Chapter 23 ~ Imagine All The People

I pulled off the Hudson at ninety-sixth and onto Riverside Drive, still full of panic and adrenalin from the George Washington Bridge, where there had been an unexpected, unpredicted breakdown on the far side of the tolls. It had kept me stuck in traffic for what was only five minutes but felt like hours; all the while lost in the memory of when I chose to run rather than remain with the car.

I’d been certain that the police were looking for me, that the automated close-circuit television cameras of the toll plaza would be keeping close watch for a CR-V stolen earlier that evening, the abducted child within. I broke into a sweat about twenty yards ahead of the tolls. Trying to work out what to do, whether to just get out and walk, whether to sit tight, knowing that the car had E-Zpass, that I could have gunned the engine and headed up that empty lane, but at the same time knowing that would have been absolutely the most stupid thing in the world to do given that I’d stolen the car and found out there was a kid in the back and why-oh-why would I just give them a tracking mechanism like E-ZPass to follow me by? All of which was immaterial anyway because by the time I’d gotten close enough to pay in cash, the E-ZPass had already waved me through, the attendant not even leaning out to talk to me; I was being tracked anyway.

I’d crawled past the breakdown, cursing to the high heavens, thankful that the kid was silent in the back.

I pulled the car over to the side of Riverside Park and sat, drenched in sweat, feeling the my heart race and wondering what the hell I was going to do. I looked out over the basketball courts that fill with players every weekend from April to October, their cries and yells wash over people walking the Hudson, spending time in the sun, pretending that the city isn’t behind them, that river is Riviera, that the air is actually fresh; parked to one side, in the shade of the trees, inconspicuous.

Thinking, I could leave the car here.

It would be found.

The child would be found.

I felt an itch begin at my temples. It was a safe enough part of Manhattan.

The child will be found.

I got out of the car, closing but not locking the door and began to walk. When I was far enough away, I planned to call the police and alert them to the car.

I walked.

Eighty-seventh.

And walked.

Eighty-second.

In my head the child was crying.

A shadow was falling over the side of the car. A junkie. Thinking it looked like it might be unlocked. Trying the handle. Opening the driver’s door. Hearing the screaming. Knowing that there was probably money in the glove box. But there was a kid crying in the back. This kid wouldn’t stop crying and it was just too much noise and the crack-head was aching for a fix and wouldn’t somebody just get that kid to stop crying. He was reaching back, lifting his hand to strike and…

I tried to walk on but the compulsion to turn was too strong; the vision too clear.

I ran, breath burning my throat. Hoping that…

Stop. I should call the cops. I should…

But my feet were rebellious tonight and propelled me north, returning to risk, back into jeopardy.

And the CR-V was still in shadow. No-one near it.

The kid was crying. Screaming and I could hear it from twenty yards away, where I stood fighting breath back into my lungs.

The kid was screaming. Inconsolable.

I looked about myself, desperate to confirm that no-one else was witnessing this; the child’s screams stood anything but mute witness to the abandoned nature of the street. Anyone hearing those cries would have been powerless but to respond.

I was powerless but to respond.

Walking up the street. Hoping that if I was being watched, the witness hadn’t seen me walking away from the car about ten minutes earlier.

The child was screaming; garbled words and gasping sobs, grizzling, gulping for air.

I got to the car.

Looked through the window at the child’s face, partially obscured by the tinted rear windows. Tears had streaked down its cheeks, mucky trails, parallel snot streamers glistening in what little streetlight got through the smoked glass. The child hugged some cuddly toy close to its chin, wracking out sobs that seemed to threaten its ability to breathe.

I should walk.

But my hand was on the door handle, pulling, finding it locked.

Me, the junkie of my vision.

The child seemed oblivious to the fact I was trying to open the door.

Screaming.

In my head, I was rehearsing what I would say when the inevitable passer-by walked up: I don’t know, I was passing and the car was parked and I heard this kid crying and I…

I opened the driver’s door, looked for the central locking, found the button and flicked it upwards, hearing the reassuring thunk of the locks releasing despite the sound of the child’s screams.

