Man Standing Behind

By Pablo D'Stair

Leaving work on a nondescript evening, Roger is held up at gunpoint when he stops at a cash machine. He attempts to hand everything in his bank account, but robbery isn’t on the gunman’s mind.

Roger is told simply to walk.

The gunman takes him on a macabre odyssey―from city pubs to suburban neighborhoods to isolated homes in the country―and as the night presses on, a seemingly not-so-random body count grows around him.

A moment-by-moment exploration of moral paralysis, Man Standing Behind charts the psyche of a random man caught in the roils of a mortal circumstance nothing to do with his own life. Is he a witness, a victim...or something altogether worse?

Praise for MAN STANDING BEHIND:

“This is where D’Stair shines. He has the ability to take a situation, one which might traditionally be addressed emotionally, and analyze it to the point of emotional emptiness. Life and death...is not a fight or flight, subconscious decision, but is one to be pondered, examined, weighed against context.” —Caleb J. Ross, author of Stranger Will, I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin, and The Soul Standard

“Over the years I’ve stopped being astonished at the multifarious things that Pablo D’Stair can do well. Let’s just say it: whatever he puts his hand to he accomplishes and with a style and panache that is his alone. Man Standing Behind...does completely satisfy, even thrill. The language is precise. The mood spot-on. The characters well-wrought and whatever the opposite of cliché is. Original. Idiosyncratic. Off-kilter. Strange. The slap-back dialog, the scenes as accurate as if directed by Fritz Lang. This is D’Stair’s world. Welcome to it. I envy you if this is your first time in.” —Corey Mesler, author of Memphis Movie and Camel’s Bastard Son

Praise for the work of Pablo D’Stair:

“Somehow again and again you’re drawn in...you get used to the book’s rhythm and follow it because the work is obsessive. We find ourselves in a languid kind of suspense, bracing ourselves...” —Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, Rules of Attraction, and Lunar Park

“Pablo D’Stair doesn’t just write like a house afire, he writes like the whole city’s burning, and these words he’s putting on the page are the thing that can save us all.” —Stephen Graham Jones, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Mapping the Interior, Mongrels and All the Beautiful Sinners

“Pablo D’Stair is defining the new writer [and the new film maker]. There is NO ONE else. As reckless as Kerouac’s 120-foot trace paper, D’Stair’s independence from all of us needs to be studied and celebrated. This is revolution. D’Stair’s late realism needs to be included in any examination of the condition of the novel.” —Tony Burgess, award-winning author/screenwriter of Pontypool Changes Everything and People Live Still in Cashtown Corners

“Like Kerouac before him, I felt there was one roll of paper on which the story was typed. And there’s a rhythm behind it. Not the speedy bop of jazz this time, more an urban dubstep. Shadows and edges becoming audible.” —Nigel Bird, author of Smoke and In Loco Parentis

• Language: English
• Publisher: All Due Respect Books
• Release date: May 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463803097

Pablo D'Stair

Pablo D'Stair is a novelist, filmmaker, essayist, interviewer, comic book artist, and independent publisher. His work has appeared in various mediums for the past 15 years, often pseudonymously.

Book preview

MAN STANDING BEHIND

A Novel

Pablo D’Stair

PRAISE FOR MAN STANDING BEHIND

This is where D’Stair shines. He has the ability to take a situation, one which might traditionally be addressed emotionally, and analyze it to the point of emotional emptiness. Life and death…is not a fight or flight, subconscious decision, but is one to be pondered, examined, weighed against context. —Caleb J. Ross, author of Stranger Will, I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin, and The Soul Standard

"Over the years I’ve stopped being astonished at the multifarious things that Pablo D’Stair can do well. Let’s just say it: whatever he puts his hand to he accomplishes and with a style and panache that is his alone. Man Standing Behind…does completely satisfy, even thrill. The language is precise. The mood spot-on. The characters well-wrought and whatever the opposite of cliché is. Original. Idiosyncratic. Off-kilter. Strange. The slap-back dialog, the scenes as accurate as if directed by Fritz Lang. This is D’Stair’s world. Welcome to it. I envy you if this is your first time in." —Corey Mesler, author of Memphis Movie and Camel’s Bastard Son

PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF PABLO D’STAIR

Somehow again and again you’re drawn in…you get used to the book’s rhythm and follow it because the work is obsessive. We find ourselves in a languid kind of suspense, bracing ourselves … —Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, Rules of Attraction, and Lunar Park

Pablo D’Stair doesn’t just write like a house afire, he writes like the whole city’s burning, and these words he’s putting on the page are the thing that can save us all. —Stephen Graham Jones, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Mapping the Interior, Mongrels and All the Beautiful Sinners

