Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (14 page)

David smiled at
the driver as he caught him glancing back at him through the
mirror. He made a mental note that he should look up the name
Fenyman when he got home.

“Dude, I was
like four years old when Fenyman died. I actually frickin cried
when my dad told me he was dead. Can you believe that shit?”

David shook his
head. The idea that the cab driver could be moved to tears by the
death of an author seemed surreal and jarring. He was starting to
feel guilty over his conceited attitude towards the man.

The driver
continued, “You know, I studied physics at Caltech for three years?
I had to pull out when my Mom died … had a bit of a … a breakdown I
guess you’d call it.”

David’s feeling
of guilt turned to embarrassment as he listened to the driver talk.
His heart raced and his stomach knotted up. He felt in his pocket,
realizing he’d stuffed a napkin in there. He knew that the redhead
had handed him a napkin along with his coffee, and as he pulled it
out, he saw that she had written down her phone number, scrawled
her name, and left him three yellow toothed kisses.

Xxx

West made good time,
arriving in New York by ten a.m. He had hoped to get back in time
to catch Charlene Osterman waking, but it had been worth putting in
a little extra time with David Beach to make sure he was left with
clear instructions. When he got to the apartment block, he headed
towards the stairwell, but he was stopped in his tracks the
doorman.

“Hey there,
wait up… wait a minute sir.” He heaved out of his comfortable seat,
“Could I ask who you’re here to see?”

“Larry it’s
me.”

The doorman
squinted, resting an amiable hand on West’s shoulder, “Westie? Holy
shit man, I didn’t recognize you without your Rasputin getup.”

West laughed,
“Rasputin? That what you think of me?”

“Son, I ain’t
saying nothing ‘bout your way with the ladies, but you been rocking
that Tsarina screwing, Grizzly Adams mess for long as I can
remember.”

West nodded his
acknowledgment, “What can I say? I’m coming out of my shell.”

Larry’s eyes
widened ponderously, “Well good for you.”

West smiled,
“Listen Larry, about that… I’m expecting company; a guy and his
daughter. I’m putting them up in 210.”

“No
problem.”

West opened the
door to the stairwell, but then turned as an afterthought occurred
to him, “Expect the unexpected. The guy, he’s in trouble.”

Larry settled
back into his chair, “You in trouble?”

“Heading that
way.”

West took the stairs
and dropped his case off at his apartment, changing into a pair of
dark jeans, a slogan laden t-shirt and a black sweater before
making his way down the hall to Charlene’s apartment. He knocked on
the door gently.

Inside the
apartment, Charlene had been sitting on the floor of the
kitchenette, rocking back and forth, staring at the empty
refrigerator. She was only vaguely aware of a sound somewhere at
the periphery of her senses. By the third set of knocks, Charlene
picked herself up from the floor, rocking forward onto the palms of
her hands and pushing up. She walked to the door apprehensively and
stood looking at it, waiting for something to happen. When the
knock came again, she spoke up, “Who is it?””

West leaned
close to the door and whispered, “It’s West.” He heard the rotating
lock cylinder of the deadbolt and the door opened. Charlene leaned
an arm up against the door and rested her head against it,
adjusting the cream wool hat with her free hand. “You want to go
get some breakfast?” she asked, her voice slow and husky. West’s
hand went unbidden to his mouth, touching his lips, fishing for
words. West recognized the woman who stood before him, knew it was
her, understood that she bore many of the same characteristics of a
girl he had known once. Here was Charlene Osterman, no longer the
hopeful and naive girl he had left without a word, or the woman he
had watched from a distance as her features became etched with age
and her energy waned. This was wrong, it wasn’t supposed to happen
like this. He had expected Charlene to be pleased with the relief
from pain brought about by the presence of the leech. Not this
though … When he finally spoke to her, the only thing he could
think to say was, “Charlene, I’m sorry.”

She smiled
coyly, her hand sliding down the door and pushing it open further,
“Mr Yestler, buy me breakfast and all will be forgiven.”

