I had said to her that I wanted this, I wanted it right here in the palm of my hand. I wanted to be able to reach through into the screen and move it about, move her face into the right positions, select filters off the menu and tune up the shades. I want to touch in ways that a keyboard and mouse don’t do. I want to be intimate with it. Perhaps this is why I exploded with writing when it was a typewriter, there was a new interface to write into with and yet still accessible, you could do things with this other things you understand.
I sat up, I had been dying for some. I had been writing the last I remembered. The room was dark, but I could tell it wasn’t night. I had to get out of here, I was stifling or they were trying to kill me. I had thought of you as I slid open the window, I had thought of the taste of the barrel of the gun you had placed in my mouth before the lights went out, or I went out. It’s difficult even now to remember who did what, where it was done, when and even why. But I knew this, scrambling my fingers against the sill in the dark looking for some lock or lever, some mechanism to get of this stifling place that I had been dying in for some time, more than yesterday, weeks perhaps, that I had to get out and find you. Not kill you exactly, but find you, maybe even one last kiss goodbye, with a barrel between your teeth instead of mine.

“Who am I?
Where am I?
Why do I feel this way?”
-“Who? Where? Why?”
Jesus Jones
***
I: Action and Reaction
“Pleased to meet you,
Won’t you guess my name?”
-“Nature of My Game”, Rolling Stones
“Though this be madness,
There is method in’t”
-William Shakespeare
It’s gonna happen again, thought Joe Gallagher, fiddling with the clasp of his watch.
Just like on the RR in ’73…
On Steinway street in ’65…
In Greenwich Village in ’51…
Just like in 1947, when he was fifteen, ‘just off the boat’ and it happened to his parents…
But each time it was a little different, each time it was closer to home. First it was just threats: when you didn’t know the language, but you understood the open palm and menacing scowls… When you learned some of the language and used the word ‘no’, they taught you the clenched fist upside your face. So you spoke English and knew how to pretty much protect yourself, and they showed you how a steak knife can still empty out your wallet. Now, from what Joe Gallagher read in the papers, they first shot you, then took your money…
And each time it happened, they got younger. Men had robbed his parents, with beards and dirty faces. Three kids, about his age when it first happened, staring at him, laughing, as they get on the D train at 59th Columbus Circle.
It was two a.m.
The train car was empty.
The train started pulling out of the station ever so slowly…
Joe Gallagher hoped that the kids won’t do anything till 7th Avenue, the next stop. That way, he get off and hop on the E to Queens and be safe…
One of the kids blurted:
“Yo, time to get paid.”
Then all three, in oversized jeans, football jackets, and baseball caps, started coming towards Joe Gallagher.
* * *
in another car…
out of, in-between…
wisps, unseen…
intangible, floating…
coming together.
like smoke, gray…
so easy to blow away…
becoming thicker…
can almost touch…
coming together.
something like skin…
substance, form…
blood, tissue so soft…
(THIS is NOT happening)
thoughts…
coming together.
light…the flickering of subway lights…
sound…the moaning of steel on steel…
smell…the musty cool air-
stale…like Fear…
coming together.
(almost THERE, my GOD)
and touch…
and screaming with no sound…like a fuse box overloaded with a million lights-
-but it doesn’t blow…
pulse, no heat…
memories, no past…
Life, but no breath…
together again…
Alive again.
the pain had passed, but the smell…of Fear…
stale…
coming from the next train car-
go to it.
* * *
It was like what Joe Gallagher saw in “Death Wish”… Bronson sitting there as three punks come up to him then, through the newspaper-
-BAM!
-BAM!
-BAM!
-But it wasn’t like that. Joe Gallagher’s newspaper was by his side. His hands weren’t feeling a hidden gun in his long coat. They’re still fiddling with the clasp of his watch. A watch that they didn’t take away from his father back in 1947 or from Joe Gallagher any of the other times…
And these kids want it, waving a gun in his face, taunting him.
Joe Gallagher thinks of how he never had kids because he didn’t want this to happen to them. He thinks of his wife Gloria, waiting for him to come home from work.
Joe Gallagher closes his eyes and starts, for the first time in thirty years, to pray…
“Yo man just pull the trigger and just take the shit,” one of the kids bark.
Then, the door between cars, at the far end, kliks-klaks open and the three youths and Joe Gallagher look to see-
…alive again…
-and it’s just a young guy. Thin white kid in a worn black biker jacket, faded jeans with a tear just below the knee, and a black tee-shit. A silver cross on a leather string catches Joe Gallagher’s eyes. It only looks like a cross around the stranger’s neck, but as he moves closer, it’s just one of those Egyptian crosses with a circle on top of it. An ankh. The young man’s hair is black, short on the sides and long, unkempt on the top. The stranger moves closer, ignoring the stares. To Joe Gallagher, the stranger seemed ignorant to the world..
Because of the young man’s eyes-
-like black smoke.
Then the muggers turn back to their old man. The watch, they say, or your life.
The stranger keeps moving towards them..
They snicker..
And the stranger is practically right behind them..
And the gun is right in front of Joe Gallagher’s nose..
The lights go out.
Joe Gallagher can hear ever so softly:
snap..crackle..pop
The lights come on..
The first kid, the one who talked the most, is slumped against a pole, on his knees. His head is crooked and unnaturally bent back, like an upside down ‘v’, skin broken revealing red and bone. The second kid, the one who had the gun, sprawled right in front of Joe Gallagher, his forehead completely crushed, gray and bloody. The third, the one who was quiet and behind the other two, across from Joe, his mouth open and eyes wide. A round hole, the diameter of an index finger, neatly placed in his right temple.
Joe Gallagher wants to throw up..
And thank God..
And cry..
But all he does is watch the stranger move on to the near by in-between car door and klik-klak it open and close.
With a sudden rush, Joe Gallagher gets up and runs to the door-
-and sees no one.
No worn leather jacket..no torn jeans..no stranger in the next car.
Joe Gallagher braces himself as the D train screams to a stop and gets out at 7th Avenue. He looks to his left, then his right. No one, nothing.
He remembers the silver ankh on the leather string around the stranger’s neck..
It’s a symbol of Life.
That much Joe Gallagher knows for sure. He looks behind him. The doors close.
The D train pulls out ever so slowly…
Joe Gallagher goes home and, for the first time months, makes love to his wife Gloria. He won’t ever mention about this attempted mugging to his wife, not like before. Joe Gallagher won’t tell anyone about what happened on that D train, won’t even take home anymore. He’ll start taking a cab at the company’s expense. Joe Gallagher’s learned his lesson…
At fifty-eight, Joe Gallagher wants children.
* * *
“It’s time”, says Thelma Wilkins, as she rises from her warm bed. She doesn’t need to take a shower this fine morning, Thelma Wilkins took one the night before.
“burr…It’s cold”, Thelma Wilkins says, under the chatter of her teeth, all five of them. Wrapping her mamma’s cashmere
scarf around her neck, Thelma Wilkins then buttons her fur coat and heads out the door.
Thelma Wilkins is going to the grocery store for some bread. At the token booth, a business man, his wife and their child
wait on line. Rush hour started a little early on this Thursday at West 4th Street.
Staring at the black lady walking through the orange slam gates, the little boy smiles.
Thelma Wilkins smiles back.
Grabbing his mommy’s coat, the blond child shouts joyfully, “Mom! The bum smiled at me! Hi, bag lady!” And his mother turns to scowl at Thelma Wilkins and holds her child close.
“Don’t look Timmy, then she’ll leave you alone.”
