blade giving my courage a boost, but not by much. The idea of stabbing someone held no appeal, but if we were in a me-or-them situation, I’d do what I had to if it came down to it. Or so I imagined.
“Hello?” I called out, my voice tiny and weak despite the power I now felt holding the blade, but there was no answer.
Nerves got the better of me and a creepy sensation washed over my body. I began to shake as my pumping blood slowed and the chill of the fall night air finally caught back up with me. I slid the strap of my art tube back around my shoulder and fished my cell phone out of my bag, hand at the ready to dial the police, but my fingers wouldn’t move. Instead my head turned back toward the sky. What the hell was I going to tell the authorities? That the voice of my attacker had gone straight up into the night sky? Telling someone that seemed patently absurd. I stood there, unsure, until the crick developing in my neck took over and I turned my eyes back down to my surroundings.
Still clutching my phone in one hand and the strange knife in the other, I made my way back down the alley to the street, still fearing a rush from the shadows of the alley that were big enough to hide someone. When no one attacked, I ran out onto Fifteenth and hurried up Irving Plaza, wondering how much worse my evening could really get. Then I rememberedthe talk I expected with my boss-parents, and suddenly the idea of getting knifed in an alley didn’t seem all that bad a way to go.
I must have checked behind myself a thousand times as I ran all the way home to Gramercy Park, and by the time I reached my family home on the west side of it, I felt fairly certain that I hadn’t been followed. I ran into the main doorway of stately Belarus Manor, keyed into the building, and started off across the lower floor, which comprised the offices for the family’s real estate dealings. Just being inside behind a locked door within my family’s half-a-block-wide, seven-story building was enough to calm me, if only just a little. It was home; it was safe, a refreshing oasis away from the harsh desert of the messed-up outside world.
By the time I hit the elevator up to my family’s main living quarters on the second floor, my breathing was almost normal. As the doors slid open on the dimly lit main family living area on the second floor, I looked down at my hand, still holding my attacker’s knife. I slipped it into my shoulder bag, careful not to slice up any of its contents. I stepped out onto the floor, picking a path through months of neglected accumulation lining the main hall—newspapers, mail, and assorted bric-a-brac. I made my way to the spacious living room, where my parents sat zombie-eyed in front of a tiny, old-school television watching the evening’s financial reports. A slight nod of both their heads gave an indication that they at least acknowledged I was in the room, which was better than some days these past four months since Devon’s death, I supposed. My father had been the one who convinced me to stay, and pointed out that leaving would be damaging to my mother, but now it seemed that as long as I was doing what they wanted, they didn’t have much to say to me.
My mother looked away from the television to me. Despite only being in her early fifties, Devon’s death had aged her considerably these few short months. Her hair, thanks to chemical treatment, remained as black as mine, but her facehad grown pale as of late, thin to the point of skeletal. Her mouth gave a twisted, one-sided smile, the only kind she seemed capable of these days. My father, who always seemed to vacillate between stoic man of business and peaceful man of God, didn’t react at all beyond his initial nod.
I thought about not telling them about my attacker, letting the strange silence settle between us. They already had enough grief weighing on them still, without me worrying them more by adding to it with the tale of my impossible
“Hello?” I called out, my voice tiny and weak despite the power I now felt holding the blade, but there was no answer.
Nerves got the better of me and a creepy sensation washed over my body. I began to shake as my pumping blood slowed and the chill of the fall night air finally caught back up with me. I slid the strap of my art tube back around my shoulder and fished my cell phone out of my bag, hand at the ready to dial the police, but my fingers wouldn’t move. Instead my head turned back toward the sky. What the hell was I going to tell the authorities? That the voice of my attacker had gone straight up into the night sky? Telling someone that seemed patently absurd. I stood there, unsure, until the crick developing in my neck took over and I turned my eyes back down to my surroundings.
Still clutching my phone in one hand and the strange knife in the other, I made my way back down the alley to the street, still fearing a rush from the shadows of the alley that were big enough to hide someone. When no one attacked, I ran out onto Fifteenth and hurried up Irving Plaza, wondering how much worse my evening could really get. Then I rememberedthe talk I expected with my boss-parents, and suddenly the idea of getting knifed in an alley didn’t seem all that bad a way to go.
I must have checked behind myself a thousand times as I ran all the way home to Gramercy Park, and by the time I reached my family home on the west side of it, I felt fairly certain that I hadn’t been followed. I ran into the main doorway of stately Belarus Manor, keyed into the building, and started off across the lower floor, which comprised the offices for the family’s real estate dealings. Just being inside behind a locked door within my family’s half-a-block-wide, seven-story building was enough to calm me, if only just a little. It was home; it was safe, a refreshing oasis away from the harsh desert of the messed-up outside world.
By the time I hit the elevator up to my family’s main living quarters on the second floor, my breathing was almost normal. As the doors slid open on the dimly lit main family living area on the second floor, I looked down at my hand, still holding my attacker’s knife. I slipped it into my shoulder bag, careful not to slice up any of its contents. I stepped out onto the floor, picking a path through months of neglected accumulation lining the main hall—newspapers, mail, and assorted bric-a-brac. I made my way to the spacious living room, where my parents sat zombie-eyed in front of a tiny, old-school television watching the evening’s financial reports. A slight nod of both their heads gave an indication that they at least acknowledged I was in the room, which was better than some days these past four months since Devon’s death, I supposed. My father had been the one who convinced me to stay, and pointed out that leaving would be damaging to my mother, but now it seemed that as long as I was doing what they wanted, they didn’t have much to say to me.
My mother looked away from the television to me. Despite only being in her early fifties, Devon’s death had aged her considerably these few short months. Her hair, thanks to chemical treatment, remained as black as mine, but her facehad grown pale as of late, thin to the point of skeletal. Her mouth gave a twisted, one-sided smile, the only kind she seemed capable of these days. My father, who always seemed to vacillate between stoic man of business and peaceful man of God, didn’t react at all beyond his initial nod.
I thought about not telling them about my attacker, letting the strange silence settle between us. They already had enough grief weighing on them still, without me worrying them more by adding to it with the tale of my impossible
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