by Rob Hart
Her eyes are wracked with what appears to be genuine sadness. I don’t know how to feel about that, with it coming from my dealer.
But that’s the way this place works. We are constantly losing the things that we know in favor of whatever can afford to take our place.
I kiss Snow White on her cheek and leave her on the stoop.
I stand outside my apartment for a long time with a fresh pack of smokes, inhaling them one after another, staring up at my building.
The bricks are beaten and faded. Windows in steel black frames. Most of them are covered with dingy curtains. It looks like a million other buildings. I wonder if anyone who lives in the building will notice I’m gone.
Probably not.
I trudge up the stairs to my apartment, dreading what I’m going to find. The door is propped part of the way open, which is about what I expected. Inside the apartment is the sound of rustling and crashing.
Aziz must be trying to clear me out already. He’s got to give me a week, a few days at least. If I’m going to stay with Bombay or Lunette, I really should ask before I just show up on their doorstep with a duffel bag.
I push open the door of my apartment and yell, “Dude, c’mon.”
The person who looks up at me is not Aziz.
It’s a small guy, his slim frame and face obscured by a baggy gray hoodie. He doesn’t wait for me to register what’s going on, just puts his shoulder down and finds an opening, slams me up against the wall of the hallway, and he’s gone.
It takes me a second, but then I’m right after him.
He’s heading for the roof. Probably how he got into the building, considering I’ve been standing on the front steps and being glum for the past twenty minutes. He’s small and fast and has a lead, but I work to close it, throwing myself up the stairs. As I’m on the last landing, I hear him burst through the metal door to the roof, and find it swinging when I get there.
The air is cold and the sun is brighter than the dark hallway. It takes my eyes a second to adjust. He’s running across the rooftops toward Second Avenue.
Each roof is flush to the next one. There are no pits or drops or patio equipment to trip him up, and I think I know where he’s headed: The fire escape at the end of the block.
He’s two floors down by the time I get there, and we fling ourselves down the stairs, trying to maintain speed on the narrow metal steps without tripping. The clanging of our feet draws people to their windows and some of them yell things I can’t make out.
When he hits the street, he takes off toward First, back toward the front of my building. I hit the ground and follow. There’s a group of tourists careening down the street and he can’t get around them so he hops onto a cab parked at the curb, and proceeds to run across the tops of the cars parked down the stretch of the street.
As I hop onto the cab behind him, he changes course, leaping across the hood of an idling car in the middle of the street. The driver leans on the horn and gives me the finger when I land on the hood a few seconds after him.
This guy is built for endurance, and I’m not. Already my lungs are crumbling like newsprint in a tight fist. Not enough oxygen getting to my brain. The ankle I twisted in the drop outside Chell’s apartment is protesting hard.
He turns down First. The streets are crowded with people stopping to take pictures in the middle of the sidewalk, like there aren’t people trying to chase each other across it.
I’m not going to catch him in a fair race, but then I get an idea. He’s glancing behind me to keep track, so I go out wide, to the far edge of the sidewalk. He sees this and takes it as an opportunity to duck down the next side street, to put some more distance between us.
He must think he’s pretty smart. Except I know in about a block, he’s going to run into the street fair I passed earlier. When he hits that, I’ll catch up.
Then I’m going to break his fucking legs.
But when I turn the corner after him, he’s gone.
I put my hands on my head, give my lungs room to expand, take in huge gasps of air. Down the block is the fair, one of those generic gatherings that mysteriously pops up to sell socks and belts and arepas. He couldn’t have made it all the way down and disappeared into the crowd. I was right behind him.
There’s a homeless kid sitting up against the scaffolding set against the building next to me. He’s crusty and grimy with a sign in front of him that says: TRYING TO GET HOME. PLEASE HELP. I recognize him. He’s been trying to get home for two years now.
He doesn’t say anything to me, just points up. I look at the scaffold and even though it hurts I hold my breath and I hear scraping and pounding above me.
There’s no way I’m going to get him now. He’ll bust into a window, climb through an apartment, and he has an entire block worth of exit points.
I drop a few singles into the cup in front of the homeless kid. Then I go home, the whole way walking slow and breathing deep, trying to ease the knot out of my side.
He wasn’t here to rob me. Most robbers tend to take valuables. So the fact that my iPod is sitting on the counter sort of discounts that.
I check my pockets for my phone so I can see what time it is but instead I turn up the thumb drive. The mysterious self-destructing thumb drive I found at Chell’s. If the guy was looking for something it was probably this. Because now apparently Chell is a spy or something?
I don’t have a computer, or else I could keep plugging away at the password, for however many tries I have before this thing is useless.
Why did Chell have a military-grade self-destructing thumb drive in her goddamn possession? Why are there so many people breaking into my apartment? Why am I suddenly in the middle of a turf war that sounds like it came out of a movie from the eighties that only plays in the middle of the night?
My thoughts are scattered. I can’t concentrate. I can’t be inside right now. There’s not enough space to think. I should go to Brooklyn. In Brooklyn there’ll be something I can hit.
