No Lease on Life (21 page)

A moron bellowed. A crustie turned the volume up on her boombox. Now two were going full blast.

Elizabeth climbed through the window, back into the apartment, and walked to the refrigerator. She took out a full carton of eggs and carried it to the window.

Roy opened his eyes when she was nearly out the window.

—What are you doing?

—Nothing.

—Don’t do it.

—Don’t worry.

She assumed her position and cradled a white egg in her hands.

The man in the third-floor window watched Elizabeth. She was strange tonight, going in and out of the window. He usually turned off his light before he started watching her, the street. He didn’t think she knew he was there generally. Tonight she didn’t look like she cared. He didn’t know her name. Everyone on the block knew who she was because she was friendly. She was the kind of woman who sometimes didn’t close her blinds. Not that she walked around naked. She wasn’t a whore. She lived with a man. He saw the same guy there, not like some of the other women he watched, different men every night, the ten-dollar junkie whores on the block, like Jeanine, giving blow jobs in doorways, disgusting lowlife.

The man in the third-floor window imagined getting a blow job from Jeanine. He got hot, then he got angry. He pictured blowing her away, the disgusting bitch, her mouth to his joint.

A snail was crawling on a man’s newspaper. The man flicked it off and the snail went flying. Five years later, the man’s doorbell rang. He opened it, and the snail said, Hey, what was that all about?

The crusties were jubilant.

The fire escape hurt her ribs. Fatboy plopped himself on her ass. Elizabeth’s view was straight down to the fire escape below, which had a few sorry plants on it and a wet package of Raid Ant Bait. Kills the Queen. Kills the colony. She could set a trap of silent-killer food on the church steps and see the morons eat it and die in agony.

In memoriam forget hope forget hopelessness forget innocence forget guilt forget lies forget truth forget good forget bad forget purity forget corruption forget vice forget virtue this is for you.

Elizabeth angled her head and body. She took a different position and looked around without moving. Her vision, peripheral and otherwise, was one of her best features. Elizabeth relaxed and released the white egg from her hand. A mild, humid breeze carried it. The egg cracked and splattered in the gutter.

Fatboy growled. The morons looked up. Elizabeth kept her head down, giggled, and whispered to Fatboy.

—Somebody’s got to stand up for the character of the girls.

She extended her arm. She dropped another egg from a different side of the fire escape. It popped and cracked on the sidewalk. The yolk and white flowed, and the morons looked nervous. The loudest one looked up in her direction. He didn’t see anything.

The man in the third-floor window was still, like a polluted pond.

The ancient black woman with the chihuahua was anxiously waiting for the cops. She took some notice of the white woman, but not much, it was just more craziness.

Elizabeth didn’t care how she appeared to others. She saw herself.

Yes this is a fatal mistake or maybe just bad judgment it’s no worse than fucking most of the guys I fucked no more stupid than trusting the people I have so it’s really dumb and I’ll be miserable it wasn’t my choice I’m not that free I’ll trade it all in the job the boyfriend the dog the friends the apartment and leave it all behind manacled and shackled by myself and I’ll enter the land of the damned the spoiled and damaged race past everyone who’s never risked anything stupid as this is they’ll catch it later on TV people like disease and failure at a distance if they can watch it on TV it makes them feel safe especially when things are out of control everyone wants control things are going down there’s no way to judge the speed of the fall no one admits the thrill the pleasure of giving up give it up give it up no one confesses to wanting to surrender be an untouchable who slinks along the streets a nobody who wallows in sublime degradation nobody’s a dirty word yes I’m guilty take me away I want to leave the block I’m guilty OK.

When the cops arrived, the crusties would say someone was throwing eggs at them, that’s why they were whooping, hollering, and blasting their boomboxes. They were just reacting, defending themselves against a sick creature sniping at them from an indeterminate fire escape, they were only battling an unseen enemy.

Elizabeth had an irresistible impulse to stand tall on the fire escape and address the block. She’d speak about the need for quiet. Abraham Lincoln spoke from the balcony of Cooper Union which wasn’t far from where she was now. He delivered his second inaugural address after the Civil War ended: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.”

