leaves are changing?
Where the first remark of gray among the branches
is insinuated in me now like something one
learned before youth
and has, in consciousness, forgotten …
She remembered the rhythm, the music of the words. She had not even understood them all exactly. Poetry. Christ. What did she know about poetry? But the feel of it. She had gotten that, she remembered that. The sweet-natured melancholy. The sense of life and death creeping down out of the woods at night to the lonesome man watching. She remembered his eyes, his lonesome eyes: the picture of the poet on the back cover. She had sat there, hadn’t she? All girlish and dreamy for a few minutes. Her feet up on her desk, the book against her thighs. Thinking back to what it was like when a boy said things to you, so-deep things, leaning toward you with his earnest eyes and you still believed him. She had sat dreaming about the garret where she’d lie, her uptight Catholic body skinny and naked under the single sheet. And him hunched grimly at his desk, his pen moving over the pad in the lamplight …
This is the Animal Hour.
She swayed, gripping the parapet, nauseous, weak. The Animal Hour. Yes. Yes. She had to be there. She had to. It could already be too late. She did not even know what time it was anymore. It could already have happened.
Oliver.
They were going to kill him. She had to get there. She had to get to him in time.
Without thinking, she began to climb onto the parapet. She cried out with the effort, cried out in pain. Her back, her knees, her head—the ache everywhere blended into a single hot sting through her entire body. Still, she worked her leg over the concrete parapet. Looked down. A long drop to the sidewalk. She could break her legs easily. She could break her neck …
But there was a window below her, halfway between her and the sidewalk. If she could lower herself to the window ledge, if she could get her feet on it …
She glanced up. Looked to the corner. More cops were rushing toward the entrance now. Others stood poised at their cars, standing at the open doors, their radio mikes in their hands. None of them was looking her way. She brought her other leg over the parapet, grunting with the pain. Slowly, she lowered herself. Clinging to the parapet with her hands, she let her legs hang down.
She dangled there. Her face tapped against the brick. Her muscles burned as her arms stretched above her. Her head pounded. Her feet sought for purchase on the ledge below. A car horn blasted. Nancy gasped. Her fingers began to slip away. Someone yelled at her from a passing car. She heard their laughter fading as the car went by.
Panting, she lowered her feet to the windowsill. Tears of pain made her nearly blind. Red pain, all through her. The tips of her sneakers touched the sill. Her fingers slipped to the edge of the parapet.
And then they slipped off. She dropped to the window ledge. She clutched at the face of the building. For an instant, she balanced there. But only for an instant. Then, twisting, she half-fell half-jumped to the sidewalk below.
It was a light landing. Not that far to fall. She came down on her feet, but her legs gave under her. She collapsed to her knees. The sidewalk slapped against her raw knees. She gave a muted cry and pitched forward. Sprawled on her face on the concrete.
She tasted grime. Felt the gritty stone against cheek and nose. “I hope you appreciate this, Oliver,” she muttered. Then she pushed herself to her hands and knees.
“You okay, lady?”
She cried out. Her head snapped back. She saw a werewolf. A werewolf was standing over her. A werewolf wearing a high school letter jacket.
He bared his fangs. His red eyes peered through a mask of bristling fur. His hairy paw was reaching down at her. “Need a hand?”
“Aaah!” she said. She stared at him. “Aaa-aaa-ah!” She scrambled away from him on her hands and knees, ignoring the pain. She found the wall and clawed her way quickly to her feet, her breath rasping. The wolfman stood where he was and stared at her with his red-streaked eyes. She staggered away from him. Staggered up Lexington, toward Twenty-second Street. She cast looks back over her shoulder at him. Held her hands up to ward him off.
The werewolf shrugged, finally. Stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and ambled off toward Twenty-first Street, where the cops were gathered. Nancy stopped to watch him go. She stood at the corner. Her head throbbed, her heart pounded hard. She watched as the wolfman joined a mummy and Frankenstein monster. All of them walked off together under the canopy of flashing lights.
