The Long Fall

me.”

“WHAT ABOUT THE dream?” she asked after I’d told her about coming upon the corpse of Norman Fell.

Her question had a two-tiered design. First, she was telling me that she accepted my story and was on my side. Secondly, since I seemed to have let her deeper into my life, she wanted to know more.

“I’m in a building,” I said, relieved to finally put the nightmare into words. “It’s burning, burning, and I’m running from room to room. I think that maybe I’m the last man left alive but that doesn’t matter because soon I’ll be dead, too . . .” I told her about the window and the long fall. “It’s like my life is one long tumble off the side of a mountain. I’m falling through the air and certain to die. There’s no way that I can be saved. No cushion or twist or turn.”

Aura took one of my hands in hers and squeezed.

“I love you, Leonid McGill.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“You don’t know what love is?”

“Maybe I do, maybe not. But what I don’t understand is how you can listen to all this and still have any feelings for me whatsoever. I left you for another woman. I caused the deaths of at least two men. And you know I’ve done much worse in years gone by.”

Aura’s smile was in another place than the one I was addressing. She nodded at something, not what I’d said, and then waited as this unspoken knowledge settled around us.

She took my other hand, leaned forward, and kissed my lips lightly.

“You are a man on the road,” she told me.

“What does that mean?”

“My father murdered many men back in his country. But I would have still loved him if only he could face what he had done. Instead he lied and blamed others for his crimes. He ran off the road, out of the sun. But you are right out there in the light of day. That’s all I want from my man.”

Her man.

I took in a breath but it didn’t work. I took in another.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Twenty after one.”

“In the afternoon?”

Aura nodded and gave me that enigmatic smile.

“I’ve been sleepin’ since nine?”

She nodde?e='>

“How long have you been here?”

“I came up a little while after the policeman left,” she said. “At first I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. Then I stayed to watch over you while you got some rest.”

E€„

20

Aura kissed me again. It would have been the perfect moment for us to come together once more if it wasn’t for the madwoman running around the couch, shrieking at the top of her voice. That madwoman was my life.

Aura stood up, pulling my hands and bringing me to my feet.

“I’ll be in my office if you need me,” she said.

Watching Aura leave was never an easy thing. But I didn’t have the time to brood.

THE ILLITERATE NORMAN FELL kept pretty good bookkeeping records. Most of the entries were expenses. He knew a few awkwardly spelled words, like “offiss supplys” and “offiss expens.” Now and then he took in some cash. There was a four-hundred-dollar payment from someone designated as TR. Another, two hundred dollars, was attributed to Jo M. The fees were all paltry except for those received from one set of initials.

Norman had received four payments of twenty-five thousand dollars, the last of which was paid on the day, or maybe the day before, he died. The initials next to these entries were simply VM—except for the first entry, where, next to the VM, there was a BH in parentheses.

I imagined the joy the untutored Fell must have felt when he could use a symbol like the parentheses. I would have felt sorry for him if it hadn’t been for Gordo’s hammer.

It was a story the boxing trainer had told thirty-some years before.

I’d just had a club fight with a sturdy journeyman light heavy from Philadelphia named Mike “Big” Pink. It was just an unsanctioned exhibition bout, neither amateur nor professional. Pink was almost twice my age and had slowed down quite a bit. But in the fourth round he hit me so hard that I was lifted up off my feet. I fell on the ropes and then bent down as if I were inspecting my feet for stink. He chased me for that round and the next two, looking for the knockout. That was the day I decided not to be a professional boxer. I managed to stay on my feet. And even though Big Pink beat me, it was a split decision on the cards. But I felt that blow for weeks afterwards. It was in my fingers and knees, my chest and back. I never wanted to get hit like that again.

When I informed Gordo of my decision was when he told me about the hammer, in an attempt to talk me out of quitting.

“There’s a big fat hammer up above, beyond the blue in the sky,” he told me. “It’s just up there waitin’. One day, when you least expect it, that hammer comes streakin’ do¦ig wn on you like Big Pink’s fist. That’s the ultimate test for a boxer, for any man. It’s the punch you don’t see comin’. There’s nothing you can do about it but try your best and recover. That’s what you did against Mikey. You did good.”

That was my final exam as a boxer. I passed the test and quit the same day. But what I hadn’t understood at the time was that Gordo wasn’t just talking about the ring. That hammer was waiting for everybody. It came at you in the form of cancer, infidelity, the tax man, or a comet out of the western sky here to annihilate any creature over fifty kilos in weight. The hammer had come down on Norman Fell; it was watching me with two steely eyes.

I SAT BACK from the ledger pages and looked at the palms of my hands. I have big hands with thick, blunt fingers. When Twill was a little kid he’d always be asking to arm wrestle with me. He’d sit down, thump his sharp elbow on the dining table, and try his very best to pin my arm. I’d let him strain for a minute or so and then I’d press down, taking his arm off the table and pushing him all the way to the floor. He’d squeal and laugh and shout No fair! He’d always win by default.

I