High as the Horses' Bridles: A Novel

by Scott Cheshire

  I asked him, “What about the bridge?”

  “Well.” He straightened. “It’s a real bridge, a small-scale replica of a famous bridge, the Rialto in Venice. There were clouds.” He pointed with the flashlight. “Usually there and over there.”

  A real bridge, the Rialto. All this time I had no idea.

  The freckled boy asked, “Can we walk on it?”

  “Insurance says not right now. But soon.” Like the boy, I wanted to walk on it.

  The guide continued, “The Howard has passed through many hands. The last owners being a church group who lovingly restored much of the interior and exterior, I have to say. And to whom we are much indebted.”

  I felt like some of them were eyeing me suspiciously. I thought of Dad; was he sleeping, was he awake?

  “Unfortunately, said group was no longer able to afford the building and so they sold the Howard to the city. We wish them well. It should also be said the original murals downstairs in the foyer were summarily, and dare I say unnecessarily, painted over when said group purchased the property. Previously, the panels beautifully depicted scenes from classical mythologies. We have promotional literature from the original period with detailed pictures. And we’re handling the issue as we speak. You saw the scaffolding, and so…” He motioned toward a tall scaffold erected in the Great Room over the seats.

  I saw that the balcony was bookended by a pair of opposing red velvet ropes, blocking access to two closed doors.

  “Now, prior to the Howard’s previous owners, the site was primarily used for entertainment. Onstage theater, and of course”—he presented the stage with an outstretched hand; in that hand was a remote control—“they showed movies.” On cue, a massive white screen descended from the ceiling above the bridge. “The last showing was in 1977, the fantabulous age of grindhouse.” He paused, appeared to make some decision, and continued speaking. “Do we know the term ‘grindhouse,’ hmmm?”

  I wanted to know everything, all of it, and I was sure the more I knew about this place the more I would know about me. I saw the bridge was hidden behind the screen.

  He said, “The last showing was a typical double feature. Deodato’s super-gruesome cannibal horror, The Last Survivor. And a sci-fi classic, Logan’s Run.”

  The children looked at each other. There was visible interest in the word “cannibal.” I edged away from the group, physically compelled to see the bridge.

  “Who here has seen Logan’s Run? Hmm? Anyone?”

  I dropped to one knee behind a row of seats, and pretended to tie my shoe. I untied the laces for effect.

  “Let’s take a look from the main room floor, and we’ll get the full picture from there.”

  There was a shuffling of feet. Busy noises from the foyer came in through the open doors as I played with my laces.

  “Every last inch of copper has been hand buffed by toothbrush.…”

  Heels clicked on the marble stairs.

  I looked around, stood up after tying my shoe. I rushed to the right side, sidling behind the red velvet rope, where the way led into a narrow hall that ramped upward and curved leftward so I couldn’t make out exactly where I was headed. The hall maybe went where I wanted, I was hoping, and I continued along the rise of the ramp in the narrow white hall and I kept on walking until I saw a great wash of whiteness: the movie screen.

  It was enormous, a giant’s bedsheet.

  It dawned on me: I’m out there. Now. I’m standing on the bridge right now. I lightly stamped my feet. I leaned forward and looked down at the decorative wood, at the latticework.

  Then there was a crash of loud static.

  A pure static sound came flooding from everywhere and filling up the hall and the whole Great Room, and the white screen suddenly went gray. There were flecks of black and gray, dark, and some darker, all of them dancing on the screen. Then the lights in the Great Room went out. And what was maybe a thread, or a maybe stray hair on a film cel, lashed across my vision like a long whip or a black lightning bolt from above. And the screen filled up with a giant image: a tall cross inside a large circle at least two stories tall. The image joggled and it jerked. There was a loud clicking sound in the static. The cross was there in the circle, and then it was gone.

  Then just as fast, the image next took the form of a number, the number 5, a monstrous and backward 5, looming there twenty feet tall.

