"It looked to me like he was going through some hell of a drama. More than just withdrawal. Might even have been scared of something. He was shivering violently. It was winter and the window was wide open. Very Demi in St. Elmo's Fire."
He did not blink. Right. Before his time.
"I closed the window, led him to his bed, took his shoes off, covered him with a blanket, turned off the fucking music, and left. That's it."
Marzoli remained quiet.
God damn it.
"No, sergeant, I did not insert my penis into any of his cavities, nor did I have the impulse to, so stop stroking yourself. No matter what Mrs. Abraham says. I know she saw me exiting his apartment and started whatever rumor you've no doubt already heard from other neighbors and assume to be true."
Still no response.
I was rambling defensively. I thought I was better than this. Guess I wasn't. Great. Another reason to love myself to death. And how the fuck did Sergeant Marzoli take the subway in from the boroughs to Hell's Kitchen without a fucking wrinkle on his shirt or hair out of place? He was inhumanly perfect and everything in me wanted to take him down several hundred notches. I just couldn't figure out how.
"Honestly, I don't think the twat remembered a second of me coming into his apartment, 'cause the next night the music was thumping at two a.m. anyway."
Marzoli wrote this information down, halting my monologue.
"You actually left your apartment?" he murmured loud enough for me to hear, "Good for you."
I suppose there was a grin on the other side of his full, but stern lips.
"It was a couple months ago. Or was it a year? I don't know."
"Ah," he looked at his notes, "back when you were still getting some from … ah … from Johanna Butchers."
Ahh. Thank you, Mrs. Abraham. What else did he know about me?
I responded, "She was getting headaches around me long before that."
"But back then she still had hope for you."
The surprise of that comment coming from this fucking Puerto Rican Sicilian stranger was replete with so much goddamn invasive inappropriateness that an equally surprising feeling of indignation rose from my dirt-dry emotional pit. What the fuck right did this asshole have to go there?
"Oh," he continued, "I pissed you off. See, you're not completely dead inside."
Fuck you.
How to best rid myself of this rip-roaringly entertaining asshole?
"I get it. You're perfect. I'm pathetic. You're shiny and sparkly. I'm globs of puke. I'm just a backward glance away from offing myself, and you're greased up for unlimited upward mobility. Thank you. Thank you so very fucking much for establishing that. Grind that muddy heel into my back on your way up to the podium. It's fun."
This was followed by absolute silence, except for the grinding still emanating from the sink. I thought I'd feel better after venting, but instead I was surprised to feel a lump form in the back of my throat. I'd simply not vocalized my self-pity out loud since the utter heavenliness of my birthday last December, and the act of committing my sarcasm to words tapped into a buried grave of emotions. Finding the words "offing myself" and then transforming them into vibrations from my vocal chords had a surprising resonance that doubled back on me, opened its long bony fingers, and grasped my Adam's apple. The reality of ending myself had never hit me as a true possibility until that very moment. But it was a possibility. My life was in my hands. My death was too.
I'd become … I'd slipped into becoming … one of the rotting slash flattened saps of New York City. What a fucking gift this shithead was giving me!
I darted a glance toward the stranger in front of me and realized he was staring deeply into my eyes as I was thinking. Not just my eyes. He was reaching down further into me. He was following my thoughts and responding silently with a dynamically linked dialogue. His facial expression was open and compassionate, subtly shifting along with my thoughts. I could feel his concern. I could feel his involvement with my feelings.
How the hell did this man, with whom I had absolutely zero ties, have the ability to reach down into me and communicate? And how did he develop this insight into me so quickly? More importantly, why would he?
Immediately I realized I had no desire to expose this much self-shitty-pity in front of this asshole. Slam. The door shut.
I snapped, "Do you need any more information from me?"
"Is your disposal running?"
Holy shit … the fucker wouldn't rise, lower, duck left, or bob right even a centimeter to avoid my shit flinging!
"Yes. That's my disposal running."
"Here. Shove this down it if you want, or give me a call if you think of anything that could help."
He handed me his card. I accepted it. I did not look at it. He did not offer a salutation. He did not offer his hand. He simply smiled perfunctorily, probably more to present the dimples most would find irresistible, and exited. He strode with confidence and culturally ingrained bravura down the hall to the stairs, which would have been a supremely studly exit were it not complimented by Minnie's sudden high pitched yapitty yap yapping as the sergeant approached the head of the stairs.
My heart was beating faster than it had in months.
What the hell caused that reaction?
Chapter Five
The moment I closed the door, the glum ooze blobbed its lugubrious, gelatinous mass around me again. The grime of neglect re-grouted itself in the cracks of my crow's feet and under my nails. Once again the thick mugginess of waiting for the Next steamed from the vents into my stiff lungs.
But something was different.
The room in which I'd grown accustomed to stewing in the dark was now kindled by the violet-red sunset, edging the open curtain with fire, flame-feathering my dusty surfaces with burnt orange and rose red.
I could close the curtain again.
The disposal was still growling from the throat of the sink. I switched it, and the grinding stopped. The contrasting hush in tandem with the sunset hues triggered a hairline crack in that mossy, wet wall that separated me from the brown-green muck of my memories. Nothing specific. Just a tingle of an awakening.
I took a few steps to the open window.
It'd been so long. Did I really want to look? It's just a courtyard. The buildings across the way held no more significance than any other groupings of buildings of the seventy-two thousand blocks in New York City. What was my hesitation? What was I battling?
I inched closer to the opening in the curtains. As my eyes adjusted to the novelty of focusing long distance, the outside came into view. The raw unadorned backside of the buildings once again appeared, some of their eyes glowing with lights, some of them closed, some winking as their occupants moved.
And there they were- the neighbors.
My eyes found their way to the apartment on the top floor on the left.
The Couch Potatoes. Slumped with their rounded bellies side by side in the comfy brown couch, eyes pointed toward the television. The coffee table contained the remote control, two plates of comfort food, two large pint glasses of soda, a loaf of bread and a small plate with a butter stick. The two men didn't talk to each other. Their routine hadn't changed at all since I last saw them, and watching them troubled me.
Lazy brains, lazy bodies, lazy imaginations, like sloths sunning their bellies on a rock six p.m. to midnight, every night of every week of every month of every year. Certainly I was hardly one to disdain the Couch Potatoes in terms of immobility, but at least I had the kinetic dynamic of anger, sadness, and self-loathing to feed me rather than the passive mind mush of corporate sponsorship, reality scum, contrived plots, and muted performances by hair models slash actresses.
I saw a flash of a lighter in the Little Old Man's apartment. He was, still living, lying in his bed completely exposed. He looked like a skeleton lightly wrapped in white gauze. He was lighting grass in a small red glass pipe, and struggling with flicking the lighter between his trembling fingers. He tried one more time and accidently tipped the pipe upside down. The weed drifted to the floor. I could almost hear him grumble some century old expletive and proceed to refill the pipe from the Ziploc bag. He was just about out of his supply. I guess the old black man with the white mustache would be at his door soon. I knew I ought to have felt it was nice to see the Little Old Man still breathing, but instead I was just irritated he hadn't kicked it yet. I wedged the pillow back into the corner of the window to block the view of his apartment.
The lights flicked on in the Broadway dancer's apartment, and my eyes shifted over. The smooth white body of the dancer bounced lithely onto the couch, placing a sandwich on the coffee table. He was clothed only in tighty whities. Must not be dancing in a show again if he's eating wheat at this hour. He covered his lap with his laptop. His eyes darted back and forth between the computer screen and the television. He reached for the sandwich and took a large bite, causing a dollop of what looked like jelly to drip down his chest.