ILLUSTRATION: JAMES TAYLOR
more body & mind
James could hear muttering discontent, then a stiletto click-click-click-click as Leanne marched, long-legged, across the parquet flooring of the former marital lounge, to reclaim the iPhone. Every stride screeched irritation. “Yes?” “Oh. Hi, Leanne, hi. April said something about a horse.” “Yes, and?” “Well, that I would buy one for her.” “Yes, and?” “Well they cost a damn fortune and you cleaned me out pretty fucking comprehensively with the divorce.” “Look, James. Don’t be a frickin’ loser all your life. She’s your daughter. You do jack-shit to look after her, she wants a horse, she won’t talk about anything else and I’ve told her you’ll get her one. It would be great all-round if for once in your life you’d just get on with it. OK?” Beep. End of conversation. “Fuck,” James muttered under his breath, expressing with admirable economy his simultaneous feelings of defeat, exasperation and befuddlement. “Bad day, man?” asked Frank the cleaner, with whom James had become quite friendly on account of his nowroutine late office nights. “Yeah, you could say that. My ex-wife has promised my daughter that I’ll buy her a horse. A goddamn horse! Not a teddy bear, man, or a Barbie. A horse!!” “That’s heavy man. Real heavy. But you know what? You can’t win with women, whether she’s yo’ woman, your daughter, or your ma. You just gotta do exactly what they wan’, then everything’s reeeal easy.” Frank may or may not have been from New Orleans (he was evasive about his past) but he spoke as if the wellspring of the Blues resided in his chest. “Yeah man, maybe you’re right. Sorry to give you my troubles. I should go home. Have a good night.” “Sure, James. Any time.” James gathered up his bits and pieces, flattened his laptop, packed it and headed out into a hollow New York City night. His too-familiar Ford Taurus started first time, as it always would. An anonymous man, in an anonymous car, headed back to the two-room apartment in Washington Heights he called home. ********* Fair to say that when, the next morning at around 7am, James found himself standing on the window-ledge of his office, he wasn’t exactly in the best frame
of mind. He had been unable to sleep the night before, his head racing with images of ponies ridden by supermodels dressed in tutus, shouting into their iPhones to their therapists, as they tried to complete the last round of the New York State junior gymkhana. And the suicide stuff! He couldn’t get it out of his head. Somewhere in the sleepless small hours he had hit upon an idea: a sort of genius moment that linked suicides with ponies in an April-pleasing way that would also keep the dreaded Leanne off his back. His tortured mind had reasoned thus: if he could be on the window ledge as his co-workers arrived at the office, they would see that in every way he was a man on the edge. One or two knew that he’d been considerably troubled by the recent Manhattan ‘jumpers’ and they would reason, he figured, that he had been encouraged to emulate them. Thing was, James had absolutely no intention of jumping. In fact he was terrified of heights, but the prospect of being able to wangle several months off work, on account of mental stress, and pick up a few well-paid freelance projects from his, ahem, sick bed, was too tempting. Without the excessive time demands of his day job, he could easily pull in several thousand dollars-worth
of commissions over a couple of months. After which period he’d be well enough to go back to work and, more important, flush enough to buy April her horse. So there he stood. On the windy ledge, utterly aghast at his own actions, but still under the control of the apparently rational part of his mind that had taken him there in the first place. The tails of his two-piece, blue, pinstripe suit flapped in the breeze. His striped college tie fluttered around his face. He could taste salty sweat on his top lip, despite the cold air whipping around him, through him. James pressed himself back into the brick window surround, reaching both arms behind him to grab fast wherever his fingers could make purchase. There was something thrilling in his mad sanity. James was terrified but exhilarated, feeling himself on the threshold of liberation and self-determination. Any minute now, Cheryl or Jolene, the two office managers of McKenna & Partners, would make their chattery arrival and see him, panic, scream, then alert the emergency services. Whereupon James would wait for their arrival, and allow himself, after offering brief but convincing resistance, to be talked in then shepherded to hospital for an appointment with a psychiatric specialist. All he wished was that he’d worn his running shoes instead of stiff-soled brogues, as they weren’t gripping too well on the stone ledge underfoot. He was ready – readier, he reckoned, than he had ever been. Ready for something new. Then his phone rang. Loudly. Tucked in his breast pocket it made him start. It was Pink, his favourite ringtone. It was April. He was distracted for a split second and looked down instead of up. Balance unsteady, hit by a nauseous wave of vertigo, he struggled to remain upright, but felt his knees wobble and his hands go weak. The soles of his shoes offered scant resistance to the sudden change of pressure. James’ last, fleeting thought was that he’d never get to tell April he’d be able to buy her a horse. The call had made him jump. That’s what the papers said, anyway.
About the author
Arturo Bianchi loves New York. But he also loves Naples, London and Beijing. One day he’ll settle somewhere. Before the pressure gets to him and he does something reckless 97