Out the side window, a big-rig was having a hard time staying in its lane, skidding and swerving in and out of control. Its trailer painted with circus animals and a vintage logo. Traffic spread at its sides attempting to make room where there was none. Time slowed to a thousand blinking frames.
I felt the sky squint when the big-rig finally rolled over. The massive truck slid like a poached grizzly across a frozen river. The entire expressway slammed on their brakes as a reflex. An avalanche swallowed the wolfpack. Whatever didn’t smash into solid stone hydroplaned into twisted steel. Metal mangled with flesh.
We were more prey than predators, out in the middle of the L.I.E. with the others. People were holding each other up. I’m running forward with the cabbie, tripping over the injured, not sure what to do. I lost sight of Kiko, but felt her close in a different way. The circus truck was lying on its side burning. There was no sign of life from the driver who was still gripping the wheel. In worse shape was the passenger who was thrown a couple hundred feet down the black tar path. The trailer in back was busted open and shaking as if the truck was having a final orgasm of its own.
{XVI}
GET COMFORTABLE WITH THE INFERNO at your sides. A huge paw emerged first, followed by another. Smoke was pouring from the circus truck. Sparks flying in our minds. The driver in the front seat regained consciousness.
“What the fuck happened?” A dazed puppet in the human show climbs from the window out onto the expressway. The lion was already out sniffing around. Time moved into ethereal territory. Loose limbs flying in our direction helped get us moving. The lion had four legs which never seemed to hit the ground. Four legs floating. Four legs that didn’t belong here in New York. Four legs that belonged to a different jungle. A different jungle with different laws… and dif… or maybe it was the same… maybe it was all the same.
Hell’s poets chanted in my ears. The city’s skyline was in the distance. The heavy stench of burning gasoline lingered in my throat, clogging my nose. The cabbie left his robe in the lion’s teeth, but he still managed to enter the gates of the hilled cemetery first. He was faster than me. The lion was faster than us all, but seemed to be bouncing around with wracked nerves. It seemed to have no direction. It seemed to understand that the world was at its mercy. Especially this world of soft skin mocking nature.
The lion tore through the cemetery’s maze focusing in on no particular target, ripping heads off the stone statues, trampling flowers, bushes, and trees. It was at that moment I lost sight of everything. The land was trails of regal echoes. Heavy footsteps hunting the panic of man. In-between growls and sounds of destruction I heard the cabbie’s soft voice calling me.
“In here. In here. In here.” I heard the voice, but couldn’t find its source. My heart was pounding atomic. The feeble voice was a trickling stream of desperation.
“Nice place to be buried alive.” All I could see was the lion’s open mouth. It was the first time the giant cat, acknowledged me.
“In here. In here. In here.” The cabbie’s hand waved at me from the steel grates of a mossy tomb. He found a place to hide. The cabbie was safe and I was exposed. Maybe he wanted to save me or maybe he just didn’t want to watch me die. It would be a terrible death for him to know. I would probably feel nothing after the first strike. I was already frozen, not welcoming, but waiting for it.
A muscular soiled man burst from the gates of the tomb waving a rake. He grabbed me with a force I had yet to feel. The lion was just watching us chewing on a gravestone bouquet. It looked like roses. Just then, I noticed the lion had no mane… no cock… no balls. The lion was a lioness wanting nothing more than blood and flesh on her breath.
“Motherfucker… motherfucker… motherfucker…” Wearing only lace panties, a bulletproof vest, and his pistol, the cabbie stayed useless, hyperventilating. Kiko was right: The taxi madame was a cop. I should have realized it the second Sgt. Bethany Powers put me in his car back in Red Hook.
“Trust me this is not a bad place to end up. You guys know who’s buried here in Calvary?” The groundskeeper eyed the lioness, trying to control his chattering teeth. “Calvary is a cemetery of cops, crooks, and crazies. Lucchese, Petrosino, not to mention the great Steve Brodie.”
“Who…?” The lioness almost seemed to be listening, patiently waiting outside the tomb’s cast iron gates.
“My moms named me after the man himself. Steve Brodie, the man who in 1886 jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge and lived. Crazy bastard did it to win a $100 bet. People say it was a con. Over a hundred foot plunge… near impossible to survive even in water… East River is pretty rough as it is… might as well dive off a fifteen story building into asphalt.” Brodie kept going. “I mow his grave every day and for some reason… I know without a doubt Steve Brodie was no joke. He really did it. I even figured the calculations to prove myself wrong, but numbers can make too much sense.” Brodie produced a scrap of paper from his pocket which had a mix of calculus and physics scribbled haphazardly all over it. The cabbie and I both looked down at his calculations. It was serious math as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t sure what it proved, but it made my mind go in different directions. I pictured Lars falling in slow motion from the great bridge, a cloud of pages fluttering around him in a literary force field. A cloud not of numbers, but songs to the city.
“There is no greater spiritual victory than the conquer of human logic.”
“Who were the two others you spoke of?” The cabbie finally gained control of his breath again, fighting his fear, swallowing equations that weren’t there.
“One was a gangster. The other was a gangster of the state.” A hawk flew over the cemetery swooping down to get a closer look at the lioness. A little too close, the lioness jumped in the air and the hawk disappeared as fast as it appeared.
“Seeing a hawk is good luck.”
{XVII}
IT WAS AN IMPOSSIBLE DASH. The lioness was on my heels, still prancing around like we were playing. I was Steve Brodie going for the hundred bucks. I was Lars suicide diving anytime he felt the altitude buzz his brain the wrong way. I was Mikey Farrow writing my next book to be shredded at first sight.
Queens Boulevard had enough moving steel to kill us all. I could have kept going only to let her blindside me and though it made no sense I got holy. On my knees, I dropped in the middle of the four lanes heading to the sacred offices and so special dungeons, but the cars missed and kept missing. The lioness roared. I was shaking. She moved in closer. I stopped shaking. I was kneeling in the middle of the boulevard of death. The pavement consumed my skin. The lioness had me in her clutches. I could only wait to feel her teeth. I didn’t have to. Her jaws were open and oh so close. But instead of tearing me open, she licked me. She licked me once. She licked me again. People leaned out their car windows taking pictures and videos with their phones as the lioness went to town with her tongue on my face. She had healing saliva. I was ready for anything, but really one thing in particular. I closed my eyes letting her fill in the blanks for me. I felt the rain coming down as it had yesterday and maybe the day before.