The Empire of the Dead by Tracy Daugherty

you.
    What the hell, he thought. In a few more years, maybe at sixty-five, sixty-six, I’ll get prostate cancer. Maybe
that’ll
put an end to this miserable daily ache.
    Dried flowers formed a circle around a splintered guitar lying on the sidewalk. People dropped coins into the instrument. “Peace and love. Yeah, right,” said one boy to another, walking past. They wore Harvard Business sweatshirts. Japanese teenagers pushed through the crowd, snapping digital pictures of each other, whispering, “Beatle John! Beatle John!” Nearby, a fiftyish-something husk slumped in a wheelchair, a more ragged contraption than the bagel lady’s. He held a German Shepard on a leash. A Cat-in-the-Hat top hat wilted on his head like a Neapolitan ice cream cone. “Welcome! I’m the Mayor of Strawberry Fields!” he called to the strollers. “Oh yes, oh yes, we loved Johnny Rhythm, didn’t we?”
    He pointed to the dark apartment building towering above the trees. As an architect, Bern knew he was supposed to love the structure’s ornate grandeur. But it was
fussy
. Thick. “See that black railing in front of the white shutters … up there on the seventh floor … that’s where he lived. Yoko still sleeps there. Wasn’t it just the greatest love story of the century, folks?
Wasn’t it?
“
    A few minutes later, with a lull in the sightseeing, he wheeled his chair to the scuffed guitar, picked it up, and shook the money out of it. He stuffed the coins into his coat. “Hey! Fuck! I need mesome juice!” he yelled at a small Hispanic man sitting on a bench. “You! Pancho! What say you push me on down to the corner store?”
    â€œMan, I got no time for this!” the fellow said.
    The Mayor said, “Fuck you. You got the fuckin’ time. What are you? Late for a fuckin’ Security Council meeting at the fuckin’ UN?”
    Bern rubbed his eyes. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe he should just slip into a coffee shop, warm up for a few minutes, and take a subway home.
    Then Kate appeared, hunched and flushed, from around a curve in the path leading to the street. She wore a long wool coat, charcoal gray, and a green scarf. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, squeezing next to Bern on the bench. It occurred to him she had chosen a popular spot to fend off intimacy.
    â€œAre you all right?” he said.
    â€œNausea. You know.”
    â€œShould we—”
    â€œI don’t have the strength for a long discussion, Wally, but I needed to see you.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    â€œI didn’t want us to end on that badness from the other night.”
    â€œWe don’t have to end, Kate.”
    â€œWe do.”
    He stared at his hands. “I’m a grown-up. I can control myself.”
    â€œOf course I know you have the best intentions, Wally. And I miss spending time with you. I enjoyed our friendship. But what’s there is there … actually, I’m glad you confessed your feelings … it’s good to get them out … but I’m not strong enough …
you’re
not strong enough …”
    Wait, he thought. Had she just admitted
she
was attracted to
him
? Or did parsing her words prove her case: despite his good will, he’d always press her for more?
    â€œNo, Kate.”
    Her cheeks, already crimson from the cold, reddened further.“You’re never not sure, are you?” she said. “But that’s not the point. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The point is—”
    â€œKatie, please—”
    â€œâ€¦ the point is, your certainty is another reason we’re
wrong
together, Wally. You’re the teacher. The expert on everything.”
    â€œNo, no, no.”
    â€œAbsolutely. That’s how you see us. That’s how
I
saw us, too, at first. I liked it. Your little lectures to me. From that very first night we met at the bar.”
    â€œI thought they