An Audience Of One(Tom Di Roma) An Audience Of One


Reading about the murder from your bed in the hospital ward helps you recall: the gleam of the blade, the up and down motions like a Texas oil pump, the half-clothed body laid ripe for loving. And you watching from the edge of the alley, horrified, hysterical, counting the strokes, following the knife, seeing her eyes in the final seconds asking why.
And then his eyes, maniacal eyes, two sparking embers in a latex-covered face; his smile, and the switchblade held high, dripping with crimson life.
Bolting, you run through the night, taking refuge in a bar, hiding amongst those who have long since given up their dreams for a bottle.
For more than two hours you skulk amongst the fallen, hoarding your privacy, cleverly concealing yourself in the shadows, emerging every now and then to order another beer. All the while listening—listening for the sirens to carry her away; listening for the police to question the non-witnesses; listening for a door to open and a blue-sleeved hand to press upon your shoulder.
But no one comes, so you continue to drink away the memories until there is only a numbness where once there was purpose.

An hour later, you’re lying outside Marty's apartment, blubbering like a five-year-old whose toys have been taken away; all because she wouldn't let you in, even after you begged.
“Go away, Harry!” her voice comes harsh at you through the door.
“But, Marty, I have to talk with you.”
“Harry, it’s over between us. It has been for a long time. Let it die.”
“I just want a minute. Please let me in.”
“Harry, you're going to wake my neighbors.”
“Please, Marty!”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I don't want to see you anymore. You've done enough to me. I’ve had all I can take of your lies, your crazy temper, and those odd-ball friends of yours. I don’t want any of it. I don't want you, Harry. Now will you please just leave!”
“But, Marty, I have something important to tell you.”
“What?”
“I saw a women murdered tonight. She was stabbed to death in an alley.”
A pause. “It won’t work, Harry. You're a writer of mysteries, remember? You’ve already used that one on me.”
“But it's true! Marty, will you let me in! I want to tell you about it. I have to tell someone.”
“You just did. Now for the last time, go away!”
“Marty!” You can sense her retreating. “Marty!” you shout again. No answer.
Enraged, you throw yourself against the door. You pound and curse. Still she refuses to acknowledge you.
At the far end of the hallway, a door opens. In it stands a burly man clad only in a pair of jockey shorts. His expression is one of annoyance. He points a gun at you. He tells you to go away or he’s going to call the police. Snarling your protests, you retreat down the stairs and leave.

Later, you find yourself drifting through Times Square. It is three thirty in the morning. Around you New York City has emptied its streets, like a party whose guests have nearly all gone home. Only a few stragglers remain to keep you company.
You stop in front of a darkened book store. There in the window you see yourself reflected in the silvery cover of someone’s commercial tome. Your reflection is vague, distorted, like your life. But it wasn't always that way, was it, Harry? There was a time once, if you can remember that far back, when you had a statement to make, something to say. That was before they stripped you of your integrity, blinded you to the truth by offering you more money—by making you believe it was more profitable to produce pornographic crap and eat, than something of quality and starve. That was before everything fell apart: your career, your marriage, your sanity.

Unable to stand anymore, you move on to Forty-Second Street where eventually you stop in front of another book store. This time, there is a small mirror in the display window. You see yourself as you really are: a worn-out fragment of a man only thirty-eight, a man whose hair is already gray, whose eyes are continually shot a liquid red and ringed with dark hollows, whose expression is so tortured he is often mistaken for being physically ill.
You continue to stare at your reflection until you can't bear it any longer. Something inside you cries out. It slips from your mind to escape silently into the night. Around you, a shadow appears. It becomes a silhouette over your image. Its borders shrink until they form the dark shape of a figure hunched in an alley, using a knife to carve up a helpless woman.
You bolt, fear at your heels like a pack of wild dogs. You run, not knowing in which direction you are traveling, not caring, only following the sidewalk until it ends, and your strength with it.
Picking yourself from the gutter, you proceed feebly until, at last, you discover you are right back where you started, in front of Ben Cosgrove’s apartment.
Like yourself, Cosgrove is an author of mysteries. Unlike you, he is more than moderately successful. Most of his books have, at one time or another, been on the New York Times’ ten best list. Yours were lucky if they saw the inside of Screw Magazine. His contain the life-long philosophies of their protagonists. Yours spew explicit sex and violence. His are offered by writing teachers as preferred reading to their students. Yours are used for toilet paper in crack dens.

It takes a while for Cosgrove to come to the door. When you finally identify yourself, he sounds pissed.
“Christ, Harry! Do you know what time it is?”
“Ben, I have to speak with you.”
“Go home, Harry. The party was over long ago. Everyone else has left.”
Is that a female voice you hear speaking to Cosgrove? Too bad. You had hoped to find him alone.
“Ben, let me in. I have to talk with you.” More murmurings. “Ben, I saw a woman murdered.” A pause. A chain rattling. The door opens.
Ben Cosgrove is a tall man, well over six feet, balding and stuffed like a Christmas turkey. Yet somehow, he always manages to have the company of women who could easily be models or actresses.
It is this way with the brunette standing behind him now. She has dark hair down to her trim waist, and is wearing a red and black, short-length robe with black lettering in Japanese across the chest. She stares at you with doe-like eyes, and you feel a cold ache gnaw at your insides. You have to struggle to keep your hands from reaching out to her.
“Now, Harry, what’s this about a woman murdered?”
“I saw it, Ben. In an alley around the corner form here. A young woman lying on the ground. Her clothes ripped open. A man wearing a mask stabbing her.”
Cosgrove motions to the vixen behind him. “Connie, go inside, please.”
You watch her retreat to a room behind you, your eyes mapping every contour of her luscious body.
“Come, sit down ... Did you get a good look at the killer?” You nod. “What did you tell the police?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“I ran away before they got there.”
“Good,” he says, as he gets up and steps over to an old mahogany desk by the window. You watch him reach inside a drawer. “We need to talk,” he says.
He takes something out and tosses it on the desk top. You look at the object a while before it registers on your mind as the latex mask the killer wore. Recognizing it, you continue to stare as if it's some malevolent creature you have to fear.
When you look at Cosgrove, his face shatters into a thousand tiny cracks, each one oozing droplets of black despair. Together they form a dark mantel that threatens to cover you.
You want to run away, but you can't; your feet feel as if they are stuck in tar. That’s when you realize Cosgrove has been speaking to you.
“It's not her fault,” he says. “God knows I’ve tried getting her to see someone, but she refuses. What can I do? She has these spells.”
What kinds of spells you wonder, as a door behind you creeks open and the fang of the crimson blade bites deep into your neck?

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