He gives her a quick peck on the cheek and a furtive glance over the shoulder as he steps out the door, slinging the gym-bag into the comfortable nook of his shoulder. The door shuts, and his smile disappears, replaced by a scowl and a furrowed brow.
It was days like these that David Simon wondered if his wife was just naive or complacent. There was a momentary gleam of disbelief in her eye after he told her he would be working nights from now on, after so many years on the sales floor, to be hired back at the same company as a guard, but the disbelief washed away with the comforting tear that he was once again employed.
“No, no, I’ll get changed there. That way, I can spend as much time as I can here, with you, and not have to worry about leaving you too soon,” he had told her.
The subway door chimed shut behind him and he leaned back, casting a casual glance in each direction to see if anyone thought anything at all about his stringent disregard for the “No Leaning On Door” sign. Again, on this night, as on every night, no one even batted an eyelash, not even the police officer who was resting his barking dogs on one of the handicapped seats, hat over eyes.
The doors behind him opened at the next stop, and in an act of sheer authorial defiance, he dipped his hands in a woman’s purse, slipping into the next car smiling to himself as he counted the contents.
The subway doors open once again, the gentle female voice politely chiming over the loudspeaker, “57th Street Station.” Simon, leaning against the doors as they opened, slipped out into a crowd of people with his first pick of the night. He had sown the seeds of paranoia in the train, the police man would be reprimanded, and things would not be ripe for picking for a few weeks until the heat on the “N” train died down.
He casually jogged up the stairs to street level, being met with the vision of his own breath against the falling snowflakes. It was in these moments that he felt in control, the sheer beauty of what could be thrown at his face, juxtaposed against the horrible reality that always was. For the three seconds before the surly old man shoved him, he was new again.
And with the impolite shove, he was back in the real world, back on the street, walking towards Times Square, ducking into a no-name bar that he had been to so many times before. The bartender offered a glass of beer, a smile, and a wink. For the last three weeks, instead of going off to work, David had been coming to this bar and chugging his sorrows away a little snippet at a time. On occasion, he had three beers before setting back out into the night. He averaged two; if he didn’t make it to his third, he tipped the bartender the difference.
David considered the bartender to be the wisest man in the entire city, not limited to the man that stood before him, night after night, friendly handlebar moustache adorning his face and white towel draped over his arm, but the professionals in general. There were so few people (taxi-drivers excluded, for they too were a dying breed; how often you could find one that could readily communicate with you was the same of finding a high paying job without a degree) in the city that people would readily talk to without having people talk back.
There was a comfortable silence between David and the bartender, who stepped away to tend to another customer. He reminded David very briefly of Cris Cringle sitting in ginger-bread abode with good ol’ Ms. Cringle by the fire, knitting.
The beer mug smelled of an empty promise as David slid the difference over to the bartender before standing, nodding, and stepping outside again. He pulled his sleeve up, turning his wrist to his face to check the time. It had been two hours and change since he left his apartment, two house since he started his “shift”.
With the brazen determination of a man with few things left to lose (he didn’t want to lose Lisa) he walked up to the park. Streetlights illuminated the cracked sidewalk that he had made his beaten path, and he smiled, pondering the significance of the patterns in the ground before chalking it up to a science he would never understand.
It was the west side of Central Park where he found his office. He ducked slowly into an alley and opened his gym-duffel, rifling around for his uniform.
And soon, he was uniform with the night, with a practiced precision, climbing the fire escape of the building.
He was but a cat in the night.
The window to Logan Swenson’s bedroom opened quietly, letting in a gust of cold air which gently pounded the young man in the face. He rolled over, away from the window, as David stepped in quickly and without a sound before about-facing and sliding the window down. The room was dark, but David was darker as he made his way to the bedroom dresser, picking the wallet from the top and dropping it into his duffel.
He moved with a careful indifference down the hallway to the living room, stopping briefly to note the size of the television, before moving to the stereo. Placed under one arm, he moved out of the living room, back to the boudoir, to the window. With any luck, he could fence the piece for at least three hundred dollars, more if the make was Sony. Not too bad for a nights work, plus the contents of both wallets.
He slid the window open and placed the stereo on the fire escape when the chilled voice spoke out.
“What are you doing?”
David’s eyes closed as he sighed and reached into the waist-band of his pants, removing the sliver snub nosed revolver and turning.
“Taking your stereo, please and thank you,” he muttered, turning back to the window.
