“Wasn’t easy. Each time I tried to leave they begged and bribed me for one more shoot. Paid me this, gave me that, until they finally lit me on fire. Dousing me with pesticide, the cocksuckers laughed like children, calling me a whore, a bedbug, an insect. They threw cigars and candles at me. I woke up in a hospital and left immediately, without waiting for some bullshit doctor to tell me if I was okay or not. Emptied my savings full speed and bought my way into America.” Kiko rolled down her tights, grabbing my hand to slide it over the scarred flesh of her thigh.
Too far to make a bandit’s run for the Mexican border, our only viable options see-sawed between confrontation and chameleon.
“Take a look from the outside Farrow. Nobody has a better reason to kill Featherton than you. The guy really fucked your life up. If I were standing where you are right now: Revenge wouldn’t be out of the question.”
“He didn’t fuck my life up. I did.”
“Farrow don’t take all the blame. It’s just the way it goes. Sometimes people make you into what you are. You might not like it, but that’s what they do.”
“Nobody made me into anything.” I fell into her trap, inhaling the second-hand smoke of her abstruse cancer stick.
“People kill each other for nothing in this world. It’s definitely cheaper to hire a hitman than it is to take a cab from here back to the village.” Kiko’s eyes looked mad and deranged. Her small size seemed to amplify the effect as she got more and more worked up.
“I didn’t kill Percy.” It was crucial to be clear and concise. Nowadays, I was always on the stand.
Burly brick buildings made way for rows of boarded-up bungalows. We spotted a yellow cab parked in a driveway overrun by tall weeds. With a look of madness in her eyes, Kiko marched right up to the door, banging until the owner came out in a red velvet robe with a matching towel head wrap.
“That your cab in the driveway?” Kiko got right in the scruffy cabbie’s face, half-flirting, half-demanding.
“Yeah. Whose do you think it is?” My stomach dropped when I got a good look at the madame of the taxi, who did a silent double-take when he saw me leaning on her cab.
“We’re going to 6th Avenue and Minetta Lane. Take the Williamsburg Bridge.”
“You know what time it is? I just got home a couple hours ago.” Five borough fortuity, I guessed the cabbie spent his life moving in circles. Covering the same ground many times over. Maybe we all did.
“Hundred bucks even.”
“Whatever the meter says we’ll pay.” Kiko attempted to barter mid-yawn.
“Meter stays off.”
“Taxi Poems.” I tried to catch the cabbie’s eye, but only got a weird look from Kiko.
“N
OW
THE ONLY WAY I
can relax is to fill my mouth with your cock.” Kiko rubbed the bulge in my pants, slowly unzipping my fly. Reality defiled. I wasn’t sure if I was hearing things. Rewind. “That’s no cabbie. That’s a cop.”
“Say what?”
Rain strafed Cross Bay Boulevard. A dragstrip through the weeds. My face fell onto the back of Kiko’s head. She was already unfastening my jeans with her teeth. Giant drops piercing Jamaica Bay. Kisses landing below. Leaning over, her skirt ran up to the very top of her thighs, ass bulging at the sides. The cabbie gazed in the rear view, swerving a little, and looking away. Kiko kept eye contact as she gently pecked at me. Moving with an illusion of love that for the moment I needed to believe in. The slobbering became louder. I reached into her shirt pulling her breasts out. We stopped short at a red light. The driver blew us kisses through the rearview. Kiko took me down to the bottom of her throat. The sound of her slight gags made me sink deeper in the weathered seat.
“Who is she?” Hysterical, Missy shook the laptop a few times before flinging it against the wall.
“What’s your problem?” I had clean hands, so the accusation disintegrated on impact.
“The girl in your book. I knew I couldn’t trust you.”
“Which one?”
“Which one? The slut that’s which one, you son of a bitch. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill them all. Whores!”
System shocked, I dragged my face out of her hair. Time was advancing. All three of us were waiting for the same thing. Kiko pulled herself to the surface. Her presence was a relief… not as much as an ocean liner into an iceberg… or a concord into the sun… I guess if it was a space shuttle I would just hope it would keep going. Face painted, her lips were dripping and she wanted me to take a good look before she stuck her tongue down my throat.