One month later he was assassinated.

Elizabeth decided against standing up and being counted, she’d lie low and go uncounted. She wondered if statistically you were more likely to be murdered if you gave speeches. If you gave speeches in the wrong places, at the back of the bus, or acted inappropriately anywhere, you could be institutionalized, if you weren’t already.

A Puerto Rican father comes home and doesn’t see his daughter, but he finds her vibrator. The next night she comes home and finds him sitting at the kitchen table, drinking. Her vibrator is on the table opposite him. What’re you doing? she asks. I’m having a drink with my son-in-law, he says.

Being appropriate was boring. She dropped two eggs together. The eggs, light as feathers, gathered speed as they went down. Gravity did its work flawlessly. The eggs hit hard on impact. They could hurt somebody. She hadn’t thought about that before. Everything’s a learning experience.

One of the crusties mooned the block. His ass was dirty, like his face.

Keep your big ass your big noise your big nose your big stink your big eyes your big lies keep your shit to yourself.

If the morons spotted where the eggs came from and spotted her dropping them, they’d be waiting for her tomorrow, like the plot of the scariest TV movie she’d ever seen, about a ten-year-old girl who sees a murder committed outside her school building. The little girl’s dreaming out the window of her classroom and sees the murder in the distance, on a small hill, and the murderer suddenly looks in her direction after he’s done it and sees her seeing him, and she knows he sees her, and she knows he’ll be waiting for her after school, and she doesn’t tell anyone. She’s trapped in the school at 3 
P.M.
when everyone else goes home, and she’s alone.

That was a long time ago. Elizabeth was eight. She turned off the TV before the end of the movie. Her mother had left her on her own and told Elizabeth she was her own baby-sitter.

It was pathetic. She was her own baby-sitter.

If the morons saw her, Elizabeth would alert the block. She wouldn’t be like that little girl. She’d call Larry and Helen, she’d wake Roy, who’d probably tell her she was being stupid and to go back to sleep, and she’d fight the urge to kill him, which was inappropriate, she had to keep her attention on the real problems and enemies, and she’d alert Ernest, Herbert the deaf tenant, the acerbic super, Paulie, Gisela, Jeanine, and Frankie, and Ricardo, the whole neighborhood, she’d make up flyers, wheatpaste them on buildings, hand them out, she’d make it clear that she was being persecuted by the morons and crusties. She wouldn’t be quiet, she wouldn’t go quietly, she wouldn’t fight alone.

Probably the young super would join the crusties and morons and take his stale revenge.

What were Kurt Cobain’s last words?

Hole’s gonna be big.

Elizabeth tossed another egg. It flew into the street, sailing on a bigger, wetter breeze. It cracked on the side of a passing car. The car slowed down a little then speeded up. Probably the driver saw the morons. Fatboy jumped up and barked. Elizabeth gagged him. She crouched beside him on the fire escape. She was wearing black, it wasn’t planned, it was perfect.

She held her breath and her position, she was crouched and rounded like a basketball.

The ancient black woman phoned the cops again and stuck her body farther out the window. Elizabeth saw her speaking on the phone.

The ancient black woman would say:

—There’s a crazy woman throwing eggs, and there are some unruly young people making noise. Please do something. I’m old, I live alone, I have a bad heart.

When the cops arrived, and they came to Elizabeth’s door, and woke Roy, who’d be enraged, Elizabeth would say:

—The morons saw an egg or two drop over the side of my fire escape, by accident, and tomorrow they’re going to come and get me.

The cop’s eyes would narrow in contempt.

—Why’d you have eggs on the fire escape?

She’d have to go into it, her history, the story of the block, her night, her day, the last twenty-four hours, how she was driven to this act. She’d need backing from others, like Ernest. She’d have to mount a strong case, defend herself. Her heart was beating wildly, it was like a caged animal.

