He was vaguely aware that the patio window had shattered,
and that he didn’t see any blood. He
wasn’t dead since he’d chickened out at the last minute. His left eardrum was on fire (he was a
lefty) and now, he was busy trying to balance himself by clutching his
nightstand. The world wouldn’t stop
stay in one place though, and he fell out of bed anyway, hitting his head. It hurt.
Yes, this was confirmation: pain definitely meant the bullet had missed
its mark.
/*-/*-
When he awoke, he found himself flat on his back, and he
couldn’t move his neck.
“…stop fidgeting… nothing serious but you did hit
your head good. You understand?”
He nodded without understanding anything, and it hurt his
neck. He grimaced.
“Close enough,” muttered the paramedic with the
heavy Jersey accent. “Listen, Mr.
Rotiano, you gotta lump on his head the size of a golf ball, but you went out
from the pain rather than from a concussion.
Any continued dizziness, nausea, you take a taxi to St-Mary’s. It’s full with people from the accident in
the Linchon, so you wait until morning unless you want to lose an arm in the
next few hours to up your priority.”
A police officer came into view.
“Good morning, Mr. Rotiano. I’m officer Crest. It’s 1am. At approximately midnight-thirty,
someone was trying to break into the adjacent appartment 214. The suspect likely jumped to your patio in
his escape, which is when you fired a shot.
You didn’t hit him, but you did stun or scare him. In either case, he
went over the rail and his leg missed the pool by about a foot. He’s alive, and is in custody. “
“I shot someone?” Rotiano croaked.
“No sir, you didn’t shoot anyone. You shot * at *
someone, which is okay given the circumstances. We picked up a 9mm Beretta
soaked in with the half drowned suspect.
If you hadn’t drawn first, given his rap sheet, things might be worse
than a crack on the noggin.”
Rotiano swallowed, and just nodded, which hurt his neck
again. He’d never foiled a rapist with
attempted suicide before.
/*–/*-
This time, he was going to get it right.
He’d forgotten his wallet.
The taxi driver looked at him warily when Rotiano had asked him to stop
in the middle of the Brooklyn bridge, and began fishing for change in
his pants.
“S’okay. I can’t
charge for this kind of thing,” and with that, he drove off.
Rotiano stood up on the railing, putting a beam behind him
so that he couldn’t fall to safety. He
looked at the water, folding over itself in the moonlight and freckled in the
rain. He just had to stand here. He
didn’t have to do anything. He’d
sneeze, he’d get scared, and he’d get a cramp or something. Then he’d slip, and then he’d fall. This had to be easier than the trigger. He
didn’t have to do anything except get tired of standing—which was easy, since
he hadn’t slept in a while.
He stood for minutes or maybe hours, not moving a bit. Then
someone spoke to him.
“Hey, before you go, can I have your sweater? It looks nice. It’s cold, you know.”
Rotiano didn’t move.
“Come on, don’t be a cheapskate. It’s not gonna keep out the Hudson!”
Rotiano sighed, and began to take his sweater off. He struggled a bit—his neck pain accentuated
every time he lifted his arms quickly. And then suddenly, he felt a sharp tug
on his belt. Before he knew it, the air
rushed out of his lungs as he slammed into the pavement in a daze.
“Nothing personal, guy.
You’re free to resume your scheduled activities after I perform my civic
duty to prevent your legal tender from being destroyed. Which is against the law, might I add.”
Rotiano was vaguely aware of hands frisking through his
pockets.
“Are you kidding me?
Man, I almost sprained a finger pulling you back up, and you’ve got
seven fifty? Figures, you’re probably a
gambler or a stock broker.”
“Throw me back,” rasped Rotiano.
“Hell no! Do it yourself.”
“I can’t do it myself, I can’t sit up.”
“Man, what is your problem?”
“I said, you fucking twisted my neck, it hurts to move.”
“No, why you wanna die so badly? Someone after you?”
“No.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Your dog die? You
run it over? Are you Hitler?”
“No, for chrissakes.
Will you shut up?”
“So what you got?”
“Nothing! I’ve got
nothing!!” he yelled out.
“That’s a problem?”
“Yes it’s a problem!”
“I got nothing. I
don’t see a problem. It gives me a lot
of freedom, and a lot of time for hobbies, like talking down on foos like you.”
“I don’t wanna live like that.”
A pause.
“No, that’s not the problem. You don’t wanna live,
period. Something don’t make it
happen. More of something don’t make it
happen either. But nothing’s a good
start, means you got a lot of space.”
Another pause. “Toss
yourself if you want, but I don’t want to be here when it happens.”
Rotiano groaned, and fell asleep.
/**/**
When he woke up, he confirmed that he was alive when he felt
the pain in his neck again. His first
thought was to try again. But he found that someone had tied a sturdy length of
rope to his ankle. He was bound to the
railing. There was a note taped on the
bridge: “Try bungee jumping before you try the real thing. Call it practice.”
Traffic had begun to build up on the bridge, and cars slowed
to a crawl beside the pedestrians’ lane.
He looked over, saw an ugly, rusted pinto, and a small, bug-eyed kid smiling
toothlessly at him from inside. The little boy waved. He smirked cynically, and the kid started
laughing from behind the window, pointing at him. Eventually, the car dragged itself along.
Rotiano sat back down and sighed. He didn’t notice that someone had scrawled ‘loser’ on his
forehead in his sleep. He found, oddly,
that there was a pack of cigarettes in his sweater pocket, along with a lighter. The surgeon’s general warning was circled in
a thick black marker line.
He laughed out loud, hurting his neck. He hadn’t enjoyed a cigarette in years. As he lit up and took a long drag, the sun began to rise. He sat there and waited for someone to free
him.
dal niente 