While he was mooning over things past, he was horrified to hear a hyped version of The Windchime Concerto playing on Glenda’s own KGLN-FM. He slammed his father’s album shut when he heard ossified disc jockey Bobby Slaw, older than the maple tree outside City Hall, excitedly announce: “Rumor has it that this haunting refrain was composed and performed by our own Simon Apple, with lyrics written and sung by another Glenda original, Ms. Polly Moon. There’s more! The recording is produced by that Glenda gadabout, Albert Essman! It’s rocketing up the charts, folks! We’re on our way to the Top Ten! Amen! You heard it here first! The Windchime Concerto —it ain’t pop, it ain’t rock, it ain’t swing, it ain’t jazz . . . it’s a sound like no other from no instrument I ever heard! But what it is is genuine W.O.W! and it’s N-O-W on KGLN-FM! Kudos and kisses to Simon, Polly and Albert, wherever you stars hang out!”
Simon heard his music play while Polly Moon’s sultry voice half-whispered, half-sang:
Do cannibals eat mermaids?
Do mermaids eat sardines?
What random winds determine
Which way a flower leans?
Do questions have answers?
Are the answers truths or lies?
Is the fourth dimension
The dimension of surprise?
Why is it that I need you?
Why can’t I do without?
Is it the crinkle of your smile
Or the crackle of your doubt?
What’s the lethal magnet
That draws me to your heart?
Is it you shining in the sun
Or naked in the dark?
Is it your whisper’s waterfall?
The rainbow of your lips?
Or the soft electric flowing
From your fingertips?
When we lay together
Is there a you and me?
Or do we vanish like a spark
Then drift invisibly?
And if we drift
Where do we go?
To what will we return?
What makes our shadows dip and dance?
Why does our candle burn?
What draws the lightning from the sky?
What turns the rain to tears?
Why does time evaporate
In a shower of falling years?
And really does it matter
If mermaids eat sardines?
Or cannibals eat mermaids?
Or which way a flower leans?
Or why the angels dance on pins?
Or what your laughter means?
The next morning, after fending off a dozen calls from reporters, agents and record companies, Robert J. drove Simon to the airport, his father insisting that Marvin Klipstein be freed to nail Essman Records, Polly Moon, Celadon College, Gerald Warren and anybody else involved in such an obvious theft of intellectual property. Robert J. correctly felt that Simon had surrendered his rights under duress.
Despite his father’s pleas, Simon refused to get involved in any litigation. “I want the whole incident put behind me, no pun intended,” Simon said. “Period. The end.”
54
Simon sat in his cell writing a thank-you note to a kindergarten class in Glenda that had sent along a bundle of illustrated have a happy day messages. Their teacher, Mrs. Althea Murphy, included a note explaining that the school wished to offer some affectionate gesture but that circumstances made it expedient to shield the children from potentially upsetting details of his impending execution.
The moppets were told that Simon Apple had a bad chest cold and were required to express their concern as cheerfully as possible. There were many drawings of happy faces and rainbows done in crayon along with fumbling attempts at script, mostly illegible but surely well intentioned. One kid who knew more than he should have, sent a drawing of a stick figure strapped to a table with lethal fluids flowing into his mouth through curly tubes. Nevertheless, even that drawing was graced with the redeeming virtue of mercy. Near the tubed man, a dog sat weeping a deluge of tears.
Simon was touched by the letters though he had mixed feelings about drafting a proper reply. His first attempt began by correcting the impression that he might recover, listing specific details of his gruesome end. His second draft simply told the children their good wishes were a tonic, that he had generally joyous memories of his days in Glenda. The third draft was edited down to a simple statement of appreciation inside a valentine heart. While he was drawing the heart, a guard told him he had a phone call from his lawyer, Marvin Klipstein.
Simon took the call on a portable phone. The voice at the other end was not Marvin Klipstein’s and there was no electronic beep indicating that Klipstein had turned on the timer he used to measure all his calls for billing purposes.
“I’m sorry for the little white lie, Mr. Apple,” the voice said, “but it was the only way I could be sure of getting through to you.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Kenny. I’m calling on behalf of www.SecondOptions dot com. We offer discounted prices on any last-minute items you might want and all taxes and delivery charges are included.”
“I think you got a wrong number to put it mildly.”
“You are the Simon Apple? I know I have the right number but please don’t ask me how I got it. We have our ways.”
“Can you call later? This isn’t the best time,” Simon said.
“We deal with a select clientele,” Kenny said. “We have no other business so you’re guaranteed our best efforts. Our company’s only purpose is to satisfy the condemned.”
“That sounds like a rather iffy enterprise. Maybe you should consider another line of work.”
“We do very well, thank you. Our bet is that the folks we contact will win a last-minute reprieve. A final appeal granted, a commutation of sentence by an enlightened governor, best of all, a pardon. All things are possible. You must know about DNA. It’s a young science but its use already has had a remarkable impact on law enforcement. Enough to say that a high percentage of inmates teetering at the edge of eternity are being spared these days. More and more men expecting to pass on in the evening are finding themselves still vertical at cockcrow. The condemned are beating the system in increasing numbers. Our business is enjoying exponential growth, especially in election years.”