“Baby, what is it?”
The voice was an ice-pick to his chest.
“It’s just a burglar. Call the police.”
“No, you’re not going to call the police. If someone decides that that’s a good idea, then I have a few better ideas of my own,” David’s voice dropped to a deep bass.
“Alright, man, just take the stereo and go.”
David took a step to the bed, reaching over and hitting the bedside lamp.
“Oh, Jesus,” Logan began, “We’ve seen him. He’s going to kill us for no witnesses. Sir, please don’t, I have a watch, and -“
”I have a watch, too, man. And you’re stupid as hell. You have no idea what I look like - I’m wearing a ski-mask for a reason.”
“Oh, thank you, God,” Logan turned to the woman lying in bed next to him, “Lisa, give him something so he’ll go away.”
“Here, sir, take my wedding ring.”
Lisa, sweet Lisa, with soft blonde curls that fell to her shoulders, with the shapely hips and bubbly laugh, Lisa, who had a way with the two best words David had ever heard, “I do,” was now offering her wedding ring.
David picked it from her open hand.
“It’s a fugasi.”
“A what?”
“It’s a fake.”
“It is not,” Lisa sat up, “I had the diamond re-fitted, and David bought me a new diamond for our anniversary. It’s not fake...”
“Oh,” David turned the gun to the man in the bed, “So, you’re David?”
“What? No, **** no, I’m not David! Don’t point that at me, man! My name is Logan!”
“But isn’t David your husband?”
“Yes, but -“
”What the hell is the world coming to when a regular cat-burglar has to walk right into the smack middle of marital inconsistencies?”
“I apologize, sir,” Logan sat up, dropping his feet over the side of the bed. “If you want the television, I’ll help you move it to your van or whatever -“
”So, if you’re married, why are you here, Miss...”
“Lisa Simon -“
”Why are you here, Miss Lisa Simon?”
“Why do you want to know, Mister...”
“John Q Cat-burglar -“
”Mister Asshole?”
“I’m just trying to understand why someone who is good enough to give you two diamonds isn’t good enough to be faithful with.”
“Oh, Christ, you’re just like him. You think two diamonds is ever going to be enough for a girl like me?”
“What? You want more?”
“**** you.”
David cocked the gun. “What would it take to set me off, do you think? What would be enough, if not two diamonds?”
Logan walked behind David towards the bedroom door. David turned his attention to the naked man, shaking in the center of the room, the draft catching him in the middle.
“What the **** do you think you’re doing, Logan?”
“Closing the door so you don’t wake my parents up, man.”
“You live with your parents? How old are you?”
“Too young to die -“
”But old enough to understand what an infedlity is.”
“Don’t kill me, please -“
David turned his attention back to Lisa. “What would it take, I wonder? A vacation? A cruise? You’re already married; he can’t promise you anything else, I would think.”
“If I tell you, will you leave?”
“No promises. I might want some help taking this dresser...”
“He was fired from his day job and took a night job as a security guard. I have a day job. We don’t see each other anymore... But he acts like the only way I’ll be happy is to have ****. I just want to have someone that won’t leave me every night under the pretense of keeping what we don’t need.”
“And this drove you into the arms of another, much more scrawny man? You couldn't have talked things through?”
“David thinks he knows everything... We've been married for five years, and I doubt he could tell me where we had our first date. Logan actually listens to me -“
The gun turned to Logan.
“Logan, where did you meet her?”
Logan’s face paled. “Hell if I know.”
“He's known you for how long? Two weeks, and he can't even remember... Did you listen to her so you could **** her?”
He nodded.
“That’s why good men are hard to find.”
Lisa’s eyes brimmed. “You want to do me a favor? Shoot me in the heart, please. You couldn’t possibly make me feel any worse than at this moment, you arrogant asshole.”
“Tonight’s your lucky night, sweet ums’, because you’re going to live to regret saying that. As for me, I’m leaving with this nice wedding ring and stereo -“
”Could I have my ring back?”
David knelt by the window, staring back into the room. He sighed and tossed the ring onto the bed. He closed the window and threw the stereo down the fire-escape into a garbage can lined dumpster, dropping down levels before picking up his prize.
He stared at it for a second, before setting it back in the dumpster.
When he finished tonight, he would explain to his wife calmly that he had been fired and they might need to relocate back to his home town for a while, while he got back on his feet.
Lisa would understand, David hoped, as he walked into the street, tossing his duffel-bag into the gutter.
