

“Sorry, I thought I should ease into it. No? Okay. Yeah, I moved some pillows around, you know, out of respect for the dead guy. But there was blood.” 

“Okay, Nancy Drew, back up. I thought he died because he was old.”

“No, Mila. God, it’s like you’re not even listening to me sometimes. Remember I said I heard footsteps?” 

“Oh, you’re right, my bad. So are you saying you think he got offed by someone else?”

“Yeah, and I never told you…I think I heard a gunshot like two weeks ago.”

“You didn’t tell me because…?”

“‘Cause I didn’t want you to think I was crazy. I thought you were gonna tell me to call my therapist instead of you.”

“Valid, I probably would’ve.”

“Okay, so what do I do now?”

…

We spent the next three hours Googling how to handle a crime scene. I added latex gloves and a gunshot residue kit to my Amazon cart. It says it will arrive by 9:00 p.m. tomorrow, giving me just enough time to read the instructions on the residue kit before I go back up. 

I’m not going to say I’m not nervous, because I would be lying. But I will say I’m surprised that I’m not more nervous. Maybe it’s because the first run went so well, but I feel kind of invincible. I don’t remember ever feeling this way. I probably did when I was really young, but I definitely haven’t felt like this since I came into self-awareness. I want to bask in this feeling and memorize its warmth—at least until I have to go out the door again. 

I’m not hungry, but it’s not because I’m nervous. It’s more because I’m excited, I think. I pull out the book I started reading three days ago—before I knew of the man upstairs’ death, the blood on the sofa, and the plan to go back. I usually finish a book every two days. It’s not that I’m not interested in And Then There Were None, it’s just that it’s hitting a little close to home right now. It’s my second time reading it, and I don’t know what made me pick it up this second time. 

I close the book after failing to make it through three pages. I turn on the TV instead. Dateline is on. I’ve seen this one before—“Jennifer Ramsaran, a devoted mother of three, is found murdered in her New York town.” Also too close to home. 

I turn off the TV and flop backwards onto the couch. My sense of invincibility is waning. It’s like a high that I’m coming down from. I’m guessing. I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never smoked before. Maybe I should. Maybe it would help me. Mila said that it helps her anxiety, but she also said it makes some of her friends’ worse. I don’t even know where I would get it. There are a lot of things I feel like I should know: how to get weed, what alcohol tastes like, how it feels to kiss someone, etc. Maybe after I find out what happened upstairs, I’ll find those things out too. 

…

The Amazon truck is two stops away. That means it’ll be about 35 minutes until the doorman brings my package up. I’ve counted before. When my vibrator was being delivered. 

I plug my phone in and keep swiping to refresh the delivery tracker. One stop away. I go over to the door and pick up my slippers, taking them to the kitchen sink to Clorox wipe the soles so I don’t leave any footprints upstairs. I hope I didn’t leave any the first time I went—I’ll have to check when I go back up. What else might I have missed? Could I have left hair? I better grab the lint roller. 

It’s here. I hope it’s the older doorman that’s on shift, and not the lazy younger one. Although, neither of them would know how urgently I need this package. I could call down to the front desk and tell them, but I think that would draw too much attention to me. I’ll just have to wait. I’m not good at waiting, I’ve discovered. 

…

The doorbell brings me out of my daze. “Just leave it out there, thank you,” I say, my voice weak with lack of use. I wait for the footsteps to fade out of range, and then I wait a few seconds more, just to be sure. I look out the peephole as I hear more steps approaching, and see Fran lumbering a bit unsteadily past my door. I wait until I hear her door open and close to my right, and then I twist my lock and open the door just far enough to grab the corner of the brown paper Amazon package. It’s smaller than I expected, but I wait to look at it closer until I lock my door again. 

I set it on the counter, and reach across my small kitchen to open the drawer that holds the scissors. I have to move all of my abandoned journals aside to uncover the black plastic handle of my metal scissors. I open the paper envelope and look at the outside of the gunshot residue kit. I should’ve looked at it closer, before I ordered it, because it comes with gloves. Now I have 50 pairs and nothing to do with them. 

The instructions are straightforward—put on the gloves, rub the tip of the pretreated swab on the area of suspected residue, press the tip onto the test card for five seconds, and read the results. This means I have to do it all while I’m upstairs.

…

I follow the same routine as last time, pulling on my black sweatshirt and matching sweatpants, only this time making sure to lint roll them after I put my hair up. I slide my slippers on, and put the gunshot test in my pocket. 

Pulling on the black latex gloves, I look at myself in the reflection of my oven. I look more tired than the last time I saw myself. The smell of latex is new to me, but also somehow familiar, its potency almost comforting. I rub my hands together, as if to test out their durability. The material is loose around my wrist, so I pull my sweatshirt sleeves over the edge. I give myself a final onceover in the glass of the oven, and pull my hood up before I turn to leave. 

…

Stepping out of the elevator, I go down the hall with more urgency this time—I want to be in and out as fast as I can. But I also need to be thorough. 

My heart dropped as I reached in my pocket for the paperclip. I forgot to lock the door last time. I test the handle, and sure enough, the door is unlocked. I open the door slowly, “Hello?” I say, loud enough for someone inside to hear me, but quiet enough that the neighbors won’t. 

No one answers me, so take a few more steps in, closing the door behind me without turning around. I walk in a little bit further, and bend down to spread out the contents of the gunshot residue test on the coffee table. 

As I start to stand back up, I feel something touch the side of my head. I gasp, moving my head away. 

“Don’t move,” a gravelly voice snapped at me. I heard a click next to my head. A gun.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.