Something begins to shift. I grow bigger, encompassing. I feel myself upon the firmament, heavy as the foundations of a city. There are others here with me, looming, watching—my ancestors’ bones under Wall Street, my predecessors’ blood ground into the benches of Christopher Park. No, new others, of my new people, heavy imprints upon the fabric of time and space. S?o Paulo squats nearest, its roots stretching all the way to the bones of dead Machu Picchu, watching sagely and twitching a little with the memory of its own relatively recent traumatic birth. Paris observes with distant disinterest, mildly offended that any city of our tasteless upstart land has managed this transition; Lagos exults to see a new fellow who knows the hustle, the hype, the fight. And more, many more, all of them watching, waiting to see if their numbers increase. Or not. If nothing else, they will bear witness that I, we, were great for one shining moment.
“We’ll make it,” I say, squeezing the railing and feeling the city contract. All over the city, people’s ears pop, and they look around in confusion. “Just a little more. Come on.” I’m scared, but there’s no rushing this. Lo que pasa, pasa—damn, now that song is in my head, in me like the rest of New York. It’s all here, just like Paulo said. There’s no gap between me and the city anymore.
And as the firmament ripples, slides, tears, the Enemy writhes up from the deeps with a reality-bridging roar—
But it is too late. The tether is cut and we are here. We become! We stand, whole and hale and independent, and our legs don’t even wobble. We got this. Don’t sleep on the city that never sleeps, son, and don’t fucking bring your squamous eldritch bullshit here.
I raise my arms and avenues leap. (It’s real but it’s not. The ground jolts and people think, Huh, subway’s really shaky today.) I brace my feet and they are girders, anchors, bedrock. The beast of the deeps shrieks and I laugh, giddy with postpartum endorphins. Bring it. And when it comes at me I hip-check it with the BQE, backhand it with Inwood Park, drop the South Bronx on it like an elbow. (On the evening news that night, ten construction sites will report wrecking-ball collapses. City safety regulations are so lax; terrible, terrible.) The Enemy tries some kind of fucked-up wiggly shit—it’s all tentacles—and I snarl and bite into it ’cause New Yorkers eat damn near as much sushi as Tokyo, mercury and all.
Oh, now you’re crying! Now you wanna run? Nah, son. You came to the wrong town. I curb stomp it with the full might of Queens and something inside the beast breaks and bleeds iridescence all over creation. This is a shock, for it has not been truly hurt in centuries. It lashes back in a fury, faster than I can block, and from a place that most of the city cannot see, a skyscraper-long tentacle curls out of nowhere to smash into New York Harbor. I scream and fall, I can hear my ribs crack, and—no!—a major earthquake shakes Brooklyn for the first time in decades. The Williamsburg Bridge twists and snaps apart like kindling; the Manhattan groans and splinters, though thankfully it does not give way. I feel every death as if it is my own.
Fucking kill you for that, bitch, I’m not-thinking. The fury and grief have driven me into a vengeful fugue. The pain is nothing; this ain’t my first rodeo. Through the groan of my ribs I drag myself upright and brace my legs in a pissing-off-the-platform stance. Then I shower the Enemy with a one-two punch of Long Island radiation and Gowanus toxic waste, which burn it like acid. It screams again in pain and disgust, but Fuck you, you don’t belong here, this city is mine, get out! To drive this lesson home I cut the bitch with LIRR traffic, long vicious honking lines; and to stretch out its pain I salt these wounds with the memory of a bus ride to LaGuardia and back.
And just to add insult to injury? I backhand its ass with Hoboken, raining the drunk rage of ten thousand dudebros down on it like the hammer of God. Port Authority makes it honorary New York, motherfucker; you just got Jerseyed.
The Enemy is as quintessential to nature as any city. We cannot be stopped from becoming, and the Enemy cannot be made to end. I hurt only a small part of it—but I know damn well I sent that part back broken. Good. Time ever comes for that final confrontation, it’ll think twice about taking me on again.
Me. Us. Yes.
When I relax my hands and open my eyes to see Paulo striding along the bridge toward me with another goddamned cigarette between his lips, I fleetingly see him for what he is again: the sprawling thing from my dream, all sparkling spires and reeking slums and stolen rhythms made over with genteel cruelty. I know that he glimpses what I am, too, all the bright light and bluster of me. Maybe he’s always seen it, but there is admiration in his gaze now, and I like it. He comes to help support me with his shoulder, and he says, “Congratulations,” and I grin.
I live the city. It thrives and it is mine. I am its worthy avatar, and together? We will never be afraid again.
Fifty years later.
I sit in a car, watching the sunset from Mulholland Drive. The car is mine; I’m rich now. The city is not mine, but that’s all right. The person is coming who will make it live and stand and thrive in the ancient way … or not. I know my duty, respect the traditions. Each city must emerge on its own or die trying. We elders merely guide, encourage. Stand witness.
There: a dip in the firmament near the Sunset Strip. I can feel the upwelling of loneliness in the soul I seek. Poor, empty baby. Won’t be long now, though. Soon—if she survives—she’ll never be alone again.
I reach for my city, so far away, so inseverable from myself. Ready? I ask New York.
Fuck yeah, it answers, filthy and fierce.
We go forth to find this city’s singer, and hopefully to hear the greatness of its birthing song.
Anything forbidden becomes mysterious. And mysterious things always become attractive, sooner or later. Usually sooner. Especially in New York.
LA PEAU VERTE
CCAITLíN R. KIERNAN
1
In a dusty, antique-littered back room of the loft on St. Mark’s Place, room with walls the color of ripe cranberries, Hannah stands naked in front of the towering mahogany-framed mirror and stares at her self. No—not her self any longer, but the new thing that the man and woman have made of her. Three long hours busy with their airbrushes and latex prosthetics, grease paints and powders and spirit gum, their four hands moving as one, roaming excitedly and certainly across her body, hands sure of their purpose. She doesn’t remember their names, if, in fact, they ever told their names to her. Maybe they did, but the two glasses of brandy she’s had have set the names somewhere just beyond recall. Him tall and thin, her thin but not so very tall, and now they’ve both gone, leaving Hannah alone. Perhaps their part in this finished; perhaps the man and woman are being paid, and she’ll never see either of them again, and she feels a sudden, unexpected pang at the thought, never one for casual intimacies, and they have been both casual and intimate with her body.
The door opens, and the music from the party grows suddenly louder. Nothing she would ever recognize, probably nothing that has a name, even; wild impromptu of drumming hands and flutes, violins and cellos, an incongruent music that is both primitive and drawing-room practiced. The old woman with the mask of peacock feathers and gown of iridescent satin stands in the doorway, watching Hannah. After a moment, she smiles and nods her head slowly, appreciatively.
“Very pretty,” she says. “How does it feel?”