"It was Fifth-Street Bakery," he sighed under his breath as he jogged down the stairs to the subway.
It was days like these that David Simon wondered if his wife was just naive or complacent. There was a momentary gleam of disbelief in her eye after he told her he would be working nights from now on, after so many years on the sales floor, to be hired back at the same company as a guard, but the disbelief washed away with the comforting tear that he was once again employed.
“No, no, I’ll get changed there. That way, I can spend as much time as I can here, with you, and not have to worry about leaving you too soon,” he had told her.
The subway door chimed shut behind him and he leaned back, casting a casual glance in each direction to see if anyone thought anything at all about his stringent disregard for the “No Leaning On Door” sign. Again, on this night, as on every night, no one even batted an eyelash, not even the police officer who was resting his barking dogs on one of the handicapped seats, hat over eyes.
The doors behind him opened at the next stop, and in an act of sheer authorial defiance, he dipped his hands in a woman’s purse, slipping into the next car smiling to himself as he counted the contents.
The subway doors open once again, the gentle female voice politely chiming over the loudspeaker, “57th Street Station.” Simon, leaning against the doors as they opened, slipped out into a crowd of people with his first pick of the night. He had sown the seeds of paranoia in the train, the police man would be reprimanded, and things would not be ripe for picking for a few weeks until the heat on the “N” train died down.
He casually jogged up the stairs to street level, being met with the vision of his own breath against the falling snowflakes. It was in these moments that he felt in control, the sheer beauty of what could be thrown at his face, juxtaposed against the horrible reality that always was. For the three seconds before the surly old man shoved him, he was new again.
And with the impolite shove, he was back in the real world, back on the street, walking towards Times Square, ducking into a no-name bar that he had been to so many times before. The bartender offered a glass of beer, a smile, and a wink. For the last three weeks, instead of going off to work, David had been coming to this bar and chugging his sorrows away a little snippet at a time. On occasion, he had three beers before setting back out into the night. He averaged two; if he didn’t make it to his third, he tipped the bartender the difference.
David considered the bartender to be the wisest man in the entire city, not limited to the man that stood before him, night after night, friendly handlebar moustache adorning his face and white towel draped over his arm, but the professionals in general. There were so few people (taxi-drivers excluded, for they too were a dying breed; how often you could find one that could readily communicate with you was the same of finding a high paying job without a degree) in the city that people would readily talk to without having people talk back.
There was a comfortable silence between David and the bartender, who stepped away to tend to another customer. He reminded David very briefly of Cris Cringle sitting in ginger-bread abode with good ol’ Ms. Cringle by the fire, knitting.
The beer mug smelled of an empty promise as David slid the difference over to the bartender before standing, nodding, and stepping outside again. He pulled his sleeve up, turning his wrist to his face to check the time. It had been two hours and change since he left his apartment, two house since he started his “shift”.
With the brazen determination of a man with few things left to lose (he didn’t want to lose Lisa) he walked up to the park. Streetlights illuminated the cracked sidewalk that he had made his beaten path, and he smiled, pondering the significance of the patterns in the ground before chalking it up to a science he would never understand.
It was the west side of Central Park where he found his office. He ducked slowly into an alley and opened his gym-duffel, rifling around for his uniform.
And soon, he was uniform with the night, with a practiced precision, climbing the fire escape of the building.
He was but a cat in the night.
The window to Logan Swenson’s bedroom opened quietly, letting in a gust of cold air which gently pounded the young man in the face. He rolled over, away from the window, as David stepped in quickly and without a sound before about-facing and sliding the window down. The room was dark, but David was darker as he made his way to the bedroom dresser, picking the wallet from the top and dropping it into his duffel.
He moved with a careful indifference down the hallway to the living room, stopping briefly to note the size of the television, before moving to the stereo. Placed under one arm, he moved out of the living room, back to the boudoir, to the window. With any luck, he could fence the piece for at least three hundred dollars, more if the make was Sony. Not too bad for a nights work, plus the contents of both wallets.
He slid the window open and placed the stereo on the fire escape when the chilled voice spoke out.
“What are you doing?”
David’s eyes closed as he sighed and reached into the waist-band of his pants, removing the sliver snub nosed revolver and turning.
“Taking your stereo, please and thank you,” he muttered, turning back to the window.
“Baby, what is it?”
The voice was an ice-pick to his chest.
“It’s just a burglar. Call the police.”