Thelma Wilkins stops smiling and raises her head. She wants to say something but-
What could she say..?
It was the truth.
People are beginning to stare and shove past her and she wants to cry…
Thelma Wilkins then remembers the bread and hurries on, ignoring her papa’s snobby guests and leaves her front porch.
The one in her house…
-Not in New York City.
No, Thelma Wilkins is not walking out of a train station in lower Manhattan-
In her mind, she’s walking through the white screen door, a bounce in her step…
Back in Missouri.
* * *
A cabby trying to blow a red light, slams on the brakes, his passenger nearly flying through the back partition.
“What the hell’s a matter with you!?!”, yells his passenger, some business lady.
The driver watches a little black woman, with a dingy scarf and a matted down, shredded fur coat, scurry across Sixth Avenue.
“Sorry..”, he says with a heavy accent, “Ees a bum, sorry.”
* * *
he walks through the park…
Washington Square Park…he thinks.
and pauses:
he can actually think again-
and see: the amber sun, so bright, rising in the east…hear: the sounds of nearby traffic and people bustling through crowds…taste: the air, as it rushes into his lungs, fresh…and the cigarette between his lips…harsh, burnt nicotine…feel: the cold concrete beneath his black boots and the purpose of his movements…
but smell: that was different than what he remembered…it was more like emotion now, adding a third dimension to his senses…like-
-there-
bitter-sweet…like honey roasted nuts…
sweet, yet overpowering…
a gray-white pigeon landed on his shoulder and cooed. he pet
it and glanced in the direction it came, west. a black woman, on one of the benches, feeding a crowd of twenty pigeons.
yes, he thought, there…
he knew what the smell was:
Sorrow…
* * *
Thelma Wilkins sits in her garden, feeding her papa’s pigeons. She thinks of how rude the grocer was, wouldn’t even take her money. It figures, he was white.
-Never will Thelma Wilkins admit that she had gotten the bread out of a dumpster, stale and half eaten; or admit that the white grocer was just another bum who said the dumpster was his.
No-
Thelma Wilkins bought the still warm loaf with her allowance. So she sat in her fur coat, on the marble, waiting for Jesse.
He was white too.
Then Thelma Wilkins hears the scuff of boot on concrete. She
looks up and just for a moment-
-She’s in Washington Square Park, in New York City, in the beginning of winter. Thelma Wilkins sees a thin white man walking towards her. Tall with messed up hair, in an old biker jacket and torn jeans and a black shirt and on the shirt, she sees a cross. A silver cross…
Like at the wedding…
Her and Jesse’s wedding…before they came to New York…and Jesse left…
NO-
Thelma Wilkins shakes her head and looks again and it’s Jesse. A warm smile underneath sparkling blue eyes and top it off
with wavy blond hair.
Oh Jesse…
And he smiles and the birds don’t flutter away and he kneels before her and asks her to marry him.
“Yes…”, Thelma Wilkins answers and her heart flutters, “Yes Jesse…”
(…the stranger takes off his round black sunglasses as he kneels before the woman and doesn’t say a word.
he doesn’t understand it, yet…)
And Jesse takes her away, Thelma Wilkins’ parents mad as hell and Jesse buys a van with the last cent he’s got and says that they’re going up north. Gonna be New Yorkers, Jesse says with a smile.
(…the stranger stares into the woman’s eyes and…)
“You sure it’s a good idea..? What are we gonna do…?”, Thelma Wilkins says nervously.
(…begins to shake his head slowly…)
But Thelma Wilkins is sittin’ in a run down apartment,
waiting for Jesse and she just had her baby and the baby girl’s crying and Thelma Wilkins knows Jesse won’t come back because-
“It ain’t my fault her legs are longer than mine!”, shouts Thelma Wilkins.
(…the stranger takes her trembling hands in his. he is beginning to understand…)
“Or that she’s smarter than me…or whiter than me..”,
whispers Thelma Wilkins, then starts to sob. Suddenly, Thelma
Wilkins shouts:”I HAD TO GIVE HER UP! I had no money! How was I
gonna feed that baby!?”
-And Thelma Wilkins knows where she really is and becomes slightly frightened by the young man before her. She can’t see his eyes behind those round black sunglasses but his hands, a man’s hands, hands that have fought not to be worn, that have fought time.
But the stranger cups her hands closed and a tear runs down his cheek. Thelma Wilkins feels that his hands are so warm, almost hot. Then the heat moves into the palms of her hands and she wants to let go-
…but the stranger just shakes his head and keeps her hands together for a second longer…
-and Thelma Wilkins feels something like a butterfly in her hands and she tries to see-
Then the stranger lets go and stands up. The cross Thelma Wilkins thought she saw, wasn’t a cross at all. It looked more like a ‘T’ with a circle on top of it, like a stick figure Jesus. She doesn’t know why she thought it was one to begin with.
Thelma Wilkins then looks at her hands…and there’s a photograph…of a beautiful light skinned black girl…
With blue eyes, Jesse’s eyes…
“My baby!”, Thelma Wilkins starts to cry happily. “She’s alright…she’s just fine…How did you kn-“, and Thelma Wilkins looks up, around, and behind the bench.
The stranger has disappeared, so have the birds.
Thelma Wilkins will take a shower and look for a job today. Eventually, she’ll get one as a waitress and find an apartment. Eventually she’ll get in touch with the daughter she abandoned twenty years ago and they’ll become the best of friends. Eventually, Thelma Wilkins will learn to forget that she was ever homeless but she’ll still come early mornings, to Washington Square Park-
-to feed the pigeons…
* * *
in a nearby mcdonald’s, packed with starving business suits waiting for mcmuffins, he sat-
then slumped against the fiberglass seating.
the photo of the abandoned girl-
…pulling out the homeless woman’s past, riding it until she left the baby in the rundown apartment…then leaving the homeless woman, latching onto the baby as she was found by the superintendent…carefully, speeding up the past…baby becoming foster child becoming adopted becoming teenager…slow it down…STOP, there…the abandoned girl taking a picture in one of those passport places…snatching that moment, blending it with the homeless mother’s sorrow and a bit of his soul; he brought it across to Reality, into the mother’s trembling hands, and made it real…
-he took a deep breath that turned into a yawn and caught himself. less than six hours back and he needed sleep. puzzled, he lit a cigarette and stretched out his legs underneath the small square table, crossing them. there’s so much to do, where to start…where to start..
then, so slowly, so unnoticeably, like a tide rising… ebbing, wave after wave, across hot white sand…making a rich, dark thought…that replayed the train ride and the park in his head and he wondered-
(…how…?)
-but the tide starts to recede…
the sand becoming hot and white again, losing it’s color… he tried to grasp the idea-
(…how…?)
-but the sand became pale again…
and his mind became a total blank.
for some reason, his cigarette caught his attention. it was like any other cigarette except for the brown little camel near the filter. camel lights, his brand for as long he could remember. what bothered him about the cigarette was the fact that he was sure that he lit up a good five minutes ago and it had barely burned.
troubled
(…how…?)
and yet anxious to see and feel the
city again, he got up and walked out onto third street. people crowded subway staircases and rushed past speeding cars, crossing
sixth avenue. faintly, he could hear below, the squealing of
arriving trains and the soft hiss of others leaving. the sounds and sights, the bustling and fast paces, the smoke of cars and foggy breaths of those on the sidewalks, Everything: made a rhythm. a rhythm that was easily missed and yet so overwhelming. once pulled, one would never know it even existed. he felt it however, crashing against walls of concrete and steel, full of glory and sadness, washing out petty minutes, ushering another day.
he smiled, leaving the front of mcdonald’s, all thoughts of sleep gone. they were replaced by the excitement of walking through the city again with the living…
welcome home.