Nancy let out her breath. She lifted her head. She looked up at the building above her. She saw the open window through which she had come. The lace curtains blowing out through it, fluttering in the cool October breeze. Her father had his head poking out. She saw his silver hair. He had his arm raised and was pointing along the ledge where she had gone. He pointed along the face of the building toward the connecting roof where she had fallen.
Only he’s not my father, Nancy thought. My father is dead. My father died when I was little.
Now there was a policeman too. A young patrolman with a thin mustache. He was sticking his head out the window also. Leaning out next to the silver-haired man. He was looking along the ledge where the silver-haired man was pointing. Nancy stood on the sidewalk below and gazed up at them. In another moment, she thought, the policeman would look down. He would look down and spot her standing there. Still, she did not move. She did not want to move. She stood there, looking at the window, thinking of the bedroom inside. The soft, frilly canopy bed. The mirror. The photographs of laughing girls who were all friends together. She did not want to leave …
She shivered. Shook herself. Oliver, she thought. Come on. Come on. The time … She had to go.
The silver-haired man was pointing and pointing. And the cop beside him was starting to look down, scanning the face of the building with his sharp cop’s eyes. He would look down at the sidewalk. He would see her.
Nancy hesitated only another second. Well, she thought. Good-bye. Good-bye.
And then she turned. She hobbled off. As fast as she could. Around the corner. Into the night. To find Oliver.
Now the parade was about to begin. The thick crowd of people on Sixth Avenue had congealed into a solid mass. They packed the sidewalks. They pressed against the blue police barricades. Masked and hooded, smeared with makeup, sucking at sack-covered bottles of beer, they watched the street. They waited for the marchers. Behind them, on whatever thin strip of sidewalk was left, another crush of people pushed uptown: a gelatinous flow between the spectators on one side, and the vendors on the other. The vendors shouted above the shouts and murmurs of the crowd. They hawked their battery-powered domino masks fringed with blinking lights. They blew paper trumpets into the night air.
Perkins came out of Nana’s building and saw what was happening. He stopped under the awning. He cursed under his breath. It had taken him several minutes to free himself from his grandmother’s anxious hands. It was almost seven o’clock now. And that crowd—he was going to have to fight his way downtown.
But it didn’t matter. He had to get back to Zach. He had left his brother alone too long. The police could have found him already. The FBI. Or Nancy Kincaid’s murderer …
He started toward the avenue. He joined the rapid stream of costumed spectators as they flowed into the muddy human river. They’re going to kill him, he thought, his mouth set, his eyes fixed. They’re going to kill him and set him up for the Kincaid murder. He shouldered his way into the mass of people. He ignored the weight of blackness in his belly; the premonition floating around his mind like haze. He kept moving as the heavy tide of flesh closed over him.
He had to get back to his brother.
In the darkened room, amidst the mounds of books, the slanting towers and shelves of books, Zachary knelt on a spot of bare floor. The small, sinewy man was in deep shadow there, his hands clasped beneath his chin. His head was bowed. His eyes were closed. His lips were moving. Silently,
he prayed to Jesus.
Let Ollie come home in time, he prayed. It would all come apart if Ollie didn’t come home and save him. He would never take drugs again, if Ollie came. He swore it. He knew he’d promised before, but he really swore it now. Really. Please, he prayed, don’t let me go to prison. Dear God, please, not that. Just give me a chance to convince the police that I’m innocent. That it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. Please …
He shut his eyes tighter. He peered into the blackness beneath his lids. He tried to clear his mind, even of supplication. He tried to go blank, to go empty. He wanted God to come into him. He wanted the power of God to fill him. He wanted to be one with God, a single force of desire.
But his mind … He couldn’t get it clear. Even in the dark, even with his eyes closed, so many little things … They invaded him. They ate like termites at his concentration. The sound of voices through the open window. The touch of air, the fresh October air that smelled of leaves. Shouts and laughter from the street … And music now too: the music from the parade.
“Damn it!” Zachary whispered harshly.
And a baby crying. Somewhere. Eating at him, buzzing in his brain. Giving him no peace: a baby, somewhere, crying and crying.
