Guy With a Slow, Easy Life

When Kirtland Hawke was a boy, there was a creased photograph of a coat of arms that his mother passed around to her friends when they were drinking: a black shield with ornate corners threaded with ivy, and in the center, a rapacious bird with claws clutching a wheat stalk, a bulging chest, a menacing beak, and piercing eyes facing east.

Kirtland! she’d cry across the apartment, bringing him to the women’s attention. You come from a proud tradition, my side of course. The Kirtlands of Cumberland! ’Tis a pity this whole notion of patrimony. It’s given us what, Kirtland? Milquetoasts and accountants!

Years later, after she was buried, he went through her keepsakes and found the photograph. Most of it was yellowed beyond recognition. Only the bird’s brow and narrowed eyes, the claws, and the barest strands of wheat had survived. He could still hear her, the phlegmy call of her voice, praising what he had never known.

* * *

He entered Alice Tully Hall with his wife, Bogdana, for a Sunday afternoon of chamber music, as he had done for the past twenty-plus years. It was the final performance of Summer Strings Matinees, the series that opened when light and heat were returning to the city and ended Labor Day weekend. So far, this season’s performances had been disappointing, and he was hoping today for something if not new, at least memorable, that would last longer than the bus ride across town and keep him from turning on the TV when he got home. The concert opened with a Mozart piano concerto, familiar and pleasant. Then, a Schubert piano piece—slow, foreboding, recalling winter mornings of his childhood, the windows dark, knotting his school tie in the cloudy mirror, his mother huddled over the stove, heating water, coughing.

He spent intermission alone in the café, sipping an iced coffee and watching people take their places on the refreshment line. Suddenly, a young couple broke out of line, shouting at one another. The woman walked off in the direction of the restrooms, the man, fuming, in the opposite direction. The line moved up. How surprising to see something like that at a chamber music concert, even if it lasted only a minute. It proved again that the unexpected did sometimes happen.

Kirtland was looking forward to the Honshu Quartet coming up next. It featured First Violinist Aika Komatsu, who had graced the cover of the holiday edition of Chamber Notes. The issue was dedicated to Japanese musicians who were reviving interest in classical music. He had always admired the Japanese for their resilience, a beautiful and resourceful people, victims of crazed nationalism, and the first casualties of the atomic age, although his mother always referred to them by the slurs from World War II. He considered that was why all things Japanese interested him—another way to get back at her now that she was finally dead.

Not long after her funeral five years ago, he was walking to work one morning when he stopped outside Far Journeys on Fifty-Eighth Street and snatched up a couple of the Asian brochures from the swivel rack. Visit exotic Japan! Far East Mystique! Land of the Rising Sun! Kirtland squeezed the brochures as he fast-walked, promising the glossy faces in his fist that he would soon see them in person. When he got to his desk, he broke his routine and read through the brochures instead of checking clients’ emails. He developed a new focus in his life. At home, he spent hours watching YouTube videos of Japanese historical sites and customs and learning phrases necessary for the traveler. By the time he was ready to broach the matter of Japan to Bogdana, he was absolutely certain that Japanese women were the world’s most beautiful.

It was a tricky proposition: he needed to test the waters before deciding on a course of action. He longed for the thirteen-day tour, the brochure promising an incomparable mixture of comfort, culture, and commerce. Temples, exotic foods, bullet trains, international shopping, Tokyo blazing at night. Mount Fuji. Villages overlooking the sea with excursions to the smaller islands. He needed to be careful. Too enthusiastic and Bogdana might make up her mind to go with him, no matter how unpleasant for both of them.

Always a late riser, she appeared one morning unexpectedly while he was drinking his coffee and reading the Times. She was still sleepy in a gray, fleecy robe, walking in leather slippers. Her gray-black curls poked out the sides, a pair of half-glasses sat on her nose. She poured herself coffee, flapped to the refrigerator, and took out a box of Entenmann’s muffins.

“I didn’t think you were still here,” she said.

He smiled. “I am.”

She lifted the box top. “Blueberry or chocolate or none? And for God’s sake, don’t take all morning to decide.”

“Uh, let’s try blueberry.”

“That works, I could do with some chocolate. Toasted?”

He shook his head.

Bogdana set down a green butter dish and matching jelly tub, a long-ago wedding gift.

“Have you heard the latest about Roy down the hall?” she asked.

“No, what?”

“He’s taking his boyfriend, Reynaldo, to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics.”

“Rio! Wow.”

