Part Four

June twentieth, 18h34 | Janis Chopin’s Rooftop Garden

Maury: It was a beautiful sunset when we got married. We were surrounded by friends and some family, but mostly the family we’d built ourselves. Nathaniel wasn’t with us yet, or else he would’ve been my ring-bearer.

Willow: I appreciate the sentiment, boss.

Maury: I mean it. I mean it as much as I meant my vows. Do you remember those, Alessandra?

Dr Carter: Address me, instead, please.

Maury, a short-lived smile gracing his features: Yes, Dr Carter. My apologies. I promised Alessandra that I would stand by her side until my legs were cut out from under me, that I would be there to support her in all times of need, that I would fight for her until she commanded otherwise, that if she saw fit to release me, that I would obey if only to make her merry once more. I swore that I would love her, unfalteringly, for the rest of my existence.

Dr Carter: Those are big promises.

Maury: I have kept them. Our wedding day tested my vows, when some rivals decided to storm the festivities. That morning had been particularly windy, and so we were uncertain as to whether we would have to change venues at the last minute. It happens, but I urged whatever gods were listening to make the winds subside by evening. They listened. They went beyond my demands; they cleared the skies to unleash upon us the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. The sun hovered behind Alessandra’s face, giving her the celestial corona she deserves. The Virgin herself would have been jealous.

Narrator: Dr Carter found himself blushing with the way Maury described Alessandra, embarrassed, as if he were peering through the curtains and observing someone else’s carnal embrace. Mr Willow adjusted his pose; he now leant on the windowsill to look more intently at the people walking below. Alessandra un- and re-crossed her legs. Ms Welles stretched her arms and stood to refill her water bottle. Rain began to fall from the sky. Earl Garland was born, weighing ten pounds and seven ounces. He was deemed healthy by the nurse-midwives whose fingers he grabbed as if he’d been waiting for them his whole, short life.

Maury: Our families were there. Well, hers was. I didn’t have a family. I’ve been an orphan since I was nine years old, when my father drove himself, my sisters, my brother, my dog, and my mother off a bridge at the behest of the heavenly voices he would listen to more than us, or reason. That night I was watching a movie with my cousins, who brought me in and raised me until they moved back to Italy and Romania, where my family’s from. We’re Romanians, mostly, but some of us branched off during the war to try and start rebellions in Italy against Mussolini. Those who took part in the legitimate war moved here after it ended, which is how my mother and father met. My grandfather sent her to live with the cousins whose children I watched the film with when my family died. Anyway, abandoned, I had no one to invite besides more friends and family of Alessandra’s, and some of the people I appreciated most. Some teachers, a baker. Grace Esteban, one of the greatest flautists in the state. I invited her mostly because her brother had just died the morning before, and she needed to be kept with other people for a few weeks, being suicidal and whatnot considering that it was her twin who’d been killed off by a budding gang.

What I didn’t know was that by taking Grace Esteban under my wing for a minute, the new gang would assume I was siding against them. I didn’t find them tolerable, but I didn’t hold anything against them, you know? So, I thought they would follow the rules. You don’t touch mine, I don’t touch yours. Simple law of reciprocation. Instead, these kids show up at my wedding after the vows are said and the kisses and rings exchanged… I guess I should be thankful they respected the ceremony. We was about to part ways, to change into more streetwise clothing, you know, when they knock over some vases and an urn or two and whip out their heaters. Animals. I’d thought about not taking a gun with me that morning, but something in me convinced me otherwise.

Willow: Habit.

Quickshot: Clairvoyance.

Maury, grinning, shaking his head: Like I knew when I met Alessandra: luck. I’m the luckiest man in the room, nine times of ten. The first guy pulled his gun when Alessandra wasn’t looking. Something – luck, probably – drew my eye to his arm and I pulled her close to and spun. The bullet grazed my shoulder, spinning me around as the gun popped into my hand. I don’t remember grabbing it, just pulling the trigger and thinking I’d blown my foot off.

Quickshot, tapping between her eyebrows, right above the bridge of her nose: Fuckin’ bull’s eye, not even lookin’.

Maury: Lucky. I hadn’t used a gun in months. Alessandra’s gun was on her thigh, so I gave her cover, spinning around the next guy before shooting him twice in the back. Thing was, I had a revolver, see, and half my rounds were used up, so I had to be careful about the next few seconds. My guards at the time were on task, doing what I would have ordered if I’d been present vocally in the moment. They were getting Alessandra’s family out, the young ones first, then the women, men last, the ones they would.

Quickshot: I lost a couple of uncles that day. An aunt. That’s it.

Maury: I still hate that it happened. All that violence, on a beautiful day. That’s when I lost it. The roof was cleared, and in all the chaos they’d taken Alessandra. They were going to hold her for ransom, then probably kill her. Animals. Sadistic fucks. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with. They didn’t know me. They were new. They didn’t know that I would drag one of their breathing men to the edge of the roof and threaten to drop him unless he told me where they’d take my wife. He looked so happy when I reached down to pull him up. He still looked happy when his head fell to the ground, splitting open like a pumpkin all over the sidewalk.

Narrator: Dr Carter opened his mouth to ask about the body, but he realized that he didn’t want nor need to know the details. He wasn’t sure his stomach could handle them.

