He was at the café on the balcony. Hemmed in by suits at either shoulder, men and women drinking at the tables around him and the bar behind him. He leaned over the balustrade, gripping a mug of Sam Adams beer.
Below, on the floor of the huge concourse, streams of commuters flowed in all directions. They flowed into the concourse from the long hallways on every side, and out through the marble archways that led to the tracks. Under the vast cerulean vault above, where the zodiac was painted on assbackward with weak light bulbs twinkling here and there for stars, the people swirled and intertwisted. They eddied and turned around the information kiosk at the center of the place.
The kiosk was a brass gazebo with an archaic clock atop it. The hands on the clock read twenty to five. Perkins sipped the foam off his beer.
He should’ve gone home, he thought. He should’ve gone back to check on Zach. The dread was climbing into his throat, almost nausea now. It was getting harder and harder to think. He should’ve just headed the fuck on home.
But what then? What could he do then besides stand by and watch while Zach turned himself in? While Mulligan and the feds tore him limb from limb?
The lacy black hands on the clock atop the gazebo swept around slowly. Four forty-five. A whirr of wordless voices rose up steadily toward the backward stars. He thought about Tiffany. He thought about finding her, questioning her about the body in the mews, about the photograph of her with Fernando Woodlawn. He had phoned her mother’s house in Scarsdale, but there was no answer. He had decided to come here to wait for the 5:02, the train she had marked on the schedule. He had come reluctantly. He kept telling himself that he ought to go home.
The man in the information kiosk had told him that the train would come in on track 28. Perkins could see the number painted over one of the marble archways below. He watched the arch and sipped his beer. He hoped the beer would cut through the gel of dread that clogged him now from belly to brain. But no, it was going to take a lot more beers than one to do that. He drank more deeply. He thought about Tiffany. He shuddered. Grimaced on the streaming rush below.
He remembered the first time he had seen her. She was already living with Zach by then. Oliver had never even heard of her and then one day he went to visit Zach at home and she was just there, just living with him. They had met at the Pennsylvania retreat apparently. The Christian place Ollie had yanked Zach out of after his second crack-up. She had stayed on there alone for a while after Zach left. But apparently she missed her snookum’s mystic brilliance. She had to be with him.
“He was operating about three astro-levels above everyone else there,” she explained to Ollie, when he met her. “That’s why his aura got so clouded over. It was the effort of trying to shine through their misunderstandings.”
“Yeah,” Oliver said. “Yeah, that must’ve been it.”
Zach and Tiff had looped their arms over each other and beamed at him. Two cosmic goofballs in love.
Perkins shook his head as he remembered. Even the thought of her made his tongue go sour. The thought of her treacherous, deep, doe eyes. He glanced up a moment at the stars painted on the ceiling. The April constellations rolling eastward into winter. She believed in astrology. She believed that dreams were messages from God. She believed that Jesus had a white aura because Mary had conceived from the divine energy radiated by the star of Bethlehem. “You know,” she told him once, “it’s just so hard for me to get it into my head that you’re actually Zach’s brother.” She had that Venus face, that voice like music. She tilted her head at him when she spoke. “I mean, his astro-level is so high, you know, his aura is so pure and he understands so much and, I mean, you …”
Perkins snorted. He tilted back his mug and let the beer ripple into him. The suit standing on his right had moved off toward the bar. Now, when he set his mug down on the balustrade, he saw a woman in a green dress seated at one of the café tables nearby. She had one leg crossed over her knee, the black shoe swinging out and back, out and back. She was sipping a soda water and lime. She looked up at Perkins and he looked away. He scanned the concourse grimly. Leaned against the flat cold stone and gazed down at the steadily rising flood of rushing people under the man-made heavens. The hands on the kiosk clock had moved closer to five.
You don’t understand anything, Oliver, not anything. That’s what Tiffany had said to him. That night. That night a year ago. It made his guts curdle to remember it, and he detested her and he detested himself and he was sick of it. Full of dread and sick of it. You don’t understand anything.
