Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass

Running along the streets of lower Manhattan, crossing over Centre Street, I kept an even tempo. The sky suddenly darkened as heavy clouds covered the blue sky like spilled ink clouding out over parchment paper.

I could have turned back and avoided the storm. But I needed to get my miles in. Post the numbers. Do the work. Think of that Starbucks cappuccino and the warmed-up butter croissant that’s waiting for you.

I had already gone five miles by that point. But six miles was my daily minimum. And I was hurting. Right calf cramping. Stich in my side. Labored breathing. Count your steps: one, two, three, four, five … Tyson is the best, Tyson can’t be beat. The training was the only place where the force of my will held sway. The only thing in my control.

Ever since the accident, it was even more important to stick to the plan. Keep my health intact. For without that, there was no livelihood, no finding a partner, no future family, no legacy to mark the fact I was here and alive. Without that, I was nothing but an advertising account manager in an agency, the net purpose of my life being to create desire in people’s minds and associate their preexistent needs with a brand that had the answer to their woes.

It is all snake oil really. There is no such thing, no panacea. I learned that in the hospital. I kept asking, “Isn’t there a drug or something to reverse that?” Their heads shook—“No.” “Isn’t there anything that can help with that, help the healing process?” Their heads shook. Just rest and rehab and my will. Just work and luck.

As I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, I dodged an older Ukrainian woman with a shawl and a steel utility cart filled with groceries, a bunch of kids walking along with their heads down on their phones smoking stogies and taking drags off vape pens, and dozens of sightseers taking selfies.

None of them were turning back. None of them were chastened by the storm. And I wasn’t going to abandon my planned training over some weather. I needed to get in my daily six-mile allotment. I owed it. I couldn’t come up short. Everything depended on consistency, inerrancy, and discipline.

I remembered laying in the hospital bed after waking up from the induced coma. I remembered rehab for the foot drop in my left foot that wouldn’t flex due to the paralysis of the nerves—the damned peroneal nerve—that I’d never heard of until it became my nemesis. For a while after the stroke, I couldn’t see from my right peripheral, and experienced a kind of pause in my thoughts during conversations—just lost my bearings—and couldn’t remember what was just said. In tests at the neurologist, I couldn’t repeat a simple sentence. Which made it hard to carry on a conversation. That is how it goes. One day everything is normal, and then you get struck by lightning, or in my case, a Prius. Taking my bike out to buy groceries on a Tuesday night, I got sideswiped by a Prius and suffered head trauma that resulted in a stroke.

The rain came forth in a downpour. The wind cracked like the lashes of a whip. And the cold exhalation of the river pulled the heat out of the autumn air. I felt the first warning droplets. Sprinkles of mist. Icy tendrils. Then they came harder. Steadier. Coating my forehead in a glaze of salty New York City rain, all acid and recycled Hudson River sludge.

Truth be told, I alternated between the carrot and the stick. I’d count steps, give myself a little ra-ra stuff, and think of my after-run meal. But I’d be lying if I didn’t own up to the fact that most of it was an evil drill sergeant saying Who are you kidding, you worthless loser and Your life is nothing. You are nothing. You’re a fucking loser. Worthless. A piece of shit. Why do you even exist? And worse. That is the voice, which has been more persistent since the stroke. And after the stroke, there were also occasional visions and hallucinations, usually malevolent ones, fears brought to life in the form of ghouls or ghosts, scarecrows, or hobgoblins—just 80s B-Movie stuff mostly—nothing truly terrifying.

A few moments later the deluge crashed over my shoulders like shower water. Running down my back. A furious gush of water. And the wind hit my face, buffeting me with unrelenting blows. And the wind slapped my back, muffling the street sounds and cocooning me in the isolating cone of rumbling storm sounds. It was isolating and unpleasant. The farthest thing possible from seventy degrees and sunny.

When I finally came over to the Brooklyn side of the bridge and found some city ground shielded from the wind by buildings, with sufficient overhangs to shield me from the rain, the air was cold and crisp, perfect autumn air, redolent of carpets of crunchy brown leaves crunching underfoot on the sidewalks. But I was already soaked to the bone.

I made my way down into Dumbo, sailing along by buildings with merlot-covered bricks on their faces, watching you as you go, and cobblestone streets that give back sound as you clomp along as if they are conversing with you and warning of the things hidden in alleyways and liminal spaces amid the cityscape.

I headed under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass by Adams Street to where people were enjoying the cool weather at wooden picnic tables and congregating to enjoy the autumn evening. They were all dry and had arrived before the storm rolled in. Happy with themselves, no doubt, for their attention to the weather report on their iPhones, a plaudit I could not boast.

I joined them and sat at a picnic table, drenched in cold rain. Steam coming off my face, my forehead, and my very breath. The rain was in my sweat-wicking t-shirt, in my Lululemon running sweatpants, and my water-resistant running shoes were squishing out water like a wrung sponge as I walked to the bench and sat down in a heap, a puddle of water-logged defeat.

