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.
