Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

“Quite the conversation piece,” said Claire.

His knee paused briefly. “What’s your portrait like?”

Claire coughed and took a sip of her drink. She wondered what disease he might have had that only Nicolette could see. Or perhaps the artist had simply wanted to preserve his beauty. Nonchalantly, she said, “I tried to jump off my roof but couldn’t manage it.”

“You want another drink? Gin and tonic?”

“Tom Collins.”

“That’s what she painted?” He lifted a finger and searched the bar with his eyes. To the bartender he said, “Two gin and tonics.” To Claire, “So you hang it above your radiator, too?”

“Tom Collins,” Claire said. Then, “I don’t have it anymore. I don’t know where it is.”

“You don’t know where it is! It’s priceless!”

“It was stolen. It’s a long story.”

“You’ll have to track it down. I know my way around the scene. And under it.” He clicked his fingertips together in front of his face like a movie villain and Claire laughed. “Assuming that’s why you found me. And you want it back.”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “I want it.” The bartender set her drink in front of her; it splashed over the edge and he wiped it with a towel. She waited until he left. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from her at all? Since she painted you.”

“Not a word. Makes me sound like a chump, but to be honest I thought we were friends. We went out a few times. Never saw her after.”

“Did you try to find her?”

“No.” He shook his head, then turned it into a nod. “Yes, I tried.”

“You liked her.”

“How could I not?” He looked down at his glass and shook the ice around. “You kind of look like her.”

“She’s half my age!”

“What would you say to her? If you found her at the end of this quest.”

“I don’t know. It’s not a quest.” Claire took a dainty sip of her drink through the small straw, then downed half of it from the rim. She had rehearsed it many times over the years, but the speech had morphed from hatred and revenge into something not altogether dissimilar to gratitude. She took another sip. “I suppose I’d say, ‘Thank you, now duck, because I may hit you.’”

“Really.” He smiled at her ears. “Me too.” It seemed he could control the number and placement of his dimples if he chose. He noted her glass and raised an eyebrow. “Another?”

Over the next hour, he ordered her two more. He said he could see why Nicolette would want to paint her. Claire wasn’t sure if this was a comment on her looks, or the ugliness that Nicolette could pull out of a person. But she didn’t care. Claire eyed herself in the spotted mirror behind the bar. When he’d paid the bill he said, “Let’s go make fun of tourists.”

They went up the staircase overlooking the enormous, dirty lobby of Grand Central. He lifted a flask from his jacket.

Claire laughed. “Are we allowed?”

“We don’t care.” He pulled her by the arm to the banister and they leaned over, looking below. “I love looking down at the crowds. Makes me feel bigger than them.”

“Of course it does,” Claire said, surprised by the coolness of her tone.

“So, you know me now?”

Claire took a pull of whiskey from his flask and looked at him over the bottom of it.

His eyes panned the floor below, the bustle of beggars and lowlifes rubbing ankles with families heading to their summer homes. He pointed out one man sweating in a trench coat. “You can always spot a tourist. See the way he tries not to check the clock? They’re so lost. But why pretend they’re not? They’d be much happier. Someone might even help them.” Then he wet his fingers by tipping the flask and sprinkled whiskey down on the heads of unsuspecting passengers. Claire gasped. He did it again, until finally one woman felt the drops and looked skyward. They turned around quickly. Claire covered her mouth to hide her delight. “You try,” he said. “Make sure it’s a fat one.” But he didn’t give her the chance. Under that immense domed ceiling, he grabbed her waist and pulled her against him. He kissed her ear, her neck.

“Not here.” Claire glanced at the strangers who brushed past without taking notice.

He took her hand and darted with her down the stairs. She let him pull her. Her body was loopy. As they ran across the lobby, Claire called to him, “Can you imagine we almost lost this building last month? How could they tear it down! Is that why we met here?”

He smiled mischievously and shook his head. “I’m about to show you why.” He pulled her through a wide door and onto a train platform. A train was waiting there, not yet boarding. Only a few people milled about, a conductor some ways off. Stepping to the edge of the platform at the very front of the train, near the doors they’d just come through, he turned to her and said, “Come on then.”

He grinned. Then he jumped.

Claire watched in amazement. He stood five feet below, between the tracks. He bowed his head slightly and, as she was standing above him, peeked theatrically up her skirt. He held his arms up, apparently to help her down. “No,” she mouthed. She glanced down the platform and back through the doors. No one had any idea what she was about to do. She squatted low, took his hands, and jumped down beside him. Her head whirled in slow motion. He backed her into the alcove.

In the tunnel where the trains pull up, where thousands of passengers walk by every day and never look down, they groped one another. Claire wanted to be horrified. Or she wanted to be hungry for him. They were tucked in a corner, mostly in shadow, the wide train engine looming before them. Only the conductor might see, if he were to board and peer down at a precise angle. Their private, public space. Kids had been here before, the walls marked with graffiti and slogans:

BOREDOM IS ANTI-REVOLUTIONARY

OFF THA’ PIG

FREE HUEY

“We’re too old for this,” Claire said, helping him undo his belt. He kissed her mouth like he knew it well, had her lips sitting on his nightstand for years. “I feel old,” she moaned, “don’t you?” He mumbled something that sounded like “shut up” as he lifted her skirt. “You’ll help me find it? The painting?” she said, his blond hair in her mouth.

He ripped her stockings down and laughed insanely. He propped her up against the black, sooty wall. His shoulder hit her jaw. She kept her eyes open to keep from feeling like she was erasing Mary.

“Wild painter girl!” he laughed into her ear.

A single cold nail jutted from the wall close to her neck.

“I’m not her,” she said. It almost felt like a lie.

As he moved against her, she trained her eyes on the graffiti scratched on the adjacent wall:

BE CRUEL

I’m on the roof of the gallery and they’re coming for me.

The din of the protest has faded away. The sun is nearly down now, hidden in a nook between two buildings, disguising itself like another window with another sun glinting off it. There’s a good breeze coming off the Hudson and I’m alone, waiting. I’m good at waiting.

Jill and the painting are gone. There’s a chance I’ll never see them again — but I don’t believe that thought. That’s a liar thought.

Footsteps sound in the stairwell. They’ll be here any minute. I can hear their numbers, the way they move in packs. The Hasidim. They’re finally here to take me like they took my sister. I wait for their canes against my back.

5.5 pills remaining, 4,313 surveillance cameras in the subway system (only 2,156 actually work), 250,000 war protestors reported, 500,000 actually gathered.