Lust Demented

{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.

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.