Iron Ghost

Iron Ghost Chapter Twelve

Chapter 12
Junkie’s flat over looking  Brooklyn Shack Crime Scene  August 20th

Red and grey and white-headed rats leap and jump and run and stop and dart and jerk in all directions avoiding a gaggle of police officers stepping…no, inching…moving like a disoriented patrol through a dark jungle and more rats jump and leap out landing on top of each other and another rat wave floods from the shack door facing the officers and scurrying in all directions.
The officers make their way to the open door of my shack without looking up.
Jumping like sparks from a Fourth of July burst, more pink and gray  rats arc out and scatter over the door threshold and beyond the edges of my binoculars.
A long steady freighter groans and that noise creeps into my head and maybe makes stuff loosen up inside and will not let go causing my stomach to curl and twist and my mouth moves to open and…and…groans just  like Lorieee groans without her legs.
My mouth laughs.
The mirror…he said…go to my mirror
My head drops down and my hands tremble and drool slips and drops lower and longer and this amuses me.
He said to go to my mirror. 
Yes, my mind remembers. He said, ‘look for the police’.  Yes, he did.  When the police arrive, he said, go to the looking glass…then he corrected himself and said, the mirror. He did so.  Yes.           
“My mirror”.
My head steadies.
“Go to my mirror.”
My head twitches, my glasses shift and my hands fly a bit but my mouth does not yell to the officers… the freighter moans…and Lori or Lucy must be disassembled by now…and drool strings stretch before snapping and recoiling and flying about my hot face.
And the freighter continues to moan, alot like Lorie’s noises after she watched me move her…legs…,and the moan stretches and stretches more before it disappears into the glowing horizon  And the evening sky over New Jersey has red and pink cloud points, shaped like rat heads, hanging in between skyscrapers…… and my groin tingles because of Lorie and her red and pink and white stubs.
My knees wobble and feet trip before they run to the boarding house…to my mirror. And the yelling tenants in the boarding house should stop yelling right now…yes they should…each and every one of them should stop yelling right this…bad… moment…stop yelling at me to slow down!!!
“Shut-up you slut!”
Her name is Malinda and she did not like that one and she’s got a big mouth, not as big as Lucy’s, and she’s got nice…breasts, not as nice as Linda’s, and my head and my legs and …my  mirror…yes my mirror.  The mirror waits for me.  But her name begins with a ‘M’.  Besides, my mirror is waiting.
My lungs exhaust all the air inside and pull back, all the way back, now bringing in a lot of air and my eyeballs loosen from the muscles in my eyesockets and my breathing slows and the black centers of my eyes grow and enlarge as my heart slows and my shoulders slump and my head slips a bit down but not far enough down that nearly all black centers of my eyes can not be seen and…
My legs slow down and my mouth breathes and my legs walk slow… my head drops down and slump goes my shoulders before my body points as if I will face…the looking glass…and if he pleases…face…him…and my mouth says to the mirror, “The police are here.”
He says, “Go to the bridge for a swim.”
My head remains bowed.
My mouth says, “Yes…yes…swim.”
“Now.”
My mouth says, “Yes, yes now.  Is it okay to lift my head now?”
And he is silent and I know he approves of me after what I did, because of Lucy’s reaction…the girls are arranged just like he told me to, why would he not be pleased with me?
…My head slowly lifts and then my loose eyes roll a little and wobble….
… there is nothing seen through these black holes now occupying the center of my eyes and I know he is there and he comes…
“I did not tell you to raise your head!”
My head drops.
My feet trip and my body bounces off the floor after it hits but my head lifts up and he gets me to my knees okay when my feet balance me running to the bridge.  The Brooklyn Bridge. Yes the…The Brooklyn Bridge.  It is my favorite.  There are many girls in tank tops there…they walk with headphones and some jog…and when they jog…
…It is my favorite.
Sailboats move under and around the bridge like pigeons on a sidewalk and the evening blue sky holds a few traces of red and pink scratches over New Jersey. A lone star hangs over Brooklyn and a string of police cars with strobe sirens move up the freeway casting rotating red reflections sliding across tips of folding water pyramids on the loose river flowing alongside the highway. The bridge is warm tonight and few girls jog…one has on a tank top shirt…and she stops and looks at me and her expression becomes frightened when she lifts her curled fists to her mouth and screams, “Don’t!” and my feet stay on the edge when a nigger in a Reebok shirt stops and says, “Man …I know what bad is…it ain’t that bad…get down…c’mon man…it ain’t that bad” and my mouth gathers saliva to spit on the stupid nigger…when the voice in my head tells me,  “Go for a swim”.  “C’mon man…give me your hand.” And my feet hang over the water, the water that reflects intermittent white lights in linear spots, like pearls on a string, folding up and over slick gray slippery and moving ribbon, now catching red siren reflections, when the voice tells me, “Now.” my body jumps…, “NO man! NOO!”  “Don’t!” Yells the girl in the nice tank top and she screams loud, but not loud enough to drown out the nigger yelling “Noooo!!! and…the spider next to my feet watches.
He will be pleased!!!
The sailboat beneath me looks like the size of a lone slipper as my body drops like  bowling balls rolling in a sack…
My body falls
…just as he told me!
So my feet and hands roll and circle but my body falls through air faster and my clothes and my skin presses first against me tighter and then my skeleton tries to emerge through my thin skin becoming thinner against my bones.
My glasses pressed into my face crack as the wind whistles a high pitched noise when my eardrums pop and blood pours out my…
He will take me now!  Yes…yes!  He will!  He will!
The sailboat is more the size of an automobile and my weight grows not unlike the weight of a huge boulder.
His forever…forever his!
My hands and feet run and reach out and each leg snaps and cracks when each ankle stops at my ears and my nose moves to point up and forward and the wind inside my mouth stretches the inside of my cheeks to the size of…my chin and lower jaw point into my chest…I will be with him soon…
Space dragging up races past my bullet speed body
Black areas inside the belly between each gray wave pyramid slides over folding water slipping underneath… and now…crowned with red tips…
And as if the weight were an enormous safe falling, my body…drops…and the sailboat, now the size of a boat sailing in a sea of snarling rats, and those wave like rats floating and creeping and now jumping up toward me…
My mouth, the size of a toddlers head opens wider and my head… smacks the concrete-like water and bounces a bit…before it smashes and sinks a bit…
I am still…before I steadily pull out….before I can move and gain strength when I see my bloody  and blue body sink and disappear under folding ripples of blackness…and…I then cannot move…I try to kick and scream…my legs are not here…my hands are gone…as I am sucked into the black smell smoldering…what is that smell? My eyes are gone. Me.  Me burns! AHHHHH!!! Burning… AHHHH!!!…mine! NO! NO!!! I see him…My mind is gone…My soul burns…Anything!  Anything! I will do anything!!!  He will save me!  I did for him…
He says, “Go…Go into Greg Robbino.”
“Yes…Yes master…Greg Robbino.”
I know the spider is now pleased.