And even there, Alan could feel Bleecker frowning down at him, judging. So he ran. TMP be damned. He ran from the small police army that was being marshaled to scour through missing persons reports and criminal profiles and which would soon be embarking on an extensive canal-wide search for anything suspicious, anything at all. But mostly he ran from the notion that some part of him didn't care about any of this, that some part of him had already given up.
He drove to the squatter building and met Womack. But the dirt palace was still a vagrant desert. And the loading dock door had miraculously been locked, keeping Alan from getting inside. Some of the guys there, it was almost as if they didn't believe him, that he'd imagined the place swarming with potential suspects just the day before.
There were several check-up calls to Vincent. There was more hopeless surveillance. There were three failed attempts to re-reach Rose's doctor. Until finally it came time for the second corpse's autopsy. Perhaps there TMP would make its triumphant comeback...
Throughout the autopsy Alan remained uncharacteristically pessimistic. They had another male, a senior citizen, stringy. No stabbing this time. Oddly, the victim had died of seemingly natural causes, a heart attack. Although the teeth marks were identical -- the body had still been eaten at. Alan found all this to be hugely uninspiring. He was there ogling the deconstructed cadaver and all he could think was -- what was the connection? Where were the answers?
He called the doctor again.
"Do you know lactic acidosis?" she said. "How about hypokalemia? Bilateral infiltrates, pleural effusion, pyelonephritis..."
"I need to see her," said Alan, angrily. "You need to let me see her."
But the doctor had been disconnected. Or had hung up. "Fuck," he shouted. People were staring at him.
Alan returned to the bridge. The entire street had been blocked off to keep out the crowds of sightseers and reporters. Three of the officers posted there had no job other than to continuously gaze at the bridge's ass. Alan spent an hour watching the canal water percolate. Watched it writhe and fester. He felt strangely catatonic, immobilized.
What were the clouds waiting for? Bring the deluge. Put the world ten feet underwater, drown us all. Let it rain and rain and rain and stop only when the water meets the clouds. Maybe the people who came after could live on islands of vapor. Maybe they'd never have to know about all this, down at the ocean's bottom, about this sad little history that went nowhere.
More time, trashed. He was getting good at this. Alan, the trash man. He drove to a gas station, erratically. He parked his car in a puddle of oil and grabbed some coins for the payphone. By then the wheel of the sun, diffuse in the overcast sky, was already headed earthward.
First Alan went to the cashier's booth, an outhouse-sized box of bulletproof glass. He felt so unlike himself. So distracted. For instance, there was the thing with his legs. All day, Alan had suddenly been finding himself absorbed by the sight of his own legs. Particularly while in repose. He wouldn't just watch them -- he'd spy on them. They seemed so strange, so suddenly perverse. An entire half of you was legs. It was odd that you spent so much time thinking about brains and guts and faces, but what about the quiet half, the silent half, those two stealthy witnesses? And so out of the loop, so way out in the sticks. So far from the bourgeois hubbub of torso action. And so cheapskate. We owed our mobility to a trick of brute balance -- not a shred of grace in those two gangly pipes, those inelaborate stilts, with the dome knee, the screwy ankle, and the feet, oh those feet, caught pants down sideways between a flipper and a hand, a fland, a hipper. The whole works smacked of bargain-caliber knockoff, some no-name brand. Fucking legs. A couple of evolutionary afterthoughts, tacked on for good times, for a few dumb laughs.
The cashier tapped on the glass. "You can't do that here."
Alan blushed. He'd been standing there looking down at...at them.
Alan pointed to the shelf just behind the cashier. "One of those." He dropped money in the silver drawer and pushed it shut. It reopened with his change, a matchbook, and a pack of cigarettes.
Alan had reached the point where this sort of thing made sense.
He sauntered around the corner to the payphone. Another glass box. He had finally learned his lesson -- no more doctors. This time he asked to speak to one of the men guarding Rose. While on hold, he wondered how many strangers had smeared this receiver with their fingers and mouths, or even other parts of the body. Even, you know, in the pants area. But Alan could muster neither interest nor indignity. It was as if he had no more repulsion left in him. Probably because all of it was already being directed at the most vile thing he had ever encountered or could have imagined. Some asshole. Some guy by the name of Alan D'Angelo.
