by Sam Munson
Cold air filled my mouth and dried out my eyes. Yellow glare and vertigo. I couldn’t accept the view. Or wouldn’t. “The valley of bones,” said Charthouse. All I could dredge up in response was: “It’s not the valley of bones.” My throat stung. “An expert,” said Vincent. “If it isn’t the valley of bones,” said Charthouse, “then what is it?” Everyone stood behind me. I had to keep craning my head to see. The violinist held the gun steady. In every glimpse. “Don’t do anything stupid. I already told you,” she said. “It’s the new building they’re building on Mercer Street,” I said, “with the thing they haven’t put in yet. The spire. Glass spire.” Which it was. I recognized the orange crane creaking away, near us. From news reports. Concerns over its stability. Then again, what doesn’t suffer from such concerns? “Don’t be so literal,” said Charthouse. The violin player gave me a shove. I objected to this. I couldn’t say anything. At least the gun wasn’t scraping my skin anymore. At least my nose wasn’t bleeding. I turned to face them. I didn’t want to get shot in the back. “I don’t know what it is that you think you can get out of doing this,” I said. “It’s not we who are going to get anything out of it,” said Charthouse. “I can tell you this,” said Vincent, “you should try to stay calm but you’re not going to like what comes next.” “You’re interfering,” said the violin player, “there’s no rule I can’t shoot you.”
“Technically,” said Charthouse, “you are correct.” The violinist kept the gun pointed at me, though. Not Vincent. I was standing on a platform. Wooden planks, weather-stained. They bowed and bounced under my weight and the weight of my captors. Bright bulbs in their orange cages hanging from rubber cords tied around the exposed girders of the building. Source of that yellow glow. In the middle, a huge square shaft. Three hundred feet deep, I estimated. Four, possibly. The platform edged this. For the spire. For its internal supports. I had no idea. I stared down. More vertigo. I didn’t even fear heights. The wind whipped my ears. The plank floor creaked and swayed. All the drowsiness and uncertainty the whiskey brought on drained away. I heard the wind whistle and I heard Charthouse chuckle. Double voice of nature. That phrase is my own. “Let’s get to it, Alabama,” said Charthouse. Alabama: the violin player. I turned to watch. She shuffled back till her shoulders met a girder, covering me with the pistol. “Your name’s Alabama,” I said. “You’re a real wit,” she said, “the girls must love you.”
“Charming,” said Charthouse. “This is going to be good, I predict,” said Vincent. The barrel hole black and enormous, when I twisted to look. “How did you knock me out,” I asked Charthouse. “Better and better,” said Vincent. “He wasn’t talking to you,” said Charthouse. The barrel hole steady. A dark eye. It echoed the bruise under the tip of her pale chin. “Just be calm, Michael,” said Hob. The crane moaned. “We’re getting close,” said Charthouse. I tried to crouch, to get stable. “Stand up,” said Alabama. I was still thinking about what she would look like naked. “Where did you get that bruise,” I said. “Listen to Charthouse,” she said. I was more concerned with the gun. “Did you come to us of your own free will,” he asked me. “Are you joking,” I said. “Don’t be disingenuous,” said Charthouse, “Alabama will shoot you.” “Yes,” I said. It was for the most part true. “With no promises or inducements,” he asked. I looked at Hob. “You gave me all that whiskey or whatever it was, does that count,” I asked. “ ‘Whatever it was,’ ” said Charthouse. “That’s eloquent,” said Alabama. “Does not count, by the way,” said Vincent. The wind moved the loose cloth of Charthouse’s dark windbreaker. Purple, eggplant purple. White stripes down the sleeves. A robe. I thought, His windbreaker looks like a robe. I am literal minded. Secret of my success. Such as it is. “And what do you mean it’s the valley of bones,” I said. A stupid question. “It’s a metaphor,” said Alabama, “now get moving.” “But what do you mean, though,” I said. Another stupid question. “Son, you know what she means,” said Charthouse. Alabama twitched the gun toward the outer edge of the platform. “Turn and get walking,” she said, “or you know the deal.” I didn’t move. She widened her stance. My bladder ached. I thought about pissing myself. I didn’t. I walked up to the platform edge and stared down. More levels like the one we stood on, more blaring lights in cages. I heard a clicking sound. I knew it was Alabama chambering a round. Drawing back the hammer. Had to be. “All right, you ready,” said Charthouse. “For what, ready for what,” I said. “You should feel lucky,” said Charthouse, “few get the chance.” “He doesn’t look ready,” said Vincent. “Shut up,” said Hob, and then to me: “Don’t listen, it’s totally fine, trust me.” This I had trouble with. “I don’t know what the salto is,” I said, “and I don’t know how to take it.” “I trust you can figure it out,” said Alabama. “She’s right,” said Charthouse, “it’s not genius-level perception we’re talking about here.”