“I’m glad you’re doing well, Kenny, but I don’t think I’m a prime prospect for either vindication or clemency,” Simon said. “I’m out of options. Not even I can say my trial was unfair. It was well rehearsed. And I can’t play any race card since I’m a privileged Caucasian. There is no issue of religious prejudice, I’m a pizza pie with a mixed topping—half Christian and half Jewish. So . . .”
“So it ain’t over till it’s over, to coin a phrase. You still have a few hours left. The point is, I’m ready to offer you a 20 percent discount on anything from clothing to appliances—things you’ll certainly need if you’re exonerated at the last minute—for a very modest fee, if you’ll agree to membership in the Second Options Platinum Club. We accept payment by any major credit card, a certified check or even cash. After the modest initiation fee, you’re entitled to cancel your membership at any time.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. No pun intended.”
“If you act now, you can even pay in installments. I’m talking pennies a day. Suppose you do find yourself eating breakfast tomorrow instead of dirt. You’re going to experience a strong sense of relief. I’ve seen it happen time and again. You’ll have an overwhelming urge to indulge yourself. And you’ll deserve some luxury because you earned the right to add a dimension of comfort to your extended life, even if it is life in prison. Don’t turn your back on this offer, Simon.”
“Please don’t call me Simon. I don’t know you.”
“Mr. Apple, then. I was just being friendly. For a one-time payment of two hundred fifty dollars you can have Second Options dot com in your corner. After that, it’s only twenty-five dollars a month. A person your age could expect hal
f a century of continuing benefits. How can you say no?”
“No.”
“That is such a defeatist attitude. You understand that our price goes up the closer we get to midnight. I’ve had people who held back on the two-fifty willing to pay six hundred fifty for the identical privileges I’m offering until eleven p.m. That’s a four-hundred-dollar saving. OK, I know resistance when it kicks me in the teeth. You strike a hard bargain and I respect that. For the same fee we’ll cover a second family member. Say your spouse hears good news, that the ax won’t fall. You’d better believe she’ll head downtown for a makeover or grab hold of the nearest Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog.”
Simon was about to tell Kenny to cut the shit, that for certain men it’s over long before it’s over but Kenny sounded young, just doing a job of work in a consumer-driven society. Why depress him with such lugubrious information?
Simon still felt benevolent because of those gentle letters from the kids back home so he shut up and slammed down the receiver.
55
Simon’s first days in New York City were given over to the joys of disoriented astonishment. He vacillated between ecstasy and pure terror exploring Manhattan, wandering from the Battery to Harlem, swept along by polluted winds from New Jersey, energized by invisible fumes that wafted up from subway grates and garbage pails.
He’d never felt less substantial or more whole in his life. He was swallowed up by the city beast, trapped undigested inside its churning belly, dodging cars, trucks, buses, crowds of people, animals, birds, plants, trees, a whirl of things tumbling down its ravenous gullet on the way to some distant anus. He waited to take that trip himself, eager for the moment he’d be shat out onto some street corner, born again, finally belonging.
In the meanwhile, he used some of his leftover hush money from Regis Pharmaceuticals to rent a room at the Flatiron Hotel on Broadway and Twenty-Fifth Street. He’d read about the Flatiron as home to the future famous, transient zephyrs who went on to become household names.
If the Flatiron had been a rundown but respectable address in the 1920s, by the time Simon Apple checked in fifty years later it was a notch above flophouse, part geriatric home, part welfare holding pen, part catch-all for rootless migrants whose only proof of existence was a set of fingerprints, misplaced dental records and a few thimbles of wine-diluted genetic debris. Then there were resident voyagers like Simon who’d come to test themselves against the City for Conquest.
He registered as Sinbad Green, crouching behind the pseudonym after a call to Robert J. informed him that the deluge of interview seekers and fans of The Windchime Concerto had reached critical mass when the song was nominated for a Grammy Award as record of the year.
A crazed autograph seeker broke into the Apple residence and was found sleeping in Simon’s bed. Rowena’s garden had been pillaged by souvenir-seeking marauders transported to the neighborhood by sightseeing vans. Some of those unwanted visitors staged an impromptu dance, stripped down to their underwear, doing what the press called The Thorazine Shuffle, a zombified, Frankensteinian tap dance. They said the dance was divinely inspired by the concerto’s “celestial umbilical chords.” State troopers had to be called to reinforce Glenda’s overwhelmed police force.
Simon Apple was determined to avoid the slightest beam of limelight; Sinbad Green was a blank slate, a man without a history. From his pram, Sinbad aka Simon remembered hearing Victoria Wyzowik and Fritzel Vonderbraun relive the horrors of wandering across Europe without proper papers. Simon’s tiny ears could decipher the fear in their voices. He had no idea of what proper papers were. Newspapers? Rolls of toilet paper? The colored paper they gave him to draw on? The pages in books that showed pictures of pink rabbits and smiling pastel children? He suspected Victoria and Fritzel meant some other kind of papers, demonic papers adults whispered about in frightened voices.