An old Jamaican man directly across from me had a gray glass eye, beneath drapes of dreadlocks. He was playing chess with a young black boy, school-age, wearing a ball cap. There was a midget. He was a handsome fellow. Square and black-haired, with a side part. Wearing a collared shirt and khakis. Carrying himself with the deportment of a king. He was clean-faced with a small mustache, giving just a hint of the rebel. I saw a red-haired woman in a green dress walking past. I saw a crow fly through the archway down toward Pebble Beach. It was a surreal moment separated out of time.

And then, as I sat calmly, looking about, I heard a sound. It was a chirping whistle. A piping. A chattering screech. Chweee-eh-pep-eh-chwee, chwee.

The sound came again. Haunting. Melodious. Distressed. Chweee-eh-pep-eh-chwee, chwee, oopp, chwee. Then on the heels of the sound was a mocking chortle. Oorp, quah, oorp, oorp, oorp, quah.

I looked about. I looked at the red-haired woman in the green dress who had sat down and was talking to a seven-foot-tall monster—a giant—who looked like an adult sitting at the tea table outside on the back lawn of a doll’s house. They went on chit-chatting without a hint of disturbance. I looked at the Jamaican man with the dreadlocks and the glass eye. He moved his rook nonchalantly across the lefthand side of the board, capturing a threatening bishop with a satisfied smile. I could not see the little boy’s reaction. But he was a gaunt boy. Malnourished. With a Yankees ball cap.

I looked at the midget. Who was reading a book in the light of the golden hour facing outward on the park bench he chose. Oblivious to his surroundings. Did none of them hear it? Chwee-eh-pep-eh-chwee-CHWEE.

Then I looked up and identified the sound. The thing that made it. It was perched, inverted, clinging with claws like meat hooks that dug deeply into the concrete of the archway, holding the sinuous body in defiance of gravity. Its coat was a brilliant golden color that shimmered like fall leaves coated in nail polish and adorned with a thousand tiny shimmering gemstones. It glistened with a slight pink hue. Its tail was a lion’s tail, through and through. A happy wagging tail that was at least two feet in length, with a big pom-pom on its end.

It had a spiraling circular mane from neck to shoulder blade that transitioned from white feather to golden fur, capturing all the colors of the palette in between. And its wings. They hewed closely to the torso, the muscular lion’s torso, draping the sides, a gold leaf texture, reminiscent of the hammered, thin, unmistakable coating on bar ceilings from a bygone age that features the iconography of the architect's fancy in repeating patterns and frames the rooms in an unnatural glow.

And the head. The head was the most haunting. An eagle’s head. That regal head. The beak, with flaring nostril holes, alternating in the light between bright canary yellow and deep amber. A thing of menace. And the eyes, big and raven-like, but sad. A killer’s stare. Eyes that encompass the eddies of shame mixed in with the confident assurance of death itself—the black swirl of destiny that has come to pass.

Chwee-eh-pep-eh-chwee-CHWEE.

The thing sprinted along the archway to the ground like a circus motorcycle in a cage, seemingly immune to gravitational pull, its footfalls light and quick—impossibly light and quick. And it was off toward Pebble Beach.

I sprang to my feet and ran after it. Running at a high tempo, not knowing why I was giving chase.

* * *

At first, I could see it ahead of me on Adams Steet, heading North toward Water Street. And I picked up the pace. It ran along the sidewalk beneath some scaffolding, and then leaped upside down, running along the underside of the scaffolding, like a weightless mirage. I sprinted hard and lactic acid was pooling in my legs. We bore left on the cobblestones of Water Street, and the creature was back on the ground, pulling away from me, leaping with long fast strides over the cobblestones. My legs grew heavy and leaden. Just past Jaques Torres Chocolate, it grew so small in the distance that it became like a lonely spec of gold.

Finally, the creature reached Pebble Beach and the great glass cube over Jane’s Carousel and leaped again over the velvet stanchion ropes at the entrance and perched atop the Carousel frame.

I finally reached the attraction and ducked inside, leaning against the glass walls of the display to catch my breath. I watched as the creature circled around the top of the Carousel. The Carousel started up and strains of old-fashioned music from the band organ floated over the river, mingling with the sound of crowds passing by. Duh, dun, dun, dah, dun, duh Dah-da. The forty-eight hand-carved wooden horses began to rise and fall as they circled Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Chwee-eh-pep-eh-chwee-CHWEE. The alien visage of this regal creature, with the head of a bald eagle vocalized its haunting call and then regarded me, head motionless, at full height over its tucked-in and perched haunches, front legs straight, shoulders drawn back. It sat stationed on the far ornamental exterior work beyond the moving mechanisms of the Carousel, which spun beneath him. And it fixed its gaze and continued to regard me in eerie silence.

Was this some apparition? A lengthy hallucination caused by my damaged neural veins? Or could this impossible vision be real?

