Bernard Boyce Bennington & The American Dream (5 page)

“She saw it, man. She saw it wasn’t my fault.”

From his crouched position next to the bundle in the road, Jack Fedogan says, “He’s dead.” Jack feels around the body, beneath the jacket, and then leans over to look beneath the cab. Then he stands up and looks out into the street, shielding his eyes.

“What is it?” McCoy Brewer asks.

Jack shrugs. “The cassette player. It’s not here.”

“It must be there,” McCoy says, crouching down.

The old man spins the driver around. “Which way?”

“What?”

“Which way did the woman go?”

“Hey, man, I didn’t see her go no way, man.”

“How far is Gramercy Park?” the old man asks.

“Huh? You want to go to Gramercy in
this
?”

“How far?”

The cabbie points down 23rd. “Couple blocks down to Lexin’ton and then one block down, man.”

The old man pulled his coat collar up and started across the street, his arms wrapped tightly around his battered valise and its cargo of release. He’s already across the street before the shouts but he doesn’t respond, just keeps on jogging along 23rd, passing beneath overhead lights, growing smaller and smaller, his footsteps growing fainter and fainter.

“I’d better call 911,” Jack says. He removes the apron he always wears and drapes it across Bernard Boyce Bennington’s face and chest. The rain immediately pastes it down and the first tell-tale signs of darkness start to show amidst the apron’s stripes. “You want to come inside?” he says to the cabbie, who is still staring down 23rd, staring and frowning, although there’s nobody to be seen any more.

“What’s he want in Gramercy Park?” the driver asks.

It’s Edgar Nornhoevan that answers. “He wants what we all want,” he says. “A little companionship to keep out the cold.”

The driver reaches into the car and switches on his hazard flashers, slams the door. Then he joins the others and, as one, they go back down into the Land at the End of the Working Day, prolonging the dream and putting off that dreadful moment when they, like all of us, must be alone again.

Bernard Boyce Bennington & The American Dream

Copyright © Peter Crowther 2008 & 2011

The right of Peter Crowther to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Originally published in printed book form in
The Land at the End of the Working Day
by Humdrumming.co.uk in 2008. This electronic version is published in March 2011 by PS by arrangement with the author. All rights reserved by the author.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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