This time, when he glanced down, the woman in the green dress held his gaze. She considered him; she let her lips soften. Perkins had the almost overwhelming urge to hurl himself onto his knees before her. Wrap his arms around her, bury his nose in her groin. Nuzzle her like a puppy dog, sniffing for sex and comfort and a little respite from his loneliness.
Probably unwise, he thought, all in all. He offered her a sad smile, then turned back to the balustrade, back to the view below.
The hands on the kiosk clock touched five.
That night, he thought. That night when he had found Zachie drugged out of his mind. Lying on the floor of the mews bedroom, mumbling about the goddamned teacup and brotherly love. Where was Tiffany then with her fucking astro-levels? She should have taken care of him a little bit. She should have opened her eyes and seen what was happening to him. No. She showed herself that night. She showed herself in her true colors …
He grimaced again, an expression of pain. His stomach was sour and his heart was lead. He thought of this afternoon: finding Zach at his apartment; Zach and him together. When they’d been kidding around, laughing like that—it was the first time since he could remember that his loneliness had lifted a little. That pall of loneliness.
Jesus Christ, he thought. Jesus Christ, what have we done?
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the movement at track 28. He turned and saw the staggered flow of commuters break through the marble archway, spread out across the grand concourse. He straightened. His eyes picked over each person who stepped under the arch, followed each figure as it entered the surrounding currents. The flow through the archway stalled a second, then began again in a fresh gout.
And Perkins reared up at the balustrade, stunned for a second by what he saw.
Out through the arch, there had come a small, slim figure. Its head was bowed, its face obscured by the brim of an oversized baseball cap. But he recognized the outfit right away. That crazy quilt shirt, the coat of many colors: How could he miss it? The jeans, torn at the knees. The red canvas bag the figure was carrying …
“What the hell?” he said. “Zachie?”
The figure moved across the concourse toward a corridor of lighted food concessions. There was a subway entrance there, just across from a magazine stand. As the figure moved to the center of the concourse, it turned. Looked up at the information kiosk, at the antique clock that now read 5:09.
Perkins saw the profile in that moment, and said nothing. His lips parted and the air came out of him silently.
The figure hurried on across the concourse toward the subways. And it was not Zach. It was Tiffany.
The gray-haired man with the folded Times would go home tonight and tell his wife that he had seen a monster. He was a stocky, staunch old Wall Street crusader. Florid skin, pulpy nose. Planted on the subway platform like an oak, waiting for the next train. He would chuckle as he said it: “So I’m just standing there waiting for my train when this … this creature came crawling up onto the platform. The way it looked, it must’ve been living in the tunnels for years! I’ve read about that sort of thing …”
That’s how Nancy imagined it anyway as she climbed up the ladder off the tracks. The way the old guy was staring at her made her want to shrivel up to nothing. She was painfully aware of what a mess she was. Her blouse in shreds, her bra sticking out of it. Her face and arms streaked with dirt and blood. And then, when she got a whiff o
f herself … Climbing onto the platform on her hands and knees, her head hung down. She smelled her urine and her vomit. Her rank sweat. The traces of that juicy garbage in the alcove. This guy, this Wall Street guy, made a face at the very sight of her; and who could blame him?
She pushed herself to her feet. Felt the weight shifting at her groin and smoothed her skirt down nervously. She had the gun hidden in the front of her panties now. She’d lost the letter opener in her fight with the madman, and she couldn’t find her purse, but she had hung on to the gun. She could feel it, heavy against her pubic hair, warm and somehow vital against her flesh. She looked around to see if anyone noticed it bulging through her skirt. But only the stalwart businessman was looking at her at all, and he was staring at her grimy cleavage. The rest of the crowd was gazing off to the left, watching the oncoming lights of the next train.
She turned her profile to the businessman, ignored him. She shuffled to the edge of the platform. She was on the uptown side now. She had crossed over in the tunnel. As she was limping back toward the light, she had seen the train—the one that had nearly crushed her. It had been stopped before the downtown platform. She had seen the transit police pouring into the station there. Blue uniforms weaving between the gray suits and the tweed skirts and jackets. They were searching for her. They had seen her and the madman on the tracks. She had scurried away from them, across the tunnel, between the columns, to the other side. She was going uptown anyway. She was going to Gramercy Park.
