Manhattan Nocturne

by Colin Harrison

  “An early breakfast?”

  “Eight early enough?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I told her to meet me at the Noho Star, at the corner of Bleecker and Lafayette. “I keep trying to eat there,” I said.

  “Eight?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t forget?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re forgetting that you’re unforgettable.”

  I restarted the tape. Caroline’s furious face melted into movement.

  [Continuing.]

  Caroline:—asked me, Simon.

  Simon: I asked you because I wanted to know what it was like to be married.

  Caroline: This is not marriage. This is some weird arrangement where you go off to L.A. and fuck girls at parties and I sit at home with my thumb up my ass. Your parents were married.

  Simon [picks up figurine]: Tell me about this little horse, Caroline. Tell me why Hobbs gave you this. This thing is like a thousand years old. This little fucker was pretty expensive. Even for a guy like that.

  Caroline: It was a present.

  Simon: Commemorating what?

  Caroline: I told him a stupid little story about when I was a girl, about how I wanted a horse, and he sent me a present. That’s all, Simon.

  Simon: Tell me the story.

  Caroline: No.

  Simon: Tell me, I want to hear it.

  Caroline: No. It’s just—

  Simon: It means something. You wouldn’t have told it if it didn’t.

  Caroline: Tell me what the elevator code is, Simon.

  Simon: The story.

  Caroline: No.

  Simon: The story, and then you can go.

  Caroline: I will never tell you the story, Simon, never. [He throws the horse at Caroline. It flies past her into the elevator. A breaking sound.] What is your fucking problem?

  Simon: Fucking is my fucking problem! Don’t you realize that there is one thing that I require? I require sexual fidelity. Is that too much to ask? I am a busy, busy guy, and I have quite a lot of pressure on me, right? I need to have you there, waiting for me. Is that too much to ask? I’m the one who found you sitting on a bar stool! You were sliding fast, baby, and I found you and picked you up. You’d think that I could then hope for some fidelity, since you are, in fact, my wife! But when I called two nights ago, where were you? I know all too well where you were—you were with that fat fuck! How can that be? How can my wife prefer a fucking four-hundred-pound pig when she has me?

  Caroline: It’s not like that. We just talked, we were only—[Simon holds up his hand, as if to strike. She winces. He does nothing. She relaxes. He hits her with an open hand.]

  Simon: The fuck you think I am, an idiot? Dead in the skull, lady? We’re talking about Hobbs! This man is buying up Hollywood and New York and China. He doesn’t eat food, he eats people! He eats you! And you’love it, you can’t get enough, right? I saw the man’s mouth. The man has a tongue like some kind of farm animal! I know what you two do. I know that he talks to you and makes you feel safe, like you have a real daddy—

  Caroline [with bitter scorn]: That hurts, Simon—you really, really hurt me with that one.