* * *
One of the mopers had first noticed it and immediately notified one of the busy cashiers…
-“Yo, mamasita, check it out…”
“What? I’m busy…”
“Look, the gringo by the window, there. Holy shit.”-
Who then rushed to the manager and pointed out what the
moper had brought to her attention…
-“Al, we got a problem-”
“You CRAZY?! LOOK at that LINE, get back there, you crazy-”
“AL, we GOT a PROBLEM, okay? LOOK.”-
The manager, seeing the sincerity in the cashier’s eyes, went to the counter and looked over to the seats by the window.
He wasn’t the only one staring.
Everyone, later on, would dismiss what they saw. They will go on to their jobs and back to their homes, slipping back into the routines they made their lives out to be. Even if asked, they will not admit that they saw a young man in an MC and torn jeans with black John Lennon sunglasses and black hair. Nor will they admit how the young man’s black t-shirt and skin faded and disappeared, leaving floating hair and sunglasses, black jacket and jeans. Within this cutout, they will not say how they saw bone white sand and rushing dark blue water; or how, a few minutes later, the young man just reappeared, snapping back, filling the jeans, wearing the circular sunglasses and biker jacket, staring at his cigarette…
Then getting up and leaving.
No, they will never admit to seeing this. But…
While sleeping tonight, throughout their dreams, they will distantly hear the crashing of waves but, never see the shore. They will taste the saltiness of dry sand but, never feel it sift through their fingers…
They’ll never admit it-
But they’ll know.
* * *
You’re sleepy and probably a little horny too. That’s what runs through Terri Hughes’ mind as she tosses in her bed. Her jeans feel heavy and tight, and her white sweater is getting real annoying. Terri Hughes repeats it again, this time out loud, in a whisper.
“You’re sleepy and probably horny too.” It’s not convincing. Terri Hughes’ green eyes aren’t suddenly heavy and her mind isn’t emptying out, so she can think about not thinking. No, her eyes are jumping around her bedroom, from the see-through phone, to her feet in white fuzzy socks sticking out from under the covers, to the unfinished sketches cluttered on the floor.
Giving up, Terri Hughes throws the covers off her, sitting up and stares at the drawings. She hasn’t been able to get the image out of her head, since this morning but each time she started, she stopped. To her, each one looked wrong, missing some vital detail. Terri Hughes couldn’t put her finger on it and she couldn’t ignore it and it bothered her, she had other things planned for today: Calling Mom, upstate, to tell her that New York City was still being gentle; and calling Dad and his bimbo Sheryl, in Florida, to tell them about how she did on her finals; and leaving a message on Todd’s answering machine, reminding him to go screw himself; oh, and killing herself too.
This isn’t a whim in Terri Hughes’ mind. No, she’s been thinking about this for a long time, since Thanksgiving actually. Christmas was now two weeks away and she said, ‘Why not?’. Terri Hughes had heard that the suicide rate goes up around this time of year, so she checked it out. Wouldn’t want to be just another statistic. It doesn’t, sometimes, it even slightly drops off.
Couldn’t let that happen, thinks Terri Hughes and laughs. It’s a sad laugh, one of a broken heart and bleak future. Why not? Terri Hughes nervously laughs again. Look at her: She wants to love and be loved, but could she put a child of her own through the Hell her parents’ two year divorce left upon her? So Terri shies away from men that seem sincere and falls for those that she knew weren’t. What, her amazing talent of art? Maybe if things were different Terri Hughes could’ve lived for that, but her professor had said she lacks focus and failed her. The unfinished sketches on the floor prove that. But what about her stunning dark red hair and slim, trim body? Looks that make most men stuck on the idea of what’s between her legs and not in her head and that created a strange love hate thing about her looks. She could go back to living with Mom, up in New Paltz, maybe even finish college there. But if she feels strangled here, imagine there, under constant watch and paranoia. How would she look with a leash around her neck? Florida is out of the question, where Daddy’s getting not only his dick sucked, but his wallet too by Sheryl, and that was fine for him because that was how he viewed women. How could she could go there? But where could Terri go? What was for her in a world where people watched others kill each other and sometimes even paid money to see it? Terri wouldn’t watch TV because it left her sleepless and aching for something more. I’m no altruist, she thinks, I want somewhere to belong. I want to feel a part of this world and find something real, something beyond what I see. I want something to feel me, not feel me up. I don’t want to be raped anymore. There’s nothing left to abuse. There’s nothing left but this empty space that I don’t remember if it ever held anything. Empty in a hungry world.
Nothing to live for.
Terri Hughes silently cries…
And looks again at the sketches. One that’s almost finished, she stares at. For some reason, she can’t the image out of her head. The razor that she got this morning, is right there, on the lamp table. The setting sun is throwing beams on its steel edge. It’s like a tug of war:
The nearly finished face…
and the razor, clean and sharp.
The dangling cigarette between thin lips…
and the razor, almost saying, it’s not that hard.
The sunglasses, the black hair, the silver ankh around his neck…
Terri Hughes picks up the razor. She laughs at how badly she’s shaking. You’re not scared, Terri Hughes tells herself and knows she’s lying again, but she doesn’t give up.
Terri Hughes promised herself.
So, ever so cautious, like she’s being careful not to hurt herself, she presses it to the soft of her left wrist and goes across.
Not down, like your supposed to, says a tiny voice in her. And Terri Hughes sees the blood, bright, start pouring out.
It feels like warm milk…
The voice inside her grows louder and she’s beginning to feel calm: Now down like you know you should. Down and maybe a little deeper…
And Terri Hughes does that and it stings just like a needle and cuts just like butter…
It’s so warm down her wrist…
And seeing how easy it is and the voice booming in her head, wanting so much to die, to show them all how far Life pushed around this twenty-two year old girl, she switches the blade to her left hand…
Draw pictures this time.
* * *
he had started from 3rd avenue, taking in the sights. somewhere between there and 57th street, he realized what he really missed: the thousands of little scenes, like short plays happening all around the city, between people. the way they interacted on the corners and the small delis, in the posh restaurants of midtown and the tin hot dog stands on the streets.
it was what Life was all about.
he also noticed how people scurried from the bitter wind that blew up the avenues and how there was a sheen of ice along the curbs. for a few scant seconds, he wondered why he wasn’t freezing, wearing only a tee-shirt and mc.
in the business section of midtown manhattan, people crowded around store fronts, where there were lavish Nativity scenes and each block had a santa claus ringing bells. a light tingle rose in his chest: it was christmas time, or near to it at least.
memories of decorated trees and colorful, flashing lights, of silver tinsel and well sung carols, went through his mind.
he paused, then walked on.
there were also the smells, that he breathed in, full offresh happiness and the smell of wine: Hope. a couple of times, he caught whiffs of oil, Despair, and a bit of rotting greed but,
the bouquet of newly opened wine rose throughout the streets, from every building and shop. by the time he started crossing the 59th street Bridge, he felt giddy.
while in queens, he trekked on queens boulevard as it snaked through Long Island city, with its crowd of cars and dirty buildings. the overpasses and potholes turned into long blocks with stretches of auto dealerships, banks, restaurants, shopping centers and movie theaters. he passed the entrances to the queens-midtown tunnel, the Long Island expressway, the brooklyn queens expressway, and the interboro parkway. a buzz hung around where people shopped, a humming of thoughts all revolving on what to get for who, that he picked up along the boulevard. it came from all kinds of people: rich, poor, black, white, beautiful, and ugly.
and he walked on.
somewhere in kew gardens (he was pretty sure it was kew gardens), he turned up a block on his right. he then found himself in the middle of apartment buildings and lavish private homes with wide, snow covered lawns. he realized then, as the sun drooped towards the horizon, what New York City was: a jigsaw puzzle, with pieces of gray, black, green, red, and a few clear ones. a puzzle that a child, who didn’t really care, just forced together, the finished picture not making any real sense.
but he loved it all.
making another turn, as he lit another cigarette, he reveled in what he saw today and thought of what he would see tonight. the City was totally dif-
no…
the smell of burning paper.
