“Missy never even considered getting rid of the baby. Instead, she asked me to create the illusion to everyone outside the hospital that I performed the abortion. Only Missy, Percy, and myself knew the truth. We devised a plan with Percy’s funds preparing for the birth. A few well-placed bribes and I swung a transfer to the NICU months in advance. We were going to fake an illness, but it ended up coming true. Sepsis. I admitted your daughter. She stayed in the NICU for six weeks. I watched over her like she was my own. I watched over her just as I watched over you, but you’ve only been here for a few days.” Lacking strength to speak, the tears ran down my cheeks, until I could taste them.
“When your daughter was finally better, Missy showed up alone disappearing with the baby down a smoky alley. I didn’t take the money Percy offered to me. I told him to give it to the hospital and to my surprise he did just that.”
“How much?” Tripping Hawaii up on insignificant details would be the best way to figure out what and what not to believe.
“It was a lot.”
“Where’s Chiara?”
“How’d you know her name? I’ll take you to her. C’mon let’s go.”
I ripped the IV’s out of my arms and hopped back on my feet. Fresh pages went flying out from under my pillow. A melancholy breeze took the heavily medicated confetti to the streets. Halfway between two worlds, I expected my legs to crumble, but I hardly felt them. Down a few hallways and a packed elevator, we floated through a purgatorial abyss of patients.
Baby babble slid from the realm of forgotten dreams. Imagination turned to words. I was going to meet my daughter for the first time. I couldn’t stop wondering what she was like. In the lobby, Hawaii quickly slipped through the revolving door, leaving me in the compartment behind her. The silver dollar vixen went haywire when she hit the mosaic pavement, ruthlessly dumping a sick old man out of his wheelchair, only to shove it into the revolving door, jamming it up. I was stuck behind the glass staring at the faces studying me a sea lion in the aquarium.
“Leave!” Missy’s screams shrunk the night’s sirens. I could hear neighbors unlocking their deadbolts to peek out into the hallways. I opened our apartment door only to hear theirs shut. The hallway and steps went fast. The street came easy. I crossed in traffic and sat down in Father Demo Square. I watched Missy run down Bleeker in tears. It hurt being impaled on a spear. I couldn’t move. Only let her run. I hated seeing such pain. I knew if I was the one running, I would need her to take off after me. In spite, I stayed on the bench until she was out of sight. Getting up like a spy I slinked to the A train.
Baffled, Kiko stopped in her tracks, looking me up and down. She dropped the flowers and a teddy bear to the ground.
“Every time, your heart feels more pure.”
“I have a daughter now.”
“You should be holding her then.”
“I want that more than anything.” My head barely moved, slightly swinging back and forth in the small space of the invisible iron maiden, sharper than steel nails.
{XXV}
HAPHAZARD FOCUS DAWNED UPON US. Kiko and I stood in the middle of Times Square looking up with the others. I expected to see a friendly conglomerate mothership landing, but instead… I could only see words… words dripping metaphysically from wounds scarred over… chasing each other compulsively on a giant LED ticker… reminders that best friends died in the same hospital daughters were born… wait and see them again… accept that language is only a sleight of tongue… Yankees ace blows save in extra innings… MTA raises price of monthly metrocard due to increasingly emaciated citizens squeezing through turnstiles together… Lars Wildman, son of recently murdered Featherton publishing czar, dies at Bellevue Hospital after swandiving from the roof of the NYPL … Freedom tower to be renamed because of trademark infringement…
The buildings had their own words. Logistical. Warnings. Words that tell you what already happened while making you feel like you were present when the shit truly went down.
“It’s already out.” Kiko was staring up at a billboard advertising Lars’ new book.
“The Girl In The Elevator.”
Bricks and brownstones, a silent life story, a half smile that wanted to explode whole. We shared the same stride. Far from unconscious, every few steps Kiko’s body would brush against mine. It dawned on me that she was leading me to the closest bookstore expecting Lars to make sense of it all for us. I didn’t have to wonder much if I made it under the covers. He cold-jacked the title from me and I understood how people were torn apart, scrambled up, and put back together as new. Most everyone that ended up in the pages had no idea they were even there. Others tried to get placed inside. Similar to the way they fell into this world, they were trying to fall into another.
“It’s just a block away if I remember right.” Excitement filled Kiko like a kid in a teen mystery who fell in a cave and figured why not explore it. Except this was surreal grit. All hands and minds are dirty. No punches pulled. Kiko was leading us to a place that had special meaning to me and she didn’t even know it. She was guiding me to the spot that changed my life forever.
Sometimes empty is better. The bookstore was losing customers. I wasn’t sure where they went.
“Oh I thought I was alone.”
“No such thing.” Her celestial eyes came at me like a tsunami wave almost knocking the book loose.
“I’m Missy.” Her face sculpted from secluded rocks found inside a holy waterfall.
“Farrow.”
“You give a good first impression Farrow, standing there with that book in your hand as if it was a treasure that only fits you.” The woman could have said anything and I would have agreed.
“Thanks.” Little did she know the book I was holding wasn’t actually a book that was ordered and sold in this particular store. It was a book I wrote myself and printed by mail order in a Canadian milltown. I smuggled a copy or two into every bookstore and library in New York. They could keep the profits and I would keep the readers. At least that was how the plan originated. After I left the copies on the shelves, I would stop by periodically to see if anyone took them home. Inspecting if the binding or pages were creased. More often than not the copies were still there untouched. It was at that very moment I decided that my next book would have Missy on the cover. That way it would be irresistible. Wait! Even better…
“Missy my next book will be about you.”
“What do you mean?” She seemed creeped out and flattered at the same time.
“I mean… I don’t know you yet, but the feelings you evoke in me are enough to fill an entire book.”
“A poem maybe. An epic poem full of exaggerations.”
“At least a novella full of truths, but when you go that far, you might as well keep going.”
“Sounds like a mystery.”
“Yeah a mystery about you Missy.”
“If you write it, I’ll read it.” Missy tried to read the book’s title in my hand, but I was careful to shield it.