“No, you’re not going to call the police. If someone decides that that’s a good idea, then I have a few better ideas of my own,” David’s voice dropped to a deep bass.
“Alright, man, just take the stereo and go.”
David took a step to the bed, reaching over and hitting the bedside lamp.
“Oh, Jesus,” Logan began, “We’ve seen him. He’s going to kill us for no witnesses. Sir, please don’t, I have a watch, and -“
”I have a watch, too, man. And you’re stupid as hell. You have no idea what I look like - I’m wearing a ski-mask for a reason.”
“Oh, thank you, God,” Logan turned to the woman lying in bed next to him, “Lisa, give him something so he’ll go away.”
“Here, sir, take my wedding ring.”
Lisa, sweet Lisa, with soft blonde curls that fell to her shoulders, with the shapely hips and bubbly laugh, Lisa, who had a way with the two best words David had ever heard, “I do,” was now offering her wedding ring.
David picked it from her open hand.
“It’s a fugasi.”
“A what?”
“It’s a fake.”
“It is not,” Lisa sat up, “I had the diamond re-fitted, and David bought me a new diamond for our anniversary. It’s not fake...”
“Oh,” David turned the gun to the man in the bed, “So, you’re David?”
“What? No, **** no, I’m not David! Don’t point that at me, man! My name is Logan!”
“But isn’t David your husband?”
“Yes, but -“
”What the hell is the world coming to when a regular cat-burglar has to walk right into the smack middle of marital inconsistencies?”
“I apologize, sir,” Logan sat up, dropping his feet over the side of the bed. “If you want the television, I’ll help you move it to your van or whatever -“
”So, if you’re married, why are you here, Miss...”
“Lisa Simon -“
”Why are you here, Miss Lisa Simon?”
“Why do you want to know, Mister...”
“John Q Cat-burglar -“
”Mister Asshole?”
“I’m just trying to understand why someone who is good enough to give you two diamonds isn’t good enough to be faithful with.”
“Oh, Christ, you’re just like him. You think two diamonds is ever going to be enough for a girl like me?”
“What? You want more?”
“**** you.”
David cocked the gun. “What would it take to set me off, do you think? What would be enough, if not two diamonds?”
Logan walked behind David towards the bedroom door. David turned his attention to the naked man, shaking in the center of the room, the draft catching him in the middle.
“What the **** do you think you’re doing, Logan?”
“Closing the door so you don’t wake my parents up, man.”
“You live with your parents? How old are you?”
“Too young to die -“
”But old enough to understand what an infedlity is.”
“Don’t kill me, please -“
David turned his attention back to Lisa. “What would it take, I wonder? A vacation? A cruise? You’re already married; he can’t promise you anything else, I would think.”
“If I tell you, will you leave?”
“No promises. I might want some help taking this dresser...”
“He was fired from his day job and took a night job as a security guard. I have a day job. We don’t see each other anymore... But he acts like the only way I’ll be happy is to have ****. I just want to have someone that won’t leave me every night under the pretense of keeping what we don’t need.”
“And this drove you into the arms of another, much more scrawny man? You couldn't have talked things through?”
“David thinks he knows everything... We've been married for five years, and I doubt he could tell me where we had our first date. Logan actually listens to me -“
The gun turned to Logan.
“Logan, where did you meet her?”
Logan’s face paled. “Hell if I know.”
“He's known you for how long? Two weeks, and he can't even remember... Did you listen to her so you could **** her?”
He nodded.
“That’s why good men are hard to find.”
Lisa’s eyes brimmed. “You want to do me a favor? Shoot me in the heart, please. You couldn’t possibly make me feel any worse than at this moment, you arrogant asshole.”
“Tonight’s your lucky night, sweet ums’, because you’re going to live to regret saying that. As for me, I’m leaving with this nice wedding ring and stereo -“
”Could I have my ring back?”
David knelt by the window, staring back into the room. He sighed and tossed the ring onto the bed. He closed the window and threw the stereo down the fire-escape into a garbage can lined dumpster, dropping down levels before picking up his prize.
He stared at it for a second, before setting it back in the dumpster.
When he finished tonight, he would explain to his wife calmly that he had been fired and they might need to relocate back to his home town for a while, while he got back on his feet.
Lisa would understand, David hoped, as he walked into the street, tossing his duffel-bag into the gutter.
"It was Fifth-Street Bakery," he sighed under his breath as he jogged down the stairs to the subway.
Comment