No…
the kind that comes from a million lit up books.
NO.
he knew it and feared it because he had been there. spinning to his left…looking…the apartment window two floors up…
there.
he started running to the entrance and wanted to scream because the smell was so strong and filling his chest to the point where he couldn’t breathe.
Death smells like that.
he couldn’t help himself from feeling cold.
* * *
Terri Hughes thinks the pictures were nice but can’t tell with all the blood in the way. Her head’s real fuzzy and she remembers something about being a little horny and everything is so red.
And she wants to cry herself to sleep.
Suddenly, there’s a slam at her door and she tries to get up and see but Terri Hughes is so tired. She looks at the doorway and sees some guy, a model and thinks: oh great, I’m facing oblivion here and somebody’s decided to do a photo shoot…
The stranger rushes to her bedside and takes her hands and his hands are shaking as badly as hers were before. Terri Hughes stares at the stranger’s face and rolls her head to the drawings and back.
Now wait a minute here…
And the voice that was booming before, that went away, is back and it hurts and Terri Hughes doesn’t feel anymore blood on her wrists and the stranger’s eyes are closed, like he’s praying, and he’s crying.
The voice is screaming: GO AWAY I WANNA DIE!
And there’s tingling shocks, like static electricity,
jumping all around Terri Hughes’ wrists.
“stop…stop..”, she tries to push him away but the voice inside is getting weaker.
No, leave me alone…!
And Terri Hughes looks at the stranger again and the sketches and back and forth, like a tug of war-
…there’s so much pain here. He’s trying to sew up the inner and outer wounds all at the same time. The damage to the soul, the girl was too precious not to be careful with…
And he’s rushing this…
-A thought hits Terri Hughes, as the little voice inside her fades, Hey, this is the same face, isn’t it? And her head’s starting to clear and she feels like she’s waking up-
…replace Death. negate it, flip it. nothing that he has done will mean anything if she still wants to. take the black, fill it with light. where’s the light going to come from?
again, he cuts from…
-And Terri Hughes feels this slow blooming within her of children and promises and it’s an old memory of one that she once had and never did. The stranger let’s go of her hands. Terri is rising and she has been changed. She blinks, breathing as if for the first time. There’s his odd nag saying within her ‘look at your wrists. look’. There are no scars. Terri knows this before looking and is still confused when she checks. She looks up. The stranger is standing. He sighs and then takes one last look at her and turns-
But Terri Hughes can’t get something out of her mind, so she whispers, “..who are you…?”
The stranger stops dead in his tracks and for a split second, the time it takes for Terri Hughes to blink, his form ripples. slowly he turns, he doesn’t see what change he has made on this girl’s life, like with the old man and the homeless woman. he doesn’t disappear, like before, to move on…
The silence crowds the room…
for the first time since he’s been back, he tries to speak. Terri expects a deep voice like a winter’s night and soft like a baby’s breath but hears nothing. mouth open on the verge but caught between expectation and her eyes, on the verge of, what can he say, he didn’t-he really didn’t know.
* * *
Earlier on today, around two in the afternoon, a high school teacher walked into a classroom. The students inside were all talking amongst themselves when they heard the door close and took notice. The students started talking again, like nothing happened. A few guys, in the back of the classroom, smiled.
The teacher was a substitute.
The guys in the back started tearing sheets from their tattered notebooks, making sure the sub noticed.
The teacher had been through this before. He knew the routine. Sooner or later the guys in the back, when he would start to take attendance, would throw paper balls and planes at him. Then they would get loud and witty, saying that their names
were Suck, My, and Dick or maybe Get, A., and Life. Something
clever. Eventually, they would make threats and walk out laughing. If they were real men, they would probably hit the teacher if he went after them. He knew the routine and had the scars to prove it but, today would be different.
The guys from the back started moving up toward the desk. The saw the substitute lay his briefcase flat on the desk and open it. The teacher then pulled out an Uzi and the guys froze. Before anyone could have said anything witty, like “DON’T”, the sub pulled the trigger.
When the police finally arrived, they found the teacher seated at his desk, in front of a classroom splattered with blood and torn flesh. Giving no resistance, the teacher closed his
briefcase and smiled.
“We were just discussing the works of Gandhi”, he had said.
It turns out he lived in an apartment in Queens. His record with the Board of Education was spotless and his psychiatrist couldn’t even believe it. According to his wife of twenty years, the man loved teaching, it was his life.
He lives three floors above Terri Hughes.
* * *
“Why did you… You know,” Terri Hughes asks the stranger, as she sits across from him in the kitchen. She’s scared and
oddly fascinated.
he takes the beer Terri gave him and takes a gulp. it’s
bitter and refreshing as it slides down his throat. he’s never been thirstier. looking into Terri’s eyes, he wonders why he’s still here, why he doesn’t have a name and, Why did you?
And Terri picks up on this. Right after asking she could see the flip side to it and his eyes seem to ask it. Terri takes a sip from her glass of whiskey and coke. Every time she glances at the glass, she stares at her wrists, unable to believe that just a half hour ago, blood poured from them. There’s a million things buzzing through her head and she really can’t believe that she’s still alive. She looks back up at the stranger and tries to find the words for what she tried to do, but as they come out, she knows there just excuses. “I don’t know, life was shitty. There’s this guy, Todd, who I’ve been steady with…Well-“, normally tears would swell up now, but Terri doesn’t feel the need anymore, “-he disappeared on me about a month ago and see, I’m an art major-“, and she feels her cheeks flush: Obviously, he seen the sketches, “-oils basically…I dream of exhibiting at the Met…Anyway, there’s this professor who finally knows what he’s talking about so, I had tried everything to pass his course…”, Terri makes a face and scowls, “And you know what he does? The prick fails me, you believe that?”
he’s been quiet, listening, taking sips from the beer. he raises his eyebrows, questioning.
There’s a beat.
“So?!” Terri can’t believe it, she’s almost out her seat. He takes her hands and rests his elbows on the counter top. her fingernails are thin delicate, yet strong. short nails polished a deep red. he thinks, Life’s too precious to throw away for any reason. he’s waiting for her to pull her hands away, but she doesn’t. In fact, she slightly squeezes his.
“Let me guess..Life’s too precious to throw away for any reason..” and she pauses. Her fingers grow cold, ” ..I..shouldn’t expect it…to be easy…or…it wouldn’t..be worth..it?”
he stares and there’s something about that look that makes Terri nervous, old and glad to be back, glad to be…
…alive again…
Now that threw her. She pulls her hands away and leans back, “ooohkay.” Terri takes a stiff one from her glass.
he pulls at the collar of his tee-shirt, revealing a five inch scar, like a line of lightening, twisted, thin, pink flesh, right over where his heart would be.
Terri’s eyes are popping out and she feels goose bumps squirm under her skin. “What happened?”
he shrugs and finishes the beer. he sees that Terri’s got the chills. he takes out his pack of cigarettes, holds them out, pauses, can I?
