Disclaimer/b I don't own.
Mark awoke to the pounding of his heart. His eyes opened and he stared into the darkness, breathing heavily, blood thumping through his veins. Mark listened carefully, but he heard no irregular noises, only the dripping sink and, somewhere in the distant city, sirens. New York was the distance to Mark. It was a untouchable, unreachable, a concept enacted only by those unable to realize their beautiful illusion for nothing but a figment of imagination. Mark envied them.
He sighed. After a week in Alphabet City, these nights of fear had yet to subside. Mark kept his camera close to his heart and most of his pathetic cache of money taped to the waistband of his underpants. He locked the door, looked over his shoulders, slept with a heavy flashlight close at hand for light or use as a weapon. Fear lurked around every corner. Especially difficult for Mark was that fear lurked also in the loft, behind the door about which Benny had warned him, "That's Roger's room. You probably won't see him much; he's Collins' friend, a junkie and a slob. Just stay out of his way. He's trouble."
Where was the safety of a locked door when trouble slept mere feet away?
Mark tried to lick his dry lips, but only chafing resulting. Defeated, he pushed back the blankets and climbed groggily out of bed. Nothing will happen, he promised himself. I'm just going for a drink of water. Not even leaving the apartment.
Rationalization did nothing for Mark's nerves. The cold slapped him awake, reminding him that even his flannel pajamas were no match for winter in New York. He crept, shivering, out of the room, towards the kitchen--
C E B G
Mark jumped. Sprawled on the couch, glowing in the moonlight, was a lanky form with a guitar and glaring eyes. "Oh," Mark said, his heart thudding painfully, "h-hi, Roger." At least, he hoped this was Roger. The two had not exactly met. A few days ago Mark had heard Roger's voice, though, as Roger rifled through the kitchen and muttered something akin to, "… gonna shoot some fucking pigeon." Assuming this was street slang for drugs, Mark had folded himself onto his bed, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling, and read until Roger's door slammed.
"Hey," Roger said, conveying all manner of darkness.
"W-what are you doing up?" Mark asked.
"I'm…" A A A B C "… celebrating," Roger said at last. "I'm celebrating," he repeated. "You want to celebrate all the beauty of life?" Roger asked. Mark opened and closed his dry mouth, but no sound emerged. Roger seemed not to care. "Want to celebrate how great it is? I think I'm gonna celebrate the beauty of dawn…" he mused. "You clean?"
"Am I…" It took a moment for the meaning of this to sink in. "Yes," Mark replied. "I'm clean."
Roger shrugged. "Too bad."
"Yeah." What? It wasn't too bad. Mark was glad to be clean. He knew that drugs were dangerous, addictive, destructive.
B A C
Mark turned and headed for the kitchen; at least he left with only fear, no harm done to him. "Hey," Roger called, and Mark froze. "You're Jewish, right? Mark Cohen, right? That sounds pretty Jewish to me."
The terror of being alone with a potentially dangerous man was amplified by the knowledge that, although Mark had not offered his name, Roger knew it. "Yes, I'm… I'm Jewish," Mark said. The anti-Semitism was nothing new to him, but familiarity never stopped anything hurting.
"I read somewhere," Roger said, gazing darkly at Mark through fringe and shadow, "that Jews don't celebrate. You observe. That true?"
"Well… no… we celebrate." What other term could describe raucous Chanukkah dinners, dreidels spinning in the reflected light from the menorah, or the hora at Bar Mitzvahs? "You shouldn't believe everything you read. It probably wasn't written by a Jew." That he had managed so many words amazed Mark.
"Leonard Alfred Schneider. That's not a Jew? He said everyone who lives in New York is a Jew." Roger laughed wryly. "Wish I was a Jew. Anyway, you want to celebrate with me, Mark Cohen?"
Don't engage. Just go. But Roger had asked a question, and he clearly expected an answer. "Uh… doesn't look like much of a celebration," Mark admitted.
Roger laughed again, and Mark wondered if Roger was laughing at him or with him. The sound certainly suggested the former. "Yeah. But you know how dawn looks? It looks good. Real good. That's what Collins is always saying, huh, that dawn's a new day… and all that shit? I'm gonna see that. Take some acid up and find out."