No I’ve never been in trouble with the law just a little I mean I never went to jail yes I lead a normal life I guess yes I’ve got a job part-time I had a few beers yes I’ve done coke grass speed no I told you I’m not high now I had a few beers yes I get along with people ask anyone in the neighborhood I don’t have many enemies some I do I have some yes I like men I live with one what’s that got to do with anything I don’t think of those morons like that are you kidding no I hate needles I hate the blood and poking around in veins yes I have a temper I said I’m not on anything yes I vote what a question no I’m not married I was a little out of control I didn’t murder anyone sure I thought about it wouldn’t you no I’m not crazy maybe temporarily it was an impulse I couldn’t stop no I don’t believe in what I did it’s not a matter of belief I just did it I’m not a member of anything a good life good sex is going to change this are you kidding are you guys going to keep them quiet every night I’m not a vigilante I didn’t take any law into my own hands you must be kidding eggs yes I’m not saying it was right I don’t care if it was right these morons don’t care about anyone on the block they rob me of my sleep I’m robbed of my dreams no don’t tell me about other people I’m not other people are we through now.

She’d explain that she corrected errors for a living, she came from a relatively stable family, there’d been more than enough food on the table, they had more than one table, they had a dining room, a den, a kitchen, a basement, and there were many tables, even a ping-pong table, she was a pretty good player. She’d admit that everyone bothered her eventually.

No one would protect her.

Rounded like a ball, her arms free, she could throw harder. She tossed another egg with energy. It catapulted from her and was lifted by a stronger summer breeze. The egg hit a parked car. The car alarm went off and screamed. It felt like her voice. One of the crusties clapped. Another crustie slapped him on the head. All the morons looked up in her direction. She was hidden in shadow. She’d made herself invisible.

A man died and went to Heaven. When he got there, he met God. He asked God, Please, before I go to Heaven, would you show me Hell? I’ve always wanted to see Hell. God said, Yes, I’ll show it to you. First of all, he said, Hell’s divided into three tiers. And then God took the man to the first tier. It was a room with about eighty people. There was some wine and a violinist. Then God took the man to the second tier. It was a room with about three hundred people. There was a band and wine and some hors d’oeuvres. Then God took the man to the third tier. It was a large room with about eight hundred people, maybe a thousand. There was an orchestra, a band, champagne, and lots of food. The man was amazed and said to God, If this is Hell I can’t wait to see Heaven. So God took the man to Heaven. It was a bare room with about twenty people. There was no food and no music. The man said to God, I can’t believe it. This is Heaven? God says, For twenty people, I should hire an orchestra?

She tossed another egg.

This was her street, her club, it was a democratic party, an after-hours bar with beer in paper bags and morons on the sidewalk. The sideshow must go on. The moon was her night-light. Comic and tragic disruption was her nightlife. It was a joke.

She dropped the rest of the eggs, one after another. They cracked and splattered out of time like a lame chorus line. The acerbic super would go crazy when he saw broken eggs all over his sidewalk.

The morons threw themselves on each other and moshed in the street until a car came along. Then they split for the park. The cops arrived minutes later. They were useless.

There’s no super. There’s no one to complain to. There’s everything to protest because she wanted everything, and she wanted more, and everything was wrong, and everything demonstrated, like a stupid protest march against herself, that she needed money, sex, respect, and her sleep, more of it all the time, so it meant she was getting old and cranky, and would die, because all good and bad things and people come to an end, and everything probably would before she did anything like buy a crossbow and arrow.

It made her sick.

The cops didn’t see what the commotion was all about, there were no unruly kids on the church steps, they didn’t see the eggs, they drove over some of them and crushed them into the street, they didn’t look up, they didn’t see her, they drove away.

The ancient black woman fed her Chihuahua and wheeled herself to bed.

The man in the third-floor window was frustrated. He couldn’t go back to sleep. It didn’t matter. It was Saturday. He didn’t have to go to work.

Elizabeth hesitated. The street was dead. Then she climbed through the window into the apartment. Fatboy followed her obediently. She’d maintain a low profile, buy a white-noise machine, keep it next to the bed. Maybe nothing would happen. She slid next to Roy and poked him in his calf with her toenail. He was dead to the world, alive in another.