Getting up, she finds a heavy glass ashtray and places it in front of him. Walking back around the counter, she sits back in her seat. Terri quit last year and itched for one now, but she ignores the urge.
he nods once, lights up. he takes a drag, letting the smoke leave through his mouth slowly. sitting back, he shakes his head slowly.
“What?”, thin eyebrows raised, full lips slightly apart, green eyes questioning.
he keeps shaking his head.
“What?!”, both hands firmly on the counter top, demanding.
he stops, points the cigarette at her.
“What about me? Am I funny?”
he gets up, walks into the bedroom, comes back. Slowly, one by one, he puts each sketch on the counter, carefully, planned. he pauses, looks at her, then places the last one on top of the rest, centering it in front of her, the one that was almost finished but definitely him. he drops a single finger on it, hard.
“I…I can’t explain the sketches…You just popped into my head when I woke up. Before I….And no, I don’t know you and I can’t explain any of it and..,” Terri stops. She then tilts her head, softly, “Do you even remember your name?”
he doesn’t move.
“What can I call you?”
His eyes seemed to say, Whatever you want, and whether that was true or not Terri didn’t care. “Let’s make one up…ok? Just go with it,” Terri thinks and squints her eyes, looking to the side. “Hmmm…Something mysterious, but not cliche..” Her eyes light up, “Stefan?”
he doesn’t move.
Terri rolls her eyes. “Evan?”
he doesn’t need to say a word.
“I don’t know…Eric?”
come on, he stubs out his cigarette.
Terri starts by looking him over. His face has high cheeks and a thin nose to divide them. Underneath, a small mouth. But his eyes, they made her think of smoke, the way light and colors danced in them. Then came his body, thin and Terri imagined by the way he carried himself, well toned, like a Greco-Roman sculpture. Wide shoulders to thin waist, almost like a triangle. All under a black, worn MC jacket, t-shirt, and torn jeans. Then she thinks of how he saved her, how she feels that he came back and the scar and the image of Greek sculpture…
“Myth…?”, she says, biting her bottom lip.
he sits back, lighting another cigarette. Myth struck a bell in his head…
And Terri doesn’t know why she’s anxious or why she’s even bothering, or caring at all but, she does.
he smiles.
“Cool deal.” she says and they both smile and he thinks he’s falling in love…
* * *
It’s dark and freezing, a sharp wind is cutting through the dirty windows but, Tommy D’Angelis is thinking only one thing:
The blood won’t come off my hands.
Tommy D’Angelis tried everything since last night, to wash out the stain from his fingers. From soap to liquid dishwasher to Ajax cleaner to paint thinner…
Nothing and the blood is even still wet, Tommy D’Angelis can feel it.
So, Tommy D’Angelis now takes off the gloves he wore to the supermarket and tries not to stare at his hands. He takes out from the white plastic bag, a small box. Tommy D’Angelis notices that he doesn’t leave a smear on either, or on anything else for that matter.
He stumbles through his apartment, anxious, nearly knocks over the sculpture his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend really, gave him
three months ago. Passing right through the living room, Tommy
D’Angelis doesn’t notice that his answering machine light is blinking. Before the small kitchen sink, Tommy D’Angelis turns on both faucets. He’s thinking:
I shouldn’t have stabbed him there-
Tommy D’Angelis rips open the cardboard box. Since two in the morning, this blood’s been driving him crazy…
-this better fucking work..Fuck, I shouldn’t have stabbed his fucking-
And he pours Ajax all over the brillo pad he bought. The greenish powder itches his nose and his forehead is sweaty…
-heart! So much fucking blood! Why won’t it come off, why shitshitshit why?!?-
Tommy D’Angelis bites his lip to keep from screaming. The brillo pad hurts so much but, he keeps scraping, even a little harder.
-fuck….fuck…-
And the sink fills with thin blood and water, almost reaching the rim.
-FUCKING JESUS!-
It takes about an hour of scrapping his palms, an hour of seeing his skin peel away with the wire pad, that Tommy D’Angelis realizes that the blood in the sink is his own.
The other blood still hasn’t come off his hands.
Between tears and lack of breath, between screaming pain and
sweat, Tommy D’Angelis slumps to his knees…
And starts giggling.
* * *
Out on Long Island, in Mattituck, a mother stares at her three month old baby in her pink cradle. New windows shutter because of the wind outside. The mother’s heart shudders as she sighs.
The baby gurgles in her sleep, the mother stares.
She can’t cry anymore for her son.
He’s gone to a better place.
Gently, her newlywed husband hugs her. His eyes are red and
cracked and his breath is heavy. Her son wasn’t his but…
The baby gurgles in her sleep, the parents stare.
Both hold each other tightly, as the mother finally lets the emptiness settle in and he cries.
The funeral was set for Saturday.
The day after tomorrow.
Her son loved Saturdays.
* * *
he can’t believe it.
Terri had left about ten minutes ago, grocery shopping and picking up some chinese food. Myth liked the name and he opened a beer and settled on the couch, remote in hand, tv across from him.
on and flicker. and Myth felt pulled and raked and buzzed and torn and flooded and shot and entered and licked and seduced, punched torn and pushed raped and burning in his head that didn’t connect with lights and sounds but sterile nothing taste great less filling bombs tearing and (so much powder of your faces) pristine teeth too white and shiny and nails a deeper gloss of and I’m not just a get rid off those get out of New but made for a woman tonight on the where your children I’ve decided to keep it jake step out of the old muffler sound like this such sights to show (so much powder of your faces) its raining oh jeez edith uhheh-uh or something it’s not a good day to be top stories tonight. focus focus screen OUT focus there. he didn’t know how long he was gone. an anchorman, with straight line parted brown hair and serious eyes, was saying:
“Once again, our top stories tonight: Three teenagers were found killed on a south bound D train early this warning. Police approximate time of death between midnight and four a.m. No witnesses have come forward and police have yet to establish any motives…”
he feels odd, regret. he remembers Terri, ‘..Life’s too precious..’, but they were killing for fun. they were going to kill. he wonders if he’s justified.
listen some more. bzzz. focus.
“…Also, today, a substitute teacher working at LaGuardia High School, with an Uzi submachine gun, gunned down an entire class of thirty students.
“The police commissioner denied any connection to the two killings and said the that they were coincidence-”
he heard the sliding of elevator doors in the hallway. Terri.
the tv went off and he raised the nearly empty can to his lips. a feeling like a cat’s tongue, no sandpaper, caressed the back of his neck, raw.
the sliding of cylinders in a deadbolt lock and a turn of a knob and Terri was home. “Hey, I’m home.”
She sees Myth sitting in the dark, “Yoo-hoo..You okay?”
coincidence…
the word bothered him and the feeling of a cat licking his neck, raw, sending chills down his spine, wouldn’t leave. Myth turned to Terri.
Terri stood there for a moment caught in just looking at Myth.
There’s a beat.
he gets up, as she closes the door and throws away the beer can, walking into the kitchen.
Plastic bag tossed on the counter with milk, juice and stuff, Terri brings the big brown bag, red-white menu stapled on one side, to the table. She notices that Myth had already set it, knives, forks, spoons and napkins. Myth tried to see what was circled off on the menu. Placing it in front of him, she said, “Don’t try. I got, Everything…”
he helps Terri unload the white cartons onto the table.
Standing next to him, Terri felt a sense of security and dream, of being home in very big place. God, you don’t even know him and you bought him dinner yeah, but she couldn’t explain it. “Before, when I came in, what were you thinking? I mean, you seemed like you were far, far away.”
the tickling of cats’ tongues and coincidence…
Myth shook his head as if, Nothing, nothing at all.
