Ye Gods

He realized at 9:00 that he’d been up since 3am. The sweaty, volatile stasis that he’d been a party to since then had been no kind of sleep. It was 10:43 before he was finally able to muster a sufficient burst of energy to birth him from the dank, vaguely astringent-smelling igloo he’d made of his bed these past days, weeks, months. Since the failures in Key West, St. Louis, Hilton Head and now (it seemed) New York City, he’d begun to feel his resolve slipping. Perhaps the negligence he was counting on didn’t run as deep as he’d calculated.

He shelved the thought, regarded the empty script bottles.

Three of them: Two knocked side-ways on the side-table and one amongst the dust-clumps and single balled-up socks below it. Three empty stupid little fucking script jars. His head burning and his mud-sweat like an angry infection bothering about his face and neck. He was blotchy. He stunk. He’d tossed them back like shots of tequila not seventeen hours before. One (27 - 10mg valium), Two (34 - 80 Milligram OxyContin), Three (47- extra-strength Ambien). 108 pills from three bottles. Enough to drop a Grizzly. A fucking Grizzly family, extended. Grizzly aunts and cousins. He pictured them all dead and decaying peacefully behind a similar dose.

He shelved the thought, regarded the pistol next to the bottles.

The Colt Anaconda. A terrible, brutal machine taking up most of the table and hanging pornographically (handle on / barrel off) the top. He remembered filling it last night - a messy stop-gap in case the easy way failed (again). Six Cor-Bon 260’s with soft-alloy points. Each of them could gouge a fireplug-sized hole in a guy hiding behind a chest freezer at 150 yards. Fired point blank at soft tissue, the round would probably have enough juice left to slice up into orbit around the moon even after turning his gyri and sulki into gooey nouveau cuisine. Growing un-permitted sky lighting for twelve more floors before it’s Apollo mission.

He shelved the thought. Looked to the window.

Porthole-level and porthole-size. A weird little pixel of cityscape hovering there with rain-drops blurring, washing things out. How many pieces would be too many? How many bits and crumbs and fluid-slick kernels of him would make dear-old-Dad say “enough” and let the matter rest? Would it hurt? How much and for how long? Pawing at the Colt now, his waking state freight-training, full-steam, toward that familiar black torpor. Soon every passing nanosecond would bring fresh knives and razors to scrape and slice at him, and make his soul ache. In his hands was a means he hadn’t yet tried. Could he really slog his ruined psyche through another wet hell of a freezing New York city day in early spring? Could he realistically even begin to think about doing that without giving the gigantic weapon a try?

He knew the answer and so spared himself the pain of thinking it. He heard the noise, and his last whole thought was that he’d probably be alive to pay his super for the clean-up.

***

I gotta hand it to you boy, Santa Monica was bad - remember last year? The fucking sharks? But this time you outdid yourself boy-o. This time you really showed some sack. A .357! I actually thought about leaving you alive, but un-repaired ya know? Like an elephant man, well really, a quarter of an elephant man with one eye on the front of his head and one in his upstairs neighbors martini like a fucked up olive. Their kid is okay as well, just bye - the -bye. You shot his leg off at the knee but I fixed it. I killed the lot of them.

At this he did come awake, although his head screamed it’s head off in protest. His eyes remained closed.

I what!? You what!? You’re a fucking monster you know that I…

Relax. Josh. RE…lax. I didn’t. They’re fine son. I fixed the kid’s leg and that’s all. Gave them all another, altogether more pleasant memory of the morning. One in which the supreme being didn’t figure so prominent.

Ly

Lee?

You said “prominent”, what you meant…He let it go. His brain felt loose. His face was sliding all over. He crawled to his feet to find a mirror.

Ahp! No. Wouldn’t do that, not just yet.

What, it can’t be that bad if I can walk.