At the bottom of the shaft, two-by-fours, cement sacks, eleven wheelbarrows. I counted them twice. A yellow hard-hat topping a pile of white dust. “Valley of bones,” crowed Charthouse. “I don’t see any bones,” I said. I knew I was going to die. These cocksuckers were going to kill me for no reason. “You lack a sense for poetry,” said Charthouse. True. I’m no poet. I’m no philosopher, either. I wasn’t then. I was a kid suffering an already-coming-on hangover, standing on top of a building with a hot girl pointing a gun at him and ordering him to take the salto. “I don’t know what that means,” I said, “I don’t.” “Just jump,” said Hob. “Or she’ll shoot you,” said Vincent, “and I’ve seen her do it before.” You could tell by their reedy voices they were brothers. In the shaft, wind-carried fragments of paper circled. On the streets below, the amber and red lights of cars. The air smelled like snow. “Nothing hard to understand about it,” said Alabama. “He’s not going to do it,” said Vincent. “I didn’t say that,” I called. “You have a point,” said Charthouse, “but you need to decide.” I pushed my toes over the wooden lip. “Can I just ask you one thing real quick,” I said. “Last question,” said Charthouse. “How does the rug get back down flat if you close the hatch behind you when you come down. In the store, I mean.” Charthouse hooted a long laugh. The cold wind whistled. “You’re an observant guy,” he said, “and you might even find out. But right now you need to decide.” So I decided. I didn’t want to get shot in the back. I took three breaths. I clenched my teeth. I leaped into the empty air.
6
My mother didn’t wait for an answer. She slipped her head past the jamb to ask if I was sick. “I feel great,” I said. I don’t like lying. She wanted to know if I wanted any pancakes. She made them for my father every Saturday morning. Blueberry pancakes, summer and winter. I said I was all right. Which hurt. “Well, you look,” said my mother, “like you’re getting sick. But that’s just this correspondent’s opinion.” I promised I wasn’t getting sick. “I should go deal with the pancakes,” she said. I tried to get back to sleep. Could not. Even the muscles controlling my eyes burned and sang. To say nothing of the healing wound on my hand. That had started hurting again, like a motherfucker. As Gilder might have put it. Every time I flexed my palm—and I couldn’t stop flexing it—it stung and ached. I listened to my mother clattering around in the kitchen and my father singing. He was a morning singer. “There’s no business like show business,” he sang. Or: “The sadder but wiser girl’s the girl for me.”
That made me think of Alabama and the tattoo twisting down her neck, beneath the yellow edge of her shirt. I was too sore even to get a hard-on. So I lay in my bed, smelling the detergent on my sheets and hearing my parents’ soft conversation. “Is he hungover,” my father said. “He says he feels fine,” my mother said. “I don’t know, he looks a lot worse for the wear,” said my father, “and he smells like he’s been drinking.” They weren’t criticizing me, just observing. I drifted along for a while, an hour, two hours. Listening and wincing. When my house phone rang, I knew it was Hob. He’d been calling my cell. I’d been no
t answering. Listening to the apian buzz. Apian means “of or pertaining to bees.” I learned that from my parents’ nature-TV habit. My father answered and I rasped that if it was for me, hold on, I was on my way. I rolled out of bed and grunted when I hit the floor, and had managed to raise myself to my knees when my father appeared in the doorway, holding his tennis racket in one hand and a phone in the other. “You’re wanted on the telephone,” he said, and winked and walked away, singing that song about the sadder but wiser girl. “Good morning, sunshine,” Hob said.
