… and Max Hart shouted “No, you’re wrong!” as the first one clung to the side of the boat…
… and Max Hart howled “Shut up! You’re crazy!” as God’s jack-in-the-box popped madly open, and the lost souls climbed the icy wall…
… and Max Hart screamed “Goddam you, NO! This is fucking bullshit, this is fucking lies, I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THAT DEATH ISN’T THE END.
And that was the end of the book.
“What?” she said, staring at the last piece of paper. She fliped it over, scanned the back. Nothing. “What?” she repeated, somewhat louder, leafing quickly through the folder, checking to see that she hadn’t missed a page somehow, missed the redemption at the end of all this, the redemption that absolutely fucking had to be there…
“WHAT?” she hollered, but the answer to her question was already implicit, etched into her marrow, etched into the walls. She checked and rechecked the folder, the sofa cushions, the box itself. There was no more: not even a period, not even one little idiot dot of ink to finish the unfinished sentiment.
There was no more.
It was 9:23.
Ten seconds later, the telephone rang.
Meryl jumped as if cattle-prodded, jerked her gaze across the room. For a second the silence settled, and then the telephone rang again. Too loud, too loud, like a skewer through her ears. She got up to stop it. It rang again. She crossed the room and snatched up the handset before it could make that noise again, brought the plastic trembling to her ear.
“Hello?” she said in a voice so thick and dead she barely recognized it.
“Is this 254-2369?” A British voice. She “didn’t understand what it was doing there.
“Yes?”
“Is this Meryl speaking?”
“Yes.” Confusion. “Yes. Who is this?”
“Ah, well. I’m a friend of Katie’s. She asked that I call and inform you that she’ll unable to frolic with you tonight.” i
Colin. The name was a hammer, cocking back in her head. It helped to clear her mind. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she heard herself say. “Is this Colin? Is she with you?”
“Why, yes!” he exclaimed. “On both counts! Very good!”
She felt her composure, an embrittled thing, begin to come apart. It was all she could do to choke down her volume as she said, “What’s going on?”
“Well, it’s actually quite involved. In fact, I’d hoped you might be able to illuminate me as to some of the particulars…”
“You first.”
“Ah.” The voice at the other end chuckled. “Perhaps I will.” He cleared his throat.
Oh no, she thought. She didn’t know why, but it had the ring of truth.
“It seems that Katie has had a rather traumatic experience,” Colin continued. “At any rate, it wound her up at my flat with a gillfull of liquor and a rather sordid tale to tell. A ghost story, in fact. Am I ringing any bells?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But the room was growing colder.
“Ah ha. Well, to hear her tell it, there’s a rather unpleasant discorporate spirit in your apartment, which happens to belong to an old friend of hers. A rather intimate friend, as it turns out.”
She wanted to say that’s bullshit. The words seemed to freeze on her tongue.
“A writer, with whom she had been involved, and who evidently hung himself up by the neck and shuffled off this mortal coil…”
The chill in the room was a tangible thing now. A killing frost, seeping under her skin, numbing her nerves and the dopamines that tracked information from one part of her brain to the next. The words oh, no reappeared and then died, were rendered fossils, etched in ice, a monument blocking the flow of his words as they poured into her ear…
oh, no
“… terrified her to such an extent that she claims she can’t go back…”
oh, no
“… dead to the world, but you might want to reach her tomorrow…”
oh, no
“… is that alright? Hello… ?”