The library’s castlelike spires were silhouetted against the purple sky. Their silver steeples glistened in the city light and the white light of the gibbous moon. Below, the huge crowd pressed in from either side on the empty, waiting avenue. Masses of humanity coursed sluggishly: uptown on the east sidewalk, downtown on the west by some unspoken agreement. In the street, the police ambled back and forth along the barricades. Under the barricades, children sat on the curb. The children’s faces were blackened by makeup or hidden by masks. Their eyes were big as they stared up at the passing cops.
Perkins had crossed over at Twelfth. He was on the west sidewalk now, directly beneath the library. He had shouldered his way into the downtown tide and the flowing mass had sucked him in. Bodies were pressed against him, back and front. Shoulders were pressed against his shoulders. The heat of breath, the smell of sweat, the stink of beer, swept up into his nostrils. He elbowed and twisted, trying to edge his way deeper into the flow. But the mass was unyielding. It carried him along. Under the library’s lowering facade. Under a stand of yellowing sycamores. Under the awnings of stores and their dark windows with paper skulls and pumpkins and witches grinning out at him. He made his way downtown yard by sludgy yard. He felt the time passing, felt it like a pulse in the world outside him. Inside him, the black batlike thing crouched with its wings furled, waiting to rise.
Maybe he would find the apartment empty when he got there, he thought. Or maybe he would find Zach dead. His body sprawled on the bed. The blood everywhere. His head …
Look what they did to my head, Oliver.
With a grunt, he forced his way between two women. Forced himself to stop imagining things. He pushed against the mass. He craned his neck, looked over the solid carpet of heads leading downtown. There was his street. Cornelia Street. Just up ahead.
And there was the parade.
It was coming up the avenue. A high-stepping Dixieland band led the way. He could hear the mournful horns playing “St. James Infirmary.” He could see a cornet’s bell as it caught the streetlight, as it slashed the air, leaving green and golden traces in its wake. Behind and above the band, dancing to the music against the sky, were skeletal dinosaurs. Enormous fossils made of papier-mâché, swaying over the heads of the people who carried them. Clowns and spangled transvestites skipped along the edges of the march, along the curbs, throwing confetti at the onlookers. A cheer went up from the crowd as they passed. It rose up toward Perkins like a wave. Paper trumpets honked loudly. Noisemakers rattled. The crowd seemed to tighten around him.
Then he broke free. He twisted away from the muddy flow. He went stumbling down Cornelia Street, toward his brownstone.
Zach.
Breathing hard, forcing down his premonitions of disaster, he ran for home.
Zachary was on his feet by the time Oliver got there. He was pacing back and forth in the little floor lanes between the books. The sound of the key in the latch made him stop short, spin to the door. The door swung open. Zach saw Oliver there, leaning against the jamb, slumped, panting.
Thank you, Jesus, Zachary thought.
It was quarter past seven. There was still time.
“You all right?” Oliver said, breathless. He peeled off the jamb, staggered into the room. He pushed the door shut behind him. Neither of them moved to turn on the lights. They faced each other in the blue shadows. For some reason, the dark made them speak low, almost in whispers.
Zachary already knew what he had to say. He had it all worked out. Still, the words came shakily. “She … she was here, Ollie. She came here.”
Oliver coughed, tried to catch his breath. He leaned back against the wall, holding his chest. “Who …? Who did?”
“Tiffany.”
“What?”
Oliver straightened. Zach couldn’t make out his expression. He didn’t want to meet his eyes. He paced back and forth a little in the dark. He ran his hand up over his bristly crew cut. “That’s right. That’s right. I was on the bed …”
“She came here?” Oliver whispered. He shook his head. “When? I just saw her. I just saw her at Nana’s. She left, like, ten minutes before me.”