"Well, dawn… can be pretty without drugs."
"There's no such thing as a celebration without drugs. Either dawn is Collins' fucking celebration, or it's just some romanticized shit that happens every day. I'm so sick of all that shit. Fuck romance." He raised his hand as though to strum the guitar angrily, then sighed and dropped the offending hand. He picked out what seemed to be a continuation of the melody he had been playing when Mark awoke, something so broken and mechanical Mark could not name it, though he knew it.
Mark screamed at himself to go. Now was the time to escape, to slip back into his room and let Roger forget this encounter in the high, drunken haze of his life. Mark could not move his legs. As much as he wanted to get away from Roger, he wanted to understand him. Mark was about understanding. The true question was whether he could do this without his camera. How could he interview someone without their knowing it, without pre-written questions? How could he suck every quark of knowledge from the interview without watching the film again and again to catch exact gestures, exact inflection? His mind would twist and tweak memories. His fear would override Roger's exact words.
Mark needed the camera. He needed to make himself objective, and the camera did this.
"So… why celebrate?"
Before Roger had the chance to answer, a sharp voice cut across the room, "Hey. Mark?"
Mark breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey, Benny. Sorry, did we wake you?" Thirst forgotten, he tripped across the room to the comfort of Benny. Two years in dorms had taught Mark that although Benny could be selfish at times and caustic in anger, he was fairly reliable. His anger was logical.
A beam of light froze the two. Roger had a lamp pointed in their direction. "Benny," he said. Mark shivered at the hatred in that word. "You forgot your glove. Maybe if you remembered once in a while, Muffy would be satisfied enough to get you out of this craphole. Because that's what it is, right, Benny? Isn't that what you said?"
Mark couldn't fathom responding to Roger when he spoke in that tone. His heart was pounding just to hear it. Benny only laughed. "Yes, Roger," he said, "I love the projection. Do you think it would have satisfied April?"
F F F F G A B
"That was a cheap shot," Roger said. "Anyway, you know it's in perfect working order… or is it just that you miss having it up your ass?"
A G B E E E
Mark realized what Benny and Roger were discussing. His heart leapt painfully. These were the insults boys traded before the worst of fistfights. Against Mark's will, a squeak escaped his throat.
Roger laughed. "Relax, New Boy," he said. "I'm not dangerous. I'm not gonna hurt you… rape you… whatever it is you're afraid of. Benny's the dangerous one. You should stay away from him."
"He can make his own choices, Roger," Benny said. "He doesn't need your help."
"Or yours," Roger shot back, "so leave him alone."
Long after returning to the warmth of his bed, Mark heard the tuneless notes fall from the guitar. The song pervaded his dreams, insistent, settling between Mark's skin and flesh, needing to be named. After a while, though, the sound ceased, then there was the clicking of a lighter and, shortly following, a quiet sigh.
When Roger told Collins the next morning that New Boy seemed all right, Collins made certain that he spoke with Mark at the first opportunity; in this instance, that meant as Mark stood over the stove that evening, waiting for the kettle to whistle. "Hey." When Mark repeated the greeting, Collins said, "I hear you met Roger."
"Yeah," Mark admitted, the word a breathy sigh. "He's… he's something else."
"I know he can be pretty intense. If he scared you--"
Too quickly, Mark assured him, "No, he didn't."
Collins laughed; this time, Mark knew this was neither laughing at him nor with him. Collins had the sort of warm, detached laugh reserved for circumstance. "Mark," he said.
"He scared me," Mark admitted. "Why does he talk about celebrating?" he asked. "He uses the word like a curse."
"He hates it because I used it. I told him to celebrate every day, to appreciate the unique beauty of chance and happenstance. Look, I expect you know how to treat this with appropriate privacy. Roger isn't dangerous to anyone except himself."
Acting on impulse, Mark asked, "So, how did you come by that?" He pointed to the puffy bruise around Collins' eye.
"This?" Collins asked. "I got mugged. Roger didn't do that."
