Storymania - The Silver Ride by Timothy Houlihan

The Silver Ride
Timothy Houlihan

The Silver Ride

Man. This city’s dark. It’s cold and dangerous, stinging faced cold because of the small flecks of ice flying with the rain, and there’s steam rising from manholes in the street and there are old soldiers here that won’t forget the war and there’s dying, death, gray rotting death all around to remind them. There’s nervous sanctuary behind bolted doors. Nervous. Sanctuary. At night we lie in our beds and jerk at the sudden street sounds and the alley sounds, and the sounds above us, and the sounds below us, and behind us and in front of us and the sounds from the places we can’t know about. Sometimes we risk a peek from behind our blinds after we’ve turned out our lights to look out onto an empty street, or a street with a drunkard weaving and stumbling and weaving across the sidewalk and urinating on walls, and yellow cats screaming after glass breaks. The secret to living here is getting past the steaming manholes and getting behind the bolted doors. That’s the secret. Man. This city’s dark.
Today I walked with my head down so that no one could see my eyes and so that I couldn’t see theirs, so that we could pretend with each other that neither of us existed. My rain coat flapped around my legs in the wind that ripped across the avenue, down the black paved streets with the snow slush and colored wrappers in the gutters, and I held my head down and walked toward the underground where I would catch the five forty-five to the other side of the city past the steaming manholes to my own bolted door.
Down the steps to the station. I dropped my token in the slot, and walked through the turnstile. I stood on the platform and pretended not to notice you standing next to me while you pretended not to notice me. I put my hands in the pockets of my raincoat and squeezed my eyes shut against the stale diesel air and smiled in my mind and laughed at you standing on the platform waiting for the subway train that would take us past the steaming manholes to our bolted doors. Standing there with each other, ignoring there with each other, afraid of us there with each other.
I stood and pretended and sent my laughing mind to you and watched to see if you would glance at me or move in an unfamiliar way.
The silver ride glided into the station and squealed to a stop in front of us. The doors slid open and we weaved our way through each other when we got on and found our usual places and resumed our quiet ignorance. The doors slid closed and the silver ride glided from the station into the pitch-black tube and the lights in our car flickered while we weaved and twisted and clattered and wobbled along beneath the steaming manholes in the streets above toward our bolted doors, and I bumped against you and you against me and I smelled you, the secret you, the private you, the you that only you allow someone to smell in the dark, the pink you, the hot you, the eyes closed out of control you, and I felt my response secretly with my hand in the pocket of my raincoat.
The silver ride glided and stopped and glided and stopped like a spasm and few by few the silver ride drained itself at different stations along our way to our own bolted doors until the last of us slid to a stop with it at the last station and we dripped out and walked along with our heads down and up the steps to the cold rainy streets with steaming manholes and disappeared from each other up stairs, down stairs, around corners, down hallways, behind our bolted doors and into our nervous sanctuaries. I slid the key into the lock of my bolted door and turned it and turned the knob and pushed the door quickly open and stepped through and quickly closed it again and twisted the bolt back.
Man. This room is dark.
The lights from the streetlamps reflected orange and white off the black wet pavement below my window and the sounds of hissing tires disturbed the quiet while I took off my raincoat and hung it neatly on my coat rack and slipped off my shoes and left them by my door in the dark, the dark I keep, the dark I need to watch you from across the street through my dirty glass eye into the world, and I went deeper into my nervous sanctuary and took off my clothes and hung them neatly in my closet and opened my dresser drawer and took out my trophies, silk, light, trophies, and walked back through the darkness to my chair by my window and sat down and covered my legs with my afghan and put my trophies to my face and sniffed each of them, one by one, sniffed and tasted, and sniffed where the pink was. Sniffed. Deep. I remembered them. Pink. Soft. Thick-wet. Pink. I trembled but I didn’t fondle it and I watched through the glass and waited and it ached, ached, screamed for my touch, and ached. I didn’t touch it. I waited for you.
I saw the dim light through our windows from your hall when you opened your bolted door and the dark when you closed it again and bolted it again, and the light when you turned on a light in your nervous sanctuary and I couldn’t stand the ache any longer and I rubbed my trophies on myself and gasped short, quick, sharp, gasps, and my legs stiffened and I pointed my toes and stretched and I thought I would tear myself in two and I twisted and exploded, wet explosion and jerking hard and thrashing explosion, and then slow hard subsidence and wet anger on my hand and on my trophies and I thought you were the one responsible for the war and the casualties and my deep hidden wound and I couldn’t see you through your blinds but I knew you were in there. I sat sweaty in my chair and panted and looked across at the dim glow through your window blinds and down at the wet street with the steaming manholes and I decided. Tonight you were a casualty.