I get off the L train at Bedford and Grand and there’s a store on the corner renting VHS tapes. This trip is going to be a big test of my patience.
I’m feeling a little faint and across the street is a boutique coffee joint. Standing behind the counter is a girl with a nose ring and wild purple hair crammed under a knit cap. She’s cute, but she looks too innocent for this place. Her eyes are too bright, too clean. Like freshly fallen snow waiting to be trampled.
When I tell her I want a large black coffee she asks me which region I’d like the beans from. She waits like I’m supposed to know how to answer that. I tell her to surprise me.
On the bench outside the door is a copy of the Post. I forgot to check today’s edition. There’s another picture of Chell on the cover. It was taken outside, at night. She’s wearing a white top, a black bowler hat, and her eye is caked with heavy dark makeup. Halloween last year, when she went as a droog.
The story doesn’t say much, but there’s a part near the middle that catches me.
A law enforcement official told the Post that the killer did leave behind traces of DNA, which are currently being tested. Given the heinous nature of the murder, they believe this is the work of a serial rapist, and hope to make a connection that will bring the killer to justice.
Police sources also said they’ve questioned the victim’s boyfriend, but no arrests have been made at this time.
Meanwhile, bar owners in the East Village are feeling the effects of the crime, saying that the number of nightly visitors has plummeted in the wake of the death of the Greenpoint Goth.
DNA is good and bad. Good, because it could point to the guy who did this. Bad, because it could point to him before I find him. If the cops find him first, I have to get arrested so that I can go to prison and murder him there. That’s Plan B, of which I am not a great fan.
What bothers me is who the Post and the police considered to be Chell’s boyfriend. Me or Quinn. I know they questioned me. I don’t know if they qu
estioned him.
The story leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I wash it down with a gulp of the coffee, which incidentally tastes very good.
Time to find the bar. I’m not familiar with the area, so I pick the direction I think is correct. I pass a pickup truck with a young couple dressed like circus performers, selling vintage clothing from the back. On the corner is a furniture store, fronted by a jumble of wooden chairs that don’t look sturdy, but carry price tags in the triple digits. There’s a taco truck manned by white kids and so many places to get coffee this block must be keeping Latin America afloat.
A real estate office on the corner has fliers plastered on the inside of the window, advertising lofts with reclaimed wood and stainless steel kitchens and price tags I can barely fathom.
It’s hard to peg why I dislike hipster culture so much, but walking around here, I think it’s that they’re selling Bohemian culture at a premium. The vinyl stores and organic markets and restaurants with three items on the menu and bars built from driftwood, it’s all artifice. Nostalgic propaganda. This neighborhood is just like Times Square, inauthentically authentic, just on a different end of the spectrum. The thing no one seems to get is that just because you love something doesn’t mean you can have it back after it’s gone.
I’m in a mood. I swallow the last of my coffee and end up with a mouthful of grounds.
That they called it Slaughterhouse Six should impress me because I’m a Vonnegut guy. It doesn’t.
Looking through the big window in the front, if I didn’t know this was a bar, I would assume it was a garage full of trash. It’s barely lit, and when I step through the door, I can’t see anything around twisting columns of furniture. Chairs with tables stacked on them, less for sitting and more for presentation. A few people dot the couches and small tables that sit close to the ground. They twist around to see who walked in, and when they don’t recognize me, they go back to reading books, or poking at laptops, or staring off into space.
There’s music playing through a hodge-podge of speakers, balanced on piles of books and empty crates. The walls are cluttered with signs and Christmas lights and pages ripped from magazines and abstract art printed on computer paper.
At a very brief glance it might look like Apocalypse, but at least we have a theme.
The bartender looks at me with a mixture of smugness and disdain from behind a repurposed jewelry display case. He’s wearing a white t-shirt, a vest, and four scarves. I tell him I’m looking for The Hipster King. I cringe as I say it.
The guy shrugs. “Never heard of him.”
I lean across the bar and put my hand on his shoulder. He tries to pull away so I dig my fingers in. “Tell me where he is.”
His eyes dart to the back, toward what looks like a doorway, then to me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Thanks,” I tell him.
The guy protests, but I don’t listen. I climb through a narrow hallway with an uneven floor and come out into a space that looks like a junkyard, fenced in with corrugated aluminum sheeting and piled with scrap wood. There are four guys standing around a fifth, and it’s pretty obvious who’s king.
He’s seated on an easy chair propped up by cement blocks. Big handlebar mustache, waxy and curled. A pair of shiny faux-gold aviators is folded into a dirty yellow t-shirt, its red wording cracked and faded. Draped over his shoulders is a tweed jacket. His jet-black jeans are so tight I can see that he’s not Jewish.
Perched on top of his head, kicked to a slight angle, is a cardboard Burger King crown. I can hardly believe he’s a real person.
He nods at me with his chin, a sneer stretched across his face like a gash. He barely moves from where he’s slumped into his throne. He asks, “What’s up?”
