Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [0]
Diary of an Emotional Idiot
Soft Maniacs
Hex
Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals
Gargantuan
To Andrew Vachss
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO Dr. Ira Jaffe for the surgical tome and Steven Crist for probable fictional payouts, Yaddo and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for peaceful places to work, my brothers Jon and Chris Murray for reading early drafts, Jenny Meyer and Elizabeth Tisdale for the same, my valiant agent Tracy Brown for putting up with my shenanigans, and, always and forever, my partner in crime, John Rauchenberger.
1. LEG
If the day had been any brighter, it would have exploded. Ruby pushed her five-dollar sunglasses so far up the bridge of her nose that her eyelashes smashed against the lenses. This didn’t help. She still felt invaded. Seemed like post-Giuliani Manhattan just kept getting garishly brighter, like the whole damn town was ready to blow.
Ruby stood tapping her foot against the sidewalk in front of the doctor’s office. The Psychiatrist was uncharacteristically late, and Ruby started hoping Dr. Jody Ray had forgotten their appointment. Two more minutes and Ruby would gladly give up and go home to Coney Island, where, in spite of the bawdy amusement park and the broadness of sky over ocean, Ruby didn’t need sunglasses even when walking on the beach at high noon.
Today wasn’t a hot day. Anything under 80 and Ruby, who speculated that her personal genetic code was less removed from that of lizards than most people’s, tended to get a chill. This day, weighing in around 75 degrees, was bearable but not the kind of bordering-on-tropical heat that made Ruby feel good all over. She was barely warm enough in a red halter-top and jeans.
Ruby considered lighting a cigarette but decided against it in case The Psychiatrist did suddenly appear. It would be one more thing to discuss. Ruby’s total lack of regard for the well-being of her lungs. Truth of the matter was, Ruby liked her lungs fine, but she liked cigarettes even better. There had been valiant attempts to quit. Entire weeks spent putting in extra miles on her bicycle, gnawing a huge wad of Nicorette gum, breathing hard through her nose when the urges came. Eventually, some minor life detail would catch her off guard. The tension would build and, after a ten-minute moral struggle, Ruby would hightail it to the bodega at the corner of Surf and Stillwell to buy a pack of Marlboro Lights. She would barely make it out of the store before frantically ripping through the cellophane, extracting a cigarette, lighting up, and inhaling deeply, savoring the violation of her lungs. Afterward, Ed would smell the smoke on her and complain. Why? he’d ask, giving her that pained look. Ed liked Ruby’s lungs too. In theory, Ed liked the entire five feet and four inches of Ruby Murphy, but it hadn’t felt that way to her lately. Another thing to avoid telling The Psychiatrist. Providing Dr. Jody Ray ever showed up.
A whisper-thin young woman walked by, talking on a cell phone as her small white dog strained on its leash. The animal pulled its way right over to Ruby and began wagging its abbreviated tail, looking up at Ruby with limpid brown eyes. As Ruby bent down to pet the dog, the young woman yanked at the leash.
“It’s okay. I love dogs,” Ruby said.
The woman looked at Ruby blankly, said, “Hold on, Jerry,” into her phone, then reached down, scooped the dog under her arm, and walked away, angry at her pet’s forcing an unscheduled human interaction.
Ruby reflected that she’d like to have a dog. Instead, she had four cats. Furry sociopaths. It was slightly embarrassing. Even the pet food store people spoke to her gently, as if she weren’t firing on all cylinders. It hadn’t been Ruby’s idea to have four cats. Two were hers; the other pair belonged to Ed. He had moved in a year earlier, mingling his few possessions with hers and adding his two cats to the tally. It was like a farm in their apartment. A farm above a Russian furniture store within spitting distance of the Cyclone roller coaster.
A cab suddenly veered