perhaps amazing. A college kid in a World War II flight suit asks for my opinion on microtonality. I squeeze my lime into my cup. “Between you and me, microtonality is about to hit the mainstream in a big way.”
Sage nod.
“Fascinating.”
A red-lipped girl in an eighteenth-century nurse’s uniform asks me where I got my silver shoes. I tell her I am a monomaniac whose shoes belonged to a murder victim.
More people gather around to hear me talk about my murder shoes, and soon I’m telling them the story of how Sukey was strangled to death by a Russian pimp. I don’t tell them the truth. Sukey’s life is too precious to be handed around like that. As a registered monomaniac, it’s my job to control what stays in the rare books collection and what passes into general circulation. I am the Librarian of Life Experiences. I am the Curator of Truth. I walk my disciples around the fantastical gallery of my imagination, and they ooh and aah and nod as if they knew. I could almost do this as a career. I should make business cards: Kiri Byrd, Monomaniac-at-Large. It would be huge.
The photographer kid comes back and snaps a photo of my murder shoes. The boy from my school reappears with his flask. I’ve attracted quite an audience. No surprise, really. I’m the only monomaniac in the room. Hell, I might even be the only monomaniac in the city. These people might not get a chance to see another one. I’d better let them have it while it’s good. I laugh and tip my hat and raise my monocle. Quite right, quite right, quite right. The Eighteenth-Century Nurse says I could probably sell those shoes on eBay for five hundred bucks. I tell her eBay doesn’t allow the sale of murder shoes. She looks duly corrected.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know that.”
“No murder shoes,” I tell her. “No murder shoes and nothing infested with mange.”
When I’m finished with my latest drink, I dismiss the coterie with an imperious wave of my arm and saunter over to the women’s bathroom. When I come out of the bathroom, a black-haired man in a motorcycle jacket asks me if I want to party. He’s older than most of the crowd here. I wonder if he’s a talent scout for a major label. I grin. “Monomaniacs were born to party.”
We go out onto the fire escape, and he pulls a wrinkled joint out of the pocket of his black leather jacket. The jacket is stiff like armor and blackly shiny. My eyes keep on being drawn to it as if I’m hoping to see my reflection, but you can’t quite see your reflection in the leather’s muffled light. We smoke the joint. It’s strong. Sometimes joints aren’t very strong, but this one is. I feel like the space inside my chest is expanding and all my organs are floating apart. Is that supposed to happen? Motorcycle Man is smiling like he’s pleased with something. He takes out a small plastic bag with some yellow pills in it.
“You have a very attractive body,” says Motorcycle Man.
Monomaniacs are known for their physiques.
“Want to try something?”
Monomaniacs will try anything.
He shakes out two pills. “Enjoy.”
I swallow them. A monomaniac always enjoys.
My internal organs that are floating apart start to glow with heat like baked yams. The best yam in the world is the garnet, because it is a jewel. It is a jewel and I have six internal organs, six glowing jewels that shine through my skin like flashlights. Motorcycle Man’s hand floats toward my waist and sticks there. Is this what is meant by an attractive body? A body to which other bodies are summoned like migrating butterflies? I start to recite Shakespeare. I am the beast and Juliet is the gun. No, I am the feast and Juliet is the bun. If I click my silver heels together, I will wake up on my bicycle. I will sail through the air with my monocle planted firmly in my eye socket and my hands wrapped around the handlebars like vines.
Skunk, damn you, you should have come.
Motorcycle Man is whispering suggestions in my ear. His latest suggestion: Come for a ride with me.
I don’t think we’re making out, but maybe we are. The glowing jewel of my brain struggles with the distinction. His hand is attracted to the part of my leg that is just barely covered by the otter-slickness of my black dress. I’m trying to guess