Alan unwrapped the pack and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. A bored voice came on the line. "How is she?" asked Alan, shakily striking a match.
After much consideration the guard decided, "Far from well."
Alan took a drag. He really went for it, going all out. There was noise, smoke, fire. It was fantastic.
"Just tell me this," he hacked, drawing painful air, " is she awake?"
"Buddy, are you okay?"
"Answer the fucking question."
"I uh, I think she might have been awake earlier. Maybe. More or less. Say, are you sure you're--"
"I'll be there in ten." Alan hung up. He embraced the telephone, leaning his face against the metal, his mouth glowing. He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. Smoking was a thing you could do. So he did it.
He coaxed the pack into his pocket. He touched something dry and thin there. He pulled it out, a folded paper square, and shook it flat. It was a clipping from the newspaper, a photo actually, of pallbearers and the pall they bore -- a gray, grandfather clock of a coffin. They carried it like a battering ram, like they were storming the cemetery. No note, no caption. A veiled woman's blurred head was trapped in the bottom corner. For some reason, the pallbearers wore mirrored sunglasses.
Susan. Just another friendly reminder.
Alan thought about that later as he sat in Rose's hospital room. Had Rose and Joe ever done that? Argued about dying? Was that normal?
"How are you feeling, Rose."
The novelty of nicotine was waning. Alan had smoked another cigarette on the ride to the hospital. There was too much saliva in his mouth, too much tobacco taste. His head felt slanted.
The guards were outside, keeping an eye open for the MD. Alan leaned forward. "I know who you are, Rose. Tell me about your home. You know, the top floor. Do you like living there with your buddies? Are you guys into satanism? Murder rituals? What's the tub for? I know, tell me a number -- how many people have you guys murdered? Are there some bodies we don't know about? You can tell me."
No answer. Alan's attention drooped floorward. Legs. It was easy taking their cooperation for granted. But you think they didn't resent you? You think they took pleasure in their slavery? Think again. Oh they hated you all right, those legs. Alan could see it now. It was so obvious. Legs weren't nearly so benevolent as everyone thought. You think they didn't want their independence? You think they wouldn't do anything to roam free?
Alan jerked his face away. So unlike himself. And when he turned back toward the bed, Rose was watching him. With one eye, the right one. The white part was more of a sherbet color. Alan leaned towards the window. The orb followed. He leaned toward the TV. It did the same. The other eye stayed shut, probably stuck with infection.
"Rose?" asked Alan. It came out nervous and wet. This was all Alan had left, this woman. There was a knock at the door. Alan ignored it.
Rose's lips were moving. They actually bent and opened. Like she might...like she might speak.
"Its time to wake up," Alan trilled, feeling on the verge of something, something he need badly, something hopeful.
"Rose," he said, "it's time."
*
Rose, he kept saying. Rose. Rose.
"Rose."
Sometimes h
e'd say Joseph. And then Lombardi. And then Rose Lombardi. Names. All these names.
She didn't feel right. She felt...healthy. He kept saying it. Rose.
That was her name. Names. YES. Rose. YES. Joseph. YES. Go away, already.
"Talk, Rose. Come CLEAN."
She missed the top floor. She missed its Mesozoic swampiness and cradle-like warmth. It was home. But here, in this place the water was filtered. They kept the temperature cold and the air ventilated. Here in this church. And these priests with their white robes and stethoscope rosaries, she could sense their anticipation, could hear their excited whispers -- they sensed a conversion in their midst. Health of course being the religion here, drugs being the prayer, disease being the temptation. Health, our Lord and Savior. A very busy religion, on call 24 hours. Drive-through available. Exorcisms performed daily. Fuh-ree this woman's sowl from the devil's pnew-moan-yerrr.
