The American Shore. Samuel R. Delany

Amparo passed around some pills she’d taken from her mother’s jar, a consolation prize.₁₈₄ Jack left, apologizing that he was a borderline psychotic, which was the last that anyone saw of Jack till September.₁₈₅ The gang was disintegrating, like a sugar cube soaking up saliva, then crumbling into the tongue.₁₈₆ But what the hell—the sea still mirrored the same blue sky, the pigeons behind their wicket were no less iridescent, and trees grew for all of that.₁₈₇

      They decided to be silly and made jokes about what the M really stood for in M-Day.₁₈₈ Sniffles started off with “Miss Nomer, Miss Carriage, and Miss Steak.”₁₈₉ Tancred, whose sense of humor did not exist or was very private, couldn’t do better than “Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses.”₁₉₀ Little Mister Kissy Lips said, “Merciful Heavens!”₁₉₁ MaryJane maintained reasonably that M was for MaryJane.₁₉₂ But Amparo said it stood for “Aplomb” and carried the day.₁₉₃

      Then, proving that when you’re sailing the wind always blows from behind you,₁₉₄ they found Terry Riley’s day-long Orfeo at 99.5 on the FM dial.₁₉₅ They’d studied Orfeo in mime class₁₉₆ and by now it was part of their muscle and nerve.₁₉₇ As Orpheus descended into a hell that mushroomed from the size of a pea to the size of a planet, the Alexandrians metamorphosed into as credible a tribe of souls in torment as any since the days of Jacopo Peri.₁₉₈ Throughout the afternoon little audiences collected and dispersed to flood the sidewalk with libations of adult attention.₁₉₉ Expressively they surpassed themselves, both one by one and all together,₂₀₀ and though they couldn’t have held out₂₀₁ till the apotheosis (at 9:30)₂₀₂ without a stiff psychochemical wind in their sails,₂₀₃ what they had danced was authentic and very much their own.₂₀₄ When they left the Battery that night they felt better than they’d felt all summer long.₂₀₅ In a sense they had been exorcised.₂₀₆

      But back at the Plaza Little Mister Kissy Lips couldn’t sleep.₂₀₇ No sooner was he through the locks than his guts knotted up into a Chinese puz­zle.₂₀₈ Only after he’d unlocked his window and crawled out onto the ledge did he get rid of the bad feelings.₂₀₉ The city was real. His room was not. The stone ledge was real and his bare buttocks absorbed reality from it. He watched slow movements in enormous distances and pulled his thoughts together.₂₁₀

      He knew without having to talk to the rest that the murder would never take place.₂₁₁ The idea had never meant for them what it had meant for him. One pill and they were actors again, content to be images in a mirror.₂₁₂

      Slowly, as he watched, the city turned itself off. Slowly the dawn divided the sky into an east and a west.₂₁₃ Had a pedestrian been going past on 58th Street and had that pedestrian looked up, he would have seen the bare soles of a boy’s feet swinging back and forth, angelically.₂₁₄

      He would have to kill Alyona Ivanovna himself. Nothing else was possible.₂₁₅

      Back in his bedroom,₂₁₆ long ago,₂₁₇ the phone was ringing its fuzzy nighttime ring.₂₁₈ That would be Tancred (or Amparo?) trying to talk him out of it. He foresaw their arguments. Celeste and Jack couldn’t be trusted now.₂₁₉ Or, more subtly: they’d all made themselves too visible with their Orfeo.₂₂₀ If there were even a small investigation, the benches would remember them, remember how well they had danced, and the police would know where to look.₂₂₁

      But the real reason, which at least Amparo would have been ashamed to mention now that the pill was wearing off,₂₂₂ was that they’d begun to feel sorry for their victim. They’d got to know him too well over the last month and their resolve had been eroded by compassion.₂₂₃

      A light came on in Papa’s window. Time to begin.₂₂₄ He stood up, golden in the sunbeams₂₂₅ of another perfect day,₂₂₆ and walked back along the foot-wide ledge to his own window.₂₂₇ His legs tingled from having sat so long.₂₂₈

