I had been washing my underwear in the sink that morning when I found the card Marzoli had given to me. I could call him. But why? I couldn't place exactly what I wanted from that sergeant, but he made me...damn it … he made me yearn. But yearn for what, exactly? Aside from that confusion, why for fuck's sake would he want to return to a dump like this? To a dump like me?
I hadn't looked at myself in the mirror for months. No doubt I had tight abs when I was with Johanna, taking those damn core classes four times a week. It seemed a flat belly was one of the prerequisites to being the main squeeze of the queen and the fashionista long-haired skirts she called friends. A year ago I might have thought any woman, let alone a man, casting an eye my direction was earned and deserved. But it'd been a year since those glorious days, and I had absolutely no desire to feed my joy with lovely visions of increased flab and decreased tone. No thank you. I left the hooded sweater and dusty sheets draped over the mirror. What I interpreted as Marzoli's attraction to me was, after all, just a Sicilian Puerto Rican's street instincts to oil the machinery as he pumped a stranger for information. Right?
And yet …
As pathetic as I knew it to be, Marzoli's attention was, in sad fact, the only indication of the arrival of the Next I had to cling to. It made no logical sense, but I needed to call him. I needed to pay my cell phone bill to call him. I needed to sell a song to get the money to pay the bill. I needed to revive this piece of shit song in order to sell it. This was my idiotic jump into the rapids above Niagara Falls, hoping that Mr. Tall Dark & Handsome was Superman. But clinging to anything was a hope in and of itself, and wasn't that better than not clinging to anything at all?
Revising music in my present bog of bitterness was like pushing a stalled car to the nearest gas station. There was no downward slope to ease the strain or helpful pickup truck to give your bumper a nudge. You just pushed, one backbreaking step at a time, one drop of sweat after another. When I finally arrived at the station, I printed the damn six pages using the last ounce of ink left in the laser printer. In fact, the bottom half of the last page was already a faded grey. Yep, "Paralyzed" would be the last thing I printed for good long time. How fucking apropos. Sealing the envelope, I addressed it to Rebecca Stray, my agent. I opened the book of stamps only to discover it was empty.
Saturday was the day Mrs. Abraham took her weekly stroll to the farmer's market, and thus the day she made apple strudel. Just as I anticipated, she knocked on my door to retrieve last week's casserole dish before her trip to union Square and ask me if I wanted anything special. I looked at her blankly as she smiled her yellow toothy smile, Minnie in her arms yapping. I didn't care one iota what she decided to make.
"I'd love strawberry rhubarb," I responded, trying to sound invested.
"Oooh, that sounds nice. But it's winter. I don't think I can get strawberries or rhubarb."
"Aww," I said, doing my best to be disappointed, "Then anything'll be just fine."
I returned last week's dish to her, smiled, and asked her if she would mind dropping this envelope off with the doorman in Rebecca's building on Sixth Avenue near union Square. It was basically on the way. Or it could be.
I wondered if this was what a sociopath would feel like: adopting particular facial expressions and vocal tones with intellectual exactitude to hide his true agenda. I wondered if I would have to be this deliberate for the rest of my life.
Was Mrs. Abraham completely unaware what an ungrateful prick lived in this apartment? Beyond her yellow-toothed smile, underneath one of three floral sundresses she owned, on the other side of her sparkly green eyes, did she see who I was? Would she continue to be so neighborly if she knew? I suddenly felt a deeper guilt as I realized the answer was yes. Mrs. Abraham would be this generous to me even if she'd learned I'd been a convicted baby killer.
She accepted the package with an affirmative nod and a smile that said she was grateful for the opportunity to be of help.
She was grateful to me!
She lived alone like me and she suffered loss like me, but she radiated so much contrasting energy. She was a little old lady of unstoppable love, and that made me feel like a fucking monster.
What was her secret?
I closed the door as she slowly wobbled her way down the hall, Minnie yapping goodbye.
