Ethan sat on the roof of the building, his legs dangling over the edge. The rain plastered his hair to his head and reduced his cigarette to a soggy clump of paper. Mercutio squirmed in Ethan's pocket. He didn't like getting wet. Ethan reached into his pocket and petted the mouse. With an indignant squeak, Mercutio sank his teeth into Ethan's thumb. He didn't draw blood.
So Day wanted to know why Ethan walked the roof at night...
Ethan sat and watched as the city was thrown into darkness, the humming of electricity giving way to silence, beautiful silence. He thought about a poem he once heard somewhere.
"A storm is coming, Frank says. A storm that will swallow the children. And I will deliver them from the kingdom of pain. I will deliver the children back to their doorsteps. And send the monsters back to the underground. I'll send them back to a place where no one else can see them. Except for me. Because..." Because why? Ethan couldn't remember any more.
---
The moment I saw her, I knew I had to say something. A series of lists ran through my head like a ticker-tape. Conversation starters, ice-breakers, casual comments. Talk about the weather. Talk about the food. Talk about her hair. No, don't talk about her hair, that's creepy.
"Uh..." Oh, God, she's looking at me. She looks kinda nice. Not really pretty. Well, not really pretty anymore. She might have been once.
"That's a good book." That was so lame. She's smiling. Does she think I'm stupid? I am stupid. What was I thinking, coming over here? She's going to blow me off, wait and see. Damn, I'm an idiot.
"I know. I've already read it."
"Oh... Why read it again then?"
She shrugged and turned the paperback over to study the cover with a pleasant frown. "Interview with the Vampire" was blazoned across the front in red, curling script. "It's my favourite book."
I nodded. "Yeah. One of mine too." My feet shifted. I didn't mean for them to, they just did. It looked like I had to go to the bathroom. Or like I had some weird restless legs condition.
She looked down. "You want to sit?"
With you? Yes, please.
"Sam Marconi." I sat and held out my hand at the same time, dipping my wrist in the syrup topping her stack of waffles. She laughed and handed me the napkin, still warm from her hand.
"I'm Alex," she told me.
"My brother's name is Alex," I blurted, mentally slapping myself.
Alex laughed again, a sound that made me shiver despite the sweltering heat radiating from the kitchen at my back. "Well, you can call me Captain, just so you don't get us two confused."
I shook my head. "Oh, I don't think I could confuse you with him. My brother's a guy and you're... not. Yeah, you knew that already. Well, I mean, I hope you'd know that already. You've been you for, I don't know, I'd guess maybe twenty-four, twenty-five years... Er, maybe less, probably less, definitely less. Nineteen years? Please kill me before I do it myself."
Alex/Captain set her chin in her hand. "I'll let you do it. I don't like blood."
"But you're reading a vampire novel."
"That's different."
"Is it?"
Two and a half hours later, I had a number of reasons why vampires made infinitely better lovers, a list of books to read, and a date for Friday night.
2.07.2010
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I thought I saw a handful of tenants (the new girl, Alex - and I think she was hanging out with Ethan's new roommate, that macaroni guy, whatever his name is; if she was, that kind of ruins my gay theory a little) tonight, enjoying themselves on the rides. Maybe I'll try one of them out.
ReplyDeleteEXCERPT FROM "The Adventure of the Missing Two"
ReplyDelete“Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?”
- Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four
...Two is an important number. It is the only prime number that is also even. In nature everything seems to come in twos. Light and dark. Positive charge and negative charge. Matter and antimatter. Male and female. So too in mythology. Heaven and Hell. Sky and earth. Mind and body. Life and death.
We have two hands, and two eyes, two feet, and two kidneys. There are two sides to every coin, and every argument. You need two people to have a marriage.
“Got a problem Mr. Alwyn?”
“My two’s been stolen,” I say before I look at my interrogator.
The boy has a thoughtful look on his face. He’s holding the same useless clipboard and wearing the same ridiculous over-sized suit as he was my first day at Wilshire Tower.
“Looks like a Mystery to me.” He says it with a capital M.
“You know,” I say, “You’re right. It is a mystery.”
“Are you a detective Mr. Alwyn?”
“Kind of,” I say. “A detective who only solves mysteries no one else cares about.”
“Well then this will be perfect! Who else would care about the location of your two?”
“Good point,” I say and I begin to wander off, unsure of my direction. The flip flop of Braxton Chamber’s clown shoes follows me like a cartoon echo of my steps.
“Except for me, of course!” He says. A serious look crosses his face. “Inspector Alwyn, can I be your deputy?”
“Detectives don’t have deputies, that’s for sheriffs,” I say, but the way he looks down at his toes and twists his mouth stops me from continuing. I wonder how many times he paced by my door that morning, waiting for me to exit, to notice what was missing, to enlist his aid in this very important mission. Possibly he had planned for the chance that I wouldn’t notice, had readied sly ways to draw my attention to the empty space on my door.
Well, I had nothing better to do.
I followed my odd guide on a wandering path through the building. As we explored I realized how little of Wilshire Tower I’d actually seen. Each floor had its own character. Seven was probably a full half of a foot lower down on the east end than the west end. On floor five I thought they’d installed new wallpaper, until I realized the green pattern was most likely organic.
Thirteen seemed to have its own floor plan entirely, as though the architect forgot about it until the last minute and had to improvise. This may not be so far from the truth, as the elevator doesn’t seem to go to floor thirteen. Instead we were forced to use the stairs, or at least the sixty percent of them that weren’t almost rotted through.
Luckily, Braxton knew which ones were safe. I waited before following him, watching him jump up the stairs nimbly and assuredly in a demented game of hopscotch.
On each floor we visited, Braxton would choose a room at random and knock – a surprisingly solid knock. Then he would wait, coughing importantly until the door was answered, when would squint his eyes and look up at the wary tenant.
“My associate,” he would say, “is missing his two.”
There might be a response, but even if there wasn’t he would go on.
“I’d just like to ask you a few questions.”
Next was the part where variations were allowed.
“Mr. Marconi,” he might say, “what is your favorite color?” Or “Mr. Oedkirk, have you frequented the antiques store lately?”...