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But not everybody. Most people spend their lives asleep, not even aware that this is it, a one-way ticket, you don’t get another chance. And before you know it, the ride is over and you don’t have another quarter. You’re gone, and you never really knew you were there.
That was Benjy. Sound asleep, with both feet solidly on that path to permanent unconsciousness. Sometimes literally, because Benjy went through booze and dope at a rate that only a trust fund party boy could sustain. He was a cinch to be voted Most Likely to End Up a Middle-Aged Zombie. If he lived that long.
But then came spring semester of his sophomore year. Benjy was only about two pop quizzes away from flunking out when he took a survey course in modern art.
Magic happened.
Sitting in the dark lecture hall—stoned, of course—and looking at slides, in what was probably going to be his last semester at Yale, Benjy Woke Up.
A painting came up on screen. Benjy didn’t look up until the instructor droned out the name of the painting. It was The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dalí. Benjy snickered at the title, looked up, and froze, his mouth hanging open. Dalí is supposed to be surrealism, I know. His paintings don’t usually mean anything to most people. But to Benjy it was pure enlightenment. Something about that painting spoke to Benjy like nothing else ever had. He looked at the slide, and suddenly everything made sense. Benjy Woke Up.
He bought a reproduction of The Great Masturbator and stared at it for hours. It was even better after a few hits of dope. And that painting led him to other things that, weirdly enough, turned out to be just as compelling. Benjy was hooked on modern art.
It would be a sweet story if Benjy’s new awareness turned his whole life around. It would also be a fairy tale. But he did cut down on booze and partying, and he brought his grades up. Enough so he could finish out Yale, go on to grad school, and take a master’s in art. And when he was finished, he was a natural for a cushy job at the family museum.
Now in his thirties, Benjy had worked up to the noble position of curator. He was in charge of maintaining the collection, Acquisitions, and Special Events. Of course, his assistant did most of the work. Benjy was still a lazy-ass party boy with no ambition. And he still liked pot, especially White Rhino. He’d go up on the museum’s roof a couple of times a day for a smoke.
That’s how I found him, of course. On the roof, getting high. And that’s how I took him out.
I knew what time he’d be up there. It was simple: as soon as the dope from his last trip up there wore off. And I knew something else, too. He turned off all the security on the roof before he went up—cameras, sensors, alarms, everything. Natural enough. He didn’t want anybody to know what he was doing. That part didn’t work too well. It was an open secret at the museum. Mr. Curator Benjamin Dryden was a doper, a true old-fashioned stoner, and he went on the roof to light up.
So I knew he’d be there. Even so, ev
en with the security system off, he didn’t make it easy. That’s good. Like I said before, I don’t like easy. So when I slipped up onto the roof and saw Benjy, I knew I would have to work a little harder. That made me feel a lot better about it.
He was sitting in the middle of the roof with his back to a stanchion. He had a fat spliff in one hand and a gold hip flask in the other, and he looked just mellow as shit.
So instead of cat-footing up behind him, I went racing over to him in my best synthetic dither. And Benjy, being totally whacked on Rhino and bourbon, just stared at me with his jaw hanging.
“Did you hear that scream?” I said, sounding as urgent as I could.
Benjy blinked. What else would he do? He was high as a kite.
“I think it came from over here,” I said, and I quick-stepped over to the edge of the roof. I peered over. “Oh my God!” I said. “Oh, holy shit! Jesus, that’s terrible!”
That did the trick. Benjy lumbered to his feet and hurried over. “What?” he said. “What is it?”
“Somebody must have fallen—there’s a body in the street!” I said.
Benjy leaned over, blinked, searched for a long stoned moment. I looked at him in profile. There was a big clot of crusty wax in his ear hole. A big red pimple had bloomed on his neck. But his haircut hung just right, like it cost a couple hundred dollars, and it brushed against the collar of a shirt that cost even more. He looked just like what he was: rich, spoiled, useless. He’d done nothing his whole life except take with both hands, like he had a right to anything and everything. He was everything I hated.
I took a breath . . . and I felt the Darkness wrap around me.
“Do you see it?” I asked.
“No, I don’t see anything,” he said. “There’s no body down there.”
I put a hand on his back and pushed. Benjy went over the edge and all the way down.
I watched him fall. Then I watched him hit.
“How about now?” I said.
CHAPTER
23
You won’t believe what happened today!” Katrina said breathlessly to Randall as she rushed in the front door of the house.
