Missy passed me on the street, but I was the one that kept walking. She followed me for a block through midtown until I stopped, silently waiting for her to tell whatever she felt the need to tell me.
“I’m sorry, but I need you not to worry about me. When you were with me and working on A Greater Truth, I was jealous of the time you spent away from me. Even if you were in the room with me there was this intense distance. At times you look so sick, stricken with some strange disease that only you had. Other times I was certain it was someone else coming between us. It was so confusing. Every day we lived together, I expected you to tell me that you were finished writing and ready to come back to me, but that day never came… you just kept writing and writing and writing…”
“……”
“Farrow… even before you finished the book you deserted me… even before you finished the book you were already talking about the next one and the next one and the one after that. I realized that the book you were writing was as much mine as anyone else’s. The book was more mine than yours.”
“A Greater Truth…” I didn’t know what else to do, so I went for her lips, but she moved away. The women always decides.
I opened my eyes only to look into the eyes of the lioness, twice my size. She looked angry again like she had no choice in the matter. There were only a few more blocks to go. My life as everyone else’s in the city was only measured by a few blocks. I wasn’t sure whether to sprint or walk home, so I stayed somewhere in-between. The rain blessed the lioness with a slight transparency and mystique. I could see my square brick apartment. I could see my chipped brick landlord waiting at the door, dead drunk, seeing three of me and at least a dozen beasts on my tail.
“Farrow is everything okay?” He wobbled and the lioness wobbled too.
“Yeah… everything’s fine.”
“Farrow, is everything okay?” My landlord rubbed his eyes furiously, trying to change something that he just couldn’t change.
“King of the jungle.”
{XVIII}
ANY NOTION OF PASSIVITY HAD drained with the blood of a dead writer into the soil of this Algonquin swamp. I lay in the hot stone sauna of a greasy kitchen, bed next to the stove, secret novels of the future scattered across the floor… counting the seconds between thunder and godly skyshine… the more level I attempted to stay… the more my lungs heaved out of control. Signs of life outside of the passing mechanized iron on its rattling tracks were few and far between. At this hour the lack of distractions kept me in my head. New York’s geometric prism was just a speck, an heir to the time’s trampling.
I dropped the pen in the ink and pressed it to the page. The words were waiting for a destination. I knew where to put them. I knew which ones to ignore. I forgot where I was. I forgot what I was missing. I forgot who I was supposed to be. The words showed up and I placed them… tracing outlines of people I knew… filling in their flesh as if it all melted together. It was a world overlooked by everyone, but myself. The feather pen tore through the paper snapping at the end. The bottle of ink fell on its side soaking the desk and page of writing. I could see the black void.
It was the closest I’ve approached getting my name back on the cover of the book Missy adopted as her own, snatching it away deep into the cavernous venus man-trap between her legs. Done lugging around the guilt of pimping her out for my own ambitions. She didn’t put up much of a fight. Maybe it was in her nature. Missy was an expert of putting an idea in your head and methodically making you believe that it materialized within you. She, the subconscious nurturer, left even the most oblivious passerby with a destructive obsession. Wildfire, I collapsed to the floor reaching for a pen and paper with enough room to scribble on like a soldier back from the war who only knew how to be a soldier, I could only write. I was writing this as I was thinking this.
Water dripped down. All the dead roses except one were resting on a bed of glass at my feet. The one lonely one held on with its thorns, stuck to Missy’s palm. I gently stepped towards her.
“Farrow. Please.” Missy told me a thousand ways on the same tongue, but I stayed in the morning dew of a distant galaxy. A book I never started…
“You hate me because I live by different rules. You couldn’t own me - so you used me.”
“I’m sorry I was selfish. All I ever want to do is write.”
“Isn’t that what writers are supposed to do: Write.”
The past could no longer be forgotten out of convenience as it had been before the war. Dishonor before death. Suicide mission through the irreparable city. Lorem ipsolem inculare. Not sure if I disowned humanity or the ant farm disowned me.
With an ear-splitting crash, the ceiling came down onto the studio’s floor. The rain seemed to have weakened an already mooshy three generation decayed rooftop. Light shot in. I stood revealed to the night sky. The electrical storm showed no sign of weakening, until the entire borough succumbed to a jittery seizure, bruised from rolling around their cramped digs in drool. Squinting through the blur, I watched the clock reading high noon on the dot fade into dreams of crumbling teeth and invincible strangers sneaking along fire escapes. Lars was in pitch perfect tune: Writers are hustlers by default. I was always buying time to finish up another book. Every decision I made was with the next story in mind.
{XIX}
THE SUN WAS HIDING FROM me. I lost a day. Slept one afternoon to the next night. Jet lag without the jet. Returning from the opposite of a vacation. A knock at the door. Then another. And one more. The 7 train rattled the window frames.
No other sane option, than to pull myself up into the sky. A quick hop from the kitchen sink. Up through the hole in the ceiling. The city let her gown down, along with the intruders below.
“The place is flooded.” Sgt. Bethany Powers shook the rain off her boots. I could smell the gunpowder in her crimson locks.
“There’s nothing here.” Wasting no time, Detective Anderson nonchalantly picked through my trash with his baton.
“Looks like he’s working on a new book.” Sgt. Powers picked Lust Demented off the bed. Flipping through it she got a little excited, vaguely aware of the power concealed in what she was holding. “It’s all written by hand. Illegible and on ragged scraps of paper. Parking tickets. Job applications. Court summons. Sample sale fliers. Looks like Farrow wanders the city writing this drivel, picking up scraps of paper whenever the muse hits him.”
“Leave it. Guy’s had enough...” Detective Anderson seemed to sense that I was listening.
“Finally some leverage. How far do you think Farrow will go to get it back?”
Hidden in the backup rice cooker, I found the unused ticket to Sri Lanka dated for the same week we met. She was planning an escape from her escape. I was in awe by the fact what we shared between us kept her here. I’m sure it was more complex than that, but simple at the core: A love overwhelmed us both. A blizzard without snow. War without boundaries. A storm of beauty and destruction that would take prisoners, end lives, and above all make new life.
The jakes got what they needed and were off, slamming the door behind them. Seems they were sick of chasing me and instead wanted me to chase them. The old rusted iron skeleton of a fire escape took me down to Roosevelt Avenue. The sidewalks were packed under the shadowy tracks of the 7 making it easy enough to stay hidden in the crowd.