“Words are words Farrow. Words are words.” Lars continued to scribble without looking up.
“Lars, I knew about the baby. I was in on
A Greater Truth.
And I went to Gramercy Park to kill your father that night…”
“But he was already dead.” It was a tough call. I couldn’t pinpoint if Lars lost his mind recently or he never possessed it in the first place
“He was, but I wanted to do it. There was no satisfaction, only more pain when I saw him there.”
“Farrow you couldn’t kill anyone.”
“How do you know? We’re all beastly. The instinct is in all of us. Some can kill for a few dollars or a foul glare. I had a great reason to kill Percy Featherton. I could’ve killed him.”
Pissing me off, Lars just kept nodding his head, rejecting my claim.
“I could. I would’ve.”
Brimming with arrogance, Lars kept nodding.
“How do you know that I couldn’t kill?”
“You know Farrow: Anyone can write a fucking book. Even when my father was coming up and half the country was illiterate, they fought through it to the last page. Nowadays teenagers can thumb-type a fucking novella on their phones. Are you aware that there are more writers in New York City than in any other spot in the world. Now there are a little less.” A cemetery silence filled the terrace. Two lions and the white steps of the New York Public Library were below us. Lars became stone. The buildings became flesh.
“Farrow, same as you I showed up that night for revenge. A different type of revenge.”
I didn’t know what to say… a thousand more scenarios of death and destruction blossomed within my head of flames. An acre of wilting flowers slowly burned, only to be born again.
“I killed my father. Percy Featherton. I stabbed him dead. One less writer clogging the shelves.” It was strange the way Lars said his father’s name as if he was standing in front of a captivated jury or behind a glass window of family and friends while settling into the electric chair. Lars morphed inhuman. His breaths became large demanding everything from his chest.
“I have no honor. The world is filled with people who everyday go places and do things in order to create a better life around them. And what do I do? I write about it. While people live and people die: I write. Write myself to fucking death. Farrow…” The words left Lars mouth with a strange croak. “Sell me to the cops and get your book back. I know they’ve already asked you.”
I could see Lars goring his own father to death. I could see Percy not bothering to struggle. I could see Lars insatiable, needing to kill him over and over again.
“I saw my father kill Gloom. He literally exterminated the competition like one of his biblically tainted psychopaths. He manipulated you, Missy, me, and a thousand others. He is… was the top publisher in New York and I am the only heir to his legacy.”
“Nobody needs to know the truth.”
“I dishonored myself. What kind of man am I?”
“A man survives Lars. A man survives.”
“Right now would be a good time to be a bird instead of a man.” Pigeons and sapsuckers stuck to the stone lions out front.
“Shut up Lars. Shut the fuck up. Choose the middle ground.”
“Writing… art… life… is confrontation. The middle ground is for pussies. You have to be willing to die for…” And with that Lars vaulted over the ledge.
“Better to live for it.”
I shouted at him on the way down.
It was a closed parachute leap for the faithless. The wingless bird flew forward ignoring the violent spasms attacking its lungs. The sickly grin stayed carved on his face, until it exploded on the library steps. Live street theater, I could see the red paint the white stone. Squirming side to side in pain, his sunglasses stayed strapped to his face.
L
ANGUAGE
FAILED LARS. GUARDED BY
two lions of the same stone. The words were most likely trapped inside. The words were the true prisoners. Caged lions exploding from the burning trucks. Handcuffed writers scribbling behind their backs.
I had to find a better way off the roof. The door leading back to the reading room was jammed. I knew exactly who was on the other side by the sound of her boots. I kicked the door a few times for good measure. She kicked back. The heavy door knocked the wind out of me.
“You’re always wearing other people’s clothes.” Sgt. Bethany Powers swooped down on me, rolling me back towards the ledge facing 5th Avenue.
“I guess I am.” I backpedaled until I could feel the open air behind me.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. Quit while you’re behind. Farrow…” Balls in her palm, she slowly squeezed. Any hesitation would lead me to an early end. More than a couple stories to the ground. The second set of screams let me know I was airborne. I saw the redhead’s emotionless face study my fall.