* * *
The moon, wide and scarred and pale, rises.
It’s midnight and the streets are cold.
A part of the city is getting ready for a Thursday night on the town.
Another is sleeping. There are people in beds, warm under heavy blankets or quilts. Others are lying on cement or in train cars, curled in rags. Layers of rags. Some are alone, some have just finished making love. Some snore and some talk.
They’re all dreaming.
Dreaming about things that don’t make sense, but seem so real: about lost friends, childhood pasts or the first million; about rotted food, off the wall sex, or trips through Hollywood. The dreamers either see their hidden, deep hopes or larger than life fears.
Dreams are a reflection of the mind and soul, basically.
And every child, thumb stuck in mouth, and every woman, scent of a lover’s cologne on her chest, and every man, gripping the sheets, is a drop…
A drop in the Dreaming.
A sea that stretches from Reality, a rocky sandless shore, to a shapeless horizon called Eternity. It’s something one can never see or feel physically. It doesn’t really exist in the conscience world of concrete and flesh. It isn’t tangible, but the Dreaming is more real than Hell or anything else. Everyone is a part of it, unified and at peace here more than they can ever be when awake. A third of their lives is spent here, creating and keeping the Dreaming. It touches them all, as much as they take part in it. Ever notice how on edge are the people who get no sleep? The ‘edge’ is the calling of the Dreaming…
Of the womb of warm wet semi-dark, before birth…
Of a sea, forever at sunset, without tides…
The calm of Life.
Normally, it’s quite boring here-
-but not tonight.
* * *
There is a man by the name of Joe Gallahger, treading in the Womb Before Birth, in the Dreaming. He’s dozing off in the back of a company cab, in the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Joe Gallahger had the scariest and happiest thing happen to him yesterday, on the train. Three muggers died in front of him, three muggers who were going to take the watch his father had given to him.
In other words, Joe Gallahger was saved.
Joe Gallahger had thought of the stranger all day. He couldn’t get over how the young man did it and how he disappeared, without a thank you from Joe. In the forty plus years he’s been in New York, Joe Gallahger never saw such a thing: An act of salvation and damnation without reward. An act of pure justice and horror. An act of a stranger with black smoke for eyes…
And then he had spoken to his wife, this morning, about adopting a child. Joe Gallahger, nervous for a reaction, watched as Gloria’s plum face, wrinkled eyes and puffed cheeks, gray strands of hair behind her ears, lips still as full as when she was twenty, stretch slowly into a smile. For Joe Gallahger, it was like a door opening in the dark: light shining on a small man, back bent and thin legs, with hairy arms like trees and a potato sack for a stomach, hair thin and graying away to nothing, with dull, small eyes that saw clearly and a stubby, large nose that smelled practically nothing. Hugging Gloria in his arms, Joe Gallahger saw that light in his mind and it gave him strength. It was Hope.
This is what Joe Gallahger is dreaming about.
Hope.
He really shouldn’t be dreaming though. Joe Gallahger shouldn’t be in the Dreaming at all. He’s supposed to be dead on the D train, killed by a gunshot blew off his face. The three muggers are supposed to be pawning the watch Joe wouldn’t give up.
But Joe Gallahger is alive and well…
* * *
Ever slightly, the Dreaming shifts…
* * *
Right there, between 59th and 125th street on the D train, on a cold, sticky floor in the last car, Thelma Wilkins is sleeping against the far corner. The few people that sit around her glance with contempt and turn their noses away from the smell of piss and sweat from the homeless crowded in the car.
But Thelma Wilkins doesn’t mind. She’s asleep in the Calm of Life, the Dreaming. Besides, it’ll be the last time she sleeps on a train. In one day, Thelma Wilkins has managed about forty dollars.
One more day of shuffling through subways, crying and holding her cup, jingling it and asking for change. One more day of stone-faced business people, giggling teens and awed babies, of sympathetic stares, shaking heads and newspapers thrown up like shields. One more day of people not believing.
Thelma Wilkins sleeps, resting for what she knows will be a hard day. She sleeps and her hands, hands dark and somehow still young still tickle. The photograph is in her hands and it’s still warm and maybe for different reasons now. She sleeps knowing how she looks and how she smells and even that is something she hasn’t done since… but today it’s not as bad as it was before, today she took care and was careful of where sat and what she ate. She sleeps and the photograph is still in her hands, not clutched, resting in her palms, it cannot be taken away from her. Thelma sleeps and dreams of what tomorrow will bring: The welfare hotel on 14th and six, a job, an apartment, an abandoned daughter tracked down and a bittersweet reunion, of the young pale man that ‘woke’ her up.
A new life, a future, is the theme of Thelma Wilkins’ dreams.
But this is wrong.
Thelma Wilkins should be dreaming of Missouri, of how a young black girl was swept off her feet and dumped in New York City, of how she abandoned her baby and roamed the streets and start all over in her poppa’s garden with the birds. Dream over and over that year, to relive the loop, to never accept how she was growing old and crackling in a city that was old and crushing.
In other words, Thelma Wilkins is supposed to be still insane.
She’s not anymore.
* * *
There is movement in the Dreaming
* * *
Scattered throughout the Sea Without Tides, the Dreaming, are a little over twenty people tossing and turning in their sleep. Twenty people, each mind filled with a mosaic of lives, years, hopes, ideals, values, sorrows, beliefs and fears. Twenty something normal people, a cross section of race, color, age, gender, all shaking in their sleep, disturbed.
They’re all dreaming of being blind, hearing the thunder of waves and the taste of hot, dry, sand.
* * *
There
A ripple
A ripple in the Dreaming
* * *
Outside (Next to) the Sea Without Tides, in Reality:
Myth does not sleep.
he has not moved a single inch since midnight. when Terri had fallen asleep, he picked her up from the couch and tucked her in bed.
-without thinking of her body, without thinking of her smooth neck, without thinking of the feel of her breath on his neck as he cradled her from the living room, or the brush of her hair against his cheek as he laid her down, without-
he does not sleep and instead sits on the floor beside the bed. he is carving the outline of her into the wide empty stone canvas of his mind. over and over. over and over. every sigh, every scent, every turn and lash and line. over and over, carving into the empty stone canvas, never to be erased, to also be a focus. Myth doesn’t understand why Terri is important to him, why he has the urge to stay with her, to protect her. to protect..over and over, carving. something was not quite right. everything looked Real, felt Real and happened the Way Things Should, not really though, not since-
he continues watching Terri, taking in every scent, sigh, turn, lash and line, carving it all on the stone canvas on his mind. he does not sleep for he might not wake up again or he might really wake up from this.
again he feels the uneasiness of wet sandpaper on his neck, the news flash briefly across the stone canvas, coincidence is beginning to sound like suspicion and there’s this pull, a rubberband stretched and tugging at him from someplace Else but someplace Else is something Myth doesn’t know where. he finds things a little strange but can’t put his finger on the imperfection, so he lights another cigarette in the dark and stares at Terri.
There’s a pile of canvas shavings beside him and the only pack of cigarettes he’s had is still full.
Myth doesn’t notice.
It’s been 24 hours.