West moved
towards the threshold of the door and leaned towards her, “I don’t
understand how this has happened. One leech shouldn’t …” Charlene
raised her left hand and put a finger to his lips, offering her
suggestion, “Perhaps it was a girl leech?” West shook his head,
“They’re hermaphrodites, but …”

Charlene took a
step closer and West backed away. Her smile broadened as she
reached out and touched the side of his face, “Really West, food
first, questions later.”

West nodded and
closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling slowly, mastering his nerves
before he looked at her again, “You’ll need to cover up then.”

“I’m sorry? I’m
eighty-five years old, I can damn well make up my own mind how I
dress, thank you very much.” She replied in a mockingly petulant
tone.

West grimaced,
realizing how he must sound, “No Charlene, you look … It’s just …
the leeches …” He stopped and took a breath, “Do you have any
antihistamine pills?”

Charlene shook
her head, “I don’t suffer from any allergies.”

West nodded,
“Let me run next door, I’ll be back in a second.” Charlene was left
standing in the doorway, and she leaned against the door frame,
watching West hurry off down the hall. When he returned, he was
brandishing a small blister pack of pills, “You need to take one of
these.” Charlene took the packet from his hand, read the label and
asked, “Why antihistamine?”

“You might
experience a slightly adverse reaction to the sun, a form of Solar
Urticaria. Apparently there are certain antibodies in blood that
the leeches aren’t able to reproduce. Antihistamine does a pretty
good job of keeping it at bay.”

Charlene rolled
her eyes and pressed a finger into one of the small plastic
bubbles, pushing the pill through the paper before throwing it into
her mouth casually. Food is food, she thought, and besides, if the
leeches hadn’t killed her, what harm could an antihistamine pill
do.

As they traversed the
stairs of the apartment building, Charlene asked West what Solar
Urticaria was and he explained that it was basically a skin
irritation brought on by the sun, “As I remember it, my first
experience of it was pretty excruciating, but it didn’t last very
long.”

“When was this
first experience?” Charlene asked, grinning widely as she took the
stairs two at a time.

West raised an
eyebrow as he glanced at her, “Food first, questions later.”

They walked out
into the street and Charlene immediately felt the heat rise in the
skin of her arms and legs. She thought that perhaps this was the
skin irritation West was referring to. It wasn’t painful, certainly
no more unpleasant than the hot flashes she’d experienced with the
onset of menopause. She had never taken antihistamine and she
wasn’t sure how quickly they would work, but she guessed that the
small pill probably wasn’t even taking the edge off anything she
was feeling right now, so if this was the worst of it, she wasn’t
going to worry too much about the “excruciating” skin
irritation.

West looked up
and down Madison Avenue and asked Charlene where she would like to
eat.

“Well, there’s
a little pizzeria on Park, which always looks quite charming, and I
must have passed it a hundred times … You know, I haven’t had pizza
in years.”

West laughed,
“Pizza for breakfast?”

She frowned,
“You did this to me! I’ve been eating like a sparrow since I was
sixty-eight. I cleaned out my entire refrigerator yesterday. Even
drank the bloody ketchup.”

West took her
arm in his and started walking down Thirtieth Street towards Park
Avenue, “Oh, I understand, don’t worry. It takes a lot of food to
go from eighty-five to thirty in eighteen hours.”

She looked at
him as they walked, “Thirty … is that how old you’d guess I look,
or is that flattery?”

West shrugged,
“Possibly younger. The natural tendency of the delvers is to bring
their host to whatever physical state they are most comfortable
with.”

“The what
now?”

Charlene’s
Question gave West pause, “The delvers?”

“Yes sir,”
Charlene reiterated, “what are the delvers?”

West nodded,
and continued walking, “Delvers … that is apparently the nom de
jour for the Leeches, at least in the common anglicized parlance.”
He glanced at Charlene, who nodded. He continued walking, “I’ve
seen men and women in their eighties who didn’t change at all at
first because they were comfortable with how they looked. The most
violent and unexpected changes are often wrought in children or
teenagers, because their self-image is usually so far removed from
the expectations of the people in their lives. Nothing is set in
stone though.”