… as she slammed down the phone, and the sculpture shattered, leaving her empty and broken inside, dead cold blank eyes panning slow across dead cold blank apartment walls, the chill in the air making sense at last as she focused on the couch and the folders it bore, thought of the box
(DO “NOT OPEN TIL DOOMSDAY)
and the
(ghost)
man she would never meet and the
(dream)
love she would never have and
(oh no)
then she was moving, slow and steady, slow and steady toward the bathroom, trying so hard to hold it together at least until she hit the toilet, threw herself to the tiles before it, and tried to hack up the poison within her…
… but it wouldn’t come, it was lodged too deep inside, she was stuck with it until she could find a way some way any way to pry it loose…
… and she looked at the shower, she felt the tears, not here yet but coming, soon, and she scrabbled to her feet and clawed at the idiot hacking costume she wore, tearing away the serpent-clasp on the stupid tie on the sheer white blouse, she couldn’t stand the feel of them, she couldn’t stand her own white skin, she was stuck with the skin but the clothes weren’t so lucky, they were history strewn across the floor as she climbed into the shower stall and threw the water full-tilt on…
… and the shower was sanctuary, the shower was safe, a safety zone where she could stand bare-assed and let the barriers break down under a deafening stream of boiling water, pounding down, just let it hit you and let it out, yes, let it out just enough to keep from losing it entirely…
. .. but things were breaking up too fast down there, the walls were crumbling, and when the first sob came it came hard as a jackhammer jammed into her solar plexus, firing away, it was almost like puking but it came from her eyes and her lungs instead, sound and saline, cinderblocks and rivers that merged with the hot-water thunder and roar that surrounded her, pelted her, pummeled her into the helplessness that allowed the feelings to surface and scream…
… and he was dead, that was the big payoff, the revelation waiting at the end of her journey: John Paul Rowan was dead dead dead dead all of the fantasies all of the dreams just bullshit wish-fullfillment unfullfilled and unfullfillable, ten million useless tears for every how could I be so stupid sobbing in hideous synchronous parallel motion…
… because now she would never even fucking know, there would be no hope of meeting him, no hope to calm the storm inside his soul or even be there for a second, dammit, one lousy miserable moment in the whole of eternity, because fucking J. R had already killed himself he was dead and gone and she wasn’t there to stop it and she never even got a chance…
. .. and she started to sag, and she caught herself, an almost miraculous act of will, her hands snaking out and clutching the knobs that controlled the flow of the water that pummeled her, steam seeping into her skull like fog, clouding her vision, a billowing gray-white oblivion that crowded in from every side…
.. . and her mind said no no no NO NO! twisting the knobs that she clung to for balance, the thunder vanishing in an instant, water suddenly stripped down to a trickle that dribbled straight down on one spot at the crown of her head, like the fabled Chinese Water Torture…
… and she leaned away, but the fog was still there, pouring in from the left and the right. I’m going to faint, she heard herself say with a terrible monotone matter-of-factness…
. .. and she closed her eyes and saw herself, head split open on the tiles on the floor, dark blood reaching out with rivulet fingers to spiral down the drain…
.. . and she would not let that happen, she would not be found on the floor like that, so she groped along the shower wall, slapped the curtain weakly out of the way. A great white terry cloth towel dangled from the curtain rod. She grabbed at it, nearly lost her balance, pulled the towel to her as she stumbled out of the stall, caught herself
on the bathroom wall and propped herself against it…
… and now it was only the music she heard, echoing across the tiles, louder than the sound of her own heart pounding in her temples as she slid sideways toward the door…
“I came out of the darkness
Holding one thing…”
… and the room was too bright, the fog too thick, the doorknob a thousand miles away, her arm stretching out and out and out as her hand closed around it, twisted it, pulled …
“I know I have a power
I’m afraid I may be killed…”
… as the door swung open, and the cool air blew in, chilling the water that speckled her skin, cutting a wedge in the core of the fog through which she could see the living room …
“But when I’m dead
If you could tell them this…”
… but the air was thick was buzzing static, black and iridescent, the sound of it filling her ears…
“That what was wood became alive…”
… buzzing like the sound of a thousand flies…
“What was wood became alive…”
… and then she saw him: a shadow man, his face obscured by the black static cloud, his form hovering in the dimishing circle of light before her like the projection of a poorly lit hologram, shifting in and out of focus, reaching out with hands pf smoke …
… and in the last moment before she fell, he came to her, moving like light through a tunnel across the room, across the veil, between the arms she held out to him in that moment of sudden mad flash recognition… … and then, together, they went down.
.................................................................
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..........NOVEMBER
14
IN THE FLESH
and i am moving inside you
and you are moving inside me
The loft, transformed: the cold dispersed, the darkness clinging to the walls no longer. Behind the shut and shuttered windows, a sweet near-silence, its whisper strangely overwhelming the roar of the world beyond. In the bedroom, a rustling on sheets. The sliding of flesh over flesh, softly merging…
in the body, not of the body, the body moot
yet moving smooth soft mirrored
syncopation to the touch i
give to you you give to
me inside, where thought is
touch and you
are the tongue, the nipple, you
are the fingertip tracing the
wet silk thigh down
tangled thatch and i
am the snatch of clipped
breath, i am the
fingers that part the hungry
lips, one apiece and all
for one, i am the sigh and
you are the gentle rotation, the
liquid rising tide, the heart’s
acceleration, the blood in my
veins as i come to you
now, come to you
quickly, come to me over
and over and
Later, much later, her eyes flickered open. Sleep had come, and soon after, the sun. Now the first had gone, and I lie other was fading. “The dream is over,” she whispered. And he whispered back, I know.
Then, together, they rose and moved naked to the window. The room was bathed in long shadow and golden light. It was the first sunset they’d ever shared—a special thing, never to be repeated—and so she put on her glasses.
The better to savor the sight.
15
NIGHTLIFE
It was cozy and warm in the back of the cab, and the driver spoke next to no English at all. It was a perfect combination: what better way for her man to enjoy his first night out in months?
