The WIND BENEATH

Her hands shaking uncontrollably, she frantically fumbles with her cell phone, unable to press one simple numeric link, not one, until finally:

“OH! Oh my god! Oh my god! Sheena, I think I just killed Eric! Oh my god! Oh my god!”

“What?! Who?! Stop it! Calm down! Claire…!”

“Oh, god…I…I…he…”

“Claire. Please. Get a grip. Please! Calm down enough to tell me, or I get in my car right now!”

“No!”

“ Who the hell is Eric?…a boyfriend? What happened? You have to tell me! Get your wits, girl, please! Deep breath…”

“O…o…kay. Eric! You met Eric…the guy next door? Helped us with the bookshelf? Remember last time you were here you made that comment?”

“The Blob?!”

“Please. I didn’t like it then and it’s so not appropriate…r-r-ight n-nowwww…(sobs)…”

“Honey, you’re in shock. I am sorry. I should think before I flap my yap. Forgive me. Now tell me what happened. Please. Help me understand…”

“It’s been so hot here…”

“I’ve been reading about that. Record temps. I was wondering how you were coping.”

“Not just heat, but the humidity…the blackouts…it’s crazy. The air so still, those gauzy summer curtains we bought…?”

“ The whisper thins?”

“Yes. Haven’t stirred in days…dead still. We’re all at wits end.”

“So how does this relate to you being in this state?”

“Last night we had the third blackout in 24 hours only this time it stayed out. No lights. No AC. Nothing. I lit candles. My flashlight batteries, all dead. I should have known…”

“Mine probably are, too. I should check. Get back to Eric…”

It was so hot, I opened the balcony door hoping for a breeze. I mean, it’s all we got! The fucking backup generator failed ! FAILED ! How does that even happen?!”

“I dunno. Crazy shit happens. I’d sue the building management. What about Eric?”

“In the middle of the night. Sometime after midnight – my bedroom was sweltering, my t-shirt soaked in sweat, I went out to lay on the chaise. Blocks around, everywhere you look, pitch black…haven’t slept well in three nights, so in no time, I pass out.”

“Good…”

“Not so good. I don’t know, maybe a few hours go by and I’m awakened by this ‘hum’…this very quiet ‘hum’ that I did not miss until that moment, when I realized the building was starting to come back on line…”

“Oh, good.”

“Not so good. In the next instant the lights come on, not all but enough…enough for me to look over at the next balcony over…”

“Eric’s?”

“Yes, Eric’s. And there standing on the ledge of his balcony…fully, flat-ass nude, is Eric, facing the city, embracing the city, his arms out wide and high, striking some pose, like he’s a majestic king or some karate guy, in half-squat, and dangling. I don’t know…I...”

“Oh, shit.”

“Oh, shit, is right.”

“On the railing of the balcony? Eric?! Nude?! Ew!”

“…please, stop. First of all it’s not a railing – there’s a ledge, you know, like a shelf. A ledge. I used to put flower pots out there, but then the building said it was a safety violation…a threat to people below.”

“Well, I understand, but too bad, flowers would be nice…Eric?…did he jump? I mean…He’s standing there, he jumped! ”
“I-I-I really don’t know. I panicked! I thought, oh my god he’s about to jump, my first thought, too! I screamed his name. EEERRRRRIIICCC, nooooo!!!! and in that instant the lights come on. ALL the lights come on…”

“Oh god.”

“I startled him. He spun to look, surprised that I had been out there with him, for who-knows-how- long?… unaware he was not alone, and  then the lights…! He spun, our eyes made contact, and in a flash I saw his panic. You could see the shock on his face. He was going to go over…there was nothing I could do. He looked so sad in that moment…in a split second, he was startled, surprised, panicked, and resigned…all within a blink of our eye contact. We read each other. Like the movie slowed down to single frames. Then he was gone. I screamed. I don’t know if he ever did…”

“What’s that noise?”

“You can hear that? There’s sirens down below.”

“This just happened?!”

“I didn’t know who to call. I think I killed him. I don’t know what to say…I can’t live with this. I pushed him over!”

“Hold on, now. First thing is…get this!…YOU DID NOT PUSH HIM! Never utter those words again. Hear me? You saw him fall…you saw him jump…but you did NOT push him, or make any other contact with him…including verbal! It’s important. DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?”

“I have to live with this. I don’t know…”

“What? Wait. This is the same guy you told me about …the one you caught jerking off  to his laptop, on his deck in the middle of the night?”
“That was confidential.”

“It was also pretty creepy. So this jerk-off…”

“Please. He was a very sweet man…took care of my cats…took my packages. Please don’t…”

“Fine. We’ll give the guy some credit under the circumstances, but for chrissakes, he was out on a ledge wagging at an entire city! He may have been a closet pervert. May have been?…what am I saying…he was!”

“I don’t think it was sexual. I think he was…what should I call it?…I think he was in this ‘zone’.”