“Reynaldo was once a track star in Brazil, Roy tells me. He said bone spurs forced little Reynaldo to quit running. I rode down the elevator with them. The boy’s as thin as a subway rail, so there’s no denying he probably runs fast. But running from what? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Anyway, he wants Reynaldo to experience the thrill of victory at the Olympic Games.” She chuckled. “The thrill of victory. You know where he got that line from?”

“No.”

“Used to be a TV show called Wide World of Sports. Sunday afternoons. I watched it with my father and brothers.”

“Not on anymore?”

“How would I know?”

Kirtland cleared his voice. “Roy really enjoys his life. He does things that matter to him. Like travel.”

 “His folks left him plenty. The whole trip is costing fourteen thousand. And for all that money, they just might get bitten by a Zika mosquito.”

“What a time Roy will have, huh? Memories to last forever.”

Kirtland unfolded a paper napkin, set the blueberry muffin in the center, and cut it into quarters. He nibbled on the muffin, hoping she would work her way back to Roy and his trip, a further opening to talk travel.

“You’re late, aren’t you?”

He checked his watch. “Actually, I’m a little early.”

The toaster bell went off. Using tongs, Bogdana removed the muffin halves from the toaster oven. The smell of burnt chocolate clogged the air.

“How bad is this Zika business?” Kirtland asked. “Do you really think Roy and his friend have anything to worry about?”

“Who knows?”

 While he drank his coffee, he watched her press a chunk of butter onto her toasted half-muffin, top it with grape jelly, and take a large bite that filled her mouth.

He stood up.

“Aren’t you going to eat your muffin?”

“Maybe I’ll wrap it, eat it during my coffee break—of course, if you want it…”

She pulled a corner of the paper napkin holding the blueberry muffin to her side of the table.

He picked up his attaché and headed toward the door. “See you at dinner.”

“Kirtland.”

He turned.

“You’re a guy with a slow, easy life. It’s the envy of a lot of people over sixty-five. They took a poll in AARP and said people getting on want an easy time of things. We should be thankful we know our limits.”

The rest of the muffin went into her mouth, and the rising sun of Japan darkened. The travel brochures sat on the corner of his office desk for a few more days. Eventually, they were buried under old accounting spreadsheets and run through the shredder.

* * *

The lobby lights flashed. Kirtland bought a Snickers bar and returned to the seats they had held for years⎯orchestra, second row center, seats 27 and 28. He handed Bogdana the Snickers bar.

“Glory be, you remembered.”

Kirtland opened the Playbill and settled in for Dmitri Shostakovich, the mild-mannered Russian musician who defied Joseph Stalin. The article noted that Shostakovich had suffered poor health and lived in great danger from the dictator, who had walked out of the composer’s opera. Shostakovich endured years of suicidal depression, living in chronic fear for himself and his family, and was later diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. But he persevered and went on to compose masterpieces that rank among the greatest music of the twentieth century. He dedicated String Quartet no. 8 to the memory of those murdered by fascists.

As the musicians came out on stage to welcoming applause, Kirtland saw that Aika Komatsu was even more beautiful than she was in her photos, a slim woman with well-defined shoulders in a sleeveless black dress as dark as her flowing hair and a delicate face that broke his heart. She bowed to the audience with her fellow musicians. They took their seats and tuned their instruments. With her back arched, elbow dropped, she sat poised with the bow over her extended violin. She waited as the audience cleared its throats and fake-coughed enough times until all was quiet. He saw her give a slight nod. Into the massive silence of the great hall, the lonely cello released slow, swirling notes, and the viola tiptoed in, joining the directionless, the ambiguous. Aika Komatsu entered the fray, bringing scratchy notes of uncertainty, the shared experience of all people, and together with the second violin sang the lament to Kirtland’s melancholy. Each pass of Aika Komatsu’s bow was transporting him into those areas he rarely visited, where the human heart yearned, without pride or shame, for comfort, for love. A pause, and then the first violin erupted. Again and again, it sparked, went mad, and madder still, shrieking like the hordes streaming from the burning cities, while Aika Komatsu, maintaining her impeccable poise, soldiered on with kinetic, mutilated sounds, driving the assault from her bow across the angled strings, channeling horrific cries of innocents, the combined outrage of composer and performer that overpowered any lingering pleasantries in the minds of the audience, who sat arrested in the raucous strife.

The third movement stirred him as successions of notes aspiring to melody were brutally challenged by the chastising violins. No harmony, no peace was permitted to gain a footing. Along the way were mutinies by the second violin seeking to break free of the gravity of Aika Komatsu’s instrument, which rebuked each attempt, her violin dictating the paths of expression. The hairs on Kirtland’s neck stood up.