* * *
He will not cry…
It’s black but the snow kind of glows blue and the silence from the crickets chill Michael Tsakis. His bed is empty and cold. The red numbers on the bedside cloak tell him it’s three a.m. and his wife is not with him. Michael Tsakis gets up, weary because of years of labor, wearier since his stepson’s death and checks the pink cradle. Seeing it empty, he scratches his thinning scalp to keep from tearing his eyes out and walks into the hallway. Midway between the bedroom and the livingroom, Michael Tsakis finds the basement door open. He knew she was down there and so was the baby. Michael Tsakis knows because he can hear the sighs of exhausted sleep from his wife. Down there, down stairs, down the steps to the basement apartment where his stepson lived. There in that basement that the stepson always wanted and turned into a studio. There, down there, downstairs where one wall was painted black with a collage of sketches, photos, and quotes while the other three were a spotless white. There where he wrote for hours, ate when he wanted to be alone, drank when he was angry with the world. There where Michael Tsakis’ stepson was most alive.
Michael Tsakis will not cry.
Down there, downstairs, down the steps, staying close to home, hardly home but trying his best to help, to share dreams and hopes, to joke and to be sarcastic with a grin, to be who he was meant to be, to stand by his mother’s side. Not anymore, not anymore, the grin and strange laughter was stripped when the phone rang here twenty-four hours ago and they told Michael Tsakis that his stepson was-
He will not cry down there, down the steps, downstairs.
My son, thinks Michael Tsakis and feels a pin rip through his heart. When he hits bottom (and inside he’s wanting to hit bottom, to stop falling through memory after memory, to hit bottom of this pain and somehow start to climb again), Michael Tsakis sees the shape of his wife and their newborn daughter on the bed, both whimpering. Michael Tsakis doesn’t have to see his wife’s tears, doesn’t have to see her dark brown hair wet and matted around her cheeks, he knows that she is crying. Just when he thought she had hit bottom, she must have lost her footing and went spiraling again. The thought drags at his heart as the pin goes through it, in and out, and the sorrow floods his chest and eyes.
Michael Tsakis wishes he could hit bottom so he can climb but he just stands there and begins to cry, dropping.
* * *
There is a detective, a big man, trying to see the words on a report. A pint of ouzo whispers its location into his ears. There is a photograph of a dead body within his inside jacket pocket. It isn’t his case but he wants to solve it. The sergeant detective, a private man, 32, knows the deceased. There is anger in the way he tries to read the autopsy report. Words like ‘incision’ and ‘lacerations splitting cardio tissue’ mingle with the location of the ouzo.
There is a man, who is a detective of sergeant rank and authority over five other detectives, growling, “…that bastard..”, as he reaches for the hidden liquor.
There is a police station off the Major Deegan, on University Ave, called the four-four. Inside that station house, is a detective with a .44 clipped to his belt, downing a pint of heavy liquor. His shift ended at midnight but he’s still here and it’s a quarter to four in the morning.
There is a precinct house called the four-four and inside it is an alcoholic sargeant detective with the homicide file of a young friend on his desk that he knows that he shouldn’t even have, let alone investigate.
The man feels helpless.
* * *
The Dreaming:
Terri Hughes is floating in the Calm of Life. For her, the same dream runs over and over again. It starts out really sad with a crying little in torn clothes. The little girl is on a cliff. A bitter wind, not cold but uncaring swirls about her. The little girl doesn’t look behind her but knows that no one is there to stop her.
She jumps.
As soon as she sees the ground below, as soon as she realizes that the wind has stopped but her hair whips about her, there’s a slam at the door and Terri Hughes knows it’s Myth and the little girl can see him rising up to her, catch her and the little girl becomes Terri and up, up, and away.
She hugs Myth tighter as they rise past the cliff into the sky so blue. She can see he’s crying but he smiles softly, please don’t do that again…,not outloud, in her head.
Terri nods and buries her head in his chest and the breeze whispers good things. As they fly up, Terri sees the unfinished sketches trail and drift below them, unfinished, white, lines, spiraling. Just as she focuses on one sketch, the little girl is on the cliff again and the wind is bitter, not cold but uncaring…
But this isn’t How Things Should Be.
Terri Hughes should be dreaming about the nothing, the not being of Death. She should be in St John’s Hospital, in critical condition. As a matter of fact, her boyfriend Todd should have discovered her after she had sliced open her wrists when he had
come over her apartment to explain. All in all Terri Hughes should be dreaming of a way to get a hold of a needle and having her veins get a breath of fresh air.
But she’s dreaming of Life.
* * *
A ripple as if aware
* * *
And right on that, surfing and disturbing the slumber of those beneath his feet, Tommy D’Angelis sleeps with eyes open, dreams without blinking.
Even though he knows the TV’s on, the bzzz of moving static lighting his eyes, he only sees drops of blood lightly fall on his lashes. It’s memory and dream and the beginning, drops of blood on the eyelash. It’s never been, Tommy D’Angelis thinks, eyes never fluttering now, not even then, so REAL. He dreams of nothing but memory and need and chewing and dusting off corners of those who struggled, begged or bargained and those that simply knew.
Like Cynthia. A child’s voice whispered, far in the background, right next to his ears, an echo in the Dreaming that will linger and ache in everyone’s dreams until awakening. The drop of blood pauses as it descends from the eyelash, freezeframe. Tommy D’Angelis remembers:
Junior High School, scent of autumn, whether it was spring or winter, school smelled of autumn. Black ponytail and nicknames like Butch Cassidy, teasing her, other boys. Tommy was Sundance, the two a pair. Partners in crime. Mr Frankel stuck to his seat, Marigold Wethers finding a snake in her bookbag, tandem explosions in the bathrooms, dissected cat on Principal Bickoff’s desk with labels.
‘That was…too far’, she had said later, not giggling like all those other times. She’d say that and giggle but not then. Only he was. Suddenly it was a private joke and Tommy couldn’t understand why Cynthia didn’t get it.
‘But’, he had said, still smiling, still willing, maybe she was teasing, maybe a delayed reaction could be brought.
‘Don’t Touch Me!’, ponytail whipping away.
‘You said it’d be funny if-‘
And she had look up then down hands wringing (like he was doing before before before) a stutter in and out of her head, ‘no nono NoNOOO’ then screamed, hands near her face, fingers outstretched like she was holding a fishbowl over her head. Tommy D’Angelis then felt the swell in his pants and suddenly things changed, a distance that made her a part of what she didn’t understand that had her screaming now came over him and fifteen, just fifteen picked up a rock that can only be found at night in a school yard, never during the day. Rock, smack against her head and she wouldn’t stop, again and he brought her to the floor. Third time but he used his hands and his hands came away dyed. He struggled with her pants. Fourth and fifth she stopped
II: Unprovoked Entanglement
“And honey, how’s your breathing?
If it stops, fuck it, we’ll be leaving.
And honey, how’s your daughter?
Did you teach her what is torture?
Well if you didn’t, well you oughta-
Do it now…”
-Happy Mondays, “Dennis and Lois”
“The descent to Hell is easy”
(Facilius descendus averno)
-Virgil, Aeneid
Tommy D’Angelis felt the sunrise. It was close to eight a.m. He felt calm, his face felt sticky, his hands no longer trembled. the blood was calm. He got up, turned off the t.v., tossed the remote and went to the bathroom. Standing in front of the sink, he washed his face, felt the stubble on his cheeks and chin, and paused.
The blood was gone.
Tommy D’Angelis blinked. Once, twice.
It was still there. The blood on his hands.
He blinked again.
It was gone.
Tommy closes his eyes and breathes slowly.
-Let it be there Let it still be there-
One eye, squinted.
Red haze, glow, warm.
….more…, the blood said.
* * *
“I wish I knew more..”
Another phone, another introduction, just another homicide.
“Sorry, no speeky de eenglesh”
Routine. Phone calls. Down the list. Down the phone numbers.
“How do I know you’re a cop?”
Just another homicide.