She had decided to head for home. To see her mother. She didn’t know where else to go. Her address was the only clue to her life that she had. And if her mother didn’t know her, if her mother didn’t know who she was, what she was … Well, then she was lost for sure, forever.
The uptown train sliced smoothly into the station. Clean silver cars flashing by, slowing to a stop. The doors slid open and Nancy limped wearily into the car. Several of the passengers glanced up at her. When she sat down, the woman in the seat next to her got up, moved away.
The train took off. Nancy stared straight ahead. Clasped her hands between her knees, hunched her shoulders. Clutched her misery to herself. She felt like crying. Her mind kept showing her a movie of the subway tunnel. The glare of the train lights. The glare in the wild, agonized eyes above her. The bore of that gun, the sudden death ready to explode out of that gun …
That man, she thought, shuddering. That madman. She began to tremble as she remembered his dull face caught in the subway lights, pinned on the tracks. His arm raised uselessly before the onrushing train.
You are experiencing an episode of schizophrenia …
She had to hug herself to get the trembling to stop. That’s what he was, she thought. That man. He was a schizophrenic. Just like me.
At the end, in the darkest place of all … She remembered the merry gaze, the quiet, merry voice of Billy Joe Campbell, the crazy man who had accosted her at Bellevue. In the darkest place of all, there is a fearsome creature, he had said. The Other; the self whom, above everything, you wish not to be.
Well, that was him, all right, she thought. That nut case with the gun. That was definitely a self she would prefer to avoid. Living in the dark like that. Drooling in the dark. Screaming out fantasies about federal agents from Mars; extraterrestrial brain snatchers; murder at eight o’clock; at the Animal Hour … Oh yes, she too could have a career as a Crazy Subway Guy.
Only if you have the courage to embrace that self can you learn the magic word …
“Ugh.” She let out a little moan, shivering. And then caught herself. Huddled into her stink. Muttering. Shuddering. She stole a glance around the crowded subway car. All those faces against the wall. The people standing at their silver poles. Why, to them, she already was the Horrid Thing. The Creature from the Subway Tunnel. They were probably all staring at her really, secretly. Peeking secretly at the bulge of the gun in her panties. They were probably all just waiting for the next stop to start shouting for the police …
Suspicious, her eyes traveled over the crowd. The Black Secretary. The Warehouseman in the plaid shirt. The two Businesswomen. And then, also, here and there, mingled with the others, strange beasts. The white-skinned Vampire between the secretary and a clerk. A furry Wolfman behind the businesswomen. A ghoulish Monk at the warehouseman’s shoulder. Hey, wait a minute, she thought. What was going on here, anyway? Everyone was secretly watching her but did anyone else even see these monstrosities?
She had forgotten it was Halloween.
Twenty-third Street. She saw it with a start, as if coming awake. This was her station. She stood up quickly and joined the small gush through the doors to the platform. She kept her eyes turned down as she shuffled behind the crowd. A policeman stood at the stairs, scanning faces. She looked away as she shuffled past him.
She came up onto Park Avenue South. She was surprised to see how dark it was. It must be after five already. At least. The clear autumn blue of the sky was gone. A violet dusk hung over the broad double avenue. The string of traffic lights at each corner to the north burned green in the darkling air, all the way up to the bright facade of Grand Central. Then the lights changed and burned bright yellow; then bright red. The thick rush hour traffic halted. Great buses grumbled, and white headlights glowed in the deep blue air.
Three hours left, she thought. She stood on the corner, looking around, looking for a clock. But something else caught her eye. She turned and found herself peering into the broad display window of an electronics store. A Newmark and Lewis right there on the corner. “Halloween Deals!” declared orange cardboard letters pasted to the glass.
Oh, she thought dully. That explained the monsters in the subway car. There were monsters here too. A nearly life-sized cardboard Frankenstein, his arms outstretched. A witch stirring her brew. A cardboard skeleton on the glass door with yellow eyes and an evil grin and worms and rats squirming in his rib cage.