Well you didn’t shoot yourself in the legs

***

The soft “mush-head” .44 cartridges with which he’d loaded the hand-cannon were designed for maximum damage at each trigger-yank. They’d been helped in that regard by the fact that the muzzle was buried deep in the targets mouth at contact. The physics involved in such a shooting allow for one of two outcomes: The first happens if the bullet’s soft-metal head remains un-mushed post firing. In that case a small entrance wound can be expected, transmitting through to a largish, but not freaky-big, exit-hole. That had not happened here. Rather, this particular suicide attempt had resulted in a much more dramatic anatomical exposure - a moist, blood-smelly example of the second of the two possible types. In this scenario the soft-alloy head of the cartridge is pushed flat almost as soon as the weapon is discharged. This creates a horrible snowballing effect, like driving a rocket-sled through a dog house at 500 miles per hour. Everything caving in and blasting out with no symmetry left at all, just remnants of pulverized structure. He was having trouble opening his eyes because he had no eyes. His mouth faced up toward the ceiling, floating and squawking in the soup-bowled former cranium.

As long as it took me to deal with the Florbersons I never got a chance to tend to you.

The who?

Upstairs. The boy you shot? He’s actually very nice. Hey where are you, whoa!

He’d walked into a wall. There was a squishy “thook” as he pinged off it and sat back on the couch.

Josh, listen to reason here. At least let me fix you before we go out.

***

They walked uptown and across and before too long they found 95 and the George Washington Bridge. They walked and talked and bickered all along the superstructure until, where the first span crossed the road-level and started it’s gradual ascent up to the first of two peaks, Josh hopped up onto the swollen cable and grabbed the guide wires one in each hand. He looked up and walked on.

We’re walking to Jersey? I should have left your head in pieces on the floor. You know the Super wanted you to pay to get the mess cleaned. Josh? Josh, you don’t want to do this…

Actually it’s you who doesn’t want me to do this. Let’s not get it twisted.

I’m not sure how safe it is walking up the suspension…It’s windy.

***

On top it was windier and by a good bit. No gusts, just a strong current whipsawing g back and forth, buffeting and bombarding them, looking out toward Lady Liberty two miles out and 500 feet down.

The view is much better up here. It helps me think. And right now I think I’ve found a way to smash this body into a condition even you can’t repair.

You’ve been a this for months with not a sniff of success. Which reminds me...

He mimed a self pat-down and smiled as his hands found the place. He removed a small black vial from his shirt pocket, unscrewed the top, and regarded the exposed mini coke-tit like it was just the two of them up there, in love and not giving a damn who knew. He sniffed and snorted at the thing for what seemed like hours.

Ahhh. Fragrant! You want some. It’s really quite good…

I’m sure it’s awesome, but not all of us here can make our way by sandblasting our immortal psyche until the hurt goes away. I wish you could die. The way you lean on the grains you’d have ceased to task me years ago.

Now see that’s just graceless. It’s hating. Don’t hate.

This is madness. You made me live like a man now let me die as one.

Men don’t die as a reddish oil slick eeling around the midtown battleships.

At this they both paused. A realization swam up:

Wait, this is really going to work isn’t it. You’re really sweating this…I feel it. You’re shaking.

I’m shaking because it’s cold and I just blew a gram of pure bolivian fish-scale into my cerebral cortex. I’m God, but I’m only human.

Fuck you. I see right through you. Your plan has a loophole and this is it. It’s written all over your face.

You won’t even get wet. And what’s more if you do jump I’ll turn you over like a sea turtle and have you skim out the words I AM JESUS all day and night till the media finally catches on. Then I’ll disappear until the next ice age.

Fuck you.

Josh. Don’t. It’s embarrassing.

But Josh was already on his way down, limply body surfing the blusters like a goose 12-guaged out of the flying "V" formation.

***

His father didn’t end up doing the sea-turtle thing, but Josh did get wet. Also it sort of hurt when he hit the rip tide tumult under the bridge. His father was sitting on an oily rock pile under the city side. He was holding a towel. Josh grabbed it and kept motoring.

You said I wouldn’t get wet.

I lied.

Yes.

Where to now ya fuckin hump? Are we power-walking. After the high-dive you must be convinced.

Never. You must have fucked up. You ruin everything

You sound like a spoiled lilttle shit. Where are we going?

I have an appointment.

Oh fuck, I can only imagine. What next!?

He looked up at the sky and over-acted an angry shaking God-fist.

It was all lost on Josh though, who figured that if he couldn’t author his own demise, that he should at least cause his father some severe discomfort and get something out of this nut-kick of a day.