Then he explained about meeting up. I listened. At times you have to keep your mouth shut. I heard my father leave. He was a tennis fiend. He said it kept him young. Maybe so. Nobody’s parents stay young. After I got off the phone, I staggered to the brown-tiled dim half bath off the front hall. I turned on the fluorescents. They hummed, flickered, blazed. My skin looked transparent and green. I could see veins at my temples. I swabbed sweat from my eyebrows. I vomited in the sink. My mother, through the door, asked me if I needed help. I puked up another jet of yellowish bile and told her I was fine. My voice croaking, from the acid. “You don’t sound fine,” said my mother. “Did you go out drinking last night? Where were you out so late?” I told her I’d been doing wind sprints with Greg Gilder—his name slipped out—and had lost track of the time. “I thought exercise was supposed to be good for you,” said my mother. Hovering outside the door. I could just see her: palm spread on the wood, ear cocked near the jamb. “All right, I’m off,” she said. I told her good-bye. I waited until the front door creaked shut before spewing a third stream of bile into the white sink. I grinned at myself in the mirror and said, “This isn’t so bad, Mikey.”
Nobody had ever called me Mikey. Not my parents and not my friends, not any girls. The statue of Simón Bolívar just outside the park: that’s where Hob wanted to meet. Why Hob chose it, I don’t know. I slipped the green book into my pocket as I left. Seemed like the natural thing to do. He was already waiting when I got there, smoking. I walked up, slow. Again, I had no real idea of what to say. We kind of stood there, watching each other. Hob was smiling a smile that made me want to punch him in the teeth. The wound across my knuckles still stung. He asked me how I felt. “Like I’m the one who got my ass kicked,” I said. “And what about your vision,” he said. “What are you, an ophthalmologist,” I said. “Just tell me right now if you’ve had any blurry vision or numbness,” he said. He sounded old. “Like I caught a beating. That’s all,” I told him. “I’d rate your health situation normal,” he said. A rickshaw rolled by, the driver needlessly and joyfully dinging the handlebar bell. Two fuchsia-clad fatasses in the back snapping pictures of me and Hob and Simón Bolívar. A raven landed on the statue’s iron hair, and Hob watched it hop as he spoke to me. “Normal,” I said. The raven took off with a raucous caw. “I hate those birds,” said Hob. “Hating birds is pointless,” I said. He exhaled a cloud of sweet blue smoke. “What’s in those anyway,” I asked. “All kinds of stuff,” he said, “my brother makes the blend.”
I took one. I was not much of a smoker. My second in twenty-four hours. No better reason to smoke than the fact that you don’t smoke. It hurt to take a drag. The smoke wasn’t harsh or hot the way it was from the few other cigarettes I’d smoked, and as soon as it eased into my lungs my bodily pain started to dissipate. “Not bad, right,” said Hob. “I didn’t say anything,” I said. “I know you don’t necessarily understand what happened last night,” he said. This was true. I did not understand what had happened and I did not understand why it left me feeling as though my bones had shattered. As though I’d lost a lot of blood. “Then why don’t you give me the executive summary,” I said. Bike hawkers sidled up to pedestrians, holding their rate cards and mumbling, and the stink of roasting chestnuts blew into my nose. “Well,” said Hob. “It was a test, right,” I said. “It was the salto,” said Hob. “Why the salto,” I said, “why don’t you call it facing certain death or something more accurate?” I drew in another lungful of that sweet smoke. My pain ebbed more. My blood stopped buzzing in my ear canals. “I don’t know. It’s just what it’s called.” “And I passed,” I said. “You’re standing here, aren’t you,” said Hob. “When does my certificate arrive,” I asked. Hob held up his two closed fists. “Pick one,” he said. I chose left. He opened up. A key lay there, silver and unscratched, its wards undented.
I knew what it was for. Or guessed. I took it. The raven came back. “Put it in your pocket,” said Hob. “What is this thing you have with birds, man,” I said. “They like shiny objects,” said Hob. “So do a lot of humans,” I said. “I’ll explain it, soon,” he said. I pocketed the key. “And you do,” he said, “really feel all right? No blurry vision? No aphasia?” I told him no blurry vision. I told him I didn’t know what aphasia meant. “It’s like if you can’t remember the word for ‘door’ or ‘coffee cup,’ ” said Hob. “I puked. That’s it,” I said. “Pretty much par for the course,” he said. The rickshaw fatasses: rolling by again, still snapping away. “Hob, man, seriously,” I said. “Look, don’t think about it too much. Okay? Don’t dwell on it,” he said. The rickshaw driver stopped. The fatasses got out. He started to berate them about the price. They objected at first. He’d said fifteen dollars. Et cetera. In the end they complied. Hob and I didn’t speak as we watched the argument. After the male fatass paid the rickshaw driver, taking a grass-green plastic wallet out of his sea-blue backpack, after he and his fat wife or fat girlfriend had waddled off, I figured it was time. To ask Hob, I mean, the question that had really been on my mind since I’d woken up: “How old is Alabama?”