I wished it would be quiet.

Wished I could have made it quiet.

But the child went on screaming.

And I was out, taking one final look up and down Riverside before opening the rear door, leaning in, looking at its face, the tears and snot and slaver and the fear in its eyes and I was fumbling with the buckle on the car seat, trying to make sense of it when I realised it’s like a back-pack with the two pieces of plastic and I tried it and snap, the thing was open and the kid was still screaming its head off and I tried to hook the straps over its shoulders and the kid just launched out of the chair in my direction, pushing with both of its legs, standing and twisting as it came flying at me, reaching out, ensnaring my neck and grabbing hold. I stood straight, bashing the back of my head on the doorframe, setting off a flare of pain and the child was slipping out of my arms because I hadn’t gotten hold of it, my arms and hands flapped as they tried to grab hold but the kid was strong, clinging to my neck to stop itself falling and…

Anyone could have been watching this.

Move, a voice spoke in my head, get out of here!

The same voice that had spoken to me when I woke up in Washington Square with a dead body on the next bench.

And I began to run, the kid sobbing into my neck, clinging tight as I moved. Its head was hot. Bloody hot. I ran. The kid began to quieten down as I moved and as it relaxed, as whatever energy I had stored up in my underused muscles petered out, as my breath accelerated, growing laboured and gasping, I realised just how heavy it was. Still, I ran.

Some of the people I passed caught my eye but not so much more than they would were I sitting across from them on a subway train. New Yorkers. Able to consciously ignore anything out of the ordinary. One or two of them even gave me a look of consolation: tough bringing up a child in the city, isn’t it?

I slowed to a walk a block from Central Park. More from exhaustion than any rational response to the situation; I was long past caring whether I drew attention to myself or not. Across Central Park West and I was entering the park through Strawberry Fields. I had no choice but to sit down on the first bench I passed; my arms burned with the weight of the kid. Burned.

The kid kept clinging to my neck even when I’d sat down.

Over its head and shoulder, I stared at the black and white circular mosaic: Imagine.

The kid’s hair was stuck to my face where I was sweating, strands of it in my mouth.

Some hippy freak was playing a Beach Boys song about five benches around the circle: Sloop John-B. There were flowers on the memorial, dry from being there all day, withered now, petal flakes dropped all around where the breeze had denuded dying blooms. I looked up to my right and there was the Dakota, where Lennon was shot and I was sitting holding a fucking child I had accidentally abducted from fucking New Jersey.

A kid who had grown silent in my arms.

As the hippie played Sloop John-B, I began to cry a little.

What was I going to do?

What the fuck was I going to do?

*     *     *

In the end, I just walked. Carrying the kid across the park. Stopping every so often to sit on a bench. After a while, I realised that the kid was actually asleep. I looked at my watch. It was past eleven. No wonder.

All I could think about was getting to the apartment, where I could at least hide behind a closed door. And think.

I needed to think.

*     *     *

I got through the door, my arms feeling like molten steel. It felt like I wouldn’t be able to unlock my fingers from where they were entwined beneath the kid’s butt.

Stumbled into my room, legs turning to jelly, arms burning and, like a memory that keeps playing in my head – of Jamie on the monitors, of a dummy I thought was me – I dropped the kid on the bed.

It bounced a couple of times but ended up on its side, still asleep.

Cramps set into my arms and I rubbed at the muscles, trying to ease the knots tightening there; pain and potential for relief even obliterating the panic that assailed my every thought.

My legs started to shake and I felt like I was about to puke. I twisted to sit on the corner of the bed near the pillow; reaching out to gain comfort from the notches on my headboard post, the count of cars I have stolen.

Knowing that night had seen my final notch.

A whimper from behind as the child stirred, rolling over. I turned to look and before I could react, watched it tumble out of the bed and onto the floor.

Its eyes opened.

It looked about itself.

My stomach hit my shoes as I anticipated the scream, the tears, the yells, the guilt. The panic had never strayed too far. I was about to puke. I felt it rising in my gorge.

And then the child looked at me. Looked directly at me.

“Truck,” it said and closed its eyes again, resting its head on its arm on my bedroom floor.

