Puzzling Pieces

Chapter 5

The only way I could sleep was after I downed 2 – bottles of merlot with its 14.5 percent of alcohol intake in total. I was whooshed after the first bottle, and then my woo-hoo upon my bed and sleeping with a numbing pain in my chest took effect and I was out for a good few hours.

I'm no f*****g detective, and when I dream it's because somebody died. And if it's a recent death then the dream takes shape as me facing that individual and asking them a whole ton of questions. But when I see Vivian, in my inner-interrogation room, I find that he won't open up.

His mouth's sealed shut and I can't force it open. No crowbars will do here. He just sits in that chair before me; eyes soulless but I can tell he's present enough to take the piss because he knows I need answers. A sick joke. He wants to turn this into a sick joke! All I need is for Viv to rewind himself all the way back to when he told me the story.

I need it to come from his mouth, so I can read his lips word-for-word. It's always more effective when I get my mind to use its cognitive processor. The limbic system of my memory doing its best to remember after the booze killed more than enough brain cells of information.

No wonder he won't talk to me. My brains flooded with residual sugar and sweetness. Some people drink beers, I choose wine when the time is dark - and partly because it leads me here: to my inner interrogation room where the wine keeps my creativity boasting.

Weed kills it. Wine livens it up for more. But right now, I'm to downbeat to work my mind. I need to switch off and sleep. I click my thumb and ring finger, and the lights go off with Viv still sitting dolefully in the Halloween darkness and me trying to fall asleep when all I can hear is bullets spraying my own walls now.

…

I shoot up and rush to get ready in the bathroom. When I turn on the tap; “Argh!”I jump out from behind the cheap shower curtain and try to see if that argh means there's no hot water at all: arghhhhhhhhhhh! It is when I leave it running and come back to see imaginary penguins settling in the snow.

Great, Just great. A shower would’ve wiped off the stink of yesterday. Now it’s in my remains and I can’t get that off my skin cells and all these pores. I grab some clothes: just a long white – tee and grey baggy pants which equals nothing special, hoodified, straight-gold-star, and this is the female bathroom, sir. I’m ready to get on with the day. But I'm slower off the rails then I should be. And a little clumsy when I rush down the steps and figure my name was called but I must be hearing things.

I realize that I’ll need a map. A human map would be nice, so I can lazily get around with no hassle. I barely do phones, and my own is down to one – bar which needs recharging and a new charger to get that to actually happen.

I slam the side of my phone on my palm like that might help my reception and battery bar. It only just causes me to want to dash the thing in the middle of the road.

And I lift this brick in my hand and get ready to heave … but somebody bounces into me instead and I'm edgy as it is; “you mind!?”

“I'm sorr ...” –

“You” –

“You.”

And next comes V. How tongue-in-cheek is that? It's her.

“Wow. We actually meet again after a few hours.”

“Yeah. Small block.”-

“Small block.” She repeats. “You were about to throw your phone … no good anymore or something?”

“It's a tombstone and needs to be buried. But without it, I lose a couple of names and stuff. Names I need in-case perversity and frenzy happens at the same time.”

“Can't you just add those names to a new phone?”

“Not when it's special.”

“Ah.” Weed-man, she's thinking that I bet? She's a dealer, is ringing in her eardrums. “Business?”The sarcastic tone speaks to me.

“Not the green thumb. But yeah, business in a sense.”I put her right. Set her straight.

“Ok.”No care if I was, I bet?“I should go then. If you're busy doing business.”

“To be honest … would you happen to have a map?”

A tiny smirk appears, “I actually have one in my bag.”Her branded Geo white and gold leather handbag are too small to be taken seriously as she unzips it. I mean, what can any woman fit inside there? Then I get my face slapped when the necessities of make-up, phone, mirror, keys, cigarettes, lip balm, and nail varnish - all fit inside there in one shareable piece.

She also brings out a tiny book with NY as the top title and maps in a big bold white and read-me underneath it. It's a little thick, so how she got in there is magic trick that I like to call stuff-it-in!

She closes her bag before handing me the book. "Here you go.”

I take it and flip through the pages. “It's the entire city.”

“Yeah. A little-added incentive is that there are also places to eat … bars, events, clubs, places to see, concerts, music shows that are marked on the map and then given in more detail on the next page. I’ve got 2, so keep that for when you might be peckish or something.”

