Of course the bookstore was no longer. Now we had little choice, but to stare emptily at the banker in the ceiling high window
“Fish in a tank.” Kiko was thorough with her due diligence.
“Don’t make eye-contact or…” A streetlady covered in lesions grumbled, picking half a burning cigarette off the cement before making her way for the nearest alley. It was too late for us all. The banker exited the fishbowl, adjusting to the natural light.
“Do you have an account with us?”
“What happened to the bookstore?” Kiko dwelled within rage.
“What do you mean?”
“There was a great bookstore here.” I explained to him, but it didn’t register.
“Our bank has more branches than any other financial institution in the world. There’s one every two and three-quarter blocks and what’s even better is…” His voice trailed off only when we managed to put enough distance between us.
{XXVI}
“ABSURD HOW SOMEBODY CAN TAKE credit for something as large as finding the new world.” Kiko was staring up at the monument in Columbus Circle as if she was watching a fleet of ships enter the harbor.
“Nobody finds a new world alone.” Pitch black night dissolves into the foggy glow of midtown. Somehow my little girl would have to lead me to her. I didn’t know where to start. The world felt huge and we were just ants on the steps of a marble tomb.
“Don’t take it the wrong way Farrow, but Hawaii’s story sounds like bullshit. I’m not sure any of this even happened.” Fountains percussively pour onto marble. Skaters grind their trucks and slide their tails. Strollers roll and nannies squawk.
“It’s overwhelming.” The fountains paused for a brief silence.
The vase shattered. Roses and shards of glass all over the floor. Missy swung what was left of it at me. The top, uneven and jagged. She hadn’t committed to doing any real harm with the first few swings. Just trying to back me off into the bottomless pit.
“Missy there’s a baby inside you.” I held my ground. Hands up defensively.
“You do this to me.”
“This fucking weather…” Shoes off in the shallow fountain, Kiko read me up and down. Cyanide in my eyes, I wanted to believe it was true. I couldn’t believe anything, but.
“Whether it’s true or not, you don’t have to do anything.”
“Just the fact that it may be true...” Nobody handed me a tissue for my tears. Their faces were all glowing in their electronic tablets. The world around them muted and sonically replaced by pairs upon pairs of ear bud headphones.
“That’s the upgrade. Can I see…” Kiko charmed a tablet into her hands. The scruffy techie was initially reluctant, but too disembodied in possession to fight back. He pulled at it a few times turned off by the physical action, fidgeting impatiently.
“Take it easy! I won’t drop your baby.” And she started reading. By the way the words seized her eyes, I knew it was necromancy. Kiko mouthed the unreal into the absurd and then she just came out with it. “Farrow, you won’t believe this.”
“Lars.” The lucky bastard’s writing was never hard to find. If someone was reading something - anything - my first guess was that Wildman channeled it. The arcane beauty was the fact that Lars fell frenzy to the same mystic voice that we all did.
“It’s good Farrow. It may be his best yet.” Kiko wisely chose to stay in the netherworld.
The techie made a grab for the tablet forcing Kiko to take off through the fountains. I stood at the steps of the monument watching them circle around me.
“It’s not waterproof.” The techie mutated ablaze with anger. Wrath got the better of him. His screams vehemently rose to the peak of the Time Warner Center. Fearing for her life, Kiko tugged her weight up the stone angel’s body, grasping the globe while waving the tablet.
“I’m a fast reader.” Kiko pleaded while climbing the vine of brass reliefs, naming each ship as she fought her way up to Cristoforo’s granite shoes. “Nina…Pinta…Santa Maria.” Kiko hugged the totem pole. Her legs seemed strong enough to straddle an ancient pharaoh for a thousand hours as mother earth got slurped up by metafictional quicksand.
“Kiko is it the same as his other stuff or did Lars finally transce…?” I had to know if it was possible, but she wouldn’t tell me. Her eyes popped from their sockets. Her body language had to mean something, but I couldn’t settle on what. A bit of drool dropped down on the techie’s feathered fedora.
“Kiko. Kiko.” Her ears just didn’t wanna hear me. The best way for the techie to deal with his loss was to blame it on yours truly. Forsaken blue marble burnt through my soul. I started climbing Columbus reaching for Kiko’s flexing pasty thighs. Up and over the grey angel with the matching planet tugging down on her robe. As I was making it to the top, Kiko was already on her way down. We passed each other in silence similar to what we shared in the Rockaway sand with bullets flying over our heads. I didn’t watch Kiko hit the ground, but I could hear that her footsteps weren’t only hers. Every step was as much Percy’s, Gloom’s, Lars’s, or even Missy’s. A lion’s feet sounds the same, whether tearing through Columbus Circle, Queens Boulevard, or Calvary Cemetery.
{XXVII}
THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN being alone: Is to never be alone. Columbus Circle lit up with squad cars, firetrucks, and ambulances. I hung on for life at the top of the sculptor’s solid nationalist erection.
“Get off of me!” A Taino spirit was screaming at Columbus.
“I never liked Percy.” Missy admitted rubbing my back in an attempt to coax some sort of agreement out of me.
“Uh.” I said. It wasn’t uh-huh or uh-no. Nothing more than the slight recognition that I heard what she said: The grunt of a caveman that spent his life painting on walls while society was off on their hunt.
“Asshole what’s your name?” An officer was already on the megaphone.
“People usually call me Farrow.”
“The sociopath? The writer?”
“Yeah?” Nobody clapped. I kept waiting, just in case.
“Everybody move away from the area.” The police got organized, pushing people off to the side, but there was nowhere to go. They just all stood around circling the fountain: Staring up at the crackpot writer, drinking their cocoaccinos, yapping on their plastic phones. Cars honking. Sirens whirling. Lips smacking.
“I’m coming down.” My grip was slipping. The drop was enough to maim me, but probably wouldn’t do me in. Lars had to be paying detailed attention from the other realm. Most likely he wrote this scene sipping on milk from a goddess’s breast while scarfing down tarts filled with ambrosia.
“Sir, don’t move. Stay right where you are.”
“Help me.” Not even the three steel boats could stop the slide. I hit each one with an ascending grunt missing NYPD’s finest trampoline by a couple feet. Concrete I knew better than dirt. Somewhere along the line I learned the right way to take a fall.
{XXVIII}
“KEEP THE ICE ON YOUR head.” A woman was leaning over me with an ice pack. Her voice was a honey sweet purr that could reveal the most sadistic crimes against humanity as nothing more than nature’s empty-headiness. Her voluptuousness threatened to escape the trappings of her white blouse and formal skirt.
“What happened?”