Lust Demented Part 2

{VIII}.

BLACK RAIN. WRITING IS A race against death. The only difference that the present moment had over the day to day was the a.s.sa.s.sin slicing up the compet.i.tion and leaving my calling card behind in torn from the binding. Usually when I left a room of writers, a suspicion lingered that my delusions were justifiable.

Cloud sweat pounded my armor chest. I could only march on unashamed to ruin or fame. Delivery guys in their makeshift ponchos chugged forward through the honks. The city was mad with hunger and willing to pay dearly for her secret fetish. It had been a long time since I'd seen or been seen. Seasons had pa.s.sed since the public success of my pilfered novel. It was no mystery to any of them that I was sitting around chanting obsessed curses of vengeance.

Nude in the dim lighting, Missy moved in a trance of summoned pa.s.sion. The music was loud enough that she didn't notice me at first. When she did catch my eye, it was with a gas chamber stare. A metaphoric blade at my throat.

"Practicing for the old man?"

I was staring lost into the East River. I didn't remember exactly how I got there, but I could remember other things. Spend enough time in this town and every corner becomes stage for a memory. There was a bench at my side that I just couldn't sit on. Last time I sat on that bench, Missy stood behind me with searing eyes.

"You're not a man." Her words were forever etched.

"You don't even know what a man is."

"You're not a man, Farrow."

"A man survives."

"What?"

"A man survives. That's all."

Missy's reasoning at the time was based on nothing more than what she wanted me to decide for her. I had already made my decision before I met her. Just the same, she had already made her decision before she met me.

"You're no writer." Engorged, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s shook as we waited on line at the supermarket. She was pregnant. Hormonal.

"What do you want?"

"I have no idea. I only know what I don't want."

"Then what don't you want?"

"I don't want you here. I don't want your baby living inside me."

"It's our baby. Not only mine."

"It's nothing."

Missy had room for a dozen razors under her tongue. She explained how she had no choice. We weren't ready. She had to kill it. Now ghosts of dead publishers and overly ambitious writers were at my sides. I wondered if anything changed. The bench was still there. I wanted to rip it out of the ground and throw it in the f.u.c.king river. That's just what I needed to do, so I did it.

{IX}.

THE BENCH DIDN'T FLOAT AND neither did I. Rain arpeggiates the river's surface helping along the three foot swells. Above the water the city is a shimmering miracle. A rough menstrual drain pouring from Gotham's luscious lips. The entire planet was spotted with blood to drown in. I was more a part of it than it wanted me to be. The bench was sinking somewhere below me. I could no longer see her, but I knew she... I mean it...was still there.

"What do you want me to say?... um let me see Farrow... how about... I just give you more material for your book."

"My book?"

"A Greater Truth... if it even exists! Not everything in life is material for your book. Please don't make me material for my book."

"Your book? What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?"

She called it her book. I was taking her serious up until that point. I should've taken her even more mysterious when she let that claim slip. If the night carried out in the direction it was heading, my last book would forever be credited to someone else. Motherf.u.c.k memories. Thoughts of the woman were electrocution. Unfortunately, the river made certain things far and others close. How strange to be alone anywhere in this city. Fighting the current would only tire me. Bobbing between silence and droning echoes... between the townhouse Percy's life was taken and Gloom's death-stained cave.

After the Williamsburg, there were two more bridges for me to pa.s.s under before I was out to sea. I too wanted to join in the killing, but I set my goals higher than one of my own. I wanted G.o.d dead by sunrise. The fantastical concept reflected itself illuminated. It would be a traditional crime of revenge, jealousy, and awe all in one. Such an overweight sacrilege bordered on immortal innocence. Somebody already discovered the nuclear bomb more than a half-century ago, but took their finger off the b.u.t.ton too soon. f.u.c.k it... maybe that's how civilization began in the first place. Either way the almighty appeared to be immune from any technology our tumored brains could design in self-hate.

Enough deprecation. Save philosophy for the silhouette of a man ready to leap into the waters. I could just make him out in the downpour. Though I couldn't see him clearly, I sensed where the figure would land before he even leapt. I wasn't sure if it was a giant raindrop falling from a cold steel cloud or a human tear straight from the creator. Instinct on my shoulders, I took deep breaths preparing for the dive to make things right. Occasionally there are times in life when you know you're standing or in this case floating in the right place. When life collides in order.

A brief flash of light, the body torpedoed past me. I followed the human form into oblivion. We were raindrops racing down a window. I shot through the gla.s.sy rain and slowly became the drop of water caught up in the race. A rare occasion of peace. I'm not sure he even knew I was there. He thought he was alone. That he found the only place among the eight million that he could die in silence.

{X}.

HE WAS WRONG. EITHER WE would die together or live together. It wasn't his choice. Next thing I knew I was back above the water. Under the last bit of strong light before a patch of darkness, I recognized the suicide diver as Lars Wildman. We pa.s.sed the Brooklyn Bridge, floating out into New York harbor. The shock sent me unexpectedly underwater. He pulled me to the surface. I looked at him, then at the Statue of Liberty. I could see up freedom's skirt and taste the b.i.t.c.h's freshly f.u.c.ked c.u.n.t.

