Chapter 2: The wicked invite
Nathaniel
Runnels stood in the damp night perplexed by his current standing in life. His
hair was a mess; his sunken eyes wore the strain of long nights and the painful
hunger in his side was only slightly eased by a lukewarm pretzel alit with the
decorative swirl of spicy brown mustard.
His
coat had seen better days and so had his stomach. But on a writer-gone-reporter’s
salary, he was content to at least be able to break bread with himself.
Raggedy
cuffs and a dimple of mustard were clear signs that at least for tonight, giving
a damn was not particularly high on his list. He sighed every so often as
conspiracy theories banged within his brain; or were those withdrawal pangs
from the caffeine addiction he’d been nurturing for several years now.
‘Hung
over and exhausted… joy,’ he thought to himself. ‘I should have been a lawyer
or a stock broker or some other profession that gives you high blood pressure
from stress rather than the low blood sugar goodness that comes with a reporter’s
lifestyle.’
He
stank of cynicism, self loathing, brutal honesty and possibly too much gin. He
recognized the life he’d given himself, fully knowing that the path he now
walked was one he had chosen on his own.
He
did not like the taste in his mouth as he remembered ingesting the false story
of him only doing this as research for the characters in his book. A temporary job he’d convinced himself as
he got ready to unleash the next great American novel, which for the past year
and a half had grown to an amazing 26-page behemoth. In all honesty, he didn’t
have direction and wrote out of sheer determination every month or so only to
sacrifice most of what was written to the apathetic and luckily non critical
fire place in his studio apartment.
‘Great
job,’ he thought to himself as his shoulders hunched with every new thought
that did its best to shatter his morale. He finished his far-from-exquisite
meal and licked his subway hands. He didn’t care and it showed; it showed a
lot. He mimed a tip of the hat to the street vendor and went on his way. At
least he kept his manners.
Down
the steps he went and his luck finally peaked. His teeth grit audibly as the
subway made its way away from the
platform. He knew he would have to wait an hour, enjoying the wonderful bouquet
of urine, burnt rat droppings, and sewer water that would serve as aromatherapy
during his wait.
He
slumped down on the bench quickly noticing that there wasn’t anything else open
so he could purchase a savory candy bar or some gummy something to serve as a
delicatessen treat after his half star meal. (The half star had come from the
mustard, that’s for sure.)
The
deserted platform filled with his woeful voice. “Wonder how long I’ll have to
stay on the Ramen diet. Not too long before I get a stroke now… or
hypertension; then maybe I’ll be able to feast on hospital food. Mmm, mmm,
mmm…. delicious hospital food. Jesus Christ, I’m a joke.”
The
lonely silence droned on and after a while, the young man was actually starting
to enjoy it. So naturally it couldn’t last. All of a sudden a violin weaved a terribly
wicked tune that seemed to seep out from deep within the subway tunnels.
The
young reporter stood up and looked both ways but was unable to find the source.
His eyes fell to the floor and confusion set in. Abruptly, the rhythmic tapping
of a boot began to accompany the morbid tune and upon turning to his left for a
second time, Nathaniel saw an ankle peeking from a far off column. The boot
bobbed forwards and backwards, clearly showing that the owner sat on the subway
floor while leaning on the column. The ankle might have swayed lazily but the
melody was anything but tranquil.
The
frustrated young man sat back on the bench and faced the curious virtuoso that,
as so many others he had seen, had chosen the subway corridors as his concert
hall. On a dime, the song morphed into a gentle waltz that was just as
magnificently morose as the preceding section.
“Do
you like it?” slithered a voice into the young man’s ear. There was something
terribly offbeat within the words he heard. He was still unsure whether he
liked the voice… or the music. “I wrote it some time back, and from your
reaction, I can at least guess you are intrigued.”
The
young man did not respond, yet his attention was anything but absent. Unfortunately
the wicked voice wasn’t about to stop. “Cat’s got your tongue? Pity, I rather
fancied some conversation; even if it consisted of the rambling of a
disgruntled writer playing at being a reporter.”
A
knot within the young man’s throat was no larger than a grapefruit and no
smaller than the same. His weak eyes leapt to life as he was not certain as to
how a subway bum could know what he does for a living. A nagging sensation of
danger drummed low in his gut.
