The sound of garbage can lids clanging on the sidewalk jarred me from my reverie. A late night reveler, impossibly extending the party to these tender hours, passed with Roy Orbison singing for the lonely, Rivka’s and my song, pouring out his open car windows courtesy of KQNS, one of New York’s top-40’s stations. Roy’s voice was like a knife to my heart, “Only the lonely . . . know the way I feel tonight.”

Dear Mama and Papa,

I love you so much. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. Everything I saw, everything I heard, everything I touched reminded me of her. I had hoped that New York City might give me a way to move on, but the pain has just moved with me. I’m so sorry for the anguish I’ve caused you. I just can’t do this anymore without Rivka. I hope there is nothing after this life because without her I’m afraid it would just be an eternity of this. 

It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. If I blame anyone, anything, I blame God. He has truly forsaken me. That’s all there is to say. You gave me life . . . A good life. It’s just that . . . I no longer can find a reason to live it.

Your loving son,

Mickey

A memory came unbidden . . .

“O Misha, you make love to me so sweetly.”

“Mmm . . . my angel. It’s because I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I’m never going to leave you. My love is a rock . . . constant as the Northern Star . . .”

I carefully folded the letter and placed it in the envelope, then set it on the kitchen counter with the other goodbye letters. I sat on the bed, positioning myself so the spray wouldn’t foul them. I picked up the Sig and put it in my mouth. God, I really hate the taste of metal. My finger was on the trigger. Safety was off. The roaring of my heart in my ears was subsiding. Deep breath. Goodbye, my love . . . maybe in Heaven. I felt a furry touch on my ankle. I thought, What the fuck? Removing my finger from the trigger, Safety first, I thought, and looked down, the gun still in my mouth. 

“Uh-uh-huh?” I repeated. Kot was nuzzling my ankle and had put its paw on my big toe. No claws.

“Mrow… What did you say?”

Taking the gun from my mouth, “What the fuck, Kot?”

“Wrrr . . .” assuming a sphinx pose and placing both forepaws on my foot. This was a first. 

“You know the M.E.’s gonna find this scar you gave me the first AND LAST time I tried to touch you. So . . . What the Fuck?!”

“Meow . . .  Don’t do it, Misha . . . please . . .”

“Fuck you, Kot,” I said without fire. “You know I can just put the gun back in, asshole, and why the fuck am I talking to a fucking cat, huh? A fucking cat that hates me?”

“Rrraw . . . I don’t hate you. I just hate it when you have your head up your ass.” Kot’s purring intensified. 

I felt a warm tingling on the back of my neck, slowly traveling down my spine. I was having what my brother, Sean Patrick, and I called, the “neck chills.”

I was lying next to Mama, running my four year old fingers through her dark auburn curls. “I like your hair, mommy.” I smelled strawberries. It was so intense, but evanescent.

I sighed deeply and looked down at Kot, who was purring so loudly it blocked out the street noise.

“Mrw…Purrrr.”

I looked at the gun in my hand, turned it over, like I was examining it for flaws. I summoned the fannings. 

Sofia finds me and then what? She’s changed, damaged. She’s in therapy as a teenager. She’s cutting. She’s shooting up in a cheap hotel. 

Sofia doesn’t find me. She’s sad. Her memory of me gradually fades. She’s ok.

I snapped back. “Oh, fuck! What was I thinking? I’m such a fucking idiot!” Kot removed his paws from my foot and left the room. I heard its exit thumps from the bathroom. I put away the gun. “I’ll find a different place, a place where she’ll never find me.” Then I thought, What about the person that does find me? “I’ll have to think about this . . . Tonight . . . Somewhere.”

                                                                                               ***

“Vasily, dobro utro. [good morning].”

“Mikhael, up early, my friend,” not stopping. He often said Bread won’t make itself. Already 9am but Vasily and Paolina had been at it for hours. Why it was always warm in my flat above in the morning. Little Sofia was old enough to work in the kitchen and out front, but only a few hours after school, where she was at the moment.

I thought, Sweet kid . . . Finding me, my brains splattered all over the wall and bed. Maybe when you’re that far down, you don’t think of those you leave behind. Or you don’t care. So, why did I care?

Cold, wet dreary mid November New York City. Getting bitterly cold at night. Homeless people starting to die from exposure. From the darkness in my head a Christmas song came to mind, “It’s that time of year . . .” The song reminded me of her. All the Christmas songs we’d performed together. I shuddered. Deep breaths. “Come on, Mickey. Suck it up.” I caught a reflection in a store window and almost didn’t recognize myself. Tall, over 6 feet, shaggy blonde curly hair, blue eyes . . .”yeah, that’s you . . . it’s just . . . you look like you’re already dead.”

“Gut morgn, Frida.”

  “Gut morgn, Mickala. Such a day, yo?”

