Tenant hears footsteps on the roof right above her. Who could be up there this hour? Trouble. Either some junkies got in the building or corner one next door and got to the roof that way and are shooting up. Or winos or runaways or just plain bums making a home for the night up there? Why can’t it rain now or snow? Get them off. She just hopes the roof door’s locked tight so they don’t start walking down the building’s stairs and making noise and throwing up in the hallways as what happened a couple of times or trying all the doors. What else could it be up there but something awful? She hopes not someone forced to go for the worst of purposes. That’s happened on one or two other buildings around here but never hers.
“Now you know what I want,” the man says. “I want to screw you but I want it without holding the knife to your face. That way it’ll be better for me and easier and quicker for you. Then if you’re good to me and a good little girl all around and give no trouble I’ll let you go. You’re a real piece of ass, you know? I could tell right away you screw well and that you’ve screwed around a lot. You got the face for it. Saucy. Sexy. So, you going to do it like I say? You don’t, you’re dead.”
“No, I don’t want to do it with you,” the woman says. And then louder: “Now let me alone. Let me get by you and downstairs. Now please — I’m asking — please!” He stabs her in the chest. She raises her arms. He stabs her several times. She goes down. She screams. She says “Help, I’m being murdered.” He gets on one knee and stabs her where he thinks her heart is.
“Stop that, stop that,” the tenant shouts out her window. “Whoever it is, leave that girl alone. Help, police, someone’s killing someone upstairs. On the roof. Stop that, you butcher, stop that, stop.”
“Help me, I’m dying,” the woman says. “Stupid bitch,” the man says. He jumps up. Lights have gone on in some of the apartment windows in buildings that overlook the roof. “Shit,” he says. “Hey you there,” a man says from one window. “What is it, what’s going on?” a man says from a window right next to that one. “I’ve called the police,” a woman shouts from what seems like the building he’s on. “They’re coming. They’re on their way. Everybody call to make sure they come. Girl, don’t be afraid. They’re coming. People from this building will be up there for you too.” “Shit,” he says and leaps over the low wall to get to the next building’s fire escape.
Her mother thinks about the dream she just had. All the apartment buildings around hers were falling down, one after the other. She lives in a suburban townhouse and has never lived in anything but a private home, but in the dream she was in she lived in an apartment in a tall old apartment building in a large city that looked more European than American. The buildings collapsed straight down as if heavy explosives had been set off under them. For a while it seemed the window was a TV screen and she was watching the buildings fall in slow motion in a documentary. She was with her three daughters, all about four to eight years younger than they are now, and her husband and mother, who’s dead. Then her building was falling. She held out her arms to her family and said “Here, come into me.” Her arms became progressively longer as each person came into her. She kissed their heads in a row — they were all as small as little children now — and started crying. Then they were at her family’s gravesite behind her grandparents’ farmhouse, burying her mother. “This proves life can go on,” she said to her husband, daughters and grandmother. She doesn’t know what the last part of the dream means. There is no farmhouse or family gravesite. Her parents and grandparents are buried in three different enormous cemeteries. Where was her son in the dream? She gets out of bed, goes to the kitchen, writes down the dream and what she thinks the end of it means. “That everything will be OK with C (living in her city hovel)? That I really needn’t be anxious about any of my kids or really about anything in life (how’d I come to that last conclusion?)? That if people stay in mind & memory (just about the same thing; I realize that) they’re never really dead? That living, dying, illness, fraility, tragedy, mayhem, mishaps, madness, revolutions, terrorism (from inside & out) and the rest of it are all quite normal? (Was that all you were going to say?) That we’re all basically entwined &—now stop all that; it was never in it. Then what? Time for God? Not at any price & why’d that idea pop in? (To interpret it theologically, that’s all.) An important dream though, start to end, no matter what I don’t make of it. Read all this back tomorrow. Underscore that: read, read.’ Maybe then.”
Her father can’t sleep. He feels for his wife in bed. She left it before but is there now. “Hilda, you up? I can’t sleep; want to talk.” No answer or movement. Why’d she have to worry him so? Not that he can’t handle it, but — He gets up, goes to the bathroom, drinks a glass of water. That was stupid. Meant to take two aspirins first. He gets the aspirins out of the medicine cabinet, puts them in his mouth and washes them down with another glass of water. Now he’ll feel better. In about fifteen minutes. And his dreams are usually more vivid and peaceful in theme when he takes aspirins. His doctor thinks he should take an aspirin every other night to reduce the fat or plaque on his blood vessel walls. He doesn’t mind, especially for the side benefits of a more peaceful sleep and dreams, but usually forgets to.
The woman’s being treated by paramedics. She gives a description of her attacker and details of what happened. “Honestly, try not to talk,” one of the paramedics says. “Yes, you probably shouldn’t,” a policeman says. She says “No, I want you to know what happened. If I go over it enough times, you’ll get everything. I came into the building. We’re still on my building?” “Yes, of course,” the policeman says. “I meant, he didn’t drag me over the parapet to the next building?” “If he did, he brought you back or you got back here on your own.” “No, what am I talking of?” she says. “I came into the building. I’ll proceed chronologically, no digressions. I came into the building.” “I really don’t want her talking,” the paramedic says. “You heard him, Miss. Don’t talk.” “I came into the building. He was waiting for me in the service elevator. That elevator ought to be locked at night, not left open. People can hide there. I’m digressing, but so what? The lobby door should have a better lock. Anyone, with a little force, can push the door open when it’s locked. The building should have better lights. Look at the lights when you leave in the lobby and hallways. Thirty watts, maybe. One to a hallway if you’re lucky. There’s a city law. My roommate’s checked. She’s studying to be a lawyer. Where is she?” “If you mean Miss Kantor,” the policeman says, “she’s not home. We’ve been inside your apartment. To look for your attacker. I hope you don’t mind.” “There’s a city law saying the wattage should be higher, Phoebe said. Minimum of two lights too. In case one goes out. He had a long knife. Said he’d kill me unless. Well, he nearly did. Maybe he will have. No he won’t. I should say that. No he won’t.” “You shouldn’t say anything,” the paramedic says. “This officer and I say don’t.” “But I wouldn’t have sex with him. Why would I? It would have been worse than anything. He was filthy. A beast. A jungle. I thought I could escape on the roof. I should have tried to break away sooner. In the lobby. That way I would have had a chance. But I was so scared. I couldn’t think. I got my wits about me going up the elevator. His knife seemed shined. Maybe he shines it with polish. He was sick enough. Maybe I should have let him do it. Screw me, he said. Maybe it would have been worth it, filth and all. When you can’t do anything.” “Now that’s enough. Absolutely no more talk.” “This has all been very valuable, Corinne,” the policeman says, “but this man is right. Save your strength. I insist. For your own sake.” “All right.”