A pause, and Aika Komatsu led the humbled audience into the sober contemplation that comes after great pain. Loss hummed across the strings, reminiscent of sand falling loosely through open fingers. Having assaulted their genteel defenses, she and her fellows began establishing, phrase by phrase, the pace and conditions for new life. In the slow settling of the fifth movement, Kirtland, eyes closed, felt himself rising from murky depths into the rush of fresh waters.

The hall’s occupants sat quiet, stunned, their frames of reference having shifted from audience to witness. Solitary claps were heard. Then more, then boisterous clapping, calls from the balconies.

Kirtland stood. “Bravo! Bravo!” he cried. Tears dripped from his eyelashes.

When she came out for the quartet’s third encore, Aika Komatsu was cradling a bouquet of yellow roses. She bowed respectfully. Kirtland clapped harder, elated by feelings of solidarity with those around him, those loud voices in the balconies and those he had watched lining up in the café, the fighting young couple—he blessed them, wished them a loving reconciliation, and clapped until he alone was clapping, the last remnant of applause in the great hall.

“Well, that was different,” Bogdana said. “You had yourself a time.”

“Yes,” he said. “It was different, wasn’t it? So, so different.”

They entered the crowded stream, made their way slowly up the center aisle.

“I need the bathroom,” Bogdana said. “There’s bound to be a line. I’ll meet you in the café. Get me a large Coke, easy on the ice.”

* * *

The food counter was mostly dark, workers in uniforms busy closing down, calling to one another over running faucets, pulling trays from the showcases. Only a few tables near the tall windows, favored for their sweeping views of Broadway, were occupied. Kirtland bought a small and large Coke and carried them to a nearby table. As he regarded the noisy street, all manner of people coming and going, stymied cars, ferocious sirens and horns, he felt clear, unaffected, the festering indignities of daily life washed from his mind. He looked around the café that he frequented each season and noticed the towering vaulted ceiling, the angular walls, the bright frescos of old New York across them, the diagonal arrangement of the tables, simple and pleasing.

He sipped his Coke and waited. On the table, someone had left the science section of the Times. There was a half-page photo of twins, men in their thirties, sitting side by side, dressed in identical blue suits and white turtleneck shirts, the same parted haircut and black-framed glasses, the same leg crossed, hands folded on the knee, the same smile. He unfolded the paper. An inventor and part-time acrobat in Taiwan had created a personal robot—“My Self”—that looked and gestured exactly like him, down to the dimple on his chin, even sharing the inventor’s habit of biting the thumbnail of his left hand while thinking. Kirtland kept glancing at the photo to remind himself which was the real man. Eventually, you could download an app that allowed you to embed your vocabulary into My Self, your words, your ideas. “It’s a high-wire act, developing algorithms that align facial expression to spoken words. A real challenge, but we’ll get there,” he read.

Kirtland folded the newspaper, folded it roughly once more, tore it in half, and struggled unsuccessfully to tear it once more. Never did the world stop in its attacks, the insults, the daily humiliations one suffered to survive. Flesh and blood men were now gladly augmenting themselves with robots of artificial intelligence and synthetic skin who moved and spoke and ran on a rechargeable battery. In the future, a man like him, who watched over other people’s wealth, would be easily replaced. Even the words that he spoke, down to his New York accent, would be replicated. He marched to the recycling bin and slammed the mangled pages through the flap. His hands were shaking. He slid them under his arms and pressed them into obedience. Two elderly ladies sitting at coffee were watching him; he smiled to show he was not crazy. Only when he was calmer did he walk back toward the table and sodas.

A cell phone landed at his feet. It could only have come from the table nearest him, close to the Broadway doors, where a young gentleman was sitting sideways, gazing intently through the tall windows.

Kirtland picked up the phone. “Is this yours?” he asked.

The man was striking in appearance: thick black hair, a trimmed beard on a deeply tanned face, gray silk suit and a narrow, matching tie tightly knotted on a high collar. He was sitting upright, one foot forward, the other on its toe, as if at any moment he would break into a run.

The man turned and showed him gray, fiery eyes and twisted lips under the black moustache.

Kirtland placed the phone in the man’s waiting hand.

The man looked back at the windows. “Good. Thanks.”

“Doesn’t seem banged up at all. Probably…”

“That’s all,” the man said. “Nothing to discuss.”

“There’s a Verizon store—”

The man jumped out of his chair, upending it so that it clanged on the tile floor. Eyes bulging, he ran to the Broadway doors. Kirtland was dumbfounded to see Aika Komatsu, the first violinist herself, outside in jeans and red sneakers and a short leather jacket, pulling a handcart holding her violin case, a large purse, and the bouquet of yellow roses. The man flung open one of the glass doors with such force it hobbled on its struts and stayed open. Aika Komatsu looked startled. Then annoyed. She stopped and watched the man coming towards her, anger and suspicion distorting her lovely face.