  Then there was a 4, a backward 4 …

  3 …

  2 …

  I didn’t look away. I extended my arm and stood on my toes. I slung a leg over the bridge. I reached out, trying to touch the screen, which now was just a few feet away and hanging from the ceiling. I stretched myself and saw the individual white nylon fibers. I stretched myself and touched the colossal on-screen image of the 1. The lights came on, showing everything, the bridge beneath my feet, and the countersunk screws holding all of this together, the formed wooden joists above my head. Right there, beyond the reach of my hand, on the very outer edge of the ceiling, where the ceiling abutted the wall, and not so far from a small Saturn’s wobbly faux rings, was the neatly scripted signature: Harold Lowell, 1965. One of the painters had signed his name. Then the screen slowly lifted until every seat below sneaked into view. And then I could see the rest of the ceiling, and every faded body of light, every last crack in the plaster, the scratches, bruises, and pockmarks that inevitably come with age.

  I walked along the sidewalk sipping yet another coffee, wanting to share with someone the strange dreamy feeling I was having. I got her voice mail and didn’t leave a message.

  I walked for a long time through the neighborhoods, past the apartment buildings and the two-family walk-ups, the brick houses so close beside each other, a border space of six thin inches between, the pigeon shit in dry white drips staining the ribbed aluminum drainpipes. Past the cell-phone shops and the Laundromats, the overcrowded railroad apartments one flight up and overhead, and Stinking Lizaveta’s Famous Best Russian Emporium. I walked by a large gated mosque, aqua-blue minaret and dome shining, and I remembered there was a Russian Orthodox church just a few blocks away.

  As I walked by the church, the doors slowly opened and out came a mass of people, some laughing and cheering down the stairs. It was a wedding. I stopped and watched them for a while. The white flowers adorning the railing and the long limousine parked at the curb. Bells were ringing, and the bride and groom wore red ornate crowns on their heads and they were both quite serious and also just short of cracking up. The older ones were stoic and congratulatory and appropriately delighted, and the younger ones in dress shirts with no ties or jackets, collars open at the neck, carousing and acting so healthy and happy, so outwardly and openly, that the whole street came alive with new life. The trees tossed pale green and yellow flowers from their arms and the light breeze made my hair move. I walked on past the Irish bars and the Italian delis until I found myself under the elevated N train.

  I stood there beneath the high-up tracks. Shadow planks on the street and sidewalk as the train rattled by overhead blocking the sun and letting the sun through intermittently between the railcars. I thought again of my father, and of how many different kinds of people there are in the world, and I felt terrible for enjoying being away from the house for so long. Across the street was an abattoir for chickens in an extra-wide two-car garage. Steel shutter doors were rolled down halfway. There were feathers in the hot air, limp floating on the exhaust fumes, spinning and darting about in the traffic gales. I smelled metal and blood, and heard the buzz of bone saws, but not the cluck of a single chicken.

  There was a buzzing at my waist. It was Sarah, and I broke into a sweat.

  I said, “Okay. First. Let me say I’m sorry, but it’s been an emotional trip. And I keep calling and hanging up and calling again because I know I need to stop calling you. And I was going to leave a message—”

  “Forget it. I’m calling because I want to know about your father.”

  “So far, a very odd t
rip.” A tall, zaftig woman in peach velour crossed the street while nibbling on a hot dog. I was still hungry, and this made me think of a knish. I wanted a knish. And maybe another aspirin.

  “So talk,” she said.

  A city bus bulleted beside me, only inches from the curb.

  “Well, to begin with, he’s sleeping in the bathroom.”

  “What does that even mean? You need to give me more information.”

  “Sorry, it’s noisy. Hold on.” I left from under the train and walked along the block. “He sleeps in a little red cave.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Everything’s gone to shit. And I mean shit. The house is, I don’t know what.” I took a breath. “A giant litter box, cat shit everywhere.”

  “He has cats?”

  “He’s become one of those cat ladies with crap and litter on the floor.”

  “What else?”