I was never comfortable with accepting things that weren’t mine. It just always made me feel like there was a treaty signed. And if you wanted to get out of it you'd better pay up later. It's just that it comes with a price: borrowing. Maybe not for the average cat, but for me, it's a common tale to owe somebody something they said I could own.

And because there were no legal papers they could have a go.“I'll give it back to you when I get an idea of the big apple. I hope you don't take offense to that?”

“Na. It's up to you. But no hurry. I got another one indoors and I know the city like a cabman who’s got the map etched inside of his brain. I prefer to use my head when it boils down to it.”

“Same.”I need to go. And that's surprisingly so true when I think that I'm missing the open door as time skips and I delay.

This girl's holding another door, but it's only letting out a shade of white while I’m shrouded in the dark. And I can’t walk-through there just yet. But a magnet is forming. And I was meant to continue this conversation in the backlog is brewing, but Viv propelling me to forget to say goodbye and thank you is the reason why I hail a cab and get in, not caring that the man is the same bloke who picked me and that girl up last night.

…

It still doesn't hit me until he tells me that we're not far from the cemetery just outside of the Bronx. The invitation itself was received in the same grim and mundane manner from me when I got the text just before I was about to head downhill and past that massive church that would do well with a non-believer like myself.

I'd come in screaming that I wanted to change my ways. I saw the end. I saw the park where I stand, and the van leaves skid-marks on the grass and a faceless face screaming out to me that I did it! You killed Viv when he needed you the most. And there's no coming back from it this time. You let him down. He needed you, Sia. He tried to let you know that he was in trouble.

But the church would want more confessions from me. Like, who's your father? Was he a good man with an honest wife and a nice little homestead out in the hood? And I'd tell the preacher-man yes - say. He was a good-a-man. And then he'd anoint me and forgive all my sins. But then the preacher would hand me a bible and damn me to Psalms 88: a sad complaint.

I see the psalms in my mind now:

Lord, you are the God who saves me.

I cry out to you day and night.

Receive my prayer,

and listen to my cry.

My life is full of troubles,

and I am nearly dead.

They think I am on the way to my grave.

I am like a man with no strength.

I have been left as dead,

like a body lying in a grave

whom you don’t remember anymore,

cut off from your care.

And then I’d know that the church can't help a dead body that's been left out by one of their own attendees: the very man who nurtured me into this world - with a cross in his hand and a wife he always beat … was the same man who said Christianity told him to do so. So, I protest and tell churchgoers that I'll find my way. No digs at religion though. Just finding a solution to my survival of reaching a new day.

But back to this cabman. Now … he was quiet on the ride back with me and the girl. But the chatting starts right here. And an interest in me follows with questions;“Have you just arrived at the big apple?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah. Are you enjoying your stay?”

“No.”

“Any friends and family out here?”

“Perhaps.”

“Holiday?”

“That would fit into a neat box for strangers who ask me.”

“Partner?”

“Woah!”I now take an interest in him. When you want to get personal you may have a motive: either to find something out. Or, get to know if I know a certain someone. I’ve learned to think outside the box.“You picked me and that girl up yesterday." I squint. "Yeah. It's you."That same flat-top hat, with the only difference being a bull-skinned jacket that looks like a rug made from a traveling gypsy's thrown out wardrobe.

“Same guy. I'm guilty. I hold up my hands.”He raises the right-hand from the wheel.“Not both though, because it takes 2 for me to drive.”He adjusts his rear window.“I got a glimpse of you yesterday and knew immediately that you were from outside. Urban, we call it around here.”

“We call it the same from where I'm from: the outsider who never strays from that street cred. It's funny that a man like you would know anything about that.”

“About what?”

“The streets. What do you know about any of that?”

“I grew up around here as a young spic who needed a break. Dreamt of it in the worse ways. And by that, I mean I wanted to join a gang and shoot first, double check if they're dead later. It turned out that my wanting to join a gang was preordained and it came to past. And for years I did the bidding around here: showing a few brothers and sisters to their early graves.”

“You proud of that?”

“I was young and naïve. But I'm praying the price now. And I did my time in jail. Served my sentence of 15-years, and came out an uglier man with a Jewish background to my name for the many antisemites around here suddenly. Before I was the s**t, then I became an embarrassment to those boys and they revoked my loyalty or return to their gang. Who needs them.”

“Touching story. Still wondering why you're talking to me now and telling me all this?”

“It's simple. I couldn't talk to you last night because I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?" My low voice-box raises.

“For saving my life.”