T
HE
ENVELOPE WAS THIN AND
could only hold paper. It had an address on it...
Missy Featherton
219 Madison Street Apt 5E
NY, NY 10002
I didn’t think Adelora knew how hard she was chewing on the bottom of her lip as I carefully peeled the envelope open. The sight inside gave me chills. I looked back at Sgt. Bethany Powers. She was moving in on me with the baton.
“Get on the ground Farrow. Let us take a look at that.” Detective Anderson pulled his gun on me for the first time. I dropped to the ground staring up at a spiderweb of high voltage cables and the first royalty check I’d ever seen or held. It was made out to Missy Featherton for
A Greater Truth
.
“These cops have something against you?” Adelora lay next to me, anxious and twitching. Ignoring her, I chewed the envelope to pieces careful to keep the address engrained in my head. I started next on the paystub, but Sgt. Bethany Powers jammed the thick baton between my teeth before I got half of it down. Detective Anderson shoved his fingers in my mouth to pull out what was left.
“Got anything Anderson?”
“Only scraps. Fucking animal devoured it.” Detective Anderson nonchalantly palmed the address. Arms twisted behind me, cuffs clicked on my wrists.
“We’re bringing you in. Destruction of evidence.”
“Where is she Farrow? Spit it out and we’ll let you go.”
“Tell us and we’ll race you there.”
“We know you know. Don’t waste our time.”
The sun stayed in our faces. The air just kind of hung there. Adelora was breathing heavily. I could tell she was trying to calm herself down, but it backfired. I tried to grab her hand, but she pushed it away. This wasn’t a courtroom. Nobody even pretended there were rules out here. Then there was a long silence. The kind that could only be followed by brutal violence. Gun butts, boots, batons, and fists. The two detectives did what they had to do to get the truth. Years of practice and training. Sgt. Bethany Powers kicked Adelora so hard, her boot shot out into the open air. The black thigh high soared towards me. Maybe I could’ve ducked in time. Maybe I just had to know how the black leather felt against my skin.
M
ISSY
POPPED OUT FROM BEHIND
the door startling me. She had sliced cucumbers stuck to her face. Uninhibited, she was laughing the way most people can only laugh in the company of family. People you’ve known your whole life. People that will put up with you and even more stand behind you, blindly.
“Farrow let me put them on you too.”
“It’s okay… you enjoy… I’m cool…”
“Get over here.” Missy grabbed me, wiping the cucumber paste off her face, and smearing it on mine.
Fading back onto the planet below the steel skeleton of the Williamsburg Bridge, I woke up aching in Adelora’s warm lap. The lawyer had a bruised forehead and two determined bloodshot black eyes that no one in their right mind would contest. It hurt me to see her that way. I wish my beating was enough, but the shields couldn’t help, but double their pleasure. We spilled onto Delancey. Two pairs of eyes watched us in the same little mirror. Grinding their teeth. Wrinkling their tense faces. They were at another career moment. Wondering if they were showing up to a raging pulse or melting block of ice. The traffic was the same as always, but their minds had no space left for patience. Sgt. Bethany Powers leaned down and put the portable siren on the dash, driving over the median, and the wrong way down Norfolk Street. Something hit the side window.
“Sounded like a pebble.” Sgt. Bethany Powers pounded the gas. I looked up imagining the shadowy kids on the top of the tower across from the temple. They were all out of fresh piss for the unmarked cars. Instead a shower of stones followed by bricks and bottles. Broken glass fell on us like icy windblown ashes from Thor’s coolie. Die machine.
“Go Farrow go.” Adelora hoisted me with her legs, out back window. I hit the pavement with a bone-jarring thud, sinking into a quicksand mattress.
A
BEATEN BODY IN PAIN.
Almost past Grand. Didn’t remember getting back on my feet. I felt my teeth sharpen. Eyes zoom microscopic. A straight shot in the dark through Seward Park. No sign of the heat on my back. Maybe my favorite cops were finally out of commission. Down for the count.
“Special olympics ain’t ’til next month.” Mayor’s orders, a patrolman let loose an innocent fart. No chance I would hang around to grab a whiff. Still it followed me through the trees and sprayshowers, marking his spot with his scent.