“Lies!” the man roared.

Kirtland looked around, seeking an explanation. The two elderly women appeared frightened and looked to Kirtland.

“I don’t know!” he cried. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

Outside, the man was loudly accusing Aika Komatsu, and she was shouting at him to go away.

Kirtland ran toward the food counter. “Excuse me,” he called. “Hello! Are you seeing this?”

A small woman in a beige cafeteria uniform, her hair in a net, big brown eyes, bright lipstick, shrugged. Kirtland recognized her as the cashier.

“This is the third time I seen this. If it bothers the lady, she needs to get a restraining order. It worked for my cousin. She had a real mean boyfriend. She got the restraining order and kept him out. We’re closed now.”

“Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?”

Heads looked out from behind the counter.

The cashier shook her head. “Oh, he doesn’t need to yell at her like that.”

 “You know him?” Kirtland asked.

“He used to escort the Chinese lady whenever she played. Bring her and take her back in a limo, flowers all the time. Couple weeks ago, they had a fight. Right there, same spot. You know, I don’t think he ever goes inside the hall. He just shows up, trying to get her back.”

A woman with a cloth in her hand said, “It’s Igor. That’s what I call him. Creepy guy.”

“You crazy, girl. He’s a dreamboat,” the cashier said. “And he’s got the money, honey. He wants his China doll back.”

The woman moved down the counter wiping the glass. “And she wanted his money. She only wanted his money, and he ain’t coming to terms with that yet. She done with him.”

An older man, silver, kinky hair, lifting a pastry tray onto his shoulder, said to her, “And you know that, huh? You know that for a fact, huh?”

“Heaven’s sakes, look at the way the man dresses. Look at the limousines, chauffeurs, there’s your fact. Fact is he’s rich. What woman don’t want that? I’ll bet that man’s got millions.”

“Ha, ha,” the man said, going through the swinging doors. “Bet with what?”

On the sidewalk, the bearded man was gesturing with his hands. Aika Komatsu, arms folded, stared back.

“We have to do something.” Kirtland said. “She’s a great violinist! A great artist. He can’t treat her like that.”

“Well, why don’t you do something?” the cashier said. “We can’t be calling the police on the performers.”

Aika Komatsu took hold of her handcart and tried walking past the man, but he stretched out his arms and blocked her. She stomped her foot and shouted at him in Japanese. People had stopped and were watching.

The man stood aside and clicked his heels. He bowed from the waist and extended an arm, mocking her. “Whatever the maestro wishes, she must have!”

As she passed him, he snatched the yellow roses from the handcart. She did not notice.

The silver-haired man came through the swinging doors, wiping his face with a paper napkin. “See that, chief? That’s nothing but young love acting up. Your passion’s gotta go some direction when you’re that young. You fight or you do the other thing. Oh, how I miss those days.”

Aika Komatsu walked out of Kirtland’s sight, and the bearded man watched. He flung the flowers to the ground and went after her.

Kirtland looked toward the counter. The showcases were dark. The cashier remained, swinging a ring of keys on her finger.

“Well? Now’s your chance to save her.”

Bogdana entered the café.

“Your Coke,” Kirtland cried, pointing to the table. “Take mine, too.” He turned and ran out the open door.

* * *

Kirtland kept the man’s gray jacket in sight as they moved through the Lincoln Center crowds, and he followed him east on Sixty-Sixth Street. They entered Central Park, and Kirtland fast-stepped in and out of moving and stationary bodies, around strollers and bicycles, into a bottlenecked path toward Tavern on the Green. He had not pushed himself in a long time, and he was unsteady hurrying up sidewalk rises, stepping over tree roots. He lost the man in a surge of people and dogs and a cycling team wheeling their racers, but he then caught sight of the fluttering jacket and hurried toward it and onto the crescent sidewalk of the restaurant. The man began to trot, and Kirtland trotted after him.

He tracked the man across West Drive, onto the perimeter of Sheep Meadow, and along a narrow pedestrian path worn in the grass. The man suddenly broke into a run, and something tumbled from his jacket. Kirtland stopped in front of it. He had never seen one up close. A stubby, bluish barrel, blades of grass poking through the trigger guard. He looked left and right as if he might discover an explanation for the gun that had literally fallen at his feet, just like the man’s phone.

