The alarm woke him, drifting up from the third-person detachment of his dream, giving logic to the police sirens and alarm rattle. The sun had already hidden behind monuments of civilization, giving the City a shadowless complexity, like watching a black-and-white photograph turn grainy, then gritty as the contrast grew. Soon it would be dark, and he would be alone.He wasn’t always the ace in the deck, the solitary figure throwing shapes across window blinds and doorframes. He had known compassion once and mistakenly took it for granted. Now his days were spent in torment, and nights in exclusion: Alone in a sea of lowlifes, scumbags, and reprobates.He willed himself out of bed, letting the oldies play and not even bothering to look for coffee grounds. He showered cold and shaved by candlelight, having done away with bills and any other potentiality that the US postal service could offer. Two flights down, snuggled amidst the Smiths and the Aberdeens, a federal crime-in-waiting taunted all passersby with overfilling catalogs and envelopes. A moody and apt tune breezed in through the window, overcasting the dying scream of his alarm. The dealers all but took ads in the paper in his neighborhood, announcing their availability with dueling portable sound systems, each at once complimenting and attacking the other one block down. He was used to it.His body took over for him, letting his mind wander back to the old days of office parties and paperwork, the songs piping in through the elevator, oddly soothing to all walks of life as they passed from freedom into justice. He always saw the colors two shades more vibrant in his thoughts, rubbing over stubble and saturating out the stains of reality through memory. He let go quite often lately, preferring the semblance of control over his conscious dreams to those that came in sleep.He walked to work now. Letting his systems navigate the intricacies and obstacles of the sidewalk. He bought an evening edition and a large coffee, enjoying the time spent standing in line as a comfortable meditation, listening to other peoples’ lives, imagining other peoples’ worries, climbing into other peoples’ bodies in an effort to get out. Unfortunately the Starbucks workers did their job well, and he was back on the street several minutes before it suited him.As the blacks blackened and the building-fronts faded into charcoal relief sketched by streetlight flares and prowler lights strobing colors across the drab bricks and stone. These times of transition were always interesting to him, for he could see the streets turn from the bustling daylight transitways to the grimy lanes of the night. He could smell the daylight leave, cursed and forced out by the smells of the underground leaking up from manholes and curb drains. He could hear everything muffle inside the corridors and compress down to street level. The odd people like him wake up and start their evening rituals. The daytime innocents transform into nighttime prowlers, growing crooked teeth, delirious eyes, and hungry claws. The Busy hurry home and the Bored stretch their legs. The odd people like him unknowingly relax as the light fades and the temperature cools. He’d woken up sweating but now the breeze chilled through his trench coat. The city itself rises a bit further into space and lets its belt out a notch, spilling its dense corruption further into the ocean with the tide.Most people don’t notice this transformation, he being no exception until recently, but once a man’s eyes open, he cannot close them ever again. He continued walking, checking his incisors for elongation and ears for pointed tips.His office was waiting, cluttered in the darkness and dusty with neglect save one bare patch of blotter and his old leather chair. He opened the door and noticed a roach crackle away from where his name had cast a shadow on the floor. He was not surprised. His chair greeted him with a weak sigh as the air pushed out and the back took on the stress of his weight once more. After debating the topic, he finally turned on his desk lamp to see a note lying before him. He grimaced at the thought of seeing Frank ASAP as the note suggested. Instead he opened a desk drawer and had his shot of breakfast, leaned back and closed his eyes trying momentarily to snub out the sounds of the drunks and the whores and the typewriters and the phones and everything else that made up his career and profession. He found no solace without the use of his hands. Instead he lit his fifth Lucky of the day and welcomed the sounds in.The girl had no intention of stepping off the stone ledge separating the 12th floor balcony from the next life if there was one, but in her last thought, hair ruffling in her eyes and a full moon staring her down with faces reserved for the blind and insane, she surprised herself by finding anger and fear bubble to her lips. She learned that her particular account in the Bank of Life was closed by a simple housecat, or that the housecat in question, one Ms. Peaches, swiped at her Achilles tendon with otherworldly intention. But more about that later.Before her unfortunate accident, this night was just another dissolve in the great haze her life had become after spiking Rod’s infamous and infectious concoction of coke, crystal, and crank. Ramsey “Rod” Reynolds, known for his rather specific tastes, his natural comprehension of chemistry, and his no-refund policy, had offered her a sample of his new thrill sans price, a welcome change for a broke blonde on a bender such as herself. As the searing tendrils flooded her peaks and valleys, cognitive thought and verbal pronunciation ended with her childhood ambitions of being a famous singer. To the inner circle of Rod’s friends, the week she spent sitting on his couch, blending between sleep, gin, and the fix, was typical. They could not see that, slowly but most assuredly, her free will was returning, growing one synapse at a time, caused inadvertently by the piercing voice far behind the roadblocks and broken circuits of her mind. By this particular evening, she almost had enough control to speak, wanting, needing to tell someone about this passenger in what she thought was a single-occupant brain.She almost made it.As her foot slipped with the surprise and pain of a claw gouging her heel, pirouetted and ultimately fell, the girl heard the sound of her own voice once more, gasping out what a great scream, barely audible over the wind in her ears, and then silence.It was six months ago, and Gary was still alive. They had arrived on the scene not later than an hour after she jumped. The Coroners and press were already there, flashing and dim, at once raucous and solemn. He lifted the plastic and met what was to become his obsession. Her name was Susan Harris, and her death was messy.The gray detachment which would one day rule had not yet befriended him, and he retched. Gary took care of details as he got his mind together and looked closer. He was Sherlock Holmes looking for the clue. He was a plastic surgeon gauging the damage. He was an urban Comanche, looking for tracks in the sand. The cold and dark pavement did not hide the evidence.Five minutes later it was suicide. Holes in the arms, bruises on the face, and footprints on the balcony made their job easy. The apartment was empty, cleaned in a hurry. Smells of smoke mixed with Lysol, murk in the toilet water, and a state-of-the-art entertainment system told their tales well to those who would listen. He noticed a litter box in the corner, adding its own unique aroma to the mix. The labbies would be in to wipe the place down soon, and touching anything now would just piss them off. He left the apartment, wishing he had brought his flask.Back then the city did not speak to him as it does now. Back then he could not see the true signs on Susan Harris. Back then he wouldn’t have known what to make of them if he had.Next
©2002 Brian Miller