  “The house is a wreck, I can’t do it justice. He weighs fifty pounds. You were totally right. He’s in a very bad way. Never goes upstairs, I don’t think he even has the strength to go upstairs, and he’s living in the downstairs bathroom. I know this sounds like, What am I talking about? Give me more information. But I don’t have much more information. Are you there?”

  “Okay, slow down, slow down. You okay? I don’t want to worry about you, too.”

  “He sleeps on a cot in the bathroom. All day. With a cute red night-light so it’s extra fucked. And he says he talks to God in his dreams. They have conversations. He sits in His lap. He sees my mother, and kisses my mother. He’s sleeping all day. And it’s not like I think he’s crazy. I don’t know what I think. And he’s buying things on the Internet, I don’t know what besides toothbrushes and wine and cat food, and I had an experience today like I’ve never had before, like I’m the one going crazy.”

  “Why the bathroom?”

  “I don’t know. There are rules. He fills up the tub. And this is why I called you, I mean, why the messages. I want a knish.”

  “Mmmm.”

  This is the secret for walking in cities against the oncoming crowd: look down and pay no attention to others. Walkers parted like the Red Sea in front of me.

  I said, “What’s amazing is I can go for days, weeks in Otter and not see as many people as I’m seeing right now. And I think he’s in pain. He’s not eating, not a bite since I got here.”

  “So what exactly is he doing?”

  “He sits there next to the tub. He’s talking to me about eggs. There are garbage bags in the hallway, full garbage bags.”

  A hot dog cart was on the corner. There was a radio, badly spray-painted white, blaring beneath the umbrella. A game announcer said, “Be sure the Babe is rolling in his grave.” I walked over to an apartment building and sat on the stoop. “I think he’s in pain. And I think I have to call an ambulance or force him to go see a doctor.”

  “Or the police.”

  “I’m not calling the police. There’s no crime.”

  “I mean to help him. Or the hospital for help.”

  An elderly woman gave me the stink-eye as she walked by and into the building. “Talk to me about something else,” I said. “Just for a second. What are you doing? What room are you in? Describe the room.”

  “I can’t believe now I have to worry about you.”

  I said, “I’ve never seen your apartment.”

  “I’m in my kitchen, the lightbulb over the stove. I’m dipping, as we speak, a bread heel in tomato sauce.”

  “I’m starving. Tell me something else.”

  “I’m reading Revelation again. Because it’s my job to read. It feels like a peek inside your brain. Every book in Hebrew is eaten by this book. It leaves nothing. I also happen to be translating a book of Hebrew poems, so I’m especially sensitive. I’m thinking of teaching it next semester.”

  “You’re wasting your time with Revelation.”

  “William James, by the way, you should read him if you haven’t. You’d love him. He says if you want to see the significance of a thing, you look at the exaggerations. The perversions of a thing. This is your book.”

  “It’s not my book. What’s your Greek’s name?” Because I didn’t yet know.

  A pause. “His name is Nikos.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Are you serious? Totally predictable.”

  “He’s a colleague.”

  “Well, I hate Nikos.”

  “The book is fascistic. And fetishistic.”

  I held the phone away for a moment.

  I said, “What’d you have for lunch?”

  “I had a kiwi smoothie and this. A long run before my flight. We’re going to see my parents.”

  “We.”

  Another pause.

  I said, “We never went and saw your parents.”

  “I know.”

  Both of us were silent.

  “But he’s not there now,” I said. “You’re alone.”

  “All alone, just the way you like it.”

  “Why say things like that?”

  “I happen to be having a very tough year. But why would you know anything about that? I called my father and told him I wanted to see him. I’m trying to replace your dad with my dad.”

  “He’s an asshole, your father.”

  “I know.”

  “And your mother—”

  “We’re still fighting. And not to mention the book is kind of beautiful in its own terrible way. Like Texas Chainsaw is beautiful. The lighting is perfect.”