“Zones can be some dark places, baby.”

“I’ll grant you, but there was a peace…”

“No, honey, there’s no peace on a ledge 10 stories high.”

“Yes, there is. I’ve heard it said that in those moments…”

“That phenomena is called resignation to the inevitable…”

“I gotta go. They’re at the door. Oh shit. Gotta go…”  (click)

some time later…Claire dials back.

“Sheen.”

“How’d it go?”

“Okay. I did okay, I think.”

“What did you tell them? You made that clear right? …what we talked about?”

“ I told them what happened. I woke up on the chaise. They said they didn’t blame me for being out there, and thought Eric may have intended to do the same. Only something went wrong…maybe even height hypnosis…”

“Is there such a thing?”

“That’s what they said. I don’t know.”

“You didn’t tell them about…the waggin’?”

“No. None of their business….out of respect to my friend who I saw die.”

“You do understand that you befriended a pervert?”

“Stop being so judgmental. They asked if he drank a lot, or took drugs? I’m his neighbor, how do I know? Then they asked if I’d ever ‘been with’ Eric…if I knew him…”
“nnoooooo….”

“Intimately.”

“AYYYYYYRRRUUUUUUGGHHHHH. Are you kidding me?! Oh! My! GAWD! Who could even imagine that?”

“They thought maybe Eric and I were screwing…balcony sex, they called it…and Eric lost his balance.”

“Gross. The thought is just gross. I’m sorry, girl.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. It could happen.”

“With ERIC?” Nah-uh.”

“I see his eyes. The shear surprise…I’ll never get that out of my head…ever.”

Meanwhile in Eric’s apartment next door:

“Sir? I think this might explain what happened here.”

“You find a note? Suicide?”

“Not exactly, sir. Take a look. Here, I’ll blow it up…”

Each and every day I wake up in a box-like unit, stacked upon other boxlike units, stacked within bigger boxlike units, and there are boxlike units ad infinitum. I have become an efficiently compartmentalized gelatinous mass. I know what I am. I see. I look in the mirror, and he looks at me.  I see his disgust plainly on my face. He greets me with his disdain. We leave the box, walk down a passage way, to a chute, which carries us down to the street, where we get caught up in a stream of massive gelatinous fluid. We realize we are indeed insignificant, as we join the fluid, and flow away, only to return later that day. With nothing…To no one. I am lonely. Lord, I’m lonely. Sometimes I can hear Claire next door, the walls aren’t that great, so you hear things…sometimes personal, but most times routine. You start to know them. When she brushes her teeth, flushes the toilet, washes dishes, turns on TV…or the shower...like me. I’m sure she hears me. You try not to listen, to be respectful of another’s privacy, Yet I press my face flat against the wall, knowing she’s just a few feet away, but what I am thinking… It will never happen.

 I used to enjoy sitting on my balcony some nights…most nights…’relaxing myself in the dark’…just me and the city. Just sitting outside my box, for a few private moments, suspended in air while getting off…

But I have to stop that now because some shrew…some, nosey, cunt, bitch, with night-vision lenses, starts yelling for all the world to hear:

“I see you, you sick fuck! I’m taking your goddam picture! Take it inside, you pasty prick! You fucking glow in the dark!  Put some fucking clothes on you fat disgusting bastard! Hey, Neighbors, he’s at it  again tonight! Hide the children! Hide the children!”

Echoing out over the city, She ridiculed me. I despise her. But she won. I can never go out there like that again. Not for that. I realize how sad I’ve become. So sad and pathetic, this gelatinous mass I’m captured within. Pure unadulterated, flavorless gelatin, beyond bland, gag - inducing, almost invisible except for the grayness and imperfections. I aspire to be aspic. I need to take risks. I have taken to drink. I have smoked marijuana, I won’t do anything else. I take walks at night. I sit in a bar. I actually strike up conversations, but they tend to be short because of the lack of things I know to say.

But I have found some solace…and maybe some perceived revenge…in the early morning 
around 4 AM.

I have overcome a fear. It’s a big fear, but having done it… faced it…I realize how much I need…

From these risks come great rewards. In my case my heart pounds, my lungs burn, my blood pumps, my head throbs, and I actually retain an erection as my anus contracts to the size of a gnat’s.

Sometimes in midst of this elation I have a vision - Claire and I stand, naked (...it’s my vision, after all) hand-in-hand, we stand, bridging balconies, leaning together against a gust, sharing the rush.

‘Isn’t this LIFE?’  She says.

If not, then It’s the juice of life, pumping through one's veins – nerve endings sparking in the dark…and having done this on regular occasion, I’m aware and attuned and very much alone.

I confess, I am Mad from my own addiction, practiced at great heights, balancing precariously for the thrill of it. If I fall, I fall… all to feel the cool nightly caress… the empirically majestic sensation, my whispy mistress rises…she is the wind beneath my balls.