Nap time … perchance not to dream …
The arpeggios above stopped, followed by the irritated clunk of a wooded keyboard cover closing.
It was six o'clock.
I was sweating and needed a shower.
As I was toweling my back, I heard a raspy moan from above.
Oh my god, again?
In the darkness, covered only in my towel, I peeked out of the window. Mr. Perfect was once again at the bedroom window. He steadily feasted his eyes on the window above mine. His engorged and upright dick protruded from his pressed five thousand dollar suit.
He slowly undulated his hips, tightening and releasing his manhole. He released his dick and unbuckled his belt. His pants dropped to his ankles, revealing thick, muscular, hairy legs. His scrotum was full and round, and his pubic hair neatly trimmed to frame that long spitting cobra, cocked, splayed, and unhooded.
The bastard was prepared tonight. He picked up a bottle of lube, squeezed the gel into his hand and greased his dick. The sensation caused him to gasp. I heard Ruben upstairs moan again. Then Mr. Perfect reached behind his ass with his slick finger, inserting it and causing the cobra to grow another half inch. His eyes practically crossed in the ecstasy of that instant. His lips formed an O as he attempted to control his breathing, his heart thumping wildly in pleasure. His thighs flexed as he dipped six inches, bending at the knees. I could see the definition of his muscular thighs.
Mr. Perfect suddenly opened his eyes and extracted his finger. He looked at Ruben with intent and motioned with his hand. At first I didn't understand the meaning of this motion, then I realized he was beckoning for Ruben to come over.
Oh, my god.
This was not good news. It's one thing to flirt with a neighbor, it's another to invite him over. It requires a certain kind of pathology to think it appropriate to invite a complete stranger over to fuck the shit out of you in the very bedroom in which you sleep with your wife, in which your kids climb into bed when thunder scares them, in which your wife braids your daughter's hair.
I heard the window above me open. Ruben descended the fire escape, trying to step as lightly as possible on the thin metal stairs with his red Converse shoes. He was wearing well-fitted khaki pants that showed off his long thick legs and his tight ass, and a tight thermal shirt with a V-neck that accentuated the development of his chest and the breadth of his shoulders. When I'd seen him face-to-face, I was too busy being an asshole to realize there was a goddamn good reason the show he'd been putting on upstairs for the neighborhood was well worth watching. I ducked out of sight as he circled around the platform to climb down the second flight of the fire escape. I popped back up as he reached the bottom of the stairs, which ended at the approximate height of the top of the foot wide brick wall that separated my building's section of the courtyard from that of the Perfects.
Rather than lower the rusty ladder that would allow him to climb down to the ground, he hopped onto the brick wall. With catlike agility, I watched Ruben's silhouette traverse the top of the wall, which took a right angle toward the Perfect's building. Ruben then climbed onto the mirroring fire escape. He dexterously ascended the metallic stairs to the bottom of the Princess's apartment. She was reading a fashion magazine on her bed, dipping a spoon into a container of yogurt. She was facing the window. Ruben could not get past.
I looked up and saw Mr. Perfect observing Ruben's actions from above. All that elation halted because of the Princess's innocuous positioning. Mr. Perfect opened his window and stuck his head out to get a better look at what Ruben was doing. Ruben looked up at him, smiling, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and shrugged his shoulders helplessly, pointing with his index finger at the problem. Mr. Perfect seemed unperturbed. He pulled up his pants and exited the bedroom. I watched him walk through the short dividing hall to the living room and then exit the front door to the hall.
What was he doing?
The other neighbors were completely oblivious to this ridiculousness.
The Couch Potatoes glued their eyes to their screen and their garlic bread to their asses.
Schlongzilla was holding a script opposite some beautiful dark-haired actress who was also holding a script. They were rehearsing, apparently, gazing into each other's eyes, mouthing soft dialogue. A love scene? He glanced away to pour two glasses of red wine. Right. Wasn't difficult to see what kind of catharsis this rehearsal was leading to.