At Nana’s? Zachary stopped pacing. His heart seemed to ball itself into a fist, expand like a balloon, and then contract again. What the hell was she doing at Nana’s, for Christ’s sake? She wasn’t supposed to be at Nana’s. She wasn’t supposed to be anywhere! No one was supposed to see her. She was supposed to stay out of town, stay out of the way at her mother’s until the time was right. That was the plan. EVERYTHING’S GETTING FUCKED UP, JESUS, HEEELP! “Uh, that’s right, that’s right,” he went on quickly. He paced again in front of his brother. His brother peered at him, watched him going back and forth in the shadows. Zach massaged his forehead. The sound of Dixie brass was at the window. Under that, he could hear the baby crying louder: Aaah. Aaah. Aaah. It was hard to think. “That’s right,” he pressed on. “She was here, uh, just about ten minutes ago, that’s just about right. I was … I was on the bed …” He went back to the story he’d planned. Oliver, panting, gaping, watched him. “Just lying there and I heard a knock. A knock at the window and I looked up. God, Ollie, it was like she was floating there in the night, floating right outside the window.”
Oliver turned toward the window, as if he expected to see her there. “She came up the fire escape.”
“Yes. Yes. So I went—”
“How? How did she know you were here?”
“What?”
“How the hell did she know you were here, Zach?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Zach answered quickly. He watched the floor as he paced. His black eyes shifted back and forth. He had to think. “I mean, that’s why … that’s why I was so surprised to see her and … And I got up, I … I went to the window. I said, ‘Tiffany …’ You know, like: ‘What the hell is going on?’ And she said—she said she knew everything, Ollie. About the murder. The girl in the mews. She said she knew the whole story.”
“Damn her, damn her.” Oliver’s voice cracked. His eyes were suddenly gleaming eagerly in the darkness. Zach turned his face to the side to hide his smile. Yes! he thought. I’ve got him. “Did she tell you?” Ollie asked.
“Um … um … um …,” Zach said. A drum echoed him outside: Bum, bum, bum. And that goddamned baby. The thin wail, spiraling higher now with frustration, fear. Why didn’t somebody pick the fucking kid up? “Well, she said, she said she wouldn’t talk here,” Zach stammered. “She wanted … she wanted to meet me. Somewhere private, she said. She said she’d tell everything, but it had to be … it had to be somewhere private.”
“No.” Oliver shook his head. “No. No. No. This is a setup, man.”
Zach thought his heart would blow right through his ribs. He h
alted in midstride. He swallowed hard and turned his head to stare at his brother. “What-What-What … What-What … do you mean, a setup?” he said.
Oliver did not answer right away. He just shook his head again. “I don’t know, I … I have this feeling … It’s just … It’s all wrong. I can’t work it out, it’s all wrong.” Then: “Where is this? Where does she want to meet?”
Again, Zach buried a smile in the shadows. “At your room.”
“My room?”
“In the library. It was my idea. The library is closed during the parade and you’re the only one who has a key. You see? It’s totally private, no one can get in but you. Tiffy said she’d meet us there at eight. She said she’d tell us everything. She said if we weren’t there by eight, she’d leave.” It was a good story. Oliver would go for it; Zach was sure. But he added: “I’m really worried about her, Ollie. This isn’t like Tiff at all. She’s in some kind of terrible trouble.” It sounded bogus even to him, but Oliver didn’t notice.
Oliver just made a noise of frustration. He ran both hands through his long hair. “No,” he said. “No. Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong with this. I gotta think. We gotta figure this out. Call a lawyer. Call the cops.” He squeezed his eyes shut. His hands gripped his hair.
Zach could only stare at him, stare at his silhouette, holding his breath. He was thinking, Please. Please, Jesus. Please.
Oliver opened his eyes. He looked around the room. “Do you hear a baby crying?” he asked.
The sound—the thin wail punctuated by screeches of anguish—vanished for a moment under the sound of the parade. An old-fashioned marching band was passing by the corner of Cornelia and Sixth. “Halls of Montezuma” came in through the window. Oliver wasn’t sure he’d heard the baby’s cry at all. He held his head. He tried to think. His mind was empty except for the consciousness of blackness: that heavy weight, that hunkering thing inside him … For a moment, strangely, he thought of the sledding hill again. The snowy hill outside his home on Long Island when he was a boy. He thought of riding down the hill on the Flexible Flyer, he and Zach. Don’t let go, Ollie, don’t let go!