Rudy Koshar

Nail in the Eye

 

 

          I found myself in a leafy neighborhood in a city somewhere in the American Midwest. I’d walked for half an hour to escape a boring conference that had oppressed me most of the morning. Just when I decided it was time to return to the hotel for another round of insufferably dull presentations, I saw a coffee shop that looked inviting. Why not kill a little more time reading the Times and sipping coffee?

 

          My wife once said I’m the most unobservant person in the world. She exaggerated, but on this morning it must have been true that my powers of observation were at an all-time low. I ordered coffee and a roll and found a table near the back of the shop against a brick wall covered with photos and paintings. Although I noticed that the wooden tables were painted black and red and the cups and saucers were white, I paid no attention to the clientele other than to note that the shop was busy. I sat, opened my newspaper, began to read. I felt encapsulated in my own world, as I often did when I was alone in a strange city.

 

          I learned long ago that an informed person must develop a fairly thick skin in order not to let all the horrific news become overwhelming. But on this particular day, the newspaper’s cavalcade of civil wars, industrial accidents, and political atrocities weighed on my mind. I thought of how nice it would be if we could close a paper or a web browser and end human suffering, at least temporarily. I couldn’t bear to read another line, so I looked up, thinking I would enjoy a few minutes of coffee-shop ambience before walking back.

 

          Then I noticed the faces, which were etched with tension. The woman at the table next to me wore a red blouse. She sat with her head in her hands and looked as if she were about to cry. In back of me, a man in black-rimmed glasses sat drumming his fingers on the table as his companion, a woman, sighed heavily while she folded and unfolded her white paper napkin. She shook her head, and said, it can’t be, I can’t believe it, is this really what our fate is?

 

          Thinking that jet lag and boredom had made me a bit over-sensitive, I looked away from the people and concentrated on the pictures on the wall. They provided no relief. Most were paintings or photos of car wrecks, collapsed bridges, bombed-out buildings. There were several photographs of Hitler and Mussolini and a faded reproduction of Picasso’s famous painting Guernica. There was a black-red-white photomontage that looked like a contemporary interpretation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. I resolved then to make a quick stop at the rest room and flee the coffee shop.

 

          When I exited the men’s room at the end of a long hallway where the clang of cups and saucers was muffled, I saw a door to which I was inexplicably drawn. I wondered why I’d not noticed it before. The door was painted red, and unlike every other door in the shop, its upper edge was rounded, giving it an old-fashioned look. The doorknob was black. I don’t normally go around opening strange doors in strange coffee shops, but this one was irresistible. I reached for the knob, turned it, and saw a stairway, at the bottom of which I saw a bright white light, which reminded me of an operating room or the dentist’s chair. There was no choice but to walk down the stairway.

 

          The room was painted white, which accentuated the almost unbearable brightness of the overhead lamps. As if standing in intense sunlight, I shielded my eyes with my hand. I could see two men and a wooden plank held up by sawhorses at either end. One of the men was naked and bound to the plank with what looked like piano wire. His body was covered with bloody cuts and bruises, and the wire had made horrible looking red gashes on his wrists and ankles. Almost inaudibly, he groaned. The other man, clothed in black trousers and turtleneck, stood over him with a hammer and long nail. The nail looked to be about six inches long, and it reminded me of the heavy-duty 60d nails we used to sell to building contractors at my father’s hardware store. It looked as if the man with the hammer was ready to drive the nail into the bound man’s left eye. As he raised the hammer, I said a single word: No.

 

          I found myself at the coffee shop counter. I hurriedly told the young woman at the coffee machine what I’d seen. I asked to talk to the owner, something needs to be done, I blurted out, there’s a man being tortured and murdered in the basement. The woman had the same inscrutable look of anxiety everyone else in the shop had. She said nothing.

 

          Thinking I would get a policeman, I raced outside but found the street deserted. I pulled out my cellphone and dialed 9-1-1. The connection was horrible and at first I heard only static. When I heard a woman’s voice ask me for my location, it occurred to me I didn’t know the name of the coffee shop. I looked up and read the stylish sign: Nail in the Eye. I reported the name, and for some reason I added that everything in the shop was done up in the colors red, white, and black. The woman snorted loudly and said, then get in line, hon, get in line. The words made a powerful impression on me, and as I stumbled back to my hotel, I realized that each customer in the shop was anxiously waiting for a summons to the basement.

 

 

 

Rudy Koshar lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than forty years. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous magazines including most recently Eclectica, Black Heart Magazine, Red Fez, Revolution House, Turk's Head Review, Guernica, and Montreal Review. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he was also the second place winner in the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Letters & Arts 2013 Fiction Contest. He has written or edited seven books on modern German and European history and teaches in the history department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.