Mira Corpora (8 page)

Before fleeing the scene, we rifle through the shambling heap of equipment. Markus seizes a scuffed guitar; Lena nabs a snare drum; my fingers find themselves coiled around a microphone cable. We unsteadily hop the guardrail at the end of the road and take off down the concrete bank of the canal. The squeal of braking tires and relayed calls of stern voices let us know the cops have found the van.

We run single-file along the lip of the canal. Our bodies huff and pant, but the adrenaline courses through our limbs and soon we fall into a steady cadence. We ignore the approaching shouts and roving flashlight beams. The path ahead seems clear. A canopy of intermittent stars provides the main illumination and the glassy surface of the canal throws our reflections back at us. It looks like we're running upside-down, the soles of our shoes skimming the top of the water.

I tune in to the snare clanging against Lena's hips like a tambourine. It suggests the martial pulse of the song we'd hummed earlier. Between breaths, Markus starts to vocalize the main guitar riff. I swallow hard, then launch into the lyrics. I'm out of breath and scared shitless, but that must help because it doesn't sound half bad. We maintain our pace, repeating the surging
chorus in our halting manner, over and over. Behind us, we can make out the rhythm of running footsteps and jangling handcuffs. There is also the faint but distinct humming of several voices. The police, who are getting closer, have picked up the song.

He doesn't seem to realize I've been following him for blocks. The man purposefully winds his way through the midday crowds without a backward glance. That's him up ahead in the mottled gray terrycloth bathrobe, the red scarf, the black canvas high-top sneakers. He obsessively shakes his frizzy blond curls out of his eyes and scratches at his cheeks. The other pedestrians probably write him off as a freak, another psychotic vagrant who wandered into his own head and promptly lost the compass. The city is littered with these sorts of casualties. But I suspect this man is something else.

Every few paces, I have to break into a jog to keep him in my sights. The man acts like he's late for an appointment. He speeds past the shuttered laundromats, the half-empty junk shops, the buckling brick apartment buildings with grime-frosted windows. His reflection never pauses long enough to register my stare. I've been following him since he first brushed past me on the sidewalk, hanging behind at a watchful distance, afraid to miss anything.

The man steps off the sidewalk mid-block and bounds across the street, oblivious to the horns of oncoming traffic. A taxi swerves over the dividing line to avoid hitting him. Squealing brakes, shouted curses, a choir of middle-fingers. It's a choreographed melee of sound and steel that the man absently conducts as he passes through like an apparition. Time seems to stretch, though his journey to the opposite sidewalk probably
only takes a few seconds. Before I can blink twice, he's vanished into the park.

I dash across the street, but the man is nowhere to be seen. The entrance to the park brims with the usual shuffling armada of runaways with stolen skateboards, homeless with borrowed shopping carts, police practicing blindness behind their shades. On a hunch, I follow the route that winds along the park's perimeter. The sun shimmers off the concrete and the oaks overhead are too exhausted to supply a full canopy, so I have to keep squinting. I spot him in the distance, arms swinging briskly at his side, as if his shadow is a prison he's determined to outrun.

Somebody calls my name. I spot Hank and Lena cuddled on a nearby wooden bench, waving me over. I nod but keep walking. No time for niceties. The man appears to be heading for the exit by the steel band shell and I can't risk losing him. I hear my name again and soon am flanked on either side by my friends.

“Impressively rude,” Hank says. “What's the story?”

“Sorry.” I speak without breaking my stride. “I'm following somebody.”

“Intrigue,” says Hank. “I like it.”

“See that guy up there?” I'm careful not to be so flagrant as to actually point. “The one in the gray bathrobe?” There's nothing to do but blurt it out. “I think that's Kin Mersey.”

There's a silence, then Lena says: “Oh my God.”

The man leaves the park and immediately tacks east, heading deeper into the shittiest streets of this shitty neighborhood. The three of us follow in a state of entranced speechlessness. It's only now that we notice the lack of silver tags from our graffiti campaign. In their place are rows of unconscious homeless men curled atop cardboard pallets, their gray beards flecked with bits of newspaper. Stray dogs lick discarded alkaline batteries, looking for a leftover charge. The air is perfumed with stale urine and rancid government cheese.

As we walk, I shuffle through the endless unconfirmed
stories about Kin Mersey in my mind. There's only one rumor that truly interests me. It claims Kin has feverishly continued to write songs, generating tunes shot through with shards of terrifying beauty, creating music so radical that even his fans aren't ready to hear it.

The storefronts start to thin out, but the man doesn't seem to register the change. Soon it's strictly rubble-strewn lots, half-demolished concrete foundations, construction fences slotted with suggestive gaps. He pauses at a traffic light to cinch the bathrobe tighter, keeping the terrycloth from flapping in the updrafts from passing vehicles. We cluster around a telephone pole, pretending to be fascinated by a handwritten notice about a missing hamster. This is the closest I've been to the man since he first passed me. My heart hammers in the slender vein dividing my forehead.

“You really think it's Kin?” Hank whispers.

“It does sort of look like him,” Lena says.

The man's face is swollen. His hands are chafed and raw. But the resemblance is clear. A red scarf is wrapped around the same squat neck that you'd never believe could house such an unearthly voice. The same unkempt blond hair, the same gangly frame, the same pupils drowning in that peculiar shade of cerulean blue. The words buzz in my mouth as I speak them. “It's him.”

The man races onward. We automatically fall in behind. The crosstown expressway looms ahead, emitting a high-pitched rumble, the singing sound of rubber tires on asphalt. Several metal shopping carts lie gutted on the pavement like they've been gang-raped. Blackbirds squat on the telephone wires, chirping intricate tunes no one can hear. By now it's obvious we're tailing the guy. We're the only figures in this desolate landscape. The man doesn't acknowledge our presence, but my senses tingle with an animal suspicion that he knows we're here.