I sat and watched it sleep, too tired to move a muscle and scared that if I did I’d just end up on my knees on the floor, losing my lunch and whatever else the panic could find within me.

I couldn’t tell whether the kid was a boy or a girl. It began to snore slightly as it drifted deeper asleep and as I watched and listened and tried to work out what I was going to do, my own eyelids began to droop and I was fading away and I didn’t know whether it was a boy or a girl and it was hard to tell because I hadn’t put the light on so I was only getting half light and was it a boy or a girl or…

I jolted upright.

I’d know soon enough what sex it was. I’d know its name. Its mother’s name. Its father. I’d know where they lived and what they did for work and I’d know their scared, tearful faces and I’d hear them beseeching whoever took their baby just to return it safe if they were watching, please just bring our baby back to us safe…

I should have turned on the television to see this. I should have. But I was tired. I was so, so tired.

I picked the kid up off the floor in a daze, put it in the middle of my bed then, rolling alongside it, I fell asleep; blissful oblivion that I would cling to for however long I could to avoid waking.

*     *     *

During the early hours of the morning, I surfaced from an already forgotten dream. Heard someone breathing, slight snoring.

Drifted back to sleep, comfortable in another’s presence.

*     *     *

The curtains let in a little light; colours and warmth, familiar smells, sanctuary.

Pleasant thoughts drift through my mind, making me smile, making me feel all warm at my core, like hot soup on a cold, cold day, like bread rising in the oven, the smell of it wafting through the house, like coffee and roses.

Warmth.

I bask in the glow, knowing that I don’t have to get out of bed yet, that I don’t have to disturb this moment; this peace.

The dream I had last night, the dark dream, the one that woke me briefly, sweating from where I’d been fighting against some other, some thing, some dark presence that chased me down alleyways and darkened streets, carrying something that shone, something that shimmered, something that could slice at a moment’s notice, that dream is gone; merciful release, tatters of terror in my waking moments.

Ah, but this warmth. It supplants the fear, drives it out, water under oil, lifting it, forcing it above and away. My nightmare became the sky, so broad and high that I have no fear of it falling.

I hear the breathing, in and out, in and out, breathing. Take it in my head to go and check, get out of bed, grab something familiar, reminding me of warmth as I choose to stray beyond the confines of my sublime room; tethered to the taste of toffee ice cream.

I walk into the hall, turn left, towards their bedroom. Walk, carrying my special something.

The door is pulled to but I hear breathing, in and out, fast and slow, in and out. I place a hand on the door and push.

They are a single mound in the middle of the bed, beneath sheets and comforter, a single being, moving in time to the rhythm of their cacophonic breathing.

My warmth is still with me and I want to share it, I so badly want to share it with them. I cross to the bed, stretch up, grab hold of the sheets and pull myself up, plopping down on my father’s side of the bed. They keep moving, keep writhing, keep rising and falling and falling and rising and I sit and watch the covers inflate and deflate – cotton lungs – forwards and back and they are lost in their rhythm and their breathing and he’s groaning and she’s reciprocating and they are flying in each other for a moment, together in a way that their frost prevents the rest of the time and I am listening to their breathing, gradually feeling the warmth of my sanctuary leaving me the longer I stay away from my room, more distant from that fullness, the goodness that filled me when I woke to find my nightmare above the ceiling, far, far away, far…

“Ken!” my father screams, looking out from under the cover, “what the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck? GET OUT!”

It scares me so rigid that I can’t move, for the moment my nightmare has tumbled through the sky, through the clouds, through the roof and is in front of me; snarling, teeth bared in a grimace.

“Huh?” I hear her ask, lost in a daze, reporting in from another planet.

“GET OUT!” he reiterates and now my freeze has gone. I jump from the bed and run back down the hall, diving back to my room, hoping to find the warmth I’d left behind. I run around my bed, to the small gap on the other side, near the window, the gap where I play hide and seek with imaginary friends, lying for what seems hours only to find that there’s no-one to find me but me. I lie down now, not understanding what I’ve seen, why he shouted at me, why he screamed at me.

