and Velvet
Published by Eduardo Jimenez
Copyright 2011 Eduardo Jimenez
Of Blood and Velvet
If you begin to make accurate observations of traffic, you will come to the conclusion that every second 3 cars go by. From this fact a measurement of their velocity can be derived, but all we need to know is that this equals 180 cars per minute which is equal to the duration of a green light. However to this number we must add the 10 cars that manage to make it to the other side during the orange light. Furthermore, we must also add the 2 cars that run the red light not willing to spend a full minute waiting for the next green light. This sums up to a total of 192 cars. Adding the digits 1,9, 2 yields 12, the significance of it being that if a 3rd car imprudently decides to run the red light, it will take the summation to 13. The 3rd car, being too late, and the number 13 too unsymmetrical, will inevitably result in an accident, not necessarily fatal, but nevertheless an accident revolving around the number 13. Numbers do not allow room for triviality. They are as well designed as the eyes of a cat. But I am not here to speak of cats’ eyes. It is not such matter that has brought me to this cafe. It is now 8 o’clock in the evening and I been sitting here for the past 3 hours. There are still traces of light on the top windows of the high rise apartment building across the café, and I am certain that I have nothing to look forward to but a chilling breeze of the closing day.
In the first hour I sat comfortably, and pushed by an optimistic spirit made many favorable assertions about life without any foundations to support them. On the street the traffic was dominated by cars going south easily three folding those going north. My index ran incessantly round the brim of my coffee mug waiting for a signal, something in the air that would let me know it was time for me to get up and bring my business to a conclusion. (The conviction that there is destiny in my actions is asphyxiating at times, and I find myself needing signals from in the environment for everything I do. Many would consider this habit of mine eccentric, but it is the only way for me to get anything done). But the signal never came, and upon sipping the last of my coffee my index began to tremble. I placed it firmly over the table to control its anxiety, and whatever angst had invaded my index, soon ran over my entire hand leaving me no choice but to place it in my pocket.
In the second hour traffic going east eased off, but the one going west picked up. Cars were hurrying to go in the direction where the sun sets. This resulted in the irritation of drivers who had to yield some of their green light time to the cars running the red light perpendicularly to them. Sooner or later a collision would have to take place to ease up the tension that was building up.
All buildings are the same in principle, their structure usually being rectangular. In ancient times the corners of a structure indicated the cardinal points. Today they mean little, nothing more than an indication of where a building ends. In any case the coffee shop was conveniently located in a corner, diagonally opposite to the apartment complex where the man I have come to execute lives. From my table I can see the window of his apartment, and ever since finishing my second cigarette I have vividly imagined a round coffee table in the center of his living room. The image entered my mind sparked by a floating leaf making its way across the sidewalk. Immediately upon landing it was crushed under a woman‘s foot. Its cracking spawned a round table of infinite calmness in my mind. (I don’t know what the relationship between image in sound is, but these two went together). I too have a round table in the middle of my living room, and this somehow guaranteed the existence of a round table in this man’s apartment.
The round table inevitably led me to imagine two opposing sofas. It wasn’t just the round table anymore, and object by object a whole imaginary apartment began to take shape in my mind. I could see a lamp, an open magazine, a sleeping cat by the window, (not visible from my table in the cafe), and I could see the man reading a book. I could see that a nervous twitch had invaded his left eye, and I could see that he impatiently tried to figure out the reason for that twitch before a mirror while placing 2 fingers over the trembling eyelid. And I could see that my mission here today was the cause of his twitching eye. Somehow the delicate skin of his eyelid could feel my presence. That twitch was his last hope for escape, but rather unfortunately for him, he could not recognize the signal. Soon something would happen in the street that would let me know it was time for me to go up and do my job. But what could that be? A lost child crying, a moment without cars, an unexpected rain drop, a black dove... or could the signal come without me recognizing it, what then?