Out the side window, a big-rig was having a hard time staying in its lane, skidding and swerving in and out of control. Its trailer painted with circus animals and a vintage logo. Traffic spread at its sides attempting to make room where there was none. Time slowed to a thousand blinking frames.
I felt the sky squint when the big-rig finally rolled over. The massive truck slid like a poached grizzly across a frozen river. The entire expressway slammed on their brakes as a reflex. An avalanche swallowed the wolfpack. Whatever didn’t smash into solid stone hydroplaned into twisted steel. Metal mangled with flesh.
We were more prey than predators, out in the middle of the L.I.E. with the others. People were holding each other up. I’m running forward with the cabbie, tripping over the injured, not sure what to do. I lost sight of Kiko, but felt her close in a different way. The circus truck was lying on its side burning. There was no sign of life from the driver who was still gripping the wheel. In worse shape was the passenger who was thrown a couple hundred feet down the black tar path. The trailer in back was busted open and shaking as if the truck was having a final orgasm of its own.
G
ET
COMFORTABLE WITH THE INFERNO
at your sides. A huge paw emerged first, followed by another. Smoke was pouring from the circus truck. Sparks flying in our minds. The driver in the front seat regained consciousness.
“What the fuck happened?” A dazed puppet in the human show climbs from the window out onto the expressway. The lion was already out sniffing around. Time moved into ethereal territory. Loose limbs flying in our direction helped get us moving. The lion had four legs which never seemed to hit the ground. Four legs floating. Four legs that didn’t belong here in New York. Four legs that belonged to a different jungle. A different jungle with different laws… and dif… or maybe it was the same… maybe it was all the same.
Hell’s poets chanted in my ears. The city’s skyline was in the distance. The heavy stench of burning gasoline lingered in my throat, clogging my nose. The cabbie left his robe in the lion’s teeth, but he still managed to enter the gates of the hilled cemetery first. He was faster than me. The lion was faster than us all, but seemed to be bouncing around with wracked nerves. It seemed to have no direction. It seemed to understand that the world was at its mercy. Especially this world of soft skin mocking nature.
The lion tore through the cemetery’s maze focusing in on no particular target, ripping heads off the stone statues, trampling flowers, bushes, and trees. It was at that moment I lost sight of everything. The land was trails of regal echoes. Heavy footsteps hunting the panic of man. In-between growls and sounds of destruction I heard the cabbie’s soft voice calling me.
“In here. In here. In here.” I heard the voice, but couldn’t find its source. My heart was pounding atomic. The feeble voice was a trickling stream of desperation.
“Nice place to be buried alive.” All I could see was the lion’s open mouth. It was the first time the giant cat, acknowledged me.
“In here. In here. In here.” The cabbie’s hand waved at me from the steel grates of a mossy tomb. He found a place to hide. The cabbie was safe and I was exposed. Maybe he wanted to save me or maybe he just didn’t want to watch me die. It would be a terrible death for him to know. I would probably feel nothing after the first strike. I was already frozen, not welcoming, but waiting for it.
A muscular soiled man burst from the gates of the tomb waving a rake. He grabbed me with a force I had yet to feel. The lion was just watching us chewing on a gravestone bouquet. It looked like roses. Just then, I noticed the lion had no mane… no cock… no balls. The lion was a lioness wanting nothing more than blood and flesh on her breath.
“Motherfucker… motherfucker… motherfucker…” Wearing only lace panties, a bulletproof vest, and his pistol, the cabbie stayed useless, hyperventilating. Kiko was right: The taxi madame was a cop. I should have realized it the second Sgt. Bethany Powers put me in his car back in Red Hook.
“Trust me this is not a bad place to end up. You guys know who’s buried here in Calvary?” The groundskeeper eyed the lioness, trying to control his chattering teeth. “Calvary is a cemetery of cops, crooks, and crazies. Lucchese, Petrosino, not to mention the great Steve Brodie.”
“Who…?” The lioness almost seemed to be listening, patiently waiting outside the tomb’s cast iron gates.