I begin to cry.

Softly, for fear he’ll hear me, know where I’m hiding.

I don’t even stop when I realise that my favourite teddy is back in there with him, where I left it on the bed.

For a moment, a thought goes through me that I am powerless to prevent: good, maybe ted will get it instead of me. Maybe.

I don’t know how long I stay there, how long I wait, dreading the sound I eventually hear. His footsteps in the hallway. By the time they tread my bedroom carpet, I am actually whimpering, unable to stop myself. I hear him come around the bed. Able to see me. No doubt about it. Looking down on me, lying here, face down on the carpet, whimpering and blubbering and terrified of the look on his face, the grimace, the snarling teeth and he is looking down on me, looking down like a statue, like a nightmare that has superseded the clouds, usurped the sky, obliterated the horizon. He is standing and I am crying and…

His hand touches my arm, gets hold of my tiny six year old bicep, pulls me to my feet, turns me to face him as easily as if he’d been picking up a bag of shopping.

I daren’t look at him, stare at my bed, the colours and patterns and cartoon animals, stuffed toys ranged as territorial markers.

“Ken,” he says forcefully and I recoil at the sound of his voice, maintain my stare, keep it locked on the toys.

“Kenny,” more gentle this time, easing back, maybe getting a sense of how terrified I am, how he has scared me beyond a nightmare of knives and slashing, “Kenny?”

His hand beneath my chin, turning my face to his and I can smell something coming off him, something like fish or sweat; an odour he’s always had on him, varying only in its level of intensity. I try and fight against making contact with those hate-filled eyes, try and avoid his stare, refuse to take in the emotion that’s written all over his face.

But I cannot resist and eventually I have to look at him.

And see some level of fear mirrored there.

In his other hand, he holds my teddy by one of its worn, six year-old cloth paws. He senses me looking, I think, seems to remember the toy in his hand, looks at me, back at teddy, back at me, shoves the bundle of rags and make-believe eyes at me as a peace offering.

“Here,” he says.

I am shaking, still terrified that this is the calm between two storms. I remember the white of his teeth, flecks of spit flying as he screamed my name.

“Kenny,” he speaks and my shaking amplifies, “your mother and I… We were…”

My teeth hurt from where I’m grinding them together.

“We were… er… dancing…”

He stares nonplussed at my nonplussed expression. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t understand.

“We were… When two puh…people…” he stammers, losing his thread.

I stare at him, gaining the smallest sense that he may not hold all the cards after all. I might survive this. I might.

“You aren’t normally up this early,” pursuing a different track, heading towards the same dead end, “we don’t normally see you until seven-thirty or so and we… Er… We…”

The dead end arrives.

I take the opportunity to draw my arm across my eyes, wiping the tears and the snot from my face, hearing snuffling and sniffling, knowing that the nightmare isn’t that far away after all.

“You shouted at me,” I say, voice choking around a huge lump in my throat.

“Sorry,” he says quietly.

“I was scared,” I say, hugging my teddy bear and laying it plain in front of him.

“You scared me.”

*     *     *

I didn’t dream. I didn’t run scared in a nightmare. I didn’t come gradually back to the world, with the sunlight on my eyelids and that cosy feeling of warmth under blankets.

It didn’t take me but a moment to remember what happened last night.

I was sharing my bed with a little kid that I had abducted.

It was still sleeping.

Thank God, it was still sleeping, facing away from me, head buried in the crook of its arm.

I stood from the bed and my heart was already racing with panic. Through the apartment to the living room, switched on the television, hunted down CNN and just sat there on the couch, watching, waiting.

Nothing.

Pretty soon, the couch grew uncomfortable. I crossed to one of the chairs by the dining table. Sat there until the couch became attractive again. Went back over there and the presenter still wasn’t talking about a child having been abducted.

I guess when there are bombings and murders and questionable invasions of far flung places where hate-filled eyes claim holy war and behead in the name of everything that’s good, what’s another child gone missing?

In the bedroom, the kid slept on.

Chapter 24 ~ Learn

Chapter 22 ~ Family Rules – Part VI

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