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Maybe.”
S
ACRILEGE
WAS USELESS AGAINST THE
immune. I woke up in a hospital bed with IV’s in my arms and the stains of leaky pipes above me. There was no sign of Kiko, instead Hawaii stood over me in her turquoise scrubs.
“I fell with him. I’m still falling.”
“You’re not falling.”
“From the library with the lions.” Everything ached.
“You’re in Bellevue Farrow. I’ve been keeping a close eye on you… waiting here for you to wake up.”
“I’m tied to you. I have to get back to Queens. I feel sick. I need to write. Finish my new book.”
“You need to rest. Farrow…” Hawaii wanted to tell me more. I thought she was going to say I was dying of a terminal disease. I tried to stop her before she did.
“Hawaii it’s okay. Some things are better off not knowing.” I raised my hand gently caressing her face. Everything felt soft. The world was tickling my skin from the other side. I could tell by her stare that Hawaii had to get it off her chest. I grabbed her collar for mercy, but she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.
“Missy never even considered getting rid of the baby. Instead, she asked me to create the illusion to everyone outside the hospital that I performed the abortion. Only Missy, Percy, and myself knew the truth. We devised a plan with Percy’s funds preparing for the birth. A few well-placed bribes and I swung a transfer to the NICU months in advance. We were going to fake an illness, but it ended up coming true. Sepsis. I admitted your daughter. She stayed in the NICU for six weeks. I watched over her like she was my own. I watched over her just as I watched over you, but you’ve only been here for a few days.” Lacking strength to speak, the tears ran down my cheeks, until I could taste them.
“When your daughter was finally better, Missy showed up alone disappearing with the baby down a smoky alley. I didn’t take the money Percy offered to me. I told him to give it to the hospital and to my surprise he did just that.”
“How much?” Tripping Hawaii up on insignificant details would be the best way to figure out what and what not to believe.
“It was a lot.”
“Where’s Chiara?”
“How’d you know her name? I’ll take you to her. C’mon let’s go.”
I ripped the IV’s out of my arms and hopped back on my feet. Fresh pages went flying out from under my pillow. A melancholy breeze took the heavily medicated confetti to the streets. Halfway between two worlds, I expected my legs to crumble, but I hardly felt them. Down a few hallways and a packed elevator, we floated through a purgatorial abyss of patients.
Baby babble slid from the realm of forgotten dreams. Imagination turned to words. I was going to meet my daughter for the first time. I couldn’t stop wondering what she was like. In the lobby, Hawaii quickly slipped through the revolving door, leaving me in the compartment behind her. The silver dollar vixen went haywire when she hit the mosaic pavement, ruthlessly dumping a sick old man out of his wheelchair, only to shove it into the revolving door, jamming it up. I was stuck behind the glass staring at the faces studying me a sea lion in the aquarium.
“Leave!” Missy’s screams shrunk the night’s sirens. I could hear neighbors unlocking their deadbolts to peek out into the hallways. I opened our apartment door only to hear theirs shut. The hallway and steps went fast. The street came easy. I crossed in traffic and sat down in Father Demo Square. I watched Missy run down Bleeker in tears. It hurt being impaled on a spear. I couldn’t move. Only let her run. I hated seeing such pain. I knew if I was the one running, I would need her to take off after me. In spite, I stayed on the bench until she was out of sight. Getting up like a spy I slinked to the A train.
Baffled, Kiko stopped in her tracks, looking me up and down. She dropped the flowers and a teddy bear to the ground.
“Every time, your heart feels more pure.”
“I have a daughter now.”
“You should be holding her then.”
“I want that more than anything.” My head barely moved, slightly swinging back and forth in the small space of the invisible iron maiden, sharper than steel nails.
H
APHAZARD
FOCUS DAWNED UPON US.