He grinned and didn’t answer. “No, seriously, is she in high school or what, I couldn’t tell is why I’m asking.” “Yeah, you and every other loser,” said Hob, “but you’re in luck. Her phone number’s on a piece of paper in your copy of the Calendar. Along with Vincent’s. Use, don’t abuse. Memorize and destroy.” He was already leaving. He just tipped me a salute and left me there holding the green book. Which seemed too heavy for what it was. Then again, what did I know about the relative weight of books? I opened it: as promised, a slip of paper held Alabama’s phone number and Vincent’s. Hob had never touched the book, that I’d seen. The raven came back and watched me smoke from the top of Bolívar’s head. Or maybe it was a different bird. Couldn’t tell the difference then. “Check it out,” I said, and held up the book and the key. “Look at this, bird.” The raven cocked its head and looked and looked. Book to key. Key to book. It stared at my face. Those black, reflective eyes.
As for wonder, the sense of wonder or what we commonly call that: it’s almost if you think about it a way of stopping you from ever working any miracles yourself. Truth is, miracle-working’s no big deal. For example, we put boot prints on the moon. No other animal can say that. And when I launched myself into the air above that resonant shaft, it was also no big deal. I didn’t think about it. I just didn’t have a choice. Hob and his gang, or whatever they were, stood in a rough semicircle behind me. Charthouse staring at me, arms crossed. His windbreaker sleeves pushed high up on his bulky forearms, the skin covered in black writing. Right down to his wrists. Hob shouted, again, that everything was going to be fine. “I have no faith in that prediction,” I said, “not to be a dick.” Alabama adjusted her stance again. I realized she was going to shoot me. I jump, wait a while, then land. A Russian expert said that. A dancer. I think. Jump. Wait a while. Land. Sounds simple. Within anyone’s reach. Anyone who can stomach the risk. All you need is the correct impetus. A beautiful woman (or girl) whose age you can’t tell, for example, pointing a gun at you. I jumped. I tried to aim for the concrete sacks at the bottom of the shaft. I thought they’d be better to fall on. I started to pray my tenth or eleventh Ave Maria. Waiting for the ground to rush up to meet me.
It failed to do so. I was turning slowly in the blowing, frigid wind. The black soles of my sneakers about level with the plank I’d launched myself from. I didn’t feel
wonder. I didn’t feel anything. No: I sort of felt like an idiot. Or the fraction of my self or soul doing my thinking at that precarious moment suffered the pangs of being an exposed, flailing fool. Mostly nothing. That’s what it’s like.
“Not bad,” said Charthouse. Alabama lowered her huge gun. Vincent said, “Too close for comfort.” Hob was applauding. “Sterling,” he yelled out, “totally sterling.” “Question is, can you get back,” said Charthouse. Another gust moved me. I tried to walk. That wasn’t happening. So I flapped my arms. Trying to swim. It half-worked. I tumbled and floated out over the middle of the shaft, my pulse vibrating. Another two, three minutes of backbreaking effort and I managed to scrape my fingers on the edge of the wooden platform. I dragged myself forward. The last three feet: not so graceful. I hit the plywood with a bang you could hear echoing and echoing. My clothes heavy with sweat. My captors were now approaching. Alabama still had her gun lowered, so I assumed I was safe. “What the fuck,” I said, “what the fuck. What the fuck.” She’d already reached me and was helping me up. Yanking me, I should say. “That’s just how it works,” she said. “How what works,” I said. Could not catch my breath. Charthouse limped up. “Hob knows how to pick them. That is the trick to getting by,” he said, and jabbed me lightly with his cane. I stumbled. He grabbed one arm and Alabama grabbed the other. My jaw quivered, my teeth knocked against one another, my knees bowed. One of my arms lay across Charthouse’s wide shoulders and one across Alabama’s narrow shoulders. Her scapular bones dug into my skin. What she looked like naked: still on my mind. Blame my age. She pressed two fingers to the hollow of my throat. “His pulse is high,” she said. “I’m cold,” I gasped. “You are so eloquent it’s amazing,” said Alabama. “You watch too much TV, anyway,” said Charthouse, “he’s fine. Look at those shoulders. Like a young ox.”