Pablo D’Stair is defining the new writer [and the new film maker]. There is NO ONE else. As reckless as Kerouac’s 120-foot trace paper, D’Stair’s independence from all of us needs to be studied and celebrated. This is revolution. D’Stair’s late realism needs to be included in any examination of the condition of the novel. —Tony Burgess, award-winning author/screenwriter of Pontypool Changes Everything and People Live Still in Cashtown Corners

Like Kerouac before him, I felt there was one roll of paper on which the story was typed. And there’s a rhythm behind it. Not the speedy bop of jazz this time, more an urban dubstep. Shadows and edges becoming audible. —Nigel Bird, author of Smoke and In Loco Parentis

Copyright © 2011 by Pablo D’Stair

First All Due Respect Books Edition May 2019

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by JT Lindroos

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Man Standing Behind

About the Author

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She saw the barkeep, said ‘O God, he can’t be dead!’

Stag said ‘Well, just count the holes in the motherfucker’s head.’

—Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Stagger Lee

It wasn’t as late as I’d thought it would be, I’d only wound up kept past shift by an hour. Still, I was walking briskly, thinking to get the train, get home as quickly as possible. No real point, but why not? I glanced at storefronts and had my head down from the din and the eyes of the wet pedestrian traffic, things too bright and blurry, too noisy to focus right.

I caught sight of a cash machine and remembered I wanted to have some money for going out later, new resolution, stick to a budget, this would be the best way—drinks with friends, the debit card could get abused.

I waited in a bulge of people at a crosswalk, looked at some of the boots and stockings some of the women were wearing, kind of wished I worked in an office building with them.

When I got into the little alcove with the machine, I took a moment to clean my glasses with my shirt, inserted my card, coughed into my hand. A man walked right up on me, said Hello and while I screwed my face to ask him what he thought he was doing, I noticed he had a blunt little gun in his hand, fingers loose around it. I started to meet his eyes, then turned my head down, the man backing up a step, moving in behind me.

-Hey, finish what you were doing, he said.

-Look, I’ll just put in my pin, alright? I’ll walk away and you can take whatever you want, there’s a few hundred I think.

-Just finish what you were doing.

I tapped my pin number, went through the options on the screen, selected Deposit instead of Withdrawal, reset.

-The gun’s real, just so you know.

-I know, it’s alright. How much do you want?

He lifted up my shirt a bit, put the metal of the weapon to my skin, moved it away.

-It’s a real gun, it’s a loaded gun, don’t think that it isn’t.

-I know it’s real, I believe you. Look, my code is in, you can empty it out, alright?

-Just get your money, whatever you were going to get.

There was three hundred eighteen dollars and change in my account, I hit to withdraw three hundred, collected it, handed it up over my shoulder.

-Look at me. He didn’t touch the money, told me to put it in my pocket. Look at me.

-I don’t want to look at you.

He chuckled, like he was getting bored, said if I didn’t look at him he would shoot me.

-I don’t want to look at you, just please, okay?

-Turn around and look at me, man.

So I did—he was rolling his eyes, like it’d been a little lover’s annoyance, made a kind of was-that-so-hard scoff.

-Come on over here a bit, people might want to use that.

We moved down ten or twelve paces, I was leaned to the sooty window of some florist.

-Hand me your wallet.

I calmly gestured the money across at him and he got a wide, tense smile.

-Hand me your wallet.

-It’s three hundred dollars. He gestured like he was about to talk again, so I fumbled over my words, said I didn’t really have a wallet. I just keep my stuff in my pockets, I stammered.

-He nodded, said that he pretty much did that too. Let me see your ID.

I went through a few pockets until I found it, held it as well as the folded three hundred across, but he just picked the ID out, closed one eye while he looked at it.

-But this isn’t a current address, right?

I still had the money held out and he handed me back the ID, told me to put them away.

-It’s not a current address, on the ID?

I shook my head, said it wasn’t. He blew a long breath out this mouth, then another out his nose, went into his pockets and produced a pack of cigarettes, handed it to me.

-There’s matches inside. Start me a cigarette.

I looked at him.

-Jesus, man, start me a cigarette, this is going to get so trying on my nerves if I have to say everything twice, alright? Start me a cigarette.

I did, handed it to him, then tried to hand back the pack but he shook his head, told me to put those in my pocket.

The gun was in his pocket and so was his hand, I briefly wondered if with him standing as close as he was couldn’t I risk giving him a shove, ducking into the pedestrian traffic just a little bit further than arm’s length from the both of us. He knew my name, but I could get to the police—though maybe he would fire wildly after me, hitting god knows who.