Lust Demented

{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.