He picked it up, heavier than he would have guessed, a hard-grip rubber handle that fit snug in his palm. He slipped the gun into his pants pocket. Then he hurried, running through a pack of slow joggers glomming the perimeter, bumping one jogger, who cursed him. He saw his man slowing down, come to a stop. Aika Komatsu was on the other side of a chain link fence, holding the handle of her cart. Her face was poised, waiting as she had waited on the audience for its silence. The bearded man stepped over the chain and approached her. They began to talk. They were no longer shouting. Kirtland was unsure what it meant.

A moment later, Aika Komatsu brought her hand to her forehead. Had something happened? He saw the man take hold of her hand, or did he catch her by the wrist? Aika Komatsu looked to be pulling away. He heard a sharp word.

Kirtland sprinted forward, jumped the chain link fence, and landed on his feet.

“Let her go, Igor.”

The man’s head turned. He saw Kirtland and then turned all the way around and looked at him.

“My name is not Igor.”

“That’s what they call you. Igor, creepy guy.”

“You were in the café, right? The phone, you gave it to me. What the hell you want, old man?

Kirtland looked at Aika Komatsu. “You should get a restraining order, Ms. Komatsu. You really should.”

“Hey,” the man said, walking toward him. “I’ll kick your tired ass all the way back to the café.”

Kirtland bristled at the insult.

“Now get the hell out of here before I do that.”

Kirtland slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the gun. The man’s jaw dropped.

“What?” Aika Komatsu cried. “Is that a real gun?”

“Don’t get upset, Ms. Komatsu. You have nothing to worry about.”

The man was going through his pockets, his inside pockets.

“What, where… how did you get that!”

“Who do you plan to shoot, Igor?”

The man gestured with his fingers. “Give me the gun, old man.”

Kirtland took a step back, lifted the gun higher.

“First the phone, now the gun. Just coincidence?” Kirtland shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You stupid ass, give me that gun!”

“Why a gun, Igor? What were you thinking of doing?”

“Whose gun is that!” Aika Komatsu shouted. “Is that your gun, sir?”

“No. It’s Igor’s.”

“Give it to me!”

“Tell her how I got the gun, Igor.”

“I said give it to me!”

“Stay back, Igor. I will shoot you.”

“Why do you have a gun, Anton? Why!” Aika Komatsu shouted.

The man looked over his shoulder. “It’s for the business!” He turned on Kirtland. “Now, you stupid old fool, hand it over!”

“Walk away, Igor. I’m not a robot. I’m a man. You can’t program me.”

“What the hell!”

“Please go away, sir!”

“Not after what I’ve seen,” Kirtland said.

“What did you see?” Aika Komatsu cried, coming forward. “Tell me, sir. What was it you saw?”

“I saw the eyes of a killer.”

“Give me that gun!”

“Not even a holster, Igor. Just carrying it around in your pocket like loose change.”

“Give it to me!”

“First the phone, now a revolver. What else do I need to know?”

The man charged, and Kirtland pulled the trigger.

The result was power like he had never known. The man dropped to his knees. Blood was filling his shirt.

Aika Komatsu screamed.

The man’s face showed astonishment. His hand went to his bloody chest, just below the heart. Blood dripped through the fingers.

“You stupid fool,” the man whispered.

“You’re safe now, Ms. Komatsu.”

The man murmured, “I, I’ll…”

“Choices, Igor. We become our choices.”

The man fell forward onto his face.

Aika Komatsu collapsed on the grass. Kirtland leaned over her.

She was conscious. Her legs gave way as she tried to stand. She knocked away his outstretched hand, pushed up on one foot, sat back down.

“You’ll be alright, Ms. Komatsu. Police will be along soon.”

There were shouts, bodies retreating from the area. Faces stared from behind trees, lamp posts, park benches. He heard the sirens. Kirtland saw the gun in his hand and slipped it into his pocket. He waved to show them all was safe.

Aika Komatsu was struggling, still trying to stand.

“Better if you rest, Ms. Komatsu.”

She sank to the ground, collapsed against him, cross-eyed, her mouth open, mumbling.

He patted her troubled head. “You’ll be just fine without him, Ms. Komatsu. You’ll play even better, if that’s possible.”

Bodies were coming closer. Phones were raised high taking pictures of him and Aika Komatsu, whose face was pressed against his leg.

 “Instead of accountant, patron of the arts,” Kirtland said, nodding. “That’s a title worthy of any man.”

A woman came closer, holding a camera with a long lens, snapping pictures.

Kirtland knew this was his time. He turned profile and faced east.

RICHARD LaMANNA

Richard LaManna was born in Brooklyn. His fiction, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in Quarterly West, New Letters, Tampa Review, Cape Rock, Florida Review, Agada, and other journals. His novel Bring Me the Real is available on Amazon. He is currently director of academic and student success assessment at Bronx Community College.