“You know, I’m usually pretty good at this, but I am just speechless right now,” I tell him.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if I can handle this.”
“Handle what?”
“You. This whole thing you’ve got going. You are the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And I live in the East Village.”
The guys flanking him are standing at attention now. Two of them break off and move around me so that I’m surrounded, which would normally make me nervous, but they all look malnourished. Though that could be hubris. I brush my hand against my umbrella to make sure it’s there.
The king brings his hand up to his mustache and twirls it. It’s a tic, he’s not doing it on purpose, but still it feels like he’s challenging me to keep a straight face. He doesn’t betray any emotion, just surveys me as if I were a jester. After a few moments he asks, “Who are you?”
“My name is Ash.”
“Ash?”
“Short for Ashley.”
A few chuckles. The king says, “That’s a girl’s name.”
“I didn’t realize that, ever. What about you? The Hipster King? I thought hipsters didn’t self-identify.”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s ironic.”
There’s nothing polite for me to say, so I pull out the picture of Chell from the Post. It’s worn and beaten from being in my back pocket. I unfold it carefully so I don’t rip it, then hold it up. “Do you know this girl?”
He stares at it and exhales so deeply he sinks a few inches down in the seat.
I tell him, “I guess you do. Why don’t you tell me everything you know about her.”
“I know she’s dead.”
“Good place to start.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I’m trying to find the guy who killed her so that I can kill him. Anything you can tell me would be appreciated.” The killer could also be someone here, and we’ll see how that plays out.
The king purses his lips. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“You know what? I have another question. What qualifications does it take to get named king of the hipsters? Biggest trust fund?”
“Actually, yes.”
“I was kidding.”
“I own this bar. I own several buildings on this block.”
“Good for you. How about Joel Cairo. Is he around?”
On the edge of my vision there’s movement. Someone ducking out of the backyard. I turn and there are three people blocking my path.
Someone today outran me. Not happening again. I put both my hands on the chest of the guy in front of me, pivot my hips and put all my weight into pushing him as far as he’ll go. He crashes into a pile of tires.
Then the rest of them jump on me.
It happens quick. Two guys are holding my arms behind me. They’re strong and my leverage is off, and I can’t get to the umbrella. I lunge forward and try to loosen their grips so I can twist out, but it doesn’t work.
The king stands in front of me. He’s more solid than I would have guessed. Taller too. He looks like he could hand out some damage. He says, “I had this theory that she was working for someone in Manhattan. I guess that’s bearing out. Now, tell me where the drive is.”
“Get fucked.”
He punches me in the stomach and my lungs compress. The king waves his hand in the air like he hurt it, smiling like a kid who just discovered jerking off. He gears up to hit me again, like he wants to make it count.
The guys on either side of me are holding me too tight. Can’t break free. One is wearing steel-toe construction boots and the other is wearing beaten Converse sneakers. I pick the kid with the Converse and slam my foot down on top of his.
He yelps and his grip gives. My right arm comes free. I turn and push my weight into the guy holding onto my left arm, slamming him up against the metal fence. I level my elbow and jam it into the eye socket of the guy coming up from behind me. I catch it right on the funny bone. My arm jolts with electricity.
I turn to the king, but there’s another guy standing between us to protect him. I put my boot into his stomach and he goes to the ground.
The ones who aren’t convulsin
g on the floor have fled. Then it’s me and the man in charge. And he looks pretty scared without anyone to back him. I wrap my hands around his throat and pull him so close I can taste the Thai he had for lunch. I tell him, “Now you and me have some things to discuss. First up, tell me why you want that fucking drive so bad.”
Before the king answers, someone inside the bar yells, followed by the whine of a police siren. Rushed footsteps, crashing around the debris inside the bar.
I tell the king, “You are a dick.” Then I hit him in the face as hard as I can. He collapses in a heap on the floor and I hop the fence, only a little sorry for hitting him but mostly pissed because this is way more physical effort than I was prepared for today.
I flick my cigarette into the corner where it burns a mark onto the polished hardwood floor.
I can’t blackmail Aziz into letting me stay. If he has skeletons, I’m not privy to them. I could find a lawyer, but I don’t have any legal standing. Not that I could afford an attorney. Nor can I afford to pay Aziz what he’s going to end up charging for this place.
This day was inevitable. Shame on me for not having a backup plan.
I wander through the apartment, which doesn’t take long. Head back the other way. There’s not much to bring with me. The furniture was either here when I showed up or scavenged. All of it can be replaced.
On the kitchen counter, I make a pile of things I want to keep. It’s not a big pile. Mostly clothes. A few books. Thumbtacked to the wall is a photo of me and my dad standing outside Yankee Stadium. It’s not a great picture. The frame is pulled back too wide, so it’s just two little dark figures you can barely make out against the stadium wall. I take that and put it with the pile. Grab the little things lying around the apartment—cards, scraps of paper with important notes, my phone charger.
Margo’s bag is gone. She must have picked it up. I hope things with Lunette are going well because she’s going to need a place to stay.