Fantastic Metropolis

A light like Eleanor Belnheim. Matt’s beloved wife, Ellie.

And so the darkness was the worst. The darkness accentuated the loss, doubled the silence, spread the loneliness thick on the soul.

Since the funeral, Matt had dreaded the night.

The people on the TV talked to him in that impersonal way they had of talking to a camera containing millions of faces and trying to make it seem pertinent to each of them. Newsreaders adopted grave voices to tell of accidents, and jaunty voices—usually at the end of the broadcast—to pass on details of something suitably wacky.

And last night in Queens, a beaming-faced anchor-woman on ABC had chuckled to Matt from the TV set early that very morning, a 57-year-old woman foiled a would-be mugger by pretending she was a police undercover agent. When the man grabbed hold of her bag, Alice Veetner spoke into the mock-diamond brooch fastened to her lapel and asked for back-up while she held onto the bag for dear life. The camera panned back to show the young woman’s male colleague smiling broadly and shaking his head. Shuffling her papers together, the woman concluded by saying, She told the police later that the brooch was the best dollar-forty-nine she had ever spent.

Another light managing to stay on.

For the rest of the time it was a steady diet of old sitcom re-runs—Gilligan’s Island, The Andy Griffiths Show, Hogan’s Heroes, The Honeymooners—talk shows discussing a variety of subjects that grew more risque as midnight passed (one show just a couple of nights ago had been discussing anal sex) and a welter of advertisements for cars and pizzas, the one often indistinguishable from the other. Banal, yes; uninteresting, absolutely; but the diversion was much appreciated by Matt.

But another night was now over and the day stretched ahead.

This day was like any other in Manhattan, spring, summer, fall or winter: they were all the same. Only the name of the season and the date/temperature signs on the various buildings were different. That and perhaps the clothing of the passers-by—books and newspapers, clutch bags and business cases, all clasped in their hands and, occasionally, a folded $20 bill tucked away in pocket or purse compartment to appease muggers (though Matt wondered whether, after the success of Alice Veetner, more of them might start wearing jewelry on their clothing)—traveling here from there, there from here, talking on cellphones and facing another day while they turned their backs on the past.

He leaned against the wood panelling at the side of the window, sipped his coffee and looked out onto the world.

The merchants in the eateries and delis were pulling down their awnings, glancing squint-eyed at the sky. The sky was clear but the forecasts had predicted rain—a real honest-to-goodness storm was predicted.

Now, Matt knew, even without smelling them, the smells of breakfast—Danish, donuts, burgers, muffins and hot sandwiches—would be mingling with the aroma of coffee, interlocking with perfumes and colognes, mixing it up with the vaguely antiseptic afterthought of cleaning agents in the sharp-pressed pants and jackets, and the skirts and blouses, and the breathed-out vaporous mist of toothpaste and medicated floss.

Already, it was after nine o’clock.

A Thursday morning in November.

A little way down the road, Thanksgiving straddled the horizon and after it, Christmas and then New Year’s, bringing a whole calendar of special days, commemorative days. Empty days.

Matthew Blenheim continued to look out of his window.

Across the street, alongside the recessed benches at the entrance to a small and unnamed park that used to be, up until just a few years ago, two seperate buildings, long boarded over and home to only rats and roches, two men with long beards, dressed head to foot in black, sat on a wall and watched an old man remove giant chess pieces from a small lock-up, staring, with an eagerness that time and repetition had not quite entirely dimmed, as the man set out the pieces on the scuffed and faded black and white squares painted long ago onto the sidewalk.

Yellow cabs drifted from left to right, right to left, honking horns as traffic built up, like four-wheeled beasts establishing their territory, frisky with the morning, hoods flicking proudly and even aggressively to come on lady, to get a move on fella.

Matt took another sip of coffee and looked up the street.

Already it was crowding up, with the subway up around the corner on West 4th Street disgorging and absorbing people, some—even though Matt couldn’t actually see them from his windows—coming up the steps into the daylight while others passed them to descend into the electronically-lit subway darkness. Most of the people did not speak to each other, the only sound—Matt knew from experience—being the sound of their feet and the insistent buzz of personal stereos, the clop and clack of shoe heels, the whining moan of the slow-passing traffic, the occasional swish of dresses and underclothes… hidden worlds protected from inquisitive eyes.