Read Online Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem - Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathan Lethem
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Psychological, Psychological fiction, Biography & Autobiography, Celebrities, Rich & Famous, Manhattan (New York; N.Y.), Critics
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memory I can only confidently fix that occasion to Richard Abneg’s eagles, and that only because of A Field Guide to North American Birds of Prey which lay propped open on the table from which Oona retrieved her stash before vanishing. I was always foolish to slight any clue at Perkus’s kitchen table, for what seemed to happen to occupy space there was always destined to colonize my brain soon enough. (I suppose I could say the same about Oona. Soon. Soona.)
Richard Abneg came in enraged about eagles. He liked to come in enraged about something. Hadn’t I read the front page of the Metro section? The answer was no. Richard found this incredible. My neglect of the headlines was practically as egregious as the birds themselves. Richard nearly slammed down his bottle of wine, Rioja in a paper sack. He always arrived with one in tow. Not a gift, sincePerkus wouldn’t touch red wine, a trigger, he claimed, for his cluster migraines. Richard and I would drink it later, in the smaller hours. For now it sat.
Perkus tossed the relevant section into my lap and resumed rolling a joint to welcome and soothe Richard, to whatever extent he could be soothed. Richard jabbed his finger at a newsprint photograph, so my attention wouldn’t wander. A pair of enormous birds perched on the massive lintel of a prewar building’s entranceway, each with a beak-borne branch. Between them stood the object of their efforts, a conical structure of twigs and leaves. HOMECOMING OF MATING PAIR REWARDS 78TH STREET FAITHFUL . “Okay,” I said.
“Not okay,” said Richard, poking harder at the newspaper on my knee. “That’s my fucking window.”
“You live there?” I asked, trying to catch up.
“My headboard’s against that wall. Right above the scratching, whining, gobbling fiends themselves. They don’t sound like you’d think eagles should sound, Chase. They sound like vampires. Vampires at a buffet of dying rodents.”
A joke occurred to me. “Well, you know what they say. Go to bed with the Hawkman, wake up with the eagles.” It was now three weeks past our fateful introduction at the Woodrows’ Park Avenue duplex, and Richard Abneg had surprised me, and perhaps himself, by persisting in an affair with Georgina Hawkmanaji, Turk heiress. He called her, in his irascible way, Georgie Hawkman. Or the Hawkman, or the Hawk. The complicity between us, my having seen him infringe on Georgina’s rectitude the first time, formed the backdrop to our new friendship, a ready-made history we could allude to. If Richard seemed to bristle when I mentioned her, this was only ritual. He loved being reminded I knew of his conquest. Perkus was the one whom mentions of the Hawkman truly provoked. Perkus was apossessive friend, true enough. But he also cringed at evidence of my migrations, or Richard’s, through a milieu he viewed as corrupt.
Richard only glowered. “It’s not funny. I’ve been spending nights at the Hawkman’s just to sleep. She thinks I can’t get enough of her.”
“If it’s your window, can’t you have the nest removed?”
“You really live in a cloud, don’t you?”
Perkus had done tonguing the new joint’s glue, and he handed the result to Richard. “So, about six weeks ago Richard opened his window and pushed the whole mess into the street. The eagles went into mourning, started wheeling around crying, and all the TV news stations picked it up. The eagles flew off to Central Park, I guess. It seemed like it was going to blow over, but then the other apartments got together and held a press conference saying they loved the eagles, that the lone pusher didn’t speak for the building’s wishes. Richard got hung out to dry. That’s what they called him, the lone pusher.”
“The president of the co-op board didn’t give my name, mercifully. But I’ve had to creep in and out of the building for weeks. The Post published a telephoto picture of me in my Fruit of the Looms. Now the feathered monsters are
Richard Abneg came in enraged about eagles. He liked to come in enraged about something. Hadn’t I read the front page of the Metro section? The answer was no. Richard found this incredible. My neglect of the headlines was practically as egregious as the birds themselves. Richard nearly slammed down his bottle of wine, Rioja in a paper sack. He always arrived with one in tow. Not a gift, sincePerkus wouldn’t touch red wine, a trigger, he claimed, for his cluster migraines. Richard and I would drink it later, in the smaller hours. For now it sat.
Perkus tossed the relevant section into my lap and resumed rolling a joint to welcome and soothe Richard, to whatever extent he could be soothed. Richard jabbed his finger at a newsprint photograph, so my attention wouldn’t wander. A pair of enormous birds perched on the massive lintel of a prewar building’s entranceway, each with a beak-borne branch. Between them stood the object of their efforts, a conical structure of twigs and leaves. HOMECOMING OF MATING PAIR REWARDS 78TH STREET FAITHFUL . “Okay,” I said.
“Not okay,” said Richard, poking harder at the newspaper on my knee. “That’s my fucking window.”
“You live there?” I asked, trying to catch up.
“My headboard’s against that wall. Right above the scratching, whining, gobbling fiends themselves. They don’t sound like you’d think eagles should sound, Chase. They sound like vampires. Vampires at a buffet of dying rodents.”
A joke occurred to me. “Well, you know what they say. Go to bed with the Hawkman, wake up with the eagles.” It was now three weeks past our fateful introduction at the Woodrows’ Park Avenue duplex, and Richard Abneg had surprised me, and perhaps himself, by persisting in an affair with Georgina Hawkmanaji, Turk heiress. He called her, in his irascible way, Georgie Hawkman. Or the Hawkman, or the Hawk. The complicity between us, my having seen him infringe on Georgina’s rectitude the first time, formed the backdrop to our new friendship, a ready-made history we could allude to. If Richard seemed to bristle when I mentioned her, this was only ritual. He loved being reminded I knew of his conquest. Perkus was the one whom mentions of the Hawkman truly provoked. Perkus was apossessive friend, true enough. But he also cringed at evidence of my migrations, or Richard’s, through a milieu he viewed as corrupt.
Richard only glowered. “It’s not funny. I’ve been spending nights at the Hawkman’s just to sleep. She thinks I can’t get enough of her.”
“If it’s your window, can’t you have the nest removed?”
“You really live in a cloud, don’t you?”
Perkus had done tonguing the new joint’s glue, and he handed the result to Richard. “So, about six weeks ago Richard opened his window and pushed the whole mess into the street. The eagles went into mourning, started wheeling around crying, and all the TV news stations picked it up. The eagles flew off to Central Park, I guess. It seemed like it was going to blow over, but then the other apartments got together and held a press conference saying they loved the eagles, that the lone pusher didn’t speak for the building’s wishes. Richard got hung out to dry. That’s what they called him, the lone pusher.”
“The president of the co-op board didn’t give my name, mercifully. But I’ve had to creep in and out of the building for weeks. The Post published a telephoto picture of me in my Fruit of the Looms. Now the feathered monsters are
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