      He waited till Papa was in the shower,₂₂₉ then tippytoed to the old secretaire in his bedroom (W. & J. Sloan, 1952). Papa’s keychain was coiled atop the walnut veneer. Inside the secretaire’s drawer was an antique Mexican cigar box, and in the cigar box a velvet bag, and in the velvet bag Papa’s replica of a French dueling pistol, circa 1790.₂₃₀ These precautions were less for his son’s sake than on account of Jimmy Ness, who every so often felt obliged to show he was serious with his suicide threats.₂₃₁

      He’d studied the booklet carefully when Papa had bought the pistol and was able to execute the loading procedure quickly and without error,₂₃₂ tamping the premeasured twist of powder down into the barrel and then the lead ball on top of it.₂₃₃

      He cocked the hammer back a single click.

      He locked the drawer.₂₃₄ He replaced the keys, just so. He buried, for now, the pistol in the stuffs and cushions of the Turkish corner, tilted upright to keep the ball from rolling out.₂₃₅ Then with what remained of yesterday’s ebullience he bounced into the bathroom and kissed Papa’s cheek,₂₃₆ damp with the morning’s allotted two gallons and redolent of 4711.₂₃₇

      They had a cheery breakfast together in the coffee room,₂₃₈ which was identical to the breakfast they would have made for themselves except for the ritual of being waited on by a waitress.₂₃₉ Little Mister Kissy Lips gave an enthusiastic account of the Alexandrians’ performance of Orfeo, and Papa made his best effort of seeming not to condescend. When he’d been driven to the limit of this pretense,₂₄₀ Little Mister Kissy Lips touched him for a second pill,₂₄₁ and since it was better for a boy to get these things from his father than from a stranger on the street, he got it.₂₄₂

      He reached the South Ferry stop at noon,₂₄₃ bursting with a sense of his own imminent liberation.₂₄₄ The weather was M-Day all over again,₂₄₅ as though at midnight out on the ledge he’d forced time to go backwards₂₄₆ to the point when things had started going wrong.₂₄₇ He’d dressed in his most anonymous shorts and the pistol hung from his belt in a dun dittybag.₂₄₈

      Alyona Ivanovna was sitting on one of the benches₂₄₉ near the aviary, listening to Miss Kraus.₂₅₀ Her ring hand gripped the poster firmly,₂₅₁ while the right chopped at the air, eloquently awkward, like a mute’s first words following a miraculous cure.₂₅₂

      Little Mister Kissy Lips went down the path and squatted in the shadow of his memorial.₂₅₃ It had lost its magic yesterday, when the statues had begun to look so silly to everyone.₂₅₄ They still looked silly. Verrazano was dressed like a Victorian industrialist taking a holiday in the Alps. The angel was wearing an angel’s usual bronze nightgown.₂₅₅

      His good feelings were leaving his head by little and little, like aeolian sandstone attrited by the centuries of wind.₂₅₆ He thought of calling up Amparo,₂₅₇ but any comfort she might bring to him would be a mirage so long as his purpose in coming here remained unfulfilled.₂₅₈

      He looked at his wrist, then remembered he’d left his watch home. The gigantic advertising clock on the facade of the First National Citi-bank said it was fifteen after two.₂₅₉ That wasn’t possible.₂₆₀

      Miss Kraus was still yammering away.₂₆₁

      There was time to watch a cloud move across the sky from Jersey, over the Hudson, and past the sun. Unseen winds nibbled at its wispy edges. The cloud became his life, which would disappear without ever having turned into rain.₂₆₂

      Later, and₂₆₃ the old man was walking up the sea promenade toward the Castle.₂₆₄ He stalked him, for miles.₂₆₅ And then they were alone, together, at the far end of the park.₂₆₆

      “Hello,” he said, with the smile reserved for grown-ups of doubtful importance.₂₆₇

      He looked directly at the dittybag, but