High-Rise

He somehow climbed on to the roof (staggering to make it up the stairs) to look at the bright lights of the city: high-rises that were lit up like Christmas trees (with airplane beacons twinkling on top), the helipad lights on top of the Children’s hospital, advertising hoardings, neon lights, the occasional police flashers, the odd flare-up or two…

He thought, how can there be so much light out there and so much darkness inside me?

He somehow managed to negotiate his way to the edge of the roof, marking a zigzag pattern of blood as he did this, and looked down the 25 floors to the ground. The people walking down there on the ground seemed like ants (to his grasshopper?), busily going about their business while he stood and contemplated life or death. Looking directly down made him dizzy… spinning round and around, like a paper in the gust from American Beauty. So he tried not to do that, since, if he fell, he wanted it to be an act of conscious volition and not a moment of physical weakness. Instead, he tried to look ahead, only catching snatches of the sights below him from the corner of his eyes. And that seemed to make things appear either doubled up or almost as if they were surrounded by a halo.

A boy shouted to a girl. The girl turned around and saw him. She ran up to him and they embraced and kissed. Haloes around them both. So much love in this world, but none for me, he thought. A mother walked her toddler through the park adjacent to the high-rise that he lived in. Faint snatches of conversation drifted up to him in the wind. A raucous group of teenagers now made their way across the park. One of them looked like Maria, he thought. Maria, Maria, she reminds me of a West Side story… How could she not see the love he had for her? Couldn’t she sense the purity of emotion, the sense of beauty and innocence that he radiated towards her? All she said to him was “Good morning” and “Have a nice night” at work, but he always felt like she said it every time as if she meant it especially for him.

Now he thought, how would it feel when I jump? Falling falling going down down down black tar horse brown sugar up my veins cocaine down my nostril dripping down my windpipe (“the drip is the best,” Julianne Moore said in Boogie Nights) riding the train wind rushing through my hair fear pain life sucks and then you die excuse me for dying no remorse no regrets another day another death help-I-am-out-of-my-body weightlessness thump thump squish end of thoughts.

Thoughts knifing into his heart, thoughts rushing through like adrenaline, thoughts that succeeded a panic attack. Sitting in a corner, cowering, really. Air is rare, breathing is hard. Heart is going at 240. Nothing is in focus. Except the framed degree on the mantelpiece. Master of Arts. New York University. Meaningless, really. Like the little teddy bear Maria gave him as a Christmas gift last year that came to life when he was asleep, taking an inventory of his life space and nodding in disapproval.

The teddy’s name was José (Hasbro’s gesture of recognition to the rapidly rising Hispanic population in the country). He was not particularly friendly, ever; he defined a “bearish temper”. When Maria gave it to him at the Christmas party at the office, he sensed the underlying anger in José. But then he wasn’t one to look a gift bear in the prognathous muzzle. After an extra drink (to celebrate his being finally noticed by Maria), he walked home in the chilly, snow-driven night, clutching José close to his chest under his unfashionable Burberry. Laughing too loud to himself, stumbling when the street lights refused to aid his humble attempts to walk straight, he finally reached home and even before he took off his coat, he had installed José on the mantelpiece.

A few nights later, José decided it was time to act. He didn’t like being a teddy bear to this guy (“He doesn’t even cuddle, dear.”). So he crept down from the mantel and slowly dragged his plastic-bead-filled body to the sleeping man. He took his time climbing up the bedposts, but once he could within the man’s earshot, he was happy. His karma was real.

“Kill. Die. Kill or die. Kill and die. Die, muthafucka. Kill. Die. Death becomes you…” Almost like a litany, the bear kept repeating this into the man’s ear every night it felt strong enough to make the journey from the mantel to the bed. José’s fur began looking more ragged; he developed a bad cough—could’ve been the beginnings of tuberculosis or from smoking too much pot. But José single-mindedly went about his business.

When Maria died, people in the office “tsk-tsk”ed a lot but no one ever actually found out how she died. The police hadn’t released much information, since they were still investigating and it was being put down as “death by misadventure”. Actually, it was more like death as an adventure. He first asked her out—that’s how she began to die. As the evening progressed, she began dying by degrees. She couldn’t fathom why she had agreed to go out with this guy. As the two glasses of wine began to take effect and the meal wound down, she agreed to his offer to take her home.

He couldn’t exactly remember how José had programmed the evening: Car door skirt riding high flash of Victoria’s Secret intoxicated/intoxicating laugh keep the change, motherfucker, biff bang racial attack dragged and snagged over cobblestones fumbling through keyholes mumbling sweet nothings Maria staggers in here’s the bedroom, dear can I fix you something? Next she’s naked and he’s impotent and she’s laughing jeering cheering egging on pick up something blunt and heavy BANG BANG on her head she’s passing out so long BEE-YATCH.

Next morning, when he woke up, he was in Maria’s apartment and just couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t answer him. He got up, dusted off his pants, let himself out of her apartment and got home. “Hi, José!” he shouted out to his teddy bear. José winked back at him.

At the office, everybody was talking about Maria’s death. Nobody had too many details, but the mailroom guy had actually “heard the cops say that she died of a broken neck, dawg. Dammit at all to hell!! Heard some dude pushed her into the trash chute last night. Jeez!!!” That’s that, he thought. Let’s go home. There’s nothing to keep me here—neither her bucolic face nor her beatific smile.

He stopped at the liquor store near his house before going home and proceeded to get roaring drunk, listening to the Yardbirds. Then he somehow got the idea that he should cut up some raw mangoes (with a little salt and cayenne mixture to dip them in) to go with his vodka, but managed to cut his hand instead. The bleeding refused to stop despite his going through a whole roll of Bounty to staunch it.

He first began to think of going up to the roof only after the Seinfeld rerun that had Kramer stuck on somebody’s roof. (José took the opportunity to shout out his approval, “Yoo-hoo!!”). He turned to José and stood up. He waved off a salute that ended up looking like a gesture from a man with a headache and decided to go up. He picked up his keys ha ha how funny I am drunk but I remembered to take my keys before I latched the door shut. Pushed the elevator button and spent the time waiting for it ogling at the pretty girl from down the hall who was waiting for a ride going down.

As he opened the roof access door, he was hit by a big gust of wind. I want to get away, I want to get away, I want to fly away. Being summer, it was quite warm in a Freudian sense. The moment he stepped on the roof area, he knew something was up. (And it wasn’t the heavy breathing and muffled groaning of the co-ed couple making out in a darkened corner of the area.) And once he launched himself into the swan dive over the short wall enclosing the roof area, he discovered that he felt truly free and in love. He also discovered another fact: It takes a while before you hit the ground life passing before your eyes too much pain too little lovin’ life’s a bitch kerr-thud splat death is meaningless. The only sound up there on the roof after that was the couple making love. And the gruff voice of a teddy bear laughing.