A subway passing billboards, passing rusty black walls and green algae pipes turning white, chipped, dripping water. Flying into the isle of images, train stops, people walk out, one clump, people rumble in, interspersed with the outward exiting clump.
Out of the tunnel, we ride above the city looking down from the bridge. A shot of sunlight, twelve shots between the clouds onto gray water, white caps like feathers. Seagulls, their squat butts cut so they look like white painted cans with wings. Somebody should shoot them.
Off the subway and on the streets, a black boy is dancing on a piece of cardboard, legs kicking scissors-like, arms flaring out, pointing at the street sign. Not my direction. The mob on Seventeenth and Washington seems to be looking at the boy. His fingers pointing all the time. Brown trench coats and fedoras looking down Washington.
A parade, the Daily Post parade of guns and bums, whores and gangbangers. Get your daily smut. 50 cents. Only 35 if you want it delivered. How can you pass up the Post?
The silver sidewalk dimpled and separated in square blocks. It moves beneath my feet. I can see a silver cougar in a street window. Big white fangs. Six inches long and strong white. When he growls, I can feel his whiskers tickle my ears.
The brown tinted door of the MCA building: home. Elevator doormen, blue suits, maroon skirts and cream blouses, fedoras, trench coats. Brass railings along the wall, surrounding the elevator doors. Floor gauge pointing to the top floor. I’m the only one waiting. A pale, skinny doorman in a maroon and gold monkey cap.
"We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Dilbermann."
I’ve never been in this elevator before. It streaks up the side of the skyscraper, jet-like.
"What have you been doing with yourself, Mr. Dilbermann?"
"Who the hell are you?"
"Nobody, Mr. Dilbermann. This is your floor."
A fountain and a jungle pool greet me. Green fecund plants and chimpanzees and parrots. White foaming bubbles form underneath a ten-foot waterfall. Silver fishes the size of my leg slide quickly across the bottom. Someone left me a lemonade and an orange juice on the black marble stand.
Lights out. Stripped. Spotlight. I’m in my underwear, in an arena. Someone shouts at me. A whip cracks me and I start running. I see faces in my path, a phantasmagoria, red yellow green, like evil clowns, hieroglyphs. I put my hands out, wide, wider. Sand walls. What is happening?
Keep running. I open my eyes. I’m on the street. My feet are back. My clothes, briefcase, trench coat. Must’ve dozed off. Eyes stare wildly at me. A chill runs over me, down my spine. Someone starts laughing. Then another. Then an old man in a trench coat and clack rimmed glasses, raises his paper and points at me. He laughs loudest. I yell, "What’s your problem old man?" but no one hears above the laughing. The train slides to a stop, the door opens and I race out. In the middle of the station, movie posters and milk advertisements look sinister. The place is empty but I hear another train pull in. Empty. I get on. It whizzes at the speed of light and the city is a blur of gray in front of brown. Underground, staid red lights on the wall, the subway rocking me back and forth. A woman walks through the door from the next car over. The red lights buzz in my eyes. She starts dancing. A beautiful afro queen. She has one of those short bop dresses on, black boots to her knee. The train slows down and she stops dancing. She takes my hand and we walk into the fog.
Yellow walls, water looks like oil running down the cement. We walk into a room. A man in a red velvet chair says he’s been waiting. Black hair slicked back, long, tucked behind his ears. Blue pinstriped suit and red tie. White shirt, he might be 40, a few specks of white in his dark beard.
There’s a marble baptismal font to his right. A thick black henchman with a halberd stands next to him. He wears a white tunic around his waist. Barefoot.
She escorts me to the foot of his chair. There are six steps leading up to him. It’s all red carpet throughout the room. She walks to him and kisses his hand, then stands next to him.
"We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Dilbermann."
"Thank you. Why?"
He motions the man with the halberd to come over. The man opens his hand to me and shows a gold necklace. Thick, rounded, woven circles. Worth ten grand, easily.
"So?"
"You don’t want it?"
"For what?"
The ceiling opens like a dome. Seagulls are swirling overhead. Beyond them are clouds like cotton strands and a blue sky. A crane drops a cage in between us. A man, naked, half-crazed, dirty, hunched and trembling in the center, gripping his shoulders.
"What’s with him?"
A bucket of water is thrown over him and he screams. Its Conroy, my cubicle partner.
"What the hell are you doing with him?"
The man waves his hand and shushes me. The woman walks over to the cage, pulls a gun from her hip, and blasts Conroy in the head. Suddenly I am restrained, in shackles.
"You ask too many questions, Dilbermann. You must do. Always do."
I am raised, naked and chained, in the cage to a junkyard. There is an old green van, the top peeled back. They lower me into it. A bucket of raw meat and blood is thrown over me to make sure the seagulls, crows and vultures get their share. Only a matter of time before I start smelling tasty.
I reach through the bars and bang on the van. I’d pull the fucking bars apart if I could. They’ve welded metal sheets over the windows.
Footsteps. Someone opens the back door. It is nighttime and I actually conked out for a couple of hours it seems. I can’t see anything. I can’t feel my feet and my ass is asleep.
"Get up," the voice says and pulls me out of the cage. "You gotta get out of here. I don’t know how you got caught up in this shit but run."
"Wha- Who-"
"Run, dammit!"
I hobble, stumble, fall over a fender and into a heap of sludge. Got to get near the water. Get on a barge from there. I need clothes. Something for my feet if I’m to get anywhere. Cardboard box and twine. Tie it round my feet. Old winter coat smells like vomit. I’m hungry and nauseous. Voices, dogs, lights. Flashlights shooting through the yard. An overhead light like a spotlight from prison. A helicopter. I run out of here. Nobody sees me.
On the street, I’m like all the other bums. Are they like me? Walk slowly, keep your head down, eyes open. There isn’t anybody in this part of town. Two cars turn onto the block and I think it’s the end of me. I duck in an alleyway and hide behind a garbage can. They pass by and start walking as they keep going on rolling.
There’s a bar at the end of the street, looks like an after hours joint. Hot red lights and yellow script lettering saying Healey’s. It’s loud and it looks warm.
Inside, everyone looks at me. A cafe colored woman with a round afro looks at me with big sad eyes. In the booth across from her, two skinny friends laugh. I sit in a booth near the back. There’s a pay phone but I don’t have any money. I saunter up to the woman, not making eye contact with anyone but her. She hands me a five and some change and says, "Make that call and get out of here. People are looking at you real strange."
The bartender in a black vest and bowtie nods his head when I turn around and take him in. Her friends giggle as if this were some high school prank.
On the street, thunder claps and it starts to rain. Wet, freezing rain. Keep walking is all I tell myself. A cop car turns its lights on and moves right over to me.
He slams me on the trunk without saying a thing and pulls my arms behind my back. He pulls me round and shines a flashlight in my face.
"Mullraney, this isn’t him. Just look at this fuck!"
"If it ain’t him," a voice came from inside," then let him go."
The cop wrenched the cuffs off and said," stay off our beat, you fucking bum." He got in the car and I walked whatever direction they weren’t heading.
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