lunatic: she put pizza crust in the goldfish tank and fried hamburgers in $12 olive oil. He can still smell the smoke in her hair and the patchouli on her neck where she’d let him nuzzle her. Before she started hiding in the bathroom and telling him to just let her be.
He remembers the long drive up to the Bronx where they were going to live with her old Aunt Rose from Donegal. How his mother was supposed to pick him up from P.S. 156 one day andnever showed up. He walked for blocks and blocks looking for her, passing under the shadow of the el and Yankee Stadium, until he wound up at the precinct, a frightened eight-year-old sucking his thumb while a grumpy old patrol sergeant pounded out a report on a manual typewriter.
He remembers crying for her before bed that night in Aunt Rose’s apartment in the Webster Houses. But all he got was Rose without her dentures and a warm glass of milk with hair in it. He can still see those car shadows on the ceiling and feel that yearning for the way things used to be. The memory starts to carry him away, though he wonders now whether Mary really did love him. His eyelids grow heavy and his breathing slows down. From across the drill floor he hears someone singing an old song:
“I can’t stop loving you, I’ve made up my mind, To live in memories, Of a lonesome time.”
And just as he’s finally about to fall into a restful sleep, he feels the sting of cold metal against his throat.
“Yο, excuse me, man,” whispers a voice. “Remember me?”
Hot breath forces its way into his ear. He realizes he must have rolled onto his stomach when he fell asleep. Now the serrated blade is against his larynx.
“You best just lie back, relax, and enjoy the show,” Larry Loud says in a low voice. “ ‘Cause I’m gonna cut your fuckin’ throat if you make a sound.”
He starts moving on top of John G., shifting things around. John tries to resist, but the knife tightens on his Adam’s apple.
“Come on, bitch, I ain’t gonna hurt you none.”
The knife pulls back against John G.’s carotid artery like a bit in a horse’s mouth.
“See, they think I got the virus,” Larry says softly. “You know how I’m saying? Like I might be what they call HIV-positive.”
John tells himself that the kid is lying and just trying to frighten him, but then he remembers the fear he saw in Larry’s eyes downstairs.
“So I don’t give a fuck,” Larry says, trying to pull down John’s pants and force his way in. “I’m gonna die anyway. So now I’m gonna put my virus right into you.”
John rocks from side to side, trying to throw him off. Every cell and muscle in his body is crying out, protesting what’s about to happen. Everything that he is depends on keeping himself intact. Until tonight, he’d thought he had no pride left. But just as he realizes there’s still something there, he loses it.
“Lord have mercy on the faggots,” Larry says afterward. “If I got the virus now, so do you. It’s just like that Clint Eastwood movie, man: the question you gotta ask yourself is, Do I feel lucky?”
He laughs to himself as he gets up and walks away.
And for the next few minutes, the only thing John G. hears is the sound of his own mind breaking.
Watch the closing doors. The train goes plunging down.
7
The table in the conference room of Bracken, Williams & Sayon is made from wood that’s over ten thousand years old, Todd Bracken III once told Jake. The original tree hailed from a Tasmanian mountainside, where Jake supposed a brontosaurus might have once taken a leak on it. It had survived fire, termites, atmospheric changes, and the death of most surrounding vegetation before it was shipped to the States, bleached blond, and sold by a custom retail outlet in Delaware for $50,000. Jake taps it twice waiting for Todd to come to the next point in the partners’ meeting.
“The partnership retreat,” says Todd, wiping a swatch of thinning blond hair off his broad forehead. “I
He remembers the long drive up to the Bronx where they were going to live with her old Aunt Rose from Donegal. How his mother was supposed to pick him up from P.S. 156 one day andnever showed up. He walked for blocks and blocks looking for her, passing under the shadow of the el and Yankee Stadium, until he wound up at the precinct, a frightened eight-year-old sucking his thumb while a grumpy old patrol sergeant pounded out a report on a manual typewriter.
He remembers crying for her before bed that night in Aunt Rose’s apartment in the Webster Houses. But all he got was Rose without her dentures and a warm glass of milk with hair in it. He can still see those car shadows on the ceiling and feel that yearning for the way things used to be. The memory starts to carry him away, though he wonders now whether Mary really did love him. His eyelids grow heavy and his breathing slows down. From across the drill floor he hears someone singing an old song:
“I can’t stop loving you, I’ve made up my mind, To live in memories, Of a lonesome time.”
And just as he’s finally about to fall into a restful sleep, he feels the sting of cold metal against his throat.
“Yο, excuse me, man,” whispers a voice. “Remember me?”
Hot breath forces its way into his ear. He realizes he must have rolled onto his stomach when he fell asleep. Now the serrated blade is against his larynx.
“You best just lie back, relax, and enjoy the show,” Larry Loud says in a low voice. “ ‘Cause I’m gonna cut your fuckin’ throat if you make a sound.”
He starts moving on top of John G., shifting things around. John tries to resist, but the knife tightens on his Adam’s apple.
“Come on, bitch, I ain’t gonna hurt you none.”
The knife pulls back against John G.’s carotid artery like a bit in a horse’s mouth.
“See, they think I got the virus,” Larry says softly. “You know how I’m saying? Like I might be what they call HIV-positive.”
John tells himself that the kid is lying and just trying to frighten him, but then he remembers the fear he saw in Larry’s eyes downstairs.
“So I don’t give a fuck,” Larry says, trying to pull down John’s pants and force his way in. “I’m gonna die anyway. So now I’m gonna put my virus right into you.”
John rocks from side to side, trying to throw him off. Every cell and muscle in his body is crying out, protesting what’s about to happen. Everything that he is depends on keeping himself intact. Until tonight, he’d thought he had no pride left. But just as he realizes there’s still something there, he loses it.
“Lord have mercy on the faggots,” Larry says afterward. “If I got the virus now, so do you. It’s just like that Clint Eastwood movie, man: the question you gotta ask yourself is, Do I feel lucky?”
He laughs to himself as he gets up and walks away.
And for the next few minutes, the only thing John G. hears is the sound of his own mind breaking.
Watch the closing doors. The train goes plunging down.
7
The table in the conference room of Bracken, Williams & Sayon is made from wood that’s over ten thousand years old, Todd Bracken III once told Jake. The original tree hailed from a Tasmanian mountainside, where Jake supposed a brontosaurus might have once taken a leak on it. It had survived fire, termites, atmospheric changes, and the death of most surrounding vegetation before it was shipped to the States, bleached blond, and sold by a custom retail outlet in Delaware for $50,000. Jake taps it twice waiting for Todd to come to the next point in the partners’ meeting.
“The partnership retreat,” says Todd, wiping a swatch of thinning blond hair off his broad forehead. “I
Similar Books