Whatever they were, the proper papers the women spoke of made a monstrous impression on little Simon’s sponge of a brain. Victoria’s quivering voice made it clear that the lack of those papers meant instant death. Now that he knew what proper papers were, nothing less than certifications of the right to survive, Simon was pleased that Sinbad Green had none. Being paperless seemed the ultimate luxury, the perfect passport for a wanderer in a city of the transient transparent.
If Sinbad Green was paperless, Simon Apple kept a few crucial papers like his Social Security card tucked in a secret compartment in his wallet. A file folder back in Glenda protected his birth certificate, records of his baptism, circumcision and proxy Bar Mitzvah. His framed Liberal Arts diploma (Summa Cum Laude) had a place of honor in the Apple home. Simon had plenty of papers, all proper, so Sinbad Green was hitchhiking with money in his pocket, playing a game, a refugee by choice not chance.
Simon felt a little guilty about the deception, but The Invisible Man had been a favorite role model since he’d seen that movie—he spent many hours discussing the virtues of invisibility with Chirp Bennet (especially the ability to sneak into locker-room showers where soap-slick girls glistened, or vaults where jewels could be scooped up by the pound). Chirp gave him Ralph Ellison’s novel about a black man suffering metaphorical invisibility in a racist society and Simon could empathize with that man’s inflicted anguish. But even if invisibility had its flip side, in his heart of hearts Simon still envied the possibilities implicit in owning a small jar of diabolical potion that would allow him to disappear. As Sinbad Green, he had the formula for vanishing cream along with the serum to solidify at will: the best of both worlds.
There were a few other important papers in Simon’s arsenal. When his supply of Solacitrex ran low, he scrawled Dr. Trobe’s signature on one of the blank prescription pages Simon had liberated. A pharmacy down the block from the Flatiron never questioned the forgeries.
Simon spent his first month in New York catching up on culture at the museums, sampling the zoos in Central Park, Prospect Park and the Bronx, walking over Brooklyn Bridge and the George Washington, riding subways to random destinations, browsing what was left of the Fourth Avenue bookshops, penetrating the inner depths of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, listening to jazz and folk music in Washington Square, moving with rush hour crowds, hanging out in the Forty-Second Street Library, drinking little cups of espresso in Italian coffee houses.
He was fueled by a diet of Sabrett hot dogs, greasy Souvlaki sandwiches, potato knishes, roasted peanuts, and cups of flavored ices, all sold from sidewalk carts that sprouted beach umbrellas for protection against the gangster summer sun or sudden gush of rain. Sometimes he treated himself to a plum, peach or banana displayed on a curbside crate. He indulged himself by going to afternoon movies like ET, relishing the guilt he felt knowing it was a workday.
Evenings, Simon liked rattling around Times Square watching faces turned purple, red, orange, yellow, and chalky white, rainbowed by neon light blasting from advertising signs and flickering movie marques. He read news bulletins announcing global alarms and the latest baseball scores parading endlessly along the belt of bulbs circling the Times Building. He played games in the penny arcades, firing electric machine guns and cannons at enemy rocket ships, planes, tanks, ape-faced armies, monsters vomited up from Hell, using up his quarter’s worth of ammo, racing against an unforgiving game clock while bells rang up his score of kills.
He mingled with theater goers, bums, tourists, blind men selling pencils, dodged legless beggars (side effects of some war?) lashed to boards, rolling on skate wheels over crowded sidewalks, powered by stubby muscled arms that swept the asphalt like oars.
He pissed against brick walls in alleys and fought the urge to take a crap until he could get back to the Flatiron, because finding a toilet meant he’d have to buy a Coke in some luncheonette as passport to use the facilities reserved for customers only, or pay his way through a subway turnstile to find a filthy stall while watching out for some subterranean pervert peeking over his cubicle’s wall. It struck Simon as ironic that in New York he co
uld see genuine dinosaur bones, Rembrandts, Picassos and Egyptian mummies for nothing, but to drop a load required an investment.
Some nights Simon never got back to the hotel. He slept on grass in Central Park near the rowboat lake or waited out the dark hours on a bench near the East River so he could see dawn from a front row seat. He knew about creeps and crazies and probably a few vampires prowling, but the risk was worth the reward; at first light the city glowed silver; Manhattan came awake like a lion, replacing dreams with appetite. So it was that Simon set scent upon New York.
One gray afternoon, his long vacation ended abruptly when he checked his dwindling assets. Simon had to think about getting a job and face the sad reality that he had no salable skills. That became disgustingly evident when he bought a copy of the Times and searched the classified ads. Prospective employers with entry level positions to fill made strange demands involving the ability to operate machines ranging from typewriters to things called Wang Data Processors. Simon knew about typewriters though he’d never learned to use one. He had no idea what a Wang Processor was—in Glenda a wang was a dick.
Many ads required a talent for shorthand. Those were obviously meant for females, as were the ones looking for “receptionist, bright, hard worker, eager to learn, opportunity for rapid advancement.” Those ads never specified that breasts and vaginas were necessary qualifications, but Simon sensed the truth.
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