There were more than a few sh.o.r.es to aim for. Effortless drifting could strand us on Governors Island and leave a lot of explaining to do. Harbor patrol was visible in the distance. So far the cops were useless and landing there would just bring more rubber badges and plastic pistols. In a strange way I never felt so free. I was too small for the big ships to see, while any small patrol vessels seemed to fly by at blurring speeds. It was as if I didn't even exist.

Of all people to share this moment with, it made sense it was Lars. People coasted in and out of our lives, but somehow our friendship survived. Lars was born a success and I piled up scarcely read pages. We swam through this world, pulled by an invisible current. Then it was over as if it never happened.

"My lungs." Blue skinned missing air.

"My head is burning up. My whole body aches."

"Motherf.u.c.ker pushed me off the Brooklyn Bridge."

"Who?"

"You know who." Lars fighting the spasms in his chest.

"n.o.body."

"Somebody. Farrow why the h.e.l.l were you doing the backstroke in the East River anyway?"

"What the h.e.l.l were you doing jumping... I mean... getting thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge, Lars?"

"You know as well as I do that everything that doesn't end in o.r.g.a.s.m or death is just a hustle to write more. Writing lately?"

"l.u.s.t Demented."

"I dig it."

"That's not the t.i.tle."

"It should be."

"It is. I was just testing it out on you. What the f.u.c.k do you want? I'm washed up. I traded my last book for a murder rap and an invisible woman."

"Could've been worse... you could've traded it for love."

"That's what I'm saying."

"I got a new book too Farrow."

"What's it about?"

"The usual. I found a sacred spot to write it this time. The roof of the library on Forty-Deuce. I know a few of the guards there. They used to do security at The Featherton building. When they're not working, I sneak in jewel-thief style. Write my a.s.s off."

"The spot to get it done."

"I sit out on the ledge and leave my body behind. I turn into a gargoyle on the side of the building. A stone statue that nothing can harm. Same as my old man was, except he was more on the lines of Michelangelo's Moses. Sitting proud... unashamed. Not lurching no matter how many motherf.u.c.kers were bashing at his knees with hammers and chisels."

"Lars... your father..."

"Got what was coming to him. We all will. Be it just in death. I know you were the first one to find him Farrow. The whole city knows. Probably the entire f.u.c.king country. Maybe the world. In a few days when another gorgeous slaughter takes the headlines they'll forget... but I won't. All I want to know is if it makes you angry that someone else managed to take revenge before you even showed up?" Lars vocalized with a creepy inflection that summoned the serpents hiding under the Red Hook docks.

"I didn't want revenge."

"We all breathe evil." Merciless, the night indiscriminately pelted on, keeping most everyone off the street.

{XI}.

"HAWAII TOLD ME WHAT HAPPENED." Lars dropped the hurt on me as we both stared at the factory wall. It was graffiti that some people could crawl into and find brightly colored love in a crumbling land.

"I don't have anything to say about that Lars."

"I'm sorry I never said anything. You were just sitting in Queens writing your new book l.u.s.t Demented or whatever the f.u.c.k it's called... and..." Lar slunk back. The banshee harem got the best of him.

"I didn't want to bring a kid into the world that the mother didn't want. Honestly, it still tears through my heart." Last I heard Missy had Hawaii end the pregnancy for her. The whole situation left me disabled for some time.

"f.u.c.ked that everybody knows, but you Farrow..." Lars took a deep breath and I figured that I better do the same. "A while back Hawaii told me that when Missy showed up for the abortion... she couldn't go through with it. I guess Missy was crying buckets... she was only six weeks, but the hormones. .h.i.t her already... you know all filled up with maternal emotions... and Hawaii isn't good with that. As a rule she never operates on people she knows, but Missy kept pushing and pushing until she got her way. I think Hawaii was just trying to get Missy off the operating table and she said..." Lars looked authentically upset. We were both soaked from the river, but it was clear that his eyes were tearing up with mine.

"What... what could she have said that made a difference?"

"Hawaii told Missy to... Sorry Farrow I think you should talk to her yourself. She should tell you."

"Lars I'll f.u.c.king kill you if you don't tell me."

"f.u.c.k you Farrow you don't want to know... trust me."

"Lars... sometimes I hate your f.u.c.king guts, but I got your back to the end."

Lars fell into the mural, banging his head rhythmically against the wildstyle until the words leaked out of him. "Hawaii told Missy that she could have everything she ever dreamed of. All she would have to do is go to Percy and tell him it was his baby. So that's what she did."

"How? What? How could he be so stupid? He'd never believe that. That would never work."

"Missy f.u.c.ked his brains out that night and every day after that. She controlled the old man. It was only a matter of six weeks. So by the time she was showing: The truth didn't matter anymore. Someone had to take care of your baby."

"Do you think he knew?"

"You know my father. If he did, he wouldn't let anyone know. Either way it was working out for both of them until Missy lost the baby. Shortly after the miscarriage... I ran into her in Union Square pa.s.sing through the farmers market. Dumb to the fact, I congratulated her. The words barely left my mouth when I noticed her face drop. She didn't have to say anything. You two would've made a good-looking kid. A cool little b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"What did she say?"

"She said... that's just the way life goes sometimes. Then she told me that I look just like my father."

"I don't see that."

"Farrow I'm sorry."

{XII}.