Into the Light

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish."

Aeschylus

Blake closes the door behind him.

"Fuck the bookie, not worrying about it tonight" he says as he passes by Tyger's glass enclosure.

He showers and then waits an hour to call but messes up the attempt. An itch runs through his scalp and he digs at it only to draw blood. After cleaning the wound, he vows never to bite his finger nails again and goes to call Amesha.

"Hi is Amesha there?"

"This is she. Hello Blake."

"Impressive. I'm told I sound different on the phone."

"I can always tell. So, the agenda tonight is to obliterate boredom and see reality in a new way."

"How's that?"

"We are going to an avant garde fashion show."

"Fashion show?" he asks.

"Yes."

"All right. Do you want me to come get you?"

"No, you will be picked up in forty-three minutes."

"My address is..."

"I already have it. Google. Good bye." Click.

He has never gone to a fashion show and thinks you must try everything once. As he continues to get ready, he feeds Tyger and plugs in his electric toothbrush into the socket to charge since it is running low on power. He wonders if she is interested in him because he was sitting with Juli. Pretty women like to compete with pretty women.

"No," he says and slips on charcoal gray slacks and a black v-neck cashmere sweeter over a blue Egyptian cotton oxford along with his dark burgundy English wingtips.

Forty-two minutes later, Blake waits outside feeling over dressed and a little too warm for the temperate autumn night. A forest green Bentley pulls up and he looks in the back seat but Amesha isn't there. A driver in a classic chauffeur uniform, tufts of white blonde hair exposed under the cap, waves him in and Blake wonders how the hell could she afford this?

The door opens itself and he slides in. The driver accelerates pinning him to the headrest and a solid black partition goes up. Blake's heart begins to race. His hands sweat and he can't stop the growing and uncalled for erection in his pants. He places his hand over his crotch even though the partition is up.

The pewter clouds in the sky have stalled and twilight has dominion of the city. The William Tell Overture begins to play on the sound system of the Bentley rising in gradual degree. Blake watches the city streets blur by through the window until they hop on the WilliamsburgBridge. Thirty classical music minutes later, they reach a dilapidated industrial site in Brooklyn, a factory of cement and broken glass.

The Bentley drives through chain link gates as tall as street lights that are capped with razor wire. The car pulls in a lot where Hummer Limos and Maybachs, the New Testament to power and mobility, sit next to piles of broken cinderblocks and twisted iron rebar. The lot is absent of human life but rats dash among the piles of debris.

The driver gives the Blake a silver ticket with a bar code and a red ribbon for his lapel. He gets out and follows a purple velvet carpet bordered by large hemp ropes covered in tiny colored mirrors, a linear mosaic. At a loading bay, he comes across a slate board held up on a steel tube easel with letters written with sea glass that reads West. An arrow points to a red door where an exit sign hangs above. On the door, ENTER is written.