Kiko and I stood in the middle of Times Square looking up with the others. I expected to see a friendly conglomerate mothership landing, but instead… I could only see words… words dripping metaphysically from wounds scarred over… chasing each other compulsively on a giant LED ticker… reminders that best friends died in the same hospital daughters were born… wait and see them again… accept that language is only a sleight of tongue… Yankees ace blows save in extra innings… MTA raises price of monthly metrocard due to increasingly emaciated citizens squeezing through turnstiles together… Lars Wildman, son of recently murdered Featherton publishing czar, dies at Bellevue Hospital after swandiving from the roof of the NYPL … Freedom tower to be renamed because of trademark infringement…
The buildings had their own words. Logistical. Warnings. Words that tell you what already happened while making you feel like you were present when the shit truly went down.
“It’s already out.” Kiko was staring up at a billboard advertising Lars’ new book.
“
The Girl In The Elevator
.”
Bricks and brownstones, a silent life story, a half smile that wanted to explode whole. We shared the same stride. Far from unconscious, every few steps Kiko’s body would brush against mine. It dawned on me that she was leading me to the closest bookstore expecting Lars to make sense of it all for us. I didn’t have to wonder much if I made it under the covers. He cold-jacked the title from me and I understood how people were torn apart, scrambled up, and put back together as new. Most everyone that ended up in the pages had no idea they were even there. Others tried to get placed inside. Similar to the way they fell into this world, they were trying to fall into another.
“It’s just a block away if I remember right.” Excitement filled Kiko like a kid in a teen mystery who fell in a cave and figured why not explore it. Except this was surreal grit. All hands and minds are dirty. No punches pulled. Kiko was leading us to a place that had special meaning to me and she didn’t even know it. She was guiding me to the spot that changed my life forever.
Sometimes empty is better. The bookstore was losing customers. I wasn’t sure where they went.
“Oh I thought I was alone.”
“No such thing.” Her celestial eyes came at me like a tsunami wave almost knocking the book loose.
“I’m Missy.” Her face sculpted from secluded rocks found inside a holy waterfall.
“Farrow.”
“You give a good first impression Farrow, standing there with that book in your hand as if it was a treasure that only fits you.” The woman could have said anything and I would have agreed.
“Thanks.” Little did she know the book I was holding wasn’t actually a book that was ordered and sold in this particular store. It was a book I wrote myself and printed by mail order in a Canadian milltown. I smuggled a copy or two into every bookstore and library in New York. They could keep the profits and I would keep the readers. At least that was how the plan originated. After I left the copies on the shelves, I would stop by periodically to see if anyone took them home. Inspecting if the binding or pages were creased. More often than not the copies were still there untouched. It was at that very moment I decided that my next book would have Missy on the cover. That way it would be irresistible. Wait! Even better…
“Missy my next book will be about you.”
“What do you mean?” She seemed creeped out and flattered at the same time.
“I mean… I don’t know you yet, but the feelings you evoke in me are enough to fill an entire book.”
“A poem maybe. An epic poem full of exaggerations.”
“At least a novella full of truths, but when you go that far, you might as well keep going.”
“Sounds like a mystery.”
“Yeah a mystery about you Missy.”
“If you write it, I’ll read it.” Missy tried to read the book’s title in my hand, but I was careful to shield it.
Of course the bookstore was no longer. Now we had little choice, but to stare emptily at the banker in the ceiling high window
“Fish in a tank.” Kiko was thorough with her due diligence.
“Don’t make eye-contact or…” A streetlady covered in lesions grumbled, picking half a burning cigarette off the cement before making her way for the nearest alley. It was too late for us all. The banker exited the fishbowl, adjusting to the natural light.
“Do you have an account with us?”
“What happened to the bookstore?” Kiko dwelled within rage.
“What do you mean?”
“There was a great bookstore here.” I explained to him, but it didn’t register.
“Our bank has more branches than any other financial institution in the world. There’s one every two and three-quarter blocks and what’s even better is…” His voice trailed off only when we managed to put enough distance between us.