  Simon: Here, take this knife. [Tries to hand Caroline a knife from his pocket. She won’t take it. He grabs her fingers, thrusts the knife into them, closes the fingers.] Here, stab me. Go ahead. I’m asking you to do it. Do it! Do it, you fucking cunt! You don’t have it in you, you can’t do anything! Come on, do it! What? What do I see? I see your mind working, Caroline, I see your mind working! Within those blonde tresses, the little wheels turn! What are you thinking? You’re thinking I have to get the elevator code out of him! That’s right! You need that to get out of here. No problemo! The code is your birthday. February twenty-first. Two-two-one. Kill me, Caroline, and you will think of me on your birthday the rest of your life! Now that is a wrinkle, wouldn’t you say? I specialize in wrinkles, sweetie. Now then, where were we? Oh, you were killing me. I’ll give you a hint—get on with it. Do it sooner rather than later, because maybe I’ll decide to switch things around. Oh, do it, huh, huh, huh. Wait, wait! We have forgotten the key! You have forgotten the key! [He holds up a small key.] We needed a key to get into the sidewalk doors, remember? If you kill me and leave without relocking the padlock, then somebody could come up here right away and find me. As long as I’m not found for a few days, it’s all cool, baby, ’cause they’re gonna tear the shit out of this building and your pal, your husband, will flop around in the rubble like a rag doll. Not a bad plan, don’t you think? Except for one problem. Watch. I’ve practiced this. [Drops key into mouth, grabs cardboard milk carton of water, spilling a little water, throws head back, takes an extended drink, throws carton to floor, brings head forward, opens mouth. Key has been swallowed.] Am I evil incarnate or what? No, that is too grandiose. I do not aspire to evil, I aspire to truth, I aspire to push at you until you give me your guts, Caroline. Give me them, I want them. I want the little-girl story. I want to know how the little girl who hung out in L.A. fucking pro basketball players and then wound up in New York getting picked up in a bar by the most brilliant young movie director since Scorsese, how did she survive? She won’t tell me, her husband? Did she tell Hobbs? No, I expect not. I expect that she was too busy enjoying his oral charms. But you know what? The answer is with Hobbs. Your husband figured it out. Yes! How did she survive? It’s easy, folks. She wants to be loved! She goes where she thinks the love is, and when she figures out that it’s not there anymore, she moves on. She is very good at getting men to fall in love with her! But something, something inexplicable, makes men begin to find her revolting! How can this be, my beautiful wife, the woman with a golden ring in her singing cunt? She has moved on from her loving husband to Sir Hobbs. And how long will this last? Oh, perhaps not long. He will glimpse something in you and he will turn away, or perhaps you will see his revulsion before he himself does and you will leave. You will then tell your same sad little story to someone else. Woe and grief! Et cetera, et cetera. You’re good, lady. Good. You fucking fooled me! You had me going. I was signed up. I believed, yeah! The artist had found a muse! Then the muse checked the fuck out. Well, fuck you, baby. This is where I check out. This is where the rubber leaves the runway. I’m gone. But first—yes! Yes, of course my intention is to kill you, of course I must, don’t you see? What’s the alternative? Say goodbye, let the lawyers work out the details? No, no, no, flibbertygibbet! Flibbertygibbet! Poor Tom! Lear, a play you never read! It’s the muse thing, babe, the American muse thing. You’re very special! My American babe. Look at her, look at those teeth and hair and blue eyes and breasts. Corn-fed! Can’t be killed by evil American men! They should make a movie about her! Make a fucking movie! She’s all-American. Corn-fed! The Playboy pinup. Grew up on the wrong side of the train tracks! Why, her fucking cunt is made out of Cheerios! Sings along with Willie Nelson! Only she’s updated, she’s ready for the millennium! The postmodern American babe! Been sunburned on both coasts! Can drive a Chevy made by Toyota in Meacico! Seen a thousand channels! Fucked a superstar! Opened her legs for a billionaire! That’s who she is! But it’s not good enough. She wants love, more and more and more love! She never had enough! Her mother worked for Visa, and her father came from ARCO money. She’s got capitalism in her very genes! Don’t you see the tragedy of it? You are tragedy incarnate! You have everything America can give you and still you are hungry! Still you go unloved, my American babe! Oh, please end this, sweetie, stick this knife in me, stick it right in my fucking throat or stomach or nuts or someplace to shut me up. Do it! Hey, American babe! Come on! Come on come on come on! Do I have to order you? Kill me. Do it. I dare you. Take a stab at it. Wait! [He scurries into the corner of the room and picks up something. Comes back, a manic expression on his face.] I have a gun, yes! Did I show you this? Did I show you that I have a gun? After you kill me, I suggest you take it with you and dump it in the river—that’s the typical thing. Or wipe it down and throw it in the
street! Give it to the nine-year-old boy on the corner. He can use it. He wants it. Now, listen to me, sweetheart, there are bullets in every chamber of this gun, and I am going to blow a culture spout in your skull if you don’t stab me. Come on, see if you can take the pressure. Can you get out of this one, American babe? Here, come on, push, hold with both hands, push, push back! So many men pushing at you, dicks and fingers and tongues pushing at you in your mouth and cunt and asshole! Push the knife. [Lifts the gun.] Do it. Do it now. I’ll pull the trigger. Now, okay? I’ll fucking blow you to John F. Kennedy International Airport, sweetie. I’ll count backward. Get your Cheerio molecules lined up, American babe, muscles in your arms, five, four, my finger muscles are on-line, sweetie, three … two … not much more time to see if—[He seems to have a new thought and lowers the gun. They stare at each other. He exhales. It is then that Caroline thrusts the knife directly into Simon’s neck.] Ha … aaah. [Simon stands straight up, the knife stuck deep in his neck. He pulls it out. Blood spurts sideways out of his neck for three or four feet, and then he staggers backward. His hat falls off. The knife clatters to the floor.] Oh, Jesus. [He points at the gun, fumbling with it to show that it was empty. Then he falls over, one hand on his neck. Blood is puddling quickly across the floor. He looks up at Caroline. She stands back.] Caah … Caah! [She begins to move toward him, but he spasms, a wet sucking sound coming from his neck. He has lost so much blood that he cannot get up to his knees. Now he rolls onto his back and in doing so the force seems to drop out of him; there is a slackness to his body and no longer does he groan or twitch. She kneels next to him. His eyes are open. Her shoulders shake. She sits this way for minutes. The room is quiet. There is a squeak and she tears her head around. The shape of a rat runs through the foreground. Minutes pass. Simon is still, hands and legs splayed out. She cries and then stops, then cries some more. She sits with her knees drawn up, rocking on her haunches. Finally she stands.]