“Oh
my,” said the voice in mock concern. “I’ve alarmed you. Don’t worry though. I
am no stalker but you do have a way of thinking aloud and I must confess it is
quite entertaining.”
His
remarks were seasoned with a touch of condescension and a healthy dose of ego. Nathaniel
replied with a slight snarl. Getting away from this annoying lunatic, regardless
of his talent, was quickly becoming a top priority.
“I
truly wish you would continue to think aloud,” the voice said as it continued
to jab at the young man as much as the bow struck the violin. “These walls hear
far too much from me.”
The
ankle continued to tap merrily while the tune grew darker and moodier still.
The shrill notes were the kind that tickle your spine and the ever hunching
shoulders of the young man clearly demonstrated how tension could also rise to
a crescendo.
“What
do you want?” Nathaniel said. “Spare change?”
“So,
it does speak,” the violinist teased.
“Progress at last.”
For
some reason, Nathaniel decided to reply. “Look, I’ve had a long day. Could you
simply play and let me enjoy your fine
music instead of your insipid thought pattern?”
“And
it has vocabulary too,” the violinist said while letting out a high whistle. “My,
my… such big words. Please, do not cause yourself a migraine on my account”.
Nathaniel
closed his eyes and sighed. He was well aware that he had just guaranteed himself
that he would have to spend a fair amount of his precious energy verbally
fencing instead of having just minded his business. Having a car would be worse
though. It would mean yet another payment he could not make.
“How
‘bout eat me?” he finally spat out. “Is that simple enough for you? Please no
talk. Play good. Pretty, pretty song, oh so nice.” The young man’s tone was
harsh, disrespectful and clearly full of contempt, a reaction was more than
due.
The
ankle stopped bobbing and the music stopped on a dime immediately replaced by an
evil rasp of a laugh. “I knew I liked you,” said the creepy voice. Silence then
hung coldly accompanying the electric drone of the faulty subway rail.
The
young man stared perplexed at his present scenario. A long crummy day with no
leads, no inspiration, a pathetic meal and now harassed by some madcap that
knew how to play the violin far too well for even the best subway musician.
He
fixed his eyes on the now static boot that had been so cheerfully tapping mere
seconds ago. He didn’t know if the guy had fallen asleep, died, or was simply
waiting for the next comment that would never arrive. Since the ghoulish
laughter, the absence of any noise was nerve-wracking, but finally it ceased to
be quiet.
The
young man’s eyes jumped open as the faint scrape of a boot was followed by
leather rubbing and grating upwards on a tiled column. The violinist had pushed
himself up until his body was upright and neatly out of sight.
“This
cannot be good,” the reporter remarked listlessly. His pulse rate tripled. His
muscles tensed and his imagination ran away with a series of potential headlines
for when they found his body. ‘Now I get inspired,’ he thought to himself.
Silence
reigned and he would much rather have the symphony of a crying baby, a Hare
Krishna handing out the word of God while expecting a dollar in return, or even
the old geezer that so often befouled one’s ears with the huffing and puffing
of an old out-of-tune saxophone only to receive money from people begging him
to stop playing.
Hope
then shone bright with the faint rumbling of a distant train. He had forgotten
there was an express train that sometimes stopped here. The bad part was that
this stop was notorious for the questionable wiring that would falter every
time there was an arrival. He stepped to the platform to make as speedy an
escape as possible.
Then it began.
Lights
started to screw up and along with the holy train heralding his escape,
Nathaniel saw a gloved hand extend four pillars away over the train tracks. It
waved gleefully until pausing to extend four fingers.
The
lights flickered and the hand seemed to teleport a column closer and a finger
lighter. Three.
“What
the hell is going on?” Nathaniel said.
Again
the lights failed. Another finger down and another column closer. Two.
The
train had rushed in and after a few seconds finally stopped but the hand had
come one column nearer and only the middle finger stood cheerfully extended
before the hand waved once again. One.
Two
brilliant flashes of emerald were the last thing Nathaniel saw before
everything went black. The subway doors opened and closed and only one person
was in the train.
Sipping
his coffee, the driver sighed and prayed he could get home soon to kiss his
wife goodnight as the train made its way down the tunnel and away from the
stop.