Not that this situation didn't have one advantage. With so many sick people under one roof it was an ideal place to harvest. More than a few patients had awoken that morning to recall dreaming of a ghost, a woman with her finger in their mouth (this finger to be later wiped across her lips), or her mouth otherwise hovering above theirs, a near kiss, capturing their exhalations (moist and cabbagey, they were to Rose exquisite) -- anything to prolong her disease. Because they were killing her by bringing her back to life, why were they bringing her back? They were making her forget, erasing the one thing she'd sworn she'd preserve, the one memory.
This memory was where the names were. Joseph. Rose. And there was another one, an important one. A name she remembered. A name that belonged to her and her husband. They'd picked it because it rang so mature, so very adult-like for a child.
This other name. It was the underlying texture, the skeleton on which everything depended. She could still remember. She could still see that day... It had been...it had been late. Evening was on the verge.
Tell him the names if he wants them so much. Tell him the names if it will help the memory to stay...
You could hear it. Cicada's buzzing in the trees like rattlesnakes. And see. The humped streets, the traffic lights, the heaving roofs, everything's soft at the edges, the peripheral molecules a bit slower than usual, over-warm and over-tired.
She had said, "Henry, get down from there."
Henry. That was the name.
He was ahead of them. Running -- you don't care if it's hot when you're that young, you're still too immortal (give it a few decades though, then you start to care, then you start to feel each degree on the thermometer -- it's the young and the old that die during heat waves, the young who don't know enough and the old who know too much).
Henry jumps and turns, choreographed looking, an exuberant five years old. He has his father's mild ugliness, but the thing is, he's turned it handsome. There's Joe's kaiser roll nose -- that was Joe for you, with a face that belonged in a cafeteria -- but softer and daintier. Also Joe's popsicle chin, but stronger and more distinctly spade shaped. Joe's potato chip ears and soup colored hair -- Henry had somehow bested them both. He had even inherited Rose's questionable complexion, which was smooth but devoid of human tint, although on Henry it was rather exotic, reminding her of indulged children who live in palaces so vast that they never had to venture outdoors. That Henry had done so much with so little seemed to bode well, seemed to indicate such things to come.
And he was smart. Lately he'd been thrilling her by spelling out the word Mississippi (dear Mississippi, that golden standard of childhood parent-pleasers). Henry, bless his heart, would inevitably falter at about the second I, like a tightrope walker stumbling above the big-top floor (you feared for that elegantly crafted work in progress, the M-I-S-S-I-). Then, with faux concentration -- his fingers pressed to his temples, his eyes closed -- and faux sweat (she'd never notice it until this point, the tap water he'd sprinkled on his forehead) Henry would bring it home, gliding into a smooth and triumphant, I-P-P-I to a "Tadaa!" and her cries of joy.
"Watch it, Henry!"
Henry is there and so is Joe. Joe squeezes her waist as they stroll. "Half the department -- no clue," he says. "With a little rank, I'd own the place."
Her attention doesn't stray from Henry's gamboling path. It was best to be watchful -- the world, unfortunately, could be a minefield, and a particularly child hungry one at that. Birth wasn't the miracle, surviving to maturity was.
"Careful Henry! Drop that!"
"Stay away from there, Henry!"
"Do not eat things from the ground, Henry!"
"Think about it," said Joe. "Mr. Lombardi -- Squad Super."
Henry strutted over to Mr. Grion's stoop. Mr. Grion was relaxing; shirt off, fanning, with black socks pulled all the way up his skinny, powdery legs. Mr. Grion made a git motion. Henry pointed his fingers like a gun. Kapow.
"Henry we're turning! We're crossing the bridge!"
Henry did a showstopping leap, real razzmatazz, hanging in the air, hands out like, "Showtime," and then he ran straight into the street.
"What did I say? WHAT DID I SAY? Look both ways!"
Streets were little boy meat grinders, continually watered clean by the tears of mournful mothers. Henry hopped back onto the sidewalk and zoomed close. Rose made a grab but he spun away and careened onward.
"What's a matter with you!"
Joe splashed his hand in an arc. "Or...Commissioner Lombardi."