“Do you know what time it is?!”
No forms. Pen. Notebook. Empty.
“Maybe night security can help ya.”
Empty. Routine. Just a homicide. Black phone.
“Let me have the number of your precinct house, the
forty fourth, was it?”
Hang up. No forms. Bottle in drawer. Morning shift
coming in.
…When’d You come in O’Keefe?…Yo sarge…
…Top of the morning’, huh sarge?..Morning’..
…Heard about it, um, sorry…………….
Routine. Phone calls. Part of investigation.
Sunlight. Dust.
Dialing.
“Hello, this is Sergeant Detective O’Keefe…with the Four-four…yes..Well I’m calling about a homicide..”
* * *
empty.
this is what he felt. this what he felt looking
out Terri’s apartment window. he felt this sorrow engulf
him and it was different than the homeless woman’s. this
was in a different language. it felt like home and empty.
a huge terrifying hole that nothing could ever change, this settling of sunlight and dust and cold winter.
empty.
it reminded him of Terri, of losing something that Life could never replace, that this was it, this feeling of memory, of what was, of everything only being in the past tense.
something within Myth was holding onto it, not letting go, and he felt like going There. how could he sit here while this was going on, while someone was feeling this with Life all around them, feeling empty? but he doesn’t move, taking all of this, trying to place
it’ why was it so familiar, why did he want to drown himself in this, in the smell of empty rooms unopened for years, in rooms that once held someone.
empty.
Terri shifted, rustling of the sheets.
he turned his head.
dreaming and calm and hair tousled, this deep, dark red across her pillow. arms open, waiting for someone to be in them. skin pale but not ghostly, smooth. arms long and thin, neck a place to be lost in, breathing deeply. the curve of her underneath the sheets, sheets twirling about her legs and waist, caught up in her as he was. dark red across her pillow, on her back, calm, thin, here and smooth and fine and sleeping, breathing. she was almost a place for him to go to. almost a place where all that would matter was her and it would be safe to get lost there. in her skin, in the warmth of her beside him, of her cheek on his, on him to taste her hair and fingers, nails delicate, yet strong. the feeling faded from him, he slowly felt the sensation of being filled. Myth watched Terri and he knew could do this forever without touching her, Even though he already did.
Terri.
* * *
“Hello..? Yes, that’s me…thank you…yes..No, no I don’t think you could ever possibly understan- oh, I’m so..I’m sorry..I..would you like to speak to Mike?”, and Penny Tsakis hands over the phone to her husband, who is standing near, in the kitchen?
It is morning. The baby is still sleeping.
Penny Tsakis doesn’t know what to do and isn’t sure of anything, so she checks on the baby, on Maria. The bedroom is off white with blue walls and the cradle is pink and not too far from the kitchen, just down the hallway, just the John’s ro–.
Gently, gently, the baby is still so small, Penny Tsakis picks her up and lets this calm her. The baby is sleeping. It is morning. She sits on the bed, Penny Tsakis is wearing a blue and purple robe, the one John. Johnny. Johnny…the one her son got her for her birthday.
Penny Tsakis just turned forty, last week, on the seventh. She is an old woman to be having a two month old baby, her middle and legs are still heavy and puffy from little Maria’s birth. She is a young woman to have had a twenty-three year old son. She is too young to have to bury him. Gently, gently, Penny Tsakis with tired hands strokes the baby’s forehead.
“He..he..would’ve been a…wonder…a wonderful brother…he..,” Penny Tsakis sniffles, her face crushing in on itself, holding, and she can’t hear Mike anymore with the funeral director anymore. Suddenly she shouts, “Mike? Michael!”
She pitches forward, off the bed and Michael Tsakis catches her in the doorway, “It’s okay…s’okay”, he says and guides her back to the bed. He hasn’t slept well and it is beginning to show, the slack on his face, thirty-nine years catching up with his eyes. “..s’okay..”, sitting with her, holding.
“do..Do you know..what,” Penny Tsakis starts, struggling, her face crushing in on itself, so many wrinkles dark across the edges of mouth and temples, struggling with words, lips pressed together, holding. Her husband is sitting near. “…imagine Maria..,imagine her calling you Baba.. imagine her growing up…seeing her walk, catching her, helping her to walk…seeing her run and how beautiful she’s going to be…and seeing it before your eyes…seeing her calling for you..”, and Penny is fighting every word of this, it’s hitting her, every choice of word is a memory, holding, tired hands stroking Maria’s head, struggling, “…and after she drives you crazy with…staying out late…with boyfriends…driving you crazy because she’s yours and she knows how to walk without you there…worrying…,” tired hands caressing and seeing memories? holding, not looking at her husband, “…after..after years of presents and cards ..just when you think…just when you think she’s old enough…to live…”, Penny turns away from her husband and she can’t hold anymore, the tears force their out from eyes tightly shut, running down the smooth plain of her cheeks. Dark wrinkles around her temples and lips, struggling. She breathes, holds once more, “I’m burying my son and I’m.. still alive…I’m burying him…”
“shhh..No.” Michael Tsakis quickly tries to hug his wife, shaking his head, “..Don’t, don’t think about-”
Penny jerks away from him, angry, “What do you..What do you mean ‘Don’t think about it’?!… My son is “””dead..My Son Is Dead!..my..” she is shaking and the baby is beginning to cry, eyes closed. Michael doesn’t know what to do, she won’t let him touch her.
“Honey..I..I didn’t mean-”
“”‘Because he wasn’t yours? HE WAS MINE! He was MINE and he’s DEAD! ” Penny stares at Michael, her lips are trembling, holding, how can she hold so much, “..a piece of
me is dead..” she looks at Maria, stroking her forehead, the baby calming down. She rocks the baby in her arms, gently, gently, she so small. Penny whispers, “..If…if it wasn’t for Maria…I’d join…I’d join him…”
Mike gets up, but he can’t leave the room. He touches her shoulder. She doesn’t smack his hand away, she doesn’t relax, tired hands stroke the baby’s forehead, soothing, almost resigned, still holding.
“I love you.” Mike says, feeling small and dizzy.
“I know..” Penny replies, “..but the world’s empty.”
* * *
Strangest thing last night…
This is her first thought as she stretches, yawns, closes her hands into fist and rubs her eyes open.
The strangest dream-
How much of it was it…
She turns and sees Myth sitting on the window sill, the sketches in his hands. Could anything ever take this feeling away? Myth was here. Myth was real. Myth was here. Myth was-
Then Terri Hughes was a bit startled.
Myth was in the bedroom was she damn well knew that she fell asleep on the couch and she didn’t want to end up in the bedroom with Myth, not yet and how nice to put a hold on that because she knew that when it would happen, it’d have meaning and worth.
he turned to her, as if he was ready to answer her, sunlight behind his head. he was wearing dark round sunglasses and he smiled.
Terri was tingling, “hey..”
he sat unmoving, soft smile now, a deep breath.
Terri titled her head, “Are you okay?”
he got up, walked over to her, stopped before her, held up one of the sketches.
“What?”
he placed a finger onto her lips, pointed to the sketch.
There was small hand printed writing on it.
She pointed to the words, “You?”
he didn’t move.
“I’m sorry, do you want me to read this?”
he nodded once.
Terri hesitantly took the sheet and looked at it. It was the final sketch Myth had brought out yesterday, the one that was almost finished. Her eyes sneak at her wrists and the movement seems foreign to her and she catches herself. The lines were smooth, a front angle view, as if the face was turning towards the viewer, perfect with the ankh hanging on an unseen chest. It was beautiful, natural, like Myth.