“You dare to chase after me?” It said. Not in the voice of an ordinary man, but in a booming voice, like that of a great general.

“I thought it was a hallucination. I had to see if you were real,” I said.

“This is no dream, boy. What stands before you has the strength of a lion and the wisdom of an eagle. I am the protector of great treasures—I test men’s merits and search their hearts in hopes of finding, in any of you, the nobility and courage required,” It said.

“Well, I guess I’d best be going back home. I was just finishing up a run. I wasn’t looking for treasures or claiming nobility or anything like that,” I said. Beginning to walk toward the door.

“Stop. Don’t take another step. Are you telling me there’s nothing your heart desires?” the creature asked.

“Desires? Too numerous to mention. But right now, I just want my health back. A sliver of confidence, maybe,” I said.

“Hmph. That isn’t much. What would you use this health for? What would you do with your courage? Run in circles? Aim for a promotion? Settle down with a girl? Is there nothing more that drives you than a hamster wheel, some money to throw at creature comforts, and settling down? No sense of adventure?” It asked.

“Not for nothing but making rent in Brooklyn and starting a family in this day and age is an adventure—let me tell you,” I said.

“Enough. Insolent little man. You see these horses on this Carousel?” he asked.

“I see them,” I said.

“Horses are the natural enemies of us Griffins,” the Griffin said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because horses are mindless servants that serve the will of the pure and the wicked alike. Lemmings. Good-natured creatures. Almost aristocratic in their complete humility and subservience. But to no end. Us Griffin are creatures of purpose, and you my friend are giving ‘horse’ vibes,” The Griffin said.

“So, what is my purpose, then?” I asked.

“A better question would be what is the purpose, but at least you are on the right track,” the Griffin said.

“Ok, so what is that?” I asked.

“I must be on my way now, but I will see you again,” the Griffin said. And it turned and in a flash, the Griffin jumped over my head, landed outside of the display, by Pebble Beach, and with long, fluid strides, like a leopard, dove onto the River and began churning across the water. Legs turning so quickly it looked like the spinning wheels of a locomotive. The powerful wings opened, and it took flight, flapping those giant golden, shimmering, wings as it soared out of sight.

I continued my run back home. Churning my legs. A fire in my abdomen. Heaviness in my legs. A drowsy, delayed hitch in my left leg’s footfalls.

And as I reached Williamsburg, and was almost home, I suddenly collapsed.

* * *

A light was shining in my eyes as I came to. A red-haired woman in green medical scrubs was flashing a light to test my pupils.

“Doctor, Pupils constricting normally and dilating with the removal of the light,” she said, looking down next to her.

“Monitor the patient for the next half hour, order up an EKG, and let me know of any unusual speech patterns observed,” the man said. The doctor was a midget. He had a commanding presence despite his small stature.

As he walked out of the room, the nurse did a few more tests and then turned back to me and said, “Rest up, you’ll need your strength!”

A few minutes later, a giant man with a huge forehead entered. He had to be seven-feet-tall. He said, “I am here to put some Heparin and Warfarin into the IV Drip, it’ll just take a minute.” The man placed the screw-on syringe into an input tube and pushed the drugs into my IV drip. Then he flashed a friendly smile and was off.

Finally, a Jamaican man with dreadlocks and one gray glass eye walked into my room and started writing on the whiteboard on the wall in front of me. ‘ROJE’ he wrote on the board. “I’m Roje, like row-gee. And I’ll be takin’ care of ya these next few days. Just press down on that dar button if you be needin’ anything and I’ll be right in to sort you out. Ok?”

I nodded at the man as he left. And scanning the room, I saw a little black boy in the bed next to me.

He was asleep, and his head was covered with a Yankees baseball cap.

He lay there completely still, in a coma, or maybe sleeping.

Just as gaunt and frail as they come.

* * *

I had taken my EKG tests, had been wheeled around for some scans, and then brought back to my room. Exhausted, I’d passed out for a bit.

After coming to from a short nap, I heard it again:

Chwee-eh-pep-eh-chwee-CHWEE.

Looking before me in the room, I saw the Griffin.

It was seated in the corner, by the open window, letting in the cool October air.

“What’s your why?” the Griffin said.

“What?” I asked.

“You want to get better, right?” the Griffin asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“You’re going to need something a lot heavier than a Starbucks cappuccino and a croissant to put up with what this life’s gonna throw at you—you’re gonna need a lot more treasure to make the adventure worthwhile,” the Griffin said.

“I don’t know what that is,” I said.

“There will be time, my boy, to find it,” the Griffin said.

“But are you even real?” I asked.

“I am real if you believe,” the Griffin said.

“But what is a purpose to live for, give me an example?” I asked.

“That is up to you,” the Griffin said, and with that, jumped through the window, calling back, “It's all up to you.”

And as he took flight, I felt a searing pain in my left shoulder.

Chwee-eh-pep-eh-chwee-CHWEE.