The excitement built again and my weakened legs filled with strength and tingled and I walked through my dark, nervous, sanctuary and dressed. Dark. Nervous. I walked to my small closet and got the bag of weapons and opened it and took out the stiletto and flicked the blade in and out and it glimmered in my dark room in the light from the street that came through my window and I studied my face in the glowing, sharp, shining, steel blade and flicked it in again and slipped it in my pocket. Before I closed the bag I took out the picture and looked at the lovely smiling face on it.
I walked to my coat rack by my bolted door and slipped on my shoes and pulled on my raincoat and twisted the bolt on my door and quickly pulled it open and stepped out of my dark nervous sanctuary and quickly closed it again and put my key in the lock and twisted the bolt back.
I walked with my head down around corners and down halls and down stairs and up stairs and into the dark drizzle and across the street with steaming manholes with the bag of weapons and my raincoat flapping in the cold stinging wind and pulled tight around me and excitement grew in me and rose up to bursting and aching again, hard aching, again, and I sent my laughing mind to you when I went in and walked up stairs and down stairs and down halls and around corners to your bolted door, and I told you I was coming with my laughing mind and wondered if you knew. I knocked on your bolted door and waited. You came silently to it and I felt you looking at me through your peephole while I lied to you and convinced you to open your bolted door to your nervous sanctuary.
Nervous. Sanctuary. When you twisted the bolt and opened, I knocked you to the floor and stepped quickly in and quickly closed the door and twisted the bolt back before you could scream and I was on top of you, pounced like a vicious cat and knocked you to the floor again and set down the bag of weapons and pulled off my raincoat. I opened the bag and pulled out a blackjack and hit you hard on the head with it and I laughed at the glassy eyes and you stumbled and weaved and stumbled across the floor like a drunkard and urinated on the rug and whimpered while I pushed you down the hall and you fell and I lifted you up and pushed you into the dark room face down onto the bed and you moaned.
I stepped quickly through your lighted sanctuary and retrieved the bag of weapons and came quickly back to you and stood above you and looked at you while you moaned. The bare back was exposed in the light blue teddy and I leaned down and pulled the white string that kept it around the neck and I could see the pink place through the light silk panties. I rolled you over and you tried to resist and I hit you hard again and I pulled the top off of you and looked at the soft, small, white breasts with hard, pink, buds. I slid the blue panties down the legs and I ached, ached hard, and I didn’t touch it.
I took the stiletto out of my pocket and let my clothes drop to the floor and dropped the blackjack and the panties into the bag of weapons and pulled out a pitch- black tube and watched the face.
You moaned. I turned you over and lifted you to the knees and we trembled when the silver ride glided into the station and squealed to a stop in front of us, the legs slid open and we weaved our way through each other when we got on and found our usual places and resumed our quiet ignorance. The doors slid closed and the silver ride glided from the station on the pitch-black tube and the lights flickered while we weaved and twisted and clattered and wobbled along against the steaming manhole toward our bolted door, and I bumped against you and you against me and I smelled you, the secret you, the private you, the you that only you allow someone to smell in the dark, the pink you, the hot you, the eyes closed out of control you, and I felt my response with my hand.
I flicked open the stiletto and cut deep, and the silver ride glided and stopped and glided and stopped like a spasm and few by few the silver ride drained itself at different stations along our way until the last of us slid to a stop with it at the last station and we dripped out at the steaming man hole on our way to our bolted door and our nervous sanctuary.
You lay on the red dripping bed and I flicked the stiletto closed and dropped it and the pitch-black tube into the bag of weapons and I put on my clothes while my legs shook, violently, lovely, drained of strength. I didn’t look at you and walked through the lighted, nervous sanctuary and put on my raincoat and twisted the bolt on our door and stepped out and quickly closed it and smiled because I had no key and you had no nervous sanctuary and you were death, a gray rotting death that reminded me of the war.
I walked along with my head down and down the steps to the cold rainy street with steaming manholes and disappeared up stairs, down stairs, around corners, down hallways, and I slid the key into the lock of my bolted door and turned it and turned the knob and pushed my door quickly open and stepped through and quickly closed it again and twisted the bolt back.
I hung my raincoat on my coat rack by my bolted door and slipped off my shoes and walked through the darkness of my nervous sanctuary and took off my clothes and dropped them and the bag of weapons on my floor next to my chair in front of my window. I sat sweaty naked in my chair and opened the bag and pulled out my panties, my newest trophy, and the pitch-black tube. I smelled you on it and licked you off of it and sniffed my trophy where the pink part was and spread my legs and slid the pitch-black tube into me and I gasped and squeezed my soft, small, white breasts with hard, pink, buds and the silver ride slid to a stop in front of me and the doors slid open. I leaned over and reached into the bag and pulled out the picture and looked at the lovely smiling face on it.
“ Was she the one, Darren? Was she the one you left me for?”
The doors slid closed and the silver ride glided from the station on the pitch-black tube.
Man. This city’s dark.