Eddie’s head. For one brief moment he was brilliantly aware of his passage between the worlds. Then the gunfire. Then the killing.
STAVE: Commala-come-coo
The wind’ll blow ya through.
Ya gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya
Cause there’s nothin else to do.
RESPONSE: Commala-come-two!
Nothin else to do!
Gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya
Cause there’s nothin else to do.
ONE
Until June first of 1999, Trudy Damascus was the sort of hard-headed woman who’d tell you that most UFOs were weather balloons (and those that weren’t were probably the fabrications of people who wanted to get on TV), the Shroud of Turin was some fourteenth-century con man’s trick, and that ghosts—Jacob Marley’s included—were either the perceptions of the mentally ill or caused by indigestion. She was hard-headed, she prided herself on being hard-headed, and had nothing even slightly spiritual on her mind as she walked down Second Avenue toward her business (an accounting firm called Guttenberg, Furth, and Patel) with her canvas carry-bag and her purse slung over her shoulder. One of GF&P’s clients was a chain of toy stores called KidzPlay, and KidzPlay owed GF&P a goodly sum of money. The fact that they were also tottering on the edge of Chapter Eleven meant el zippo to Trudy. She wanted that $69,211.19, and had spent most of her lunch-hour (in a back booth of Dennis’s Waffles and Pancakes, which had been Chew Chew Mama’s until 1994) mulling over ways to get it.During the last two years she had taken several steps toward changing Guttenberg, Furth, and Patel to Guttenberg, Furth, Patel and Damascus; forcing KidzPlay to cough up would be yet another step—a long one—in that direction.
And so, as she crossed Forty-sixth Street toward the large dark glass skyscraper which now stood on the uptown corner of Second and Forty-sixth (where there had once been a certain Artistic Deli and then a certain vacant lot), Trudy wasn’t thinking about gods or ghosts or visitations from the spirit world. She was thinking about Richard Goldman, the asshole CEO of a certain toy company, and how—
But that was when Trudy’s life changed. At 1:19 P.M ., EDT, to be exact. She had just reached the curb on the downtown side of the street. Was, in fact, stepping up. And all at once a woman appeared on the sidewalk in front of her. A wide-eyed African-American woman. There was no shortage of black women in New York City, and God knew there had to be a fair percentage of them with wide eyes, but Trudy had never seen one emerge directly from thin air before, which was what this one did. And there was something else, something even more unbelievable. Ten seconds before, Trudy Damascus would have laughed and said nothing could be more unbelievable than a woman flicking into existence in front of her on a Midtown sidewalk, but there was. There definitely was.
And now she knew how all those people who reported seeing flying saucers (not to mentionghosts wrapped in clanking chains) must feel, how they must grow frustrated by the entrenched disbelief of people like . . . well, people like the one Trudy Damascus had been at 1:18 P.M on that day in June, the one who said goodbye for good on the downtown side of Forty-sixth Street. You could tell people You don’t understand, this REALLY HAPPENED! and it cut zero ice. They said stuff like Well, she probably came out from behind the bus shelter and you just didn’t notice or She probably came out of one of the little stores and you just didn’t notice. You could tell them that there was no bus shelter on the downtown side of Second and Forty-sixth (or on the uptown side, for that matter), and it did no good. You could tell them there were no little stores in that area, not since 2 Hammarskjöld Plaza went up, and that didn’t work, either. Trudy would soon find these things out for herself, and they would drive her close to insanity. She was not used to having her perceptions dismissed as no more
STAVE: Commala-come-coo
The wind’ll blow ya through.
Ya gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya
Cause there’s nothin else to do.
RESPONSE: Commala-come-two!
Nothin else to do!
Gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya
Cause there’s nothin else to do.
ONE
Until June first of 1999, Trudy Damascus was the sort of hard-headed woman who’d tell you that most UFOs were weather balloons (and those that weren’t were probably the fabrications of people who wanted to get on TV), the Shroud of Turin was some fourteenth-century con man’s trick, and that ghosts—Jacob Marley’s included—were either the perceptions of the mentally ill or caused by indigestion. She was hard-headed, she prided herself on being hard-headed, and had nothing even slightly spiritual on her mind as she walked down Second Avenue toward her business (an accounting firm called Guttenberg, Furth, and Patel) with her canvas carry-bag and her purse slung over her shoulder. One of GF&P’s clients was a chain of toy stores called KidzPlay, and KidzPlay owed GF&P a goodly sum of money. The fact that they were also tottering on the edge of Chapter Eleven meant el zippo to Trudy. She wanted that $69,211.19, and had spent most of her lunch-hour (in a back booth of Dennis’s Waffles and Pancakes, which had been Chew Chew Mama’s until 1994) mulling over ways to get it.During the last two years she had taken several steps toward changing Guttenberg, Furth, and Patel to Guttenberg, Furth, Patel and Damascus; forcing KidzPlay to cough up would be yet another step—a long one—in that direction.
And so, as she crossed Forty-sixth Street toward the large dark glass skyscraper which now stood on the uptown corner of Second and Forty-sixth (where there had once been a certain Artistic Deli and then a certain vacant lot), Trudy wasn’t thinking about gods or ghosts or visitations from the spirit world. She was thinking about Richard Goldman, the asshole CEO of a certain toy company, and how—
But that was when Trudy’s life changed. At 1:19 P.M ., EDT, to be exact. She had just reached the curb on the downtown side of the street. Was, in fact, stepping up. And all at once a woman appeared on the sidewalk in front of her. A wide-eyed African-American woman. There was no shortage of black women in New York City, and God knew there had to be a fair percentage of them with wide eyes, but Trudy had never seen one emerge directly from thin air before, which was what this one did. And there was something else, something even more unbelievable. Ten seconds before, Trudy Damascus would have laughed and said nothing could be more unbelievable than a woman flicking into existence in front of her on a Midtown sidewalk, but there was. There definitely was.
And now she knew how all those people who reported seeing flying saucers (not to mentionghosts wrapped in clanking chains) must feel, how they must grow frustrated by the entrenched disbelief of people like . . . well, people like the one Trudy Damascus had been at 1:18 P.M on that day in June, the one who said goodbye for good on the downtown side of Forty-sixth Street. You could tell people You don’t understand, this REALLY HAPPENED! and it cut zero ice. They said stuff like Well, she probably came out from behind the bus shelter and you just didn’t notice or She probably came out of one of the little stores and you just didn’t notice. You could tell them that there was no bus shelter on the downtown side of Second and Forty-sixth (or on the uptown side, for that matter), and it did no good. You could tell them there were no little stores in that area, not since 2 Hammarskjöld Plaza went up, and that didn’t work, either. Trudy would soon find these things out for herself, and they would drive her close to insanity. She was not used to having her perceptions dismissed as no more
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