“My moms named me after the man himself. Steve Brodie, the man who in 1886 jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge and lived. Crazy bastard did it to win a $100 bet. People say it was a con. Over a hundred foot plunge… near impossible to survive even in water… East River is pretty rough as it is… might as well dive off a fifteen story building into asphalt.” Brodie kept going. “I mow his grave every day and for some reason… I know without a doubt Steve Brodie was no joke. He really did it. I even figured the calculations to prove myself wrong, but numbers can make too much sense.” Brodie produced a scrap of paper from his pocket which had a mix of calculus and physics scribbled haphazardly all over it. The cabbie and I both looked down at his calculations. It was serious math as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t sure what it proved, but it made my mind go in different directions. I pictured Lars falling in slow motion from the great bridge, a cloud of pages fluttering around him in a literary force field. A cloud not of numbers, but songs to the city.
“There is no greater spiritual victory than the conquer of human logic.”
“Who were the two others you spoke of?” The cabbie finally gained control of his breath again, fighting his fear, swallowing equations that weren’t there.
“One was a gangster. The other was a gangster of the state.” A hawk flew over the cemetery swooping down to get a closer look at the lioness. A little too close, the lioness jumped in the air and the hawk disappeared as fast as it appeared.
“Seeing a hawk is good luck.”
I
T
WAS AN IMPOSSIBLE DASH.
The lioness was on my heels, still prancing around like we were playing. I was Steve Brodie going for the hundred bucks. I was Lars suicide diving anytime he felt the altitude buzz his brain the wrong way. I was Mikey Farrow writing my next book to be shredded at first sight.
Queens Boulevard had enough moving steel to kill us all. I could have kept going only to let her blindside me and though it made no sense I got holy. On my knees, I dropped in the middle of the four lanes heading to the sacred offices and so special dungeons, but the cars missed and kept missing. The lioness roared. I was shaking. She moved in closer. I stopped shaking. I was kneeling in the middle of the boulevard of death. The pavement consumed my skin. The lioness had me in her clutches. I could only wait to feel her teeth. I didn’t have to. Her jaws were open and oh so close. But instead of tearing me open, she licked me. She licked me once. She licked me again. People leaned out their car windows taking pictures and videos with their phones as the lioness went to town with her tongue on my face. She had healing saliva. I was ready for anything, but really one thing in particular. I closed my eyes letting her fill in the blanks for me. I felt the rain coming down as it had yesterday and maybe the day before.
Missy passed me on the street, but I was the one that kept walking. She followed me for a block through midtown until I stopped, silently waiting for her to tell whatever she felt the need to tell me.
“I’m sorry, but I need you not to worry about me. When you were with me and working on A Greater Truth, I was jealous of the time you spent away from me. Even if you were in the room with me there was this intense distance. At times you look so sick, stricken with some strange disease that only you had. Other times I was certain it was someone else coming between us. It was so confusing. Every day we lived together, I expected you to tell me that you were finished writing and ready to come back to me, but that day never came… you just kept writing and writing and writing…”
“……”
“Farrow… even before you finished the book you deserted me… even before you finished the book you were already talking about the next one and the next one and the one after that. I realized that the book you were writing was as much mine as anyone else’s. The book was more mine than yours.”
“A Greater Truth…” I didn’t know what else to do, so I went for her lips, but she moved away. The women always decides.
I opened my eyes only to look into the eyes of the lioness, twice my size. She looked angry again like she had no choice in the matter. There were only a few more blocks to go. My life as everyone else’s in the city was only measured by a few blocks. I wasn’t sure whether to sprint or walk home, so I stayed somewhere in-between. The rain blessed the lioness with a slight transparency and mystique. I could see my square brick apartment. I could see my chipped brick landlord waiting at the door, dead drunk, seeing three of me and at least a dozen beasts on my tail.
“Farrow is everything okay?” He wobbled and the lioness wobbled too.
“Yeah… everything’s fine.”
“Farrow, is everything okay?” My landlord rubbed his eyes furiously, trying to change something that he just couldn’t change.
“King of the jungle.”