His pace quickens. The air crackles with nervous energy as
we realize he must be close to his final destination. High-rise apartment towers appear in the distance. Grids of identical rectangular balconies teem with makeshift clotheslines. The pinned sheets, shirts, and socks flap in the wind like flags. Ornate letters writ large in Krylon transform the sides of buildings into concrete pages from a vast illuminated manuscript. Flashes of technicolor graffiti signify cryptic warnings. He's leading us into the heart of the projects.

“Maybe the rumors about him living here are true,” Lena says. She throws me a cautious smile. “I knew you'd lead us to him.”

All at once, we're not alone. Sullen Haitian boys encircle a broken pay phone, their feet batting the dangling receiver like a tetherball. A trio of slit-eyed Dominican teenage girls lean against a rusted mailbox and pick their teeth. A tattooed bodega owner dumps a bucket of dirty water on the curb. We collect a catalog of suspicious and hostile stares. The three of us fall progressively farther back, afraid the man is going to get jumped and beaten, afraid the same thing might happen to us.

The man approaches the largest apartment tower. He walks past the drained cement fountain and into the empty courtyard. He pauses on one of the few green patches left in the expanse of dried mud and shriveled shrubs. He scoops up a handful of dirt and gravel and tosses it at the building. A few of the pebbles reach the third floor. This seems to be some sort of signal. In the surrounding windows, the curtains part and sets of wrinkled faces materialize from the shadows. We form another set of curious eyes on the periphery, the three of us crouched behind a dumpster.

While the man waits, he paws the ground with his worn sneakers, like a dressage horse before a demanding routine. He bends down to scoop up another handful of something, then stands motionless except for a vigorous movement of the teeth. It takes a moment to understand that he's chewing a mouthful of grass. Green stalks and stems protrude from his lips.

“Fucking A,” Hank says. “He's totally lost it.”

“Poor thing,” Lena says. “Maybe he's getting in touch with his primal side. Sometimes that's the creative way to deal with pain.”

“Maybe it soothes his throat,” I offer.

“Come on,” Hank says. “He's just another fuck-up now. He's a dude with no tongue, wearing a bathrobe, chewing on grass.”

“Him chewing off his tongue was a rumor,” I say. “We still don't know if that really happened.”

“Take a look at the guy,” Hank says. “That's all I'm saying.”

But I don't see him that way. I half-recall tales about Old Testament prophets stabling themselves in meadows and devouring handfuls of grass as part of vision quests. Perhaps this is also part of some unseen process, a sort of metamorphosis, a peculiar demand of his muse.

There's movement in one of the upper windows. The systematic blinking of a curtain, maybe. It happens, but the man clearly discerns the signal and approaches the entrance of the building. Before he can press the buzzer, the glass doors burst open and he's ambushed by a shrill tribe of children. They poke and prod him, venture close then leap back with delighted cries. A chubby black girl with cornrows lets out a piercing shriek and all the kids laugh like it's some kind of punch line. A solemn raven-haired girl holds the door open and offers the man her upturned hand. He gently clasps it and allows himself to be led inside, the whooping kids trailing behind.

Hank and Lena look uneasy, but we've got to move if we don't want to lose him. We reach the lobby in time to spot the tail-end of the children's procession winding its way into a concrete stairwell. The gang of kids stomp up the stairs, pleased by the resounding echo of their own footsteps. Their destination seems to be a couple of flights overhead. The man must be in the lead.

We trail them to the third floor. The long hallway is dimly lit. The ambient gurgle of breakbeat salsa and game-show reruns
filter through the walls. The children are gathered outside an apartment whose door is ajar, spilling a parallelogram of light onto the linoleum tiles. Just as we realize that the man must be already inside, the door swings shut.

The children's chattering draws the attention of the floor's residents. A few curious heads appear in the hall to investigate. Soon there's a loose queue of adults and children outside the closed door. We hug the wall and try to pass for a natural part of this crowd. Lena flattens her hair to downplay the flamboyant purple streaks. Hank rolls down his sleeves to obscure the ever stranger ink patterns. I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt and disappear inside the cowl.

The apartment opens. A tall man in a shiny black ski jacket and hand-me-down grimace lets people inside. This must have already happened a few times because there's an unspoken protocol. Everyone drops their shoes in the hallway before filing inside. We enter a modest living room with white pressboard walls and industrial gray carpeting. There's no sign of the man. The blinds are drawn and fluorescent lights bathe everything in an antiseptic blue. The place is undecorated except for a single oil painting: A nude Amazon with a large afro reclines on a tiger-skin rug. Her ankles are shackled but her curled lips form a defiant sneer. One hand hoists a barbed iron spear heavenward and the other strokes the pink folds of her labia.

The place soon fills up. A mix of old men, pimply teenagers, and mothers hauling infants straggle in behind us. We find an open space on the floor and sit cross-legged. I'm starting to feel like an idiot. I'm only wearing socks on my feet and sitting in a strange apartment in the projects. The solemn girl with black hair stares directly at us. The other children glower and giggle. They elongate their cheeks and pick their noses. Their eyes sparkle like phosphorescence.

A women in curlers turns to me: “You here for the show?”

I must look confused because she points to the empty twin
bed pressed against the far wall. It functions as a couch. Or maybe a stage. But here's the important detail: A child's plaything lies atop the bare mattress. I've been staring at it but not really seeing it. My brain has balked because the implications are too startling. My breathing becomes shallow. My mind spirals. I sense Hank and Lena also struggling to process the sight. “Here comes the something,” Lena whispers, from a favorite lyric. The object on the bed is a miniature guitar.