But that’s not what had caught her attention. What had made her turn was something in the display itself. Nine television sets glowing in the center of the window. Twenty-inch Sonys, stacked together on shelves, three on top of three on top of three. Each had the same picture. A pretty coffee-skinned newswoman peering out earnestly. Must be the five o’clock news, Nancy thought.
She gazed at the TVs absently. Hadn’t there been something else? Something on the screen just a moment ago? She had caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of her eye, hadn’t she? Something familiar, something that had stirred her memory …
For another moment, she gazed through the window at the nine newswomen. All the same, all surrounded by cardboard bats and ghoulies, draped with Halloween crepe. Then she shook her head. No. It had just been a sensation. A glitch. Like déjà vu. She began to turn away.
And the picture changed. She hesitated. She stood there on the sidewalk, this ragamuffin in her tattered blouse. She forgot, for a moment, her filth-streaked skin. The weight in her underpants. The rank smells coming off her. And she gazed through the store window at the nine television sets, the nine pictures. They were pictures now of a young woman’s face.
Do I know her?
She was a pretty girl, wearing one of those graduation hats with the tassel. High rosy cheeks and a shy smile. Glistening brown hair to her shoulders. Blue eyes.
I know her …
The sight of her made Nancy’s stomach contract with fear.
The Other; the self whom, above all, you wish not to be.
And now the picture—all nine pictures—had changed again. There was a video shot of a house now. A small house. White brick fringed with red ivy. Shaded by a maple tree on a small tree-lined lane. And it made the fear worsen: It was like a memory, a threatening memory, just out of reach. The ragged, smelly young woman stood there, gazing at it, licking her lips. What. What is it?
And again, the picture changed. A quick cut, almost simultaneous on all nine sets. On all nine sets, men carried a stretcher out of the house. A stretcher with a black shap
e on it. A black body bag.
I know this. I know this. Damn it. Her stomach was sloshing around now like a washing machine. Her breath was quickening, her pulse was like a drum. And yet she felt at the same time as if she were floating away. Drifting off above her own body, this physical cauldron, its weird, unthinking fear.
She watched the TVs as if hypnotized. Another cut. More people in the narrow lane outside the little house. Policemen striding purposefully past the cameras. The camera shakily panning down to a plastic bucket in one cop’s hand. The camera zoomed in. The bucket—nine times the bucket—filled the screen—one bucket on every screen. And Nancy’s hand rose slowly, her dirty hand. She pressed it to her throat. She felt like she was strangling. She was so frightened …
“Oh!”
She gasped. Her hand flew from her throat to her mouth. A man was walking toward her, nine times, on nine screens. A man in jeans. Black hair, almost to his shoulders. Weary eyes. She knew him, yes. Those weary, lonesome, lovelorn eyes.
But I … I made him up!
She couldn’t mistake him. The sharp planes of his face, the lived-in lines. It was her poet! The poet she had dreamed about. The suffering artist who had put his naked arms around her. She had fantasized him! She had wished for those sad eyes to turn to her. To look up from the pages on his desk to where she lay naked beneath the sheet in his garret … And there he was! Walking down the alley, his shoulders hunched. Holding up his hand to ward off the reporters’ microphones. The microphones converging on him. Policemen flanking him, escorting him to their car. Nancy’s fear had spread all through her, and yet she wondered at it too: She had fantasized him and there he was, right there, he was …
The pedestrians heard her cry out. There were a lot of pedestrians on the sidewalk around her—it was rush hour now. The pavement was rhythmic with their homeward foot-steps. The darkening air was alive with their vital eyes. She cried out and they heard her and glanced her way. Glanced at this pitiful, slack-jawed, staring thing, this filthy, muttering rag of a girl. They veered to go around her safely as she stood there, oblivious to them, gaping at the nine televisions in the Newmark and Lewis window. Gaping at the nine faces on the nine sets, all the same.
The Animal Hour Page 21