  Caroline: Oh, the key. [Her words come out a whisper. She picks up the knife, lifts up Simon’s red shirt. She is weeping. She pushes at his pale belly a little bit. Then she stands again and moves her hand down her throat, between her breasts, and then right under the diaphragm. She pokes there experimentally, probing, feeling. Then she kneels down next to Simon. She places the knife in his stomach, perhaps an inch. It sticks straight up. She stands abruptly and walks over to the bed. There she kicks off her shoes, then lifts up her yellow dress and lays it carefully on the bed. There is a colored shape on her shoulder blade, a butterfly. She takes off her bra, then her panties. These, too, she lays down on the bed. Then she takes Simon’s baseball cap off the floor and tucks her hair up into it. Her naked bottom rests on her heels. A naked woman in a baseball cap. Then she returns to Simon. The knife is still sticking out of his belly. She leans over the body, looks away, then sets her weight above the knife. It goes in with a bellowing whoosh of air and blood. Now she is wet. She looks at it and sighs. Then she saws at the flesh, cutting a flap. Holding the flap back with one hand, she cuts deeper. Now blood seeps upward as she presses down on the body, seeping up out of the wound and across Simon’s belly and down his sides, at first painting stripes down his ribs, then covering them completely as she pushes around with the knife. She pulls out her hand and violently shakes a piece of flesh off her hand. Then she reaches her hand into the cavity and fishes around. Nothing. She sighs. She is slick with blood across her belly and arms and knees. There is blood on her nipples. Now she cuts a larger flap. Then she sits back to one side of Simon and rolls him onto his stomach. There is an audible dribbling as the contents of his stomach come out. She rolls him onto his back again. She pushes around in the stomach contents with the knife, looks up. Rats have appeared in the shadows.] Get away from me. [She returns to the task. She puts her hand back into the cavity and then suddenly pulls something out, looks at the bloody object in her hand. The key. Now she stands, puts the key on the table, and moves back to the bed, where she removes a pillowcase and wipes her hands and belly carefully. There is a bit of blood on her thighs, her knees. She rubs each place vigorously. She checks her pubic hair for blood, sucking in her belly, both hands pressed against her hipbones. Then she wipes off her fingers and hands and looks at the back of her legs, her ass. She steps back into her panties and shoes, then slips on her bra and yellow dress, buttoning it behind herself with the awkward grace that women have. She takes off the baseball cap, inspects it, shakes it, inspects it again, then tosses it onto the floor next to Simon. She slides the key off the table and puts it in her purse. She picks up the empty milk carton and drops the knife and gun into it. She looks around, checking. Now she notices something out of the frame of the camera, something small on the floor, closer to the camera. She picks it up. It is a piece of the green figurine. She goes back to Simon and stands above him, her face seeming to hold both remorse and victory. She kneels down, rubs the piece against her dress, slips it into the breast pocket of his shirt, then wipes one finger in the blood on his neck and touches her tongue. She stands up quickly, picks up the carton by the top and walks straight into the elevator.

  Caroline [facing camera but looking down, apparently at the elevator buttons]: Two-twenty-one. [Her voice is a whisper.] Two. Two. One. [She looks around.] Down. [Nothing happens.] Oh, shit. [She notices that the cage door is open, pulls it shut.] Down. [The elevator begins to grind downward. The corpse of Simon Crowley, and the floor upon which he rests, begin to rise. The number seven appears on the elevator shaft and then darkness. Then, in the faint light of the elevator, a six, then five, four, three, two. Now she breaks, suddenly coughing and choking out little sobs. When the elevator reaches the first floor, she thrusts the cage door open and races down a hallway, her footsteps receding. The cage door slowly expands, stopping halfway shut. In the corridor of shadows, nothing moves. There is the sound of a heavy door opening, a quick flung brightness, indistinct, refracted off several walls, the last messenger of light, and then all is dark. The door is not slammed shut. There is no sound. Only dark. There is no sound. Only dark.]