The sun had just settled. There was no light coming out of the man’s apartment, and I was sure that had there been anyone in side, the light would certainly be on. I was dismayed at the thought of the apartment being empty. No man, and perhaps no round table either. It was possible that all the objects I had imagine earlier had been the product of my unbending obsession for everything to be perfect, a trait that always leads a man to self deception. I waited a while longer, and perhaps, aided by the sudden drop of the caffeine effect, I realized that I would not find a round table in that apartment, no matter how great my desire for one to be there. There was nothing left to do but dismiss everything that I had preconceived in the past hour as the delusional fantasy of lost rational equilibrium. It was late, and I was not going to wait for the signal anymore. Fait was not going to fulfill what was meant for my will to will.
Entering the building was not a problem. I made my way up the elevator and as the floor numbers changed, I felt reassured. The elevator came to a stop, and the doors open from the center revealing well lit corridor, the floor covered by a red carpet of cheap industrial quality. I had not expected the building to be this quiet, and that alarmed me. Down there, while putting out a cigarette, I had exercised a casual conversation with an old lady that I was certain I would run into in the elevator. I did not let the unexpected calmness of the corridor shake my determination. I stepped out of the elevator and walked firmly taking in a deep gasp of air, my nostrils attempting to perceive what had evaded my eyes. I felt my left eyelid begin to twitch, and gun in hand, I was convinced that sometimes you just can’t wait for signs.
I reached for the door knob of apartment number 751. I found the man I had so envisioned for the last few hours. He was laying face down on a sofa with his left arm reaching to the wooden floor where his fingers rested. I closed the door behind me. A black cat rested by the window observing the traffic down below. The cat looked back, barely noticing my presence, before reassuming his tranquil contemplation of the stream of cars down on the street, and began to smoothly draw S‘s with its tail on the air. I must admit I had envisioned a completely different scenario. I had imagined that it would be the man by the window not the cat. I was sure he would be reciting an old medieval verse from a book in his hand, observing the traffic as the last ray of light vanished. Instead it was the cat contemplating the closing of the day, and I had to console myself with the idea that somehow a manifestation of poetry could be found in his eyes.
I fixed my sight back on the man. A bottle of liquor was half empty on the floor near his hand. I approached him, and chose the neck as the most suitable point. I saw the clock on the wall marking 8:14. The cat jumped out of the window and onto the floor, startled by the shot going off. The gun powder odor quickly dissipated, and I was on my way out of the apartment.
Once back again in the street I felt the cold air of a premature November hit my face, and it shook me. A red light stopped me in the corner. I looked at my wristwatch not caring for the time. For a second, as I pulled out a cigarette, I attributed the disarray in which everything had developed to a rupture in
time, or perhaps an unfortunate misunderstanding between the different forces that shape everyday life. Never had a seen a set of events unfold in such discord with what I felt should have been the right way. Whatever the case I was part of the process, and had to assume part of the blame. The traffic light turned green. A car, trying to beat the red ran straight into a car that was beginning to accelerate, and it was then that it all finally made sense.
Witnessing the violent collision made me realize that I was to blame for the disarray in which everything had developed. The sudden wreckage, unquestionably caused by a third car trying to beat the red light, must have been my signal to step out of my chair and go on to the apartment. The man, in the oblivion of his drunken sleep, would have woken up by the loud crash. Without hesitation he would have stepped on to the window. Standing there he would have ready himself to witness the unfolding of what was to come, with the belief that with observation alone he could consider himself an active participant of the incident, thus negating the necessity of going down to help. Then the ambulance sirens would have rung loudly by which time I would have been reaching the seventh floor. A solemn crowd of onlookers would have been assessing the damage as my hand reached for the door knob. From inside the car an arm would have reach out and ask for the help that a fractured jaw could not have verbalized. The cat meanwhile would have rested comfortably on the sofa unaware of the accident down below. The man would have said something in his unintelligible drunken voice, reminiscent of long forgotten medieval verse. It is only then that shooting the man would have had a meaning beyond what can be consider mundane.
I walked on to the other side of the street as people began to get out of their cars rushing to aid the drivers. I looked back to the cars involved in the wreckage looking for the hand reaching out for help. It was there.