  “Nu, everyone needs flowers on such a day.”

“From your lips, Mickala.”

  “Always smells wonderful in here. You ever get used to it? I mean, take it for granted?”

She paused in thought. After what she’d been through I seriously doubted it. “Nein, Mickala. Never.”

  “You are a sweet soul, Frida. May I have a white rose please? You pick it out, bitte?”

She tied a red ribbon around the vase. I left the rose on the counter in the bakery for the Mirianovs. 

No problem with the downpour. Growing up in Oregon, I barely even noticed it. A memory, unbidden, running through the rain, her hand in mine, finding shelter in the shed behind her house, holding her face in my hands, wet lips touching, hungrily kissing . . . I found myself on my knees on the sidewalk, fighting for air.

Took the train to Hell’s Kitchen. “Good morning, Yuri Vladimirovich.” When Russians told me I spoke Russian like a native speaker I attributed it to all those years speaking with Rivka and her family . . . that was also how I explained it to any New Yorker who was curious. Sometimes I invented close Russian relatives as an explanation. Easier than trying to explain a six-year-old Okie awakening from a coma only able to speak Russian.

“Why are you here, Mikhail Owenovich? Your shift starts at three,” lighting a cigarette, smiling at my use of the patronymic and joining in.

“I know. Giving notice. I-I mean, I won’t be here tonight.”

  “Short notice.” Blowing out smoke. Not all that upset.

“You’ll survive.” I thought that was maybe a little too glib. I softened my tone. “Death in the family. Just heard.” I smiled grimly to myself.

  “Oh . . . sorry, Misha.” 

“Thank you.”

  “You could have just called.”

  “I was up here anyway,” I lied. “Anyway, thank you for everything, Yuri. Best boss ever.” Sadness must have shone on my face.

Yuri was concerned. “Mishonya . . . mmm . . . Take care of whatever you need to. You are a good worker. I’ll manage. Just come back when you can.“

I nodded and headed back out into the rain. It had really started pouring. “What the hell! Can’t get any wetter.” Cold on the train back to the Village. Walked over to Sullivan and dropped into Mama Lu’s. This had become a farewell tour. I almost lost it when she hugged me, peeling off my coat, drying my hair roughly, tut-tutting about catching my death in her broken English. 

“You sit, Mikele.” In beautiful Italian she said, “Bobo, bring some soup and bread, Pronto!”

I thought, Man, I’m gonna miss this soup, then, grimly reminded myself I wasn’t going to miss anything. I told Mama Lu, “I’m leaving town for a while. I’m going home.” I felt bad for lying. 

“Oh, your mama gonna be so happy to see you.” All I could do was smile and nod. I didn’t trust myself to speak. She finally allowed me to leave. “You go straight home, Mikele and drink a glass . . . no, half liter of chianti, si?” Part of her cure for all that ails.

On the sidewalk I pictured Rivka’s face, her long wavy hair, imagined her embracing me, soothing me. “I can’t do this anymore,” I said for the thousandth time, and truly meant it.

Decided I would buy some things for dinner. “Last supper,” and smiled at the image in my head of da Vinci’s painting of the famous Jew’s last Passover Seder. In my version they’d just had their fourth glass of wine, which, in reality, by that time would have been more like the eighth glass and they’d have been dancing on the table. The marriage scene in Fiddler on the Roof came to mind.

Got a big thick New York strip steak from Mahmoud, a Palestinian khalal butcher. Nice man. Displaced from his home in Palestine. You’d understand if the man was bitter, but he was one of the sweetest, most generous men I’d ever met. A large part of his clientele was Jewish.

The rain had abated for the whole of two hours, but the sky was threatening. “How many times did we look at a sky like this? How many times did I take your hand? How many times did I tell you . . .” but then the pain of the memory took over and nearly brought me to my knees again.

I had completely lost my desire to be around people and started back to the flat. I thought, Oh, little Sofia . . .  (She hated when anyone called her that) . . . I’ll go to the park, Central Park.  No, some other kid will find me and that kid will be scarred. Maybe the waterfront. Just stand with my back to the water and fall in after . . . Yeah, that’s it.

I skirted Washington Square Park and got to the corner, turned south on Washington Square South and, because there was no rain falling, heard footsteps from behind. Sounded like someone in high heels. There was something about the sound, the rhythm of her steps. I assumed, with the high heels, my pursuer was female, although . . . Village . . .  maybe best not to make assumptions. I summoned the fannings but found nothing that was going to cause the end of the world, so I kept going. Her pace was picking up. She was closing on me. I was aware but far from afraid. I thought, smiling, If she’s a killer . . . be a lot simpler . . . “suicide by assassin.” She was almost on me when I stopped and she stopped. I felt a trembling hand on my left shoulder and slowly turned on my pursuer.