  I lit a cigarette, and a fat black pug came sniffing at my feet. She looked up at me, panting, tilting her head. The owner mouthed, “Sorry,” and pulled her away.

  “I heard the lighter. Stop smoking. Take this trip as an opportunity.”

  I said, “More about the book, please, if this is what keeps you on the phone.”

  “I quote, and when the End comes the blood will be as high as the horses’ bridles, or something like that. Why horses?”

  “God’s army rides on horses.”

  “But why horses? Why not as high as tank treads, if this is supposed to impress me? Or as high as a Chevrolet’s side mirrors, and for two thousand years the faithful are wondering, What’s a side mirror? What’s a Chevy?”

  “I’m picturing you behind a pulpit.”

  “Think of all those futuristic movies in the sixties and seventies. Everyone’s walking around in a toga like it’s the Roman senate. What togas? Here we are forty years later in the future. Show me a toga. Just one toga.”

  “You’re in a mood.”

  “It’s my mother. Do you need some help down there? And don’t think I’m offering my services.”

  “You mean out there.”

  “What out there?”

  “Out there. You said down there like I’m in Mexico or Texas. I’m out here, to the right. Pretend you and your hairy boyfriend are facing a road map.”

  “Oh, my God.” She hung up the phone.

  I bought a knish at the hot dog stand and stood there looking up at the brown wide building, at the fire escapes that climbed and covered its face. I looked down at the food in my hands, a knish nestled in a moist napkin. I totally knew the joy of an artfully knotted potato cake baked by a bearded Orthodox on the Lower East Side, but this was a different thing entirely. Scorchingly hot on the inside, lukewarm chewy breading, a waterlogged wallet smeared with mustard. Perfectly imperfect. Just like marriage, I thought. Then I caught myself. You were an asshole. And so she hung up. I chewed, thinking of her, of her walking, talking on the phone, Sarah with a smoothie spill on the leg of her jeans, her glasses in one hand and rubbing at the bridge of her nose, Sarah in her tiny black socks and neon running shoes, her eyes going red from sad TV movies. Sarah rushing downstairs in an angry huff and slamming our front screen door. Sarah calling me a pitiful, selfish shit, and swinging a steel utensil hard against the back of my neck. I thought of how we hate and love everyone we love. And I thought of her all a
lone in her new apartment sitting there with her laptop, drinking coffee alone just fine without me, the Greek on his way over for some friendly consoling, and my heart broke open like a sugar bowl fallen from a shelf. I started crying, let it happen for a few seconds, and then I put a swift end to that.

  I walked for blocks and watched the blur of passing cars and the people, the overwhelming spectacle of street sounds and color, and I felt not quite a part. Almost, but not quite. Swimming above the city noise somehow, I finished the knish. I stepped around a construction crew and a large black hole in the street. I watched the steel-on-rock stammer of the jackhammer, and the hop of the man’s orange helmet as he broke through rock. A small Asian woman approached a hot dog cart. Shock-white bowl-cut hair. She wore purple sweatpants tucked into black leather cowboy boots and pressed a shoulder bag against her belly.

  The vendor waved her off before she got to speak.

  She came over to me, pulling something from her bag. She looked at me blankly. “DVD?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Good quality.”

  I looked at the cover, at the plastic sheathing in her hand, and I saw running along the bottom like blunt baby teeth the tops of block letters spelling out the sentence NOT FOR RESALE. I stared at this until she lost patience.

  “Five bucks.” She showed me the palm of her hand.

  I continued to look at the case until she snatched it back. She disappeared around a corner down the street.

  I shook myself, and called Amad.

  He said, “Where are you?”

  “I’m sitting on a beige brick step at the foot of a tall apartment building in Queens, not so far from the airport, I think. There’s a hot dog cart in front of me. Construction across the street. A large bug is stuck in the rut of a sidewalk square.” Oily water from who knows where drained along the curb and toward the sewer grating.

  “And what is on your mind, my friend?”

  “A woman just tried to sell me a pirated DVD. I thought of you.”