At the top

“So you wanna climb to the top of the Empire State Building?” Quincy said and then sniffed. “You must be nuts! It’s 20 degrees outside and windy. You’ll freeze your keester off, buddy.”

“Hey man, it ain’t closed, ya know,” Freeman said. God, those security guards – they got your goat every time ya wanted to do anything. Just the other day, tried to get a ham and cheese sandwich at a bagel shop and they practically cut off his balls. Damned dickheads. “I got a right to go up there, same as you.”

“You gotta right, no argument here,” Quincy answered. He turned the key in the elevator and pressed the top floor. “Go on up, you’re goin’ alone, ya know. Don’t come cryin’ to me when your dick falls off and hits some idiot on the head and kills ‘em.”

“Like, whatever, man. Thanks.”

The elevator doors shut on Freeman. Geez, it was great to be alone. He got a rush goin’ up in the elevator. That and the marijuana, he felt on top of the world and he wasn’t even a third of the way up. Oh, wait a second – now passing 50, half way up. Wished Cartletta were here – she’d love it, bein’ with Freeman at the Empire State Building. A far way from Hoboken – hell, even a far way from Newark. But no, she chose that no good Wilbur over him and got pregnant. Her loss, that loser’ll never marry her. She’ll end up with six babies and no daddy.

Freeman would’ve married her. But she didn’t want him. Not anymore.

The doors opened at the top floor. Freeman looked out. Yep, cold just like that snippy guard said – and windy too. No big deal, he wanted to be up here. And alone. He walked out and winced. Man, oh man, that was bracing. Why in the hell do people live in New York when it’s this cold? Who’s bright idea was it to put the biggest city in the U.S. of A. in this Arctic blast?

Didn’t matter none, at least not anymore. He took a step closer to the railing. That Corletta, she’d be sorry she left him. He’d make her sorry. Even by tomorrow she’d be regretting what she’d done – he’d show her. He walked straight up to the edge, looked over the glass and the railing. Long way down. Anybody jumped over, they’d be dead before they even got half way down. That’s what someone told him once, you’re dead of heart failure before your body even hits the ground and explodes into a million fragments.

He leaned out a little and thought about it for a minute. And then he thought some more. Shit, man, too cold up here. He’d go to that corner deli for a cup of coffee. Then he’d head out to Hoboken and shoot that Wilbur in the balls.