Maury: I waited an hour for them to get where they were going. I grabbed a few knives. A bat. No guns. I wanted it to be quiet. I like death quiet, not loud, confusing. Silent. Sudden. Immutable. I entered their place after slitting their watcher’s carotid. The next guy I took out from behind, covering his mouth. Before their buddy could scream I broke his voice box and pierced him through the eye. Went upstairs, three more were waiting, their guns in their holsters, on their pants. The guns never moved. I waited for the next guy to return from the kitchen. He saw his buddies slouched in their seats, and as he asked what was going on I popped out from the corner and lost my knife to his face; I shoved it too far up from below his jaw, let it stick out his skull. I grabbed another knife and let it fly from my fingers at the guy who came down the stairs laughing. The girl behind him screamed, and that’s when hell broke loose. She ran upstairs into the arms of a smoking guy with a gun aimed at me; I jumped off the stairs, off the wall, and flew into the guy, knocking his gun out his hand. It went off when it hit the ground, killing the screamer and grazing my leg. I killed the guy with a punch that broke his neck before scrambling to a slouch on the wall and slapping away the next guy. I pulled out my bat then and smashed his temple, and the next guy’s, and jabbed another in the gut before stabbing him through the neck with the same knife I hurled at a gunman down the hall. He fell back and crashed through the window.

It hurt to walk, so I leant on the wall as I made my way down the hallway, blood trailing down from just under my knee. I had the bat still, with the sharpened handle so I could stab people with it as necessary. The bat and two knives were all I had left, besides my fists. I knocked on the bedroom door with my bat. The door opened; I swung hard, catching the guy by surprise. He ducked beneath my next swing and knocked the bat out of my hand before kicking me into the wall. Alessandra was tied to the chair beyond the bed, a rag around her mouth, still in her wedding dress. Rage incensed me further. I let myself get thrown onto the bed, which was springy enough to let me bounce up, draw both knives from my waist, and jam them pincer-like into his cheeks. He screamed with his mouth shut. I twisted the knives, and he tried to sag to his knees, but to move at all hurt more than stillness. I walked him to the hallway, to the end of the hallway, where the window was. I told him that he’d interfered with my wedding, and how I felt about it. He would be found in the morning; his cheeks being picked at by crows.

Narrator: Dr Carter grimaced at the image, and for a moment turned green. Maury and Alessandra chuckled at the psychologist’s reaction, for they knew it would perturb only those who were unused to the grim and gruesome. Mr Willow smirked, his gaze remaining on the street below. A street peddler tried to sell some watches to young men leaving the building across the road. Mr Willow checked his watch; it was not yet time for another meal. He did not know what he hungered for.

Maury: To answer your question, though… our marriage was consummated in external strife before we ourselves consummated it. As if it were to be washed in blood before washed in love. I’ve thought about that moment a lot, Dr Carter, the one where I saw her, restrained. For the first time, restrained. Even when in jail, she was a feral, uncontrollable fury of a woman. Sensational. But there, tied to the chair… that haunts me. I never wanted to see her like that again. I hope I never will. It was wrong… I think that’s what infuriated me most about that moment. My wife, my newfound wife, spent the first hour and a half of our marriage held captive by spiteful, disrespectful strangers.

Dr Carter: Do you feel that it foreshadowed something about your marriage?

Maury: I don’t believe in that kind of stuff. You know, I used to be a lot rougher round the edges, like Alessandra said. More cutthroat, a harder person to be around. But now… I’m tired. I’ve fought my whole life, and things keep getting crazier. They shoot up a school now, a church, a concert? They kill all sorts of kids for holding phones, for being a threat? To who? How’s a kid a threat to an adult twice their size? How’s a kid a threat to an officer? Those are the real gangsters now, you know? Running around the place, ready to pull their guns in a moment. No other place does that, you know? Do that any other country, it’s called terrorism. A police state. Here, it’s everyday vulgarity. Commonplace. You know, that’s what vulgar means. Of the people, common. It’s disgusting only from an entitled viewpoint. And they say these shootings are necessary, that the murder of… these are boys and girls. Children. Children, not dying. Being killed. If you can’t restrain a child… you’re forty-three years old and you can’t hold a child down peaceably? You can’t communicate in a way that ensures peace? What kind of… and the ones shooting up schools, concerts, bars… they aren’t terrorists? I can’t keep up with that level of devastation. When we were young, we had dreams, you know? Aspirations. Big houses, fancy cars. You know what they want today, the kids? A house. Healthcare. Safety. To not be shot by someone bigger than them. Of course they’re going to be softhearted and depressed! They’ve more access to more devastation than we ever had! We were ignorant! Most of us still are. Anyway… I’m tired. Worn down. I just want to retire from this life. I don’t have the fire in me anymore. Especially not after Stella…

Quickshot: Don’t you dare fuckin’ bring her up, Maury! You don’t get to bring her up! She’s our business! Not some shady doc you found, ‘scuse me for sayin’ so, since you’ve been so cordial despite the situation.

Dr Carter, quietly: No offence taken.

Quickshot: You don’t get ta bring her up anymore! We decided that the matter’s dead, just like my son!

Dr Carter: I’m sorry… who’s Stella?

Willow: Their daughter.