The kettle whistled shrilly, interrupting their stilted conversation. "Tea?" Mark offered, grabbed the kettle. The rubber grip had long since worn away; he used a towel to keep from burning his hand.
"Please."
"Who's April?" Mark couldn't help but ask.
"He talked about her?" Collins asked, surprised. Roger had said he liked New Boy, as he called Mark, but to talk about April asked a high degree of trust.
Mark shook his head and handed one chipped mug to Collins. "Benny mentioned her."
"Bastard."
Feeling the need to defend his friend, just as Collins did, Mark said, "Well, Roger said things that could be pretty offensive."
Collins scoffed. "Not that bad. This is part of what I want you to keep quiet, Mark. April…" He glanced at Roger's room and sniffed the air. A faint, fading smell of hot metal gave him leave to speak; even so, he lowered his voice. "April and Roger were a thing. But they got into some heavy drugs, they got sick. She killed herself."
Mark's hand trembled. "I… I'm sorry," he said. "So Roger doesn't want to get better? He wants to… be with her?"
"Roger can't get better. He's HIV-positive."
"Oh my G-d." That, at least, explained the celebration. For Roger, every new day might be his last. Of course he had difficulty seeing each day as a gift. He saw the days as threats. Mark glanced out the window. A deep, purple bruise faded in the west, bringing nighttime to New York City.
"Mark?" Collins asked, drawing his attention. "I am, too," he said.
"What?" Mark asked.
"I'm HIV-positive. Thought you should know. Thanks for the tea."
Mark's insides numbed. He settled himself on the table, staring out the window, watching the sky grow darker. The darkness crept into the apartment, engulfing Mark in blindness. The windows became patterns of darkness over darkness. It grew into a pain in Mark's chest, a knot, the knowledge of so much death surrounding him. The sunset retreated farther and farther into the distance, setting over Los Angeles, Tokyo, slowly taking away the light until it was so far gone it began to draw near again.
Mark grabbed his warmest sweater and his coat and headed up to the roof. He didn't know east from west from north from south, so he turned in slow circles, trying to guess over which part of the unfathomable city the sun had set. At last satisfied, he leaned on the wall opposite waiting.
"Hey."
A warm hand on his shoulder announced the arrival of a friend. He sighed gratefully; Benny, someone healthy. "Hey," he said, turning. "Oh."
"I guess Collins told you," Roger said.
Mark nodded. "How long until you'll need heroin again?" he asked.
Roger shrugged. "Probably three, four hours. I got long enough for sunrise. Long enough to… observe the new day with you." Mark stiffened. He did not particularly want to celebrate anything with this depressed junkie. Sensing that, Roger said, "Or, I could go back inside and let you have the sunrise. But there's one thing you should know, Mark."
"What's that?" Mark asked.
"East," Roger replied, pointing in the opposite direction.
Mark smiled his thanks and hoisted himself onto the ledge, watching the eastern sky. He listened to the sirens and screams, lulled near to catatonia. For hours he sat, watching light spread slowly, until it burst like fireworks frozen across the sky.
When the light began creeping across the rooftop, Roger rose from the shadows. "I guess it's true," he said casually, handing Mark a bottle.
Mark looked at the object in his hand. The hour was too early for beer, but without sleep, hours meant little. He drank. "What's true?" he asked.
"Jews observe," Roger said. "You've been sitting, watching the sun rise, for hours."
"Don't you... don't you need..."
Understanding what Mark preferred not to say, Roger explained, "I've had it. Few hours ago."
Recalling Roger's comment the previous evening, Mark asked, "You watched me watch the sunrise. I guess that makes you an observer, too."
Roger grinned and shrugged lopsidedly. "He also said that if you live in New York, you're Jewish. It doesn't matter if you're Catholic, you're Jewish."
Mark laughed. He understood, suddenly, what Roger was saying. Roger was creating a link between them, saying, in his maladjusted way, what Benny, Collins and the intoxicating Maureen had said with hugs and alcohol. He was saying, "Welcome."
"January sixth, probably about six a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Roger accepts me." It was a day Mark would always observe, privately, and smile.
"What did you say?" Roger asked.
"Nothing."
Fin