Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

done it. So I became the lucky man, and I’ve always wondered if it was a matter of sheer convenience or if Lauren did have some personal preference of her own.
    Why me; why not Kevin? is a question I can apply to all sorts of situations. A question which came up frequently toward the end of the recurring nightmare I had for some weeks after Lauren’s operation, as I watched her, usually with hokey slow-motion effects, pinwheeling down the three flights of stairs from the door of her Tribeca loft. Why me? Why not Kevin? He could have done the job without upsetting his conscience. Though when I woke I usually felt that this last notion was unfair to him.
    The dream diminished in frequency and finally stopped altogether, but that night on my couch in Brooklyn I dreamed it one more time. With this difference: once Lauren had rattled and smashed her way to the foot of the stairs and come to a stop against the street door, I was sucked from my own body, translated out of it, as one can be in dreams. Looking back at myself from the new perspective, I saw that it really was Kevin after all. I might have been relieved at that, but Kevin’s expression was terrifying. It was not an expression at all. His face was so vacant of memory or intent that it had lost its individuality altogether. The face was caught in the moment of metamorphosis, and I did not want to see what it might next become. The shock of it informed me that I had finally slept, and I rose deliberately toward consciousness, like a breathless diver swimming up toward light and air.

5
    W AKING, I BELIEVED THE dream was true, believed Lauren was dead. In fact, I enjoyed the gray comforts of resignation for a good part of the day, before the dream fog lifted and I recalled that she was alive and presumably well and walking around in the same material world as me.
    But I had slept, at any rate; I had even overslept. My tenant had got up and gone to work while I was having my nasty dream, leaving me a slightly testy note which inquired how long I might be staying. I cleaned up the dishes in his sink out of contrition and then had a workout and a wash and a shave. By then it was nearly noon and I picked up my bag and started into the city.
    There were errands enough to fill a couple of hours. I went to the bank in Chinatown and stood in a line to cash Kevin’s check. The computers didn’t go down when the teller put it through, which I took as a good sign. I stood in another line to buy traveler’s checks for the trip, more of these than I thought I would really need, but then you never know.
    After the bank I walked across East Broadway and bought a carton of orange juice and a couple of beef buns. Then I went over to Columbus Park to sit down and eat. Hadn’t had a beef bun in many months, and I’ve always liked the little park. Today the weather was pleasant, sunny but not yet hot, with a light breeze waving the trees and dappling the light on the paving stones. The clientele today was quiet and sedate: some elderly Chinese, a couple of winos stroked out on the benches, and me, eating my beef buns, drinking my juice. Down in the south end of the park three Chinese boys were passing the time by throwing shuriken at a wooden door. In the concrete shelter behind me someone had erected a tent and appeared to be living in it.
    I wadded up the bakery bag and lit a cigarette. A small white butterfly came and fluttered over the pavement in front of my feet. I pulled Either Or from the side pocket of my bag, not to read it really but to flip through the “Diapsalmata,” which is comparatively easy going.
Men’s thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace; they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God.
    Thok. A pair of shuriken struck a tree several yards to my left. The boys had come up higher in the park.