Oh, God, check it out! he enthused, leaning them into the window. Just look at all this!
“Look at all what?” Meryl wanted to know. His enthusiasm was infectious; there was a smile on her face.
Just…everything, he replied. The city. The people. Times fucking Square. Life’s rich pageantry… He laughed, did a little bouncy-bounce inside her skin. I just didn’t know how much I’d miss it. It’s all just so beautiful, and ridiculous, and wild …
“Yes.”
It’s just so goddam wonderful to be back, I can’t even say… _ .
“You don’t need to say a word,” she affirmed. “Just enjoy it. It’s your coming-home present.”
You are my coming-home present, he whispered, and she felt him move inside her again.
She felt her head shift this way and that, muscles and tendons and ligaments moving as though manipulated by a pair of gently loving hands. It was a strange and pleasant sensation, like yielding control to a another’s touch; letting go, safe in the trust that you will not be hurt. Her head floated as if bobbing on the purposeful currents of an otherwise tranquil sea, as she looked first down to the sidewalk, then up to the tops of the buildings, then from side to side to side. Taking in the neon wonderland of Times Square, the sweeping expanse of Broadway,
the crowds and excitement and energy pulsing around them.
Taking it all in, together.
She felt something brush against the skin of her right inner arm; she looked down to see the fingers of her left hand tracing filigree patterns upon the delicate flesh. She shivered and closed her eyes.
And so doing saw, in the darkness, his hand upon hers, Guiding it. Tracing the pattern.
“I can see you!” she exclaimed, opening her eyes. The cab driver’s eyes made a fleeting, puzzled pass across the rearview mirror. Meryl’s attention was fixed on her arm… but Jack’s hand was nowhere to be found. Only her own, still tracing the tiny scrollwork designs back and forth, back and forth.
Meryl’s eyes fluttered shut once again: the hand was there, form etched in shadow, guiding her. What am I saying to you?
“I don’t know,” Meryl whispered. Her heart was thudding in benign overdrive. “What are you saying?”
Look carefully. What does it say?
She stopped then, realizing that the scroll-like patterns were letters, an ornate cursive script, repeating themselves in sequence.
T…H…A…N…K…Y…O…U…
She felt a tear glistening in the corner of one eye; together, they brushed it away.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
There was the cab ride: uptown and around town and then down to Astor Place. There was the dinner at Do Jo: intimate and intense, with much talking with her mouth full. There was the long walk afterwards, meandering through the shadowed streets of the East Village.
And there were the conversations.
Lord, how they talked: Meryl was stunned by just how much they had in common, how much they shared. Their tastes in food, in fashion, in music and film and politics and philosophy were all of a kind; even the things they didn’t immediately agree upon were made more palatable simply by the other’s impassioned endorsement…
“You mean, you’ve never heard Suzanne Vega?? She’s wonderful!…”
A quicksilver flash of memory, darting across her mindscape: dancing alone in her room, while the bell-like and haunting cascades of music washed over her…
“If language were liquid
It would be rushing in
Instead here we are
In a silence more eloquent
Than any word could ever be…”
“Can you hear it?”
Ohmigod, yes! Yes! I can!
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
Yes, but I don’t know how much of it is her and how much is your feeling about her…
“But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
No, I guess it doesn’t. So many things 1 never knew, until you.
“Me, too.”
“I’d like to meet you
In a timeless
Placeless place
Somwhere out of co
ntext
And beyond all consequences..."
… and they were both there, alive and together in her memory, swirling in perfect time to the perfect music of Suzanne Vega’s airy whisper poured from the stereo and the sun’s rays lay warm on their skin…
They walked. And they talked. Her thoughts were embers glowing bright under the breath of his touch; she felt the heat of it envelop her in its embrace. And if the world at large was alarmed by the attractive and intensely peculiar young woman wandering the streets and caressing herself, lost in the whispers of a one-way conversation, it was of no consequence. The city accepted them into its fold; one more person talking to themselves would not disrupt its flow.
And they, in turn, knew only each other.
Their lives had seemingly run in an intricately overlapping counterpoint without them ever realizing it, only to be brought together by something that was nothing short of a miracle. They marveled to each other at how easily so many things just flowed out…
… and privately, how others were sidestepped completely.
Back in the sweet confines of her sleeping loft, they found that making love was better the second time around. She showed him the photograph of the Keeper and asked if it was him, and he said it was, and she was glad. His presence was stronger inside her, and the combination of his insatiable lust for life and her near-cellular awareness of what pleased her proved irresistible. Bit by bit, she opened herself to him, and he responded in kind.
Dead Lines Page 26