  Morning in Manhattan. Excellent and fair. Washed yellow taxis speeding downtown. Mexican men trimming tulips outside Korean delis. The early walkers to work, pleased with themselves. Subways flashing like information. Brightness unfurling almost perceptibly down the faces of buildings. In the back of the bars and clubs and restaurants, a hundred thousand conversations are swept up, hosed down, hauled off. A mother brushes her daughter’s hair. Millions to be made today, pal. The city’s Greek chorus reads the op-ed page. A street-cleaning machine passes, whisks up an empty wallet. Sunlight penetrates the irises. The pleasure of blinking. A man looks at his stomach, sees a pile of ruin. A woman is pleased by her lipstick. What shoes will she wear? Coffee dreams of sunlight and redemption. Battered vans full of fish speeding uptown. Formation and decay. I’m losing money here. Get to the office early. This could be the day. This is not the day. FedEx it. A Chinese woman sits at her industrial sewing machine. A stack of models’ photos blow down an alley behind the agency. Somebody robbed the corner deli, took two stale bagels with him. I’ll fax it to you. Smoke condition at Forty-ninth Street. Woody Allen is washed up. Bicycle messenger hanging on to a city bus going forty down Broadway. They raised the rent on me. Rikers Island guard issues instructions to the night’s catch: “Lift your arms, show your pits, open your mouth, show your tongue, lift your nutsack, then bend over, spread your ass, and cough five times hard.” Please hold. I’m going to try a new antidepressant. An account executive looks at the business card a woman handed him last night. Fire in Harlem, six dead, five children. I’ll put you through. Ewing is getting old, man. Please go see a doctor, Harry. What credit card will you be using for this transaction? This is Sal from Brooklyn calling. The ferry from Staten Island bumps against the piling. There’s no respect anymore. In the big lot off the West Side Highway, a man puts air into the tires of garbage trucks. Don’t forget your lunch box. A woman sits on the edge of the bed, remembering
that yesterday’s AIDS test was positive. I’m telling you the MTA wastes millions. The methadone clinic has a line out the door. Times Square ain’t the same. We got serious racial problems in this city. The president is in town; traffic will be a nightmare. You owe us the money. It didn’t make any money. It’s not about the money. You can have the money. I don’t have any money. It costs a lot of money. Tour buses full of Midwesterners. They moved to New Jersey. The medical examiner pulls on his plastic gloves, turns on the radio. I’m not gay, I’m queer, explains a man to his mother in her apartment on Riverside Drive. The cocaine is safely delivered, and today Spanish Harlem looks like paradise. I’m watching too much television. A beautiful apartment in this price range. Please sign here. It’s not really a democracy anymore. In an office in Midtown all the doors are closed: the boss was fired. Call and get tickets, why don’t you. Outside the Plaza Hotel, a cabbie shortchanges his customer, smiling. I’m going to get liposuction. A man briskly walks south on Lafayette, feeling a key in one pants pocket, a stone fragment in the other, then steps into a corner restaurant, the first patron. He is not shaven. He is befouled with dried mud. He carries a small package. A waiter is folding the fresh linen.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning.” I made a show of checking my cash. “I know I’m dirty as hell.”

  “We’ll let it go.”

  I sat watching the world go by, a few patrons coming in. Breakfast is the most optimistic of meals, and you could see it on the faces of the men and women. In the restroom I looked into the mirror. The dirt was in my hair, in the creases around my eyes, in my ears. My gums were receding, my teeth turning brown, my hair going gray. There’s only one direction.

  Was it murder? Caroline had stabbed Simon in the neck as he lowered an unloaded gun. That wasn’t self-defense. No doubt the moment was one of extreme agitation, with Simon screaming and acting strange, but I wonder why she did not walk to the elevator and use it, since Simon had told her the code that would make it work. Or perhaps she could have hollered out of a window. The swallowing of the key must have been for effect. Simon must have had another way to get out of the building. All he would need was a pair of bolt cutters secreted somewhere. If he had gone to the trouble to have the water in the milk carton and the bed and the electric battery and the light and the videotape device, it would not have been much extra effort to have a pair of bolt cutters. Billy Munson had said that there was all sorts of equipment in Simon’s father’s van. Caroline could not have been expected to think of all these things right then, but neither could she have been expected to stab Simon simply because he was raving. I had replayed that moment ten or twelve times in my office. There was a pause, a long beat, between the moment that Simon lowered the gun and the moment that Caroline lunged with the knife. It was a pause during which each looked at the other to see what came next. It was also a pause in which he was vulnerable, and she took advantage of the opportunity. That is how I saw it; that is what she had always done.