A block or so to go. Jefferson Street. A crafty skel in the shadows takes an interest my cuffs. His lip was swollen retarded. His shirt was stretched down exposing a shoulder.
“You didn’t see anything.” The mural glowed beside us.
“… give a shit…” He had cuffs of his own.
Turn the corner. Madison Street. The numbers are going down. Less than a block to go. Paralysis enacts its ploy for mental siege. Recognizable voices begin to harmonize nefariously. Distinct pin-dots of light grow together to form a forgotten smudge on the city’s canvas. Illuminated, the somber streets between the bridges seemed to grow fuzzy.
Kids on the stoop, parents off finding new adventures. 219 Madison Street. Missy’s breathing above it all. The towers exploding from across the river. The jet engine shaking the island bungalows. The jungle lioness waking up to find a metropolis planted on top of her tail.
I’m staring at a red door.
“Our first date, huh…” Missy whispered through the coming attractions at the Ziegfield.
“Missy, I didn’t think you’d show up.”
“Farrow. I’m sorry. Don’t put that in your book.” Missy smiled teasing me.
“What?”
“That I’m always late.”
“Oh you remembered that I write. Don’t worry beauty is always worth waiting for.”
“I respect that about you.” It was the only time she said that. I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the writing or the waiting.
F
IGHT
THE MEMORIES. A FADED
crimson cage of thin iron to keep out yesterday’s demons. Slide through the crack, propped open with a cement block and a jade statue of Buddha. The dim bulbs in the hallway lamps didn’t seem to get enough power. Floors and walls trapped in time. The old door shut at my back killing the street.
“Chiara.” I whispered to myself. Stomach in my throat, trudging up the timeworn stairs. Senses pushed beyond their peaks. Infantile whines and wails. Cantonese and Spanish resonated through the walls. The building was panting.
Each step taken was to be totally absorbed by the floor. Creaks kept to a minimum. Apt 5E was at the top of the walk-up facing the street. A pair of black leather boots were jammed in the door to keep it open. She was waiting for me.
Immediate sweat covered my forehead. The brick oven was filled with tenement ghosts that life painted over. The overhead lights were off. Large candles burnt a third down were placed haphazardly. The flames were trying to escape the wax, but the breeze cutting through the windows wasn’t strong enough. A large claw foot bathtub was arm’s distance from the stove and small dinner table. Terrible orange linoleum tiles with brown diamonds blighted the kitchen. There were two other small narrow rooms lined up in a rectangle. It was the type of place that would always be dirty. The apartment was missing furniture. It didn’t appear to be a place that was recently lived in.
“Missy?” She sat there cross-legged and silent in the murky bedroom.
“I was going to tell you Farrow.” Kiko, the imposter was waiting for me in an almost meditative stance on the bed by the window. Indestructible, Chiara bounced up and down in her lap. Keeping her body stiff, Kiko’s eyes examined my pummeled face, ending on my handcuffs, shaking her head in disbelief as if her revelations came true.
“I was going to tell you Farrow.”
“I heard you the first time. What is it Kiko?” I shook the cuffs to keep the quiet from conquering us all.
“Missy wasn’t into being a mom. She disappeared even before Chiara was out of the NICU. You picked the wrong girl Farrow. Wish I knew you sooner.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t want to believe it, but it’s true. Percy was going to put the baby up for adoption. It wasn’t blood. I told him to give her to you, but he said you’re too fucked up.”
“I’ll find him in the afterlife.”
“Hawaii threatened the old man. Saying she was going to tell you. Percy fearing for his life worked out a deal with Hawaii letting her collect Missy’s royalties.”
“Missy never popped up?”
“She went ghost and nobody’s seen her since. I found all this out from Gloom, who was planning to write her next book about it.”
“Capitalistic bitch.”
“Hawaii dangled this in front of Percy’s face coaxing a generous offer.”
“And you?”
