Johnny America

 

Swans

by

The Bank of Amer­i­ca Plaza glowed like a fifty-five floor cig­a­rette in the hu­mid At­lanta dusk. Out­side of the en­trance, Kevin Ike­man set his brief­case on the side­walk and wiped the sweat drip­ping from his nose. This call was his first in two months. Dur­ing that time, he had tak­en to mop­ing in his box­er-briefs and tex­ting his ex-lovers who had mar­ried men whose im­por­tance had out­last­ed his own. Kath­leen had mar­ried an im­por­tant lawyer for Para­mount and sent Kevin the oc­ca­sion­al pic­ture mes­sage of her pedi­cured toes sun-drenched on a yacht tra­vers­ing the Pa­cif­ic. Nik­ki had moved to Fair­fax Coun­ty, Vir­ginia with Chris­t­ian Christ (pro­nounced Chrĭst) whose mon­ey had no ap­par­ent ori­gin and no ap­par­ent bounds. Last Christ­mas, their an­nu­al card in­clud­ed a lengthy anec­dote about how Christ­mas was pro­nounced with a short “i” large­ly be­cause the Christ fam­i­ly pa­tri­archy’s his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. She pro­vid­ed no fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion of their his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance, though Kevin pic­tured a long line of Christ men in the base­ment of a sec­u­lar tem­ple sur­round­ed by can­dle­light, kneel­ing at an al­tar, and chant­i­ng in Latin through cer­e­mo­ni­al boar-head masks. She had al­so in­clud­ed a par­en­thet­i­cal re­mark ex­plain­ing that Fair­fax Coun­ty was the third wealth­i­est coun­ty in Vir­ginia. Fifth in the na­tion! Yowza!, the aside con­clud­ed. Af­ter read­ing the let­ter, Kevin had imag­ined de­liv­er­ing a right hook to Chris­tian’s grotesque­ly cleft chin, crum­bling him to his traver­tine floor. The bit­ter re­minders of Kev­in’s ro­man­tic de­cline flashed in his mind as Leonard the se­cu­ri­ty guard placed a fat hand on his chest and told him he was­n’t al­lowed in the Plaza.

“I was called twen­ty min­utes ago to come save — ” Kevin reached in his sport coat and read out of his memo pad. ” — one Francine Kir-chews­ki — Kir-chinski?”

“Kevin,” Leonard said, “you know you can’t come in.”

“Leonard, I just got a phone call from the fifti­eth floor. There’s a woman be­ing held against her will.”

“You know they tell me these things, and I can’t let you in, Kevin. I’m sor­ry. It’s my job.”

“I’m not go­ing to make a scene — I’ll just get in and get out, and then Francine K’s saved, and we can all go on our way.”

The se­cu­ri­ty guard nod­ded to­ward the blue span­dex suit arm hang­ing out of Kev­in’s brief­case. “You can’t change in here, Kevin. I’m sor­ry, but don’t you think it’s time to hang it up?”

“I was­n’t go­ing to change, Leonard. I just left it in there from the last time.”

“Every­thing’s fine. Take the night off, Kevin.”

Kevin thought how eas­i­ly he could wran­gle Leonard, lock him in a clos­et, and punch a hole in the top of the door for ven­ti­la­tion. Then he could float up the el­e­va­tor shaft, rip open the steel pent­house doors and de­tain the of­fend­ers un­til the au­thor­i­ties came to clear the scene. Francine, like the oth­ers, might be a bit bedrag­gled but no more worse for wear, and her hair, which Kevin pic­tured to be wavy and gin­ger, would fall to one side of her face and drape across her freck­led clav­i­cle, and maybe she would shed a tear of re­lief — a post-anx­i­ety cleanse — and he could meet her on the el­e­va­tor to­mor­row with­out his blue span­dex body­suit. He would stand com­fort­ably next to her with the knowl­edge that he saved her years of grief, pos­si­bly death, and ask her, if she would be so gen­er­ous, if he could take her for a cold sweet tea and a Monte Cristo sand­wich, which they could lat­er walk off in the park. They would watch the swans coil their necks around each oth­er in fa­mil­ial bliss.

He would not wran­gle Leonard, how­ev­er, for he could not com­mit the evil deeds he’d fought for decades to cur­tail. Lock­ing Leonard in a clos­et would­n’t do Leonard’s port­ly wife, Mi­mi, and be­hav­ioral­ly chal­lenged daugh­ter, Ki­mi, any fa­vors. Not to men­tion Mi­mi had sent him the loveli­est Christ­mas card last year, which de­tailed Kim­i’s strug­gles through a manslaugh­ter charge and brief stint in ju­ve­nile de­ten­tion. Al­so in­clud­ed in the card had been a fam­i­ly pic­ture of the three of them clad in Christ­mas sweaters in front of their tele­vi­sion. Kim­i’s pea green hair ap­peared ra­dioac­tive back­lit by C.O.P.S., but her teeth gleamed straight and white, and her eyes stared with the clar­i­ty of an old­er soul. Kevin still kept the pic­ture on his refrigerator.

He of­fered his hand to Leonard. “Sor­ry for the both­er. Tell Mi­mi and Ki­mi I say hello.”

“Will do, Kev. It’s noth­ing personal.”

“Don’t wor­ry about it. Take care, Leonard.”

Kevin walked around the side of the build­ing and as­cend­ed slow­ly to­ward the glow­ing peak of the Plaza. He no longer had rea­son to keep his iden­ti­ty a se­cret. He watched his re­flec­tion bend in and out of the win­dow­panes. His tweed sport coat itched the back of his neck. A gust of wind lift­ed the camel fe­do­ra from his head and sent it sail­ing in­to the busy in­ter­sec­tion be­low. If it would­n’t have en­dan­gered the cit­i­zens in traf­fic, he’d have sent his sport coat bil­low­ing behind.