West had lost
his audience though. Charlene was distracted by how much of the
surrounding city she was able to see. Her distance vision had been
failing for several years now and the streets of New York had
become a smudgy landscape of gray for the most part. As she looked
about her now, Charlene could see every brick, every piece of
sculpted stone ornamentation, every steel strut and lintel, and she
was overwhelmed by the beauty of her city. This was New York as she
hadn’t seen it since her sixties and it was so full of intricate
splendor. They reached the corner of Thirtieth and Park and
Charlene pulled West’s arm gently in the direction of the
pizzeria.

For West, New
York was something else altogether. He saw the majestically
overreaching buildings as the culmination of a lifetime of wonder
and discovery, a world he had waited for, a child’s vision he had
believed in. When he occasionally used the hopper, he still found
it disturbing how close New York had come to that child’s dream.
Whisked out of his reverie, he felt Charlene’s arm tug him into the
doorway of the little restaurant.

“Table for two?” The
host patted the podium in front of him, repeating the words over
and over. Calas Gabris was Greek, and three days after receiving
his work permit, he had landed his first job in New York.
Convincing the owner of ‘The Moon Hits Your Eye’ that he was
Italian did not require the level of commitment that he brought to
the table, but Calas didn’t half ass anything. In just two days, he
had watched Roberto Benigni’s 1999 Oscar acceptance speech over two
hundred times. That was preparation. That was dedication.
Interviews and press junkets with the director too, he’d seen them
all now, and he was ready. The first customer to grace his palm
with a crisp folded twenty, he would grin widely, and tell them,
“Ah, he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s
sunrise,” or perhaps, “I feel like now, to dive in this ocean of
generosity.” He knew, one of these lunch shifts, his moment would
come.

The bell rang
over the door, and he looked up from the pristine seating chart,
“Ah, welcome, welcome. Here, I find a seat for you. You will have
an incredible meal, incredible, just come … come with me.” His hand
motions, the gait of his feet, both well-rehearsed impersonations
of a Benigni interview from 2009. He ran his long fingers brushing
through his impressive, thick black hair as he led them to a
booth.

“I assure you
we have, le migliori pizze in città, that is, how you would say,
the best pizzas in the town.”

Hearing the
host’s bold proclamation, West and Charlene both started laughing
politely. This wasn’t the city in which to lay stake to such a
claim lightly.

The host
nodded, smiling and bowing to them, “Your waiter, he will be over
in un minuto. You will enjoy, I assure you. Have a fantastic
meal.”

West smirked,
picking a menu out of its holder on the table. He glanced at
Charlene, “Good choice, very authentic.”

Charlene noted
that the pizzas were numbered, and put the menu aside, “We’re in
New York, don’t you know everything is authentic here?” There was a
dryness, a bite to her tone that West wasn’t sure he liked. He
looked up from his menu, “I’m …” but Charlene stopped him, “Ah, ah,
ah … shut up, shut up. I told you I was hungry, and I am. Ravenous,
I’d say. I’ll probably eat the table if our damned waiter doesn’t
hurry up.” Her voice rose towards the end of the sentence, clearly
vying for attention. In response, a tall, somewhat frail looking
boy sped across the restaurant, almost falling on Charlene as he
reached the table.

“Hi, I’m Gavin,
I’ll be serving you today. Can I start you off with some drinks?”
Gavin was a third generation Irish New Yorker, and made no pretense
of caring about the authenticity of any given diner’s
experience.

Charlene shook
her head and pointed a finger at him, “You can start me off with a
number three, a number five, and a number ten, each of them sixteen
inch, each of them thin crust, and if there’s an anchovy anywhere
in sight, woe betide you.”

Gavin tapped
his notepad with the tip of his pencil, “A number ten with no
anchovies is just a Margherita.”

Charlene smiled
viciously, “What number’s a Margherita Gavin?”

“Margherita is
a one.” Gavin, couldn’t help his eyes; the roll had become so
involuntary by the age of eighteen, that during arguments with his
mother, or his sister, he almost never saw the ground.

Charlene shook
her head, “You know young man, I didn’t come here for your lip.”
Gavin’s eyes did another lap of the room, taking in the ceiling,
the full horror and embarrassment of his tick only really sinking
in when he came towards the finish line and met up with Charlene’s
enraged glare. He swallowed hard, “So that’s a one, a three, a five
with no anchovies…”