Rose made a point of removing his hand from her hip. Joe just didn't understand the possibilities, the thousands of them that could cause Henry harm: cars and roads, of course, but also leaded paint chips, loaded guns, kitchen knives, scalding water, sharp glass, plastic bags to be put on heads, firecrackers that call out with candy colors, trees easily climbed and just as easily fallen from, allergic reactions to bees, razor blades in candy apples, the inviting gaps of electrical sockets, mustached strangers offering treats. To name a few.
Henry galloped over the bridge. With a curtain call flourish he stopped and pinched his nose. "Pee-yuu, right pop? Real stinker."
"Yup," called Joe. Then, "I know. Governor. Make me Governor. I'll set 'em straight. Give me the mansion and the chauffeur. I'll pass a bill. You know I will."
Henry stopped midway across and gazed at the canal. He put a foot on the railing and pulled himself up.
"Henry, you're this close," warned Rose.
"Let him play," complained Joe. "He's alright."
"He's halfway off it already."
"Be serious, he's fine."
You couldn't take these kinds of gambles, not with the lives of children. You couldn't let them balance on the sides of bridges. You couldn't let them go away to camp. You couldn't let them eat dessert before dinner or wander barefoot. And you definitely couldn't let them play sports, sports being the number one most brutal purveyor of childhood concussions, mutilated limbs, smashed teeth, and heat stroke.
"Listen to what I say, Henry," she ordered.
Henry squeaked, "Look, Pop!" By now he was leaning over the rail and pointing at the water -- a red balloon was languishing there like a pimple. The wind seemed to want to save it, to nudge it towards land, but the balloon refused to move.
Rose hurried the remaining distance and snugly gripped the tail of her son's shirt.
"Come on Henry, let go."
"If he wants to stay, let him stay," said Joe.
"Henry..."
"He'll catch up," said Joe, starting away.
Henry clung to the rail, eyes intensely shut. "I don't want to go," he said.
Joe yelled, "For chrissakes, Rose--"
Maybe Rose would let go of Henry's shirt and absolutely nothing would happen. Maybe one day she'd let him go by himself to purchase milk at the corner store and nothing would happen. Maybe she'd let him jump on the bed and nothing would happen. Nothing seemed to happen all that often to Henry's friends at school. No cases of lunch box salmonella, no jungle gym bloodbaths, no escaped circus lions making off with the kickball champion. Maybe sh
e was being too harsh. Maybe Henry would be all right. And maybe she should try letting go, just once. She could take these things case by case.
"I swear," said Joe.
As soon as she released him, she regretted it. Henry held her gaze defiantly. She realized that she had just let him win. And suddenly, this wasn't Henry anymore, not her Henry, not her five-year-old darling sweetheart. This was...someone else. Like he was already some...some kind of...
Some kind of teenager.
She backed away, Henry now unfamiliar to her, a complete stranger. She hurried to catch Joe. He was saying, "And why not a Senator? Or maybe Congress?" Joe reached for her and she reached back, tightly. He started to say something else, when there was a thud from the canal. A mouthy shoom.
Joe's face must have reflected hers. First it lifted upward, but just to gain altitude before smashing downward and really making a mess, one big shrieking, terrified mask.
Where their son was supposed to be, now stood a gaping, blinding emptiness.
They were running. Below them the mustard-colored water frothed. All that was left of Henry were his legs, sticking out of the river at an absurdly perpendicular angle, already engulfed to the shins and going fast.
Rose watched the canal swallow her son. A few large bubbles cauliflowered and then the water went eerily calm. The balloon was nowhere to be seen. Joe swung over and jumped.
Part of Rose panicked. She thought that Joe hadn't jumped, that he'd accidentally fallen instead. That the world was going mad, people from around the city, even miles away, were tumbling out of cars, out of restaurants, rolling for miles along asphalt, pulled to this place and then flopping inexplicably into the canal.
She jumped next. She thought she heard shouting on the way down, from somewhere on the street, but then she crashed into the river. The water dragged her in, thick and still, syrupy and rabbit warm. There was no current. You didn't float; you were suspended. To reach the surface you had to climb. There was noise here -- a machinery repeat, pistons, oil burning, decades of toxic monologue. She glimpsed pitted yellow slush. A Loch Ness E. coli flared past. Light didn't penetrate so much as it was captured. She wrestled to the surface.
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