Out­side of the fif­teenth floor, he re­called Kath­leen hand­cuffed and gagged with a rag writhing in the cor­ner of a burn­ing ware­house. From a bal­cony above her echoed an evil laugh. A flam­ing rafter col­lapsed just in front of her bound legs. Kevin could not re­mem­ber the name of the vil­lain, just the look in Kath­leen’s emer­ald eyes af­ter he had flung the smol­der­ing rafter across the ware­house and lift­ed her to safe­ty. He had set her on top of a near­by build­ing and un­gagged her, and she had kissed him hard and cried. “Who are you?” she had asked, and for the first time, Kevin in­tro­duced him­self as Kevin. A year lat­er they were en­gaged. Two months af­ter that, he flew up to the Para­mount lawyer’s pent­house, who he sus­pect­ed she was sleep­ing with, and he found her eyes closed and back arched in un­bri­dled bliss with two oth­er women and the part­ners of the Smith, Smyth and Schmidt Law firm.

Out­side of the twen­ty-first floor, he ad­mit­ted to him­self that his hair­line was receding.

Out­side of the twen­ty-sev­enth floor, he re­called Nik­ki hang­ing by her an­kles from the Fifth Street Bridge just above on­com­ing traf­fic, her face pur­ple and swollen with blood. She screamed for help from the fray­ing rope that held her, her thick brunette hair wav­ing in the wind. Just as the rope was ready to un­wind, he had snatched her from an im­mi­nent and grue­some death. Nik­ki had kissed him, too, but lighter, like she had pic­tured the mo­ment many times be­fore. Though they were nev­er en­gaged, Nik­ki leav­ing him for Chris­t­ian Christ stuck with him even longer than Kath­leen’s af­fair. She had seemed so cer­tain she want­ed the safe­ty of his strength over any­thing else. She had told him she want­ed to stay friends and that she would nev­er for­get what he did for her, but em­pha­sized that she owed him noth­ing. He was not en­ti­tled to her love. She nev­er asked him, specif­i­cal­ly, to save her.

He nev­er asked to be born like this, he thought as he con­tin­ued his ascension.

Out­side the thir­ty-fifth floor, he ad­mit­ted he’d grown chub­by and did­n’t car­ry it well.

He briefly hov­ered in front of the plas­tic tarps pro­tect­ing the ren­o­va­tion on the thir­ty-sev­enth floor, where two months pre­vi­ous he was flung through the win­dow out in­to the dark night by a wealthy tech en­tre­pre­neur whose ti­ta­ni­um suit still did­n’t match the strength with which Kevin had been born. The bat­tle had been long and de­struc­tive, but he had de­feat­ed the en­tre­pre­neur and car­ried the en­tre­pre­neur’s cap­tive lover to safe­ty. That was the way of it now — no tick­ing time bombs or sprays of gun­fire or sleep­ing gas, no hench­men wait­ing around cor­ners or be­hind el­e­va­tor doors, no ran­soms made on the chil­dren or wives of pow­er­ful fam­i­lies, no plots for mas­sive wealth in un­marked bills. Vil­lainy was the thirst of those who want­ed to hold what could nev­er be held.

A crowd gawked be­low him. The sun poured be­low the hori­zon. Sirens grew be­low. A he­li­copter whirred in the distance.

When he ar­rived out­side the fifti­eth floor, he cupped his hands be­side his eyes, peered through the win­dows, and be­gan his search for Francine. In a wal­nut-pan­eled of­fice on a leather so­fa, he found a woman in bag­gy leop­ard-print pa­ja­mas scoop­ing cot­tage cheese out of its con­tain­er with Dori­tos. No­body sat at the desk across from her. She stared at the evening news, which played live he­li­copter footage of Kevin float­ing out­side her win­dow. Kevin turned and looked be­hind him at the he­li­copter veer­ing to cap­ture a shot of his face. When he looked back to the Plaza, the woman stood be­fore him, her right hand pressed on the oth­er side of the win­dow. Their eyes met, and he again pulled his memo pad and a pen out of his sport coat.

“Francine?” he wrote.

The woman grabbed a cube of post-its and a pen from the desk. “That’s me,” she wrote.

Kevin thought she looked a lit­tle bored, but calm and com­fort­able, nonethe­less. He wrote, “Are you okay?”

“I’m lone­ly,” she wrote, her face flushed with guilt.

Kevin glanced at her size­able wed­ding ring. “I’m sor­ry,” he wrote. “Why did you call me?”

Francine wrote some­thing down and scrib­bled it out. Be­low the scratched out words, she wrote the truth: “I just need­ed to know you would come.”

Be­hind her, the of­fice door opened and a man in a suit stared wide-eyed at Kevin. The man formed the words “get away from there” with his lips, then went to the desk and di­aled 9−1−1.

“Thank you,” Francine wrote. Be­low that she wrote, “Sor­ry ☹.” She looked down. The man in the suit grabbed her wrist, and she yanked it out of his hand. Kevin could hear her muf­fled voice through the win­dow as she told him not to touch her.

Kevin float­ed back­ward and rammed the fifti­eth floor win­dow over and over, even af­ter Francine and her well-dressed cap­tor were long gone. She would find the right lawyers, he thought, peo­ple who knew how to free her, and for the first time, his pulse slowed, and he grew tired.

Filed under Fiction on August 29th, 2014

Care to Share?

Consider posting a note of comment on this item:

—§—

Previous Post

«

Next Post

»

Join our Irregular Mailing List

For very occasional ramblings, word about new print ephemera, and of course exciting investment opportunities.