“I threatened to turn Hawaii in and took what I could for myself. I’ve been raising Chiara, so we could be a family. I wasn’t sure why I wanted it so badly, until I got to know you.” A wariness floated in Kiko’s voice. I took a few steps closer trying to get a good look at Chiara, but all I got was the shadow of a baby and the moon outside reflecting off a large rectangular cleaver.
“A family?”
“Mr. Michael. It’s true.” Kuroneko’s voice echoed from the closet.
“I wasn’t seeing things?” Except the cleaver that wasn’t there.
“I tried to make you love me. I know it’s fast and love is only a word created by a poet.” Kiko had to know she lost me. Some acts were unforgiveable.
“The money’s in your apartment in Queens.” Kuroneko burst of the closet. “You can’t go home Farrow, they’ll be waiting for you there.”
“Why don’t you fucking say something? If not to me say something to our daughter?” Kiko was in a panic. She was confused that the baby was born from inside her. She was confused how love could creep up on you quickly and slip away even faster.
“Please don’t make me fucking cry.”
“You can’t die from crying.”
“You can die from lots of things.” Kiko carefully rested Chiara on the middle of the bed and stood up. Insane laughter preceded the windmill of her stick thin arms.
P
URE
LOVE. BLESSED WITHIN THE
laws of nature for the first time I stared in my daughter’s eyes. Organically they channeled Missy. The look behind them was somehow mine. The little girl showed up on the planet just in time, challenging the scribe’s code I lived by. Chiara was an explosion of bliss. Time slowed. The apartment was small and there was little room to maneuver. The three of us stared at each other eyes bulging from our faces. She couldn’t inflict any pain. I was immune. Stunned, Kuroneko kept her distance.
“Kiko. Thank you.”
“Fuck you Farrow.”
“Fuck me? You kept my daughter safe. Thank you.”
“I did. I did it for you. The whole world is a false flag attack Farrow, but it’s okay. I was listening to you before you even said a word. There’s no room for guilt. I did it for you. I did.”
“And I will forever appreciate that.”
With the worst possible timing, Detective Anderson entered the room, deer caught in headlights. Kiko screamed trying to claw out his eyes. Kuroneko pounced on his back. All three ended up on the floor. The scuffle resembled a grindhouse pinky violence flick more than a modern day L.E.S. beatdown. In the struggle, Detective Anderson lost his baton, gun, and the keys to his handcuffs.
Carefully I stepped around them, kicking the keys my way and shoving them into my backpocket. Staying out of reach, I sat down next to Chiara who was lying on the bed without a care in the world. The sounds of the psychopaths menacing each other didn’t seem to upset her. Sirens, horns, death, and destruction were all blowing in our ears, but that wasn’t for her yet. She had her whole life to make sense out of that nonsense. Now was just time for her to chill her father. I wanted to hug her until the galaxy combusted, but my hands were still cuffed and behind me. I turned my back to her. I stretched out my pinkie finger. Chiara grabbed it and didn’t let go.
H
EELS
CLANGING ON THE FIRE
escape. An outline of a woman. Two hands popped in the open window. Chiara’s grip slid from my pinkie as she was snatched out of the bed. She wasn’t scared in the least bit. No wails. No tears. Her mother came to retrieve her. The little girl was waiting for the very moment. Without a doubt in her mind, she knew it would happen, and it did.
The brick towers across the street lit up the block. The Manhattan Bridge sat a little south. The Williamsburg Bridge stretched slightly north. Missy was already on the second floor, holding her heels like a pair of daggers in her hand. Chiara babbled musically, wrapped snug in a baby sling on her back. Heels dropped to the sidewalk below.
“Missy...” I called down to her, but she played diva, lowering herself to the pavement with a gymnast’s grace.
It was strange seeing a species thought extinct. Even more baffling how she took her time to bend over. Slithering to pick up her heels. Missy knew the pregnancy only put more sand in her hourglass. Chiara smiled up at me, waving like a canvassing presidential candidate.
Slide down the ladder and drop. Soles hit the cement. The body follows. A seagull without wings. Knees bent. Force transfers accordingly. Missy could only be steps away. I cut across the street through the gauntlet of towering housing projects.
A sliver of the Manhattan Bridge was visible between the towers. Women’s footsteps trailed behind.