Scareship_Issue8

Two days later, he thinks he sees someone, but it’s a bear. In
Manhattan. 63rd and Madison. He doubts it’s from the zoo. Bears
aren’t noted for picking locks or jail breaks. He’s downwind, and
walks away, looking back frequently, feeling a paranoia when the
bear goes down a side street, that it is rushing down Park Avenue
to try and ambush him. “Bear goes the neighborhood.” It’s one
more sign that only people are gone, not animals. Some sin they
have committed. Or he has committed worse than the others—he
refuses to believe he’s been spared, this is no mercy.
He goes downtown one last time, stopping to see if he can get
into the Empire State Building. If there are signs of life visible
anywhere around New York, that is where he might see them. But
the building is closed.
The Brooklyn Bridge is lovely, its webs glistening with light.
He’s passed it and been on it, but he’s never really seen it.
Down in Battery Park, he looks out at Jersey and Staten
Island, under a cloud-ribbed sky considering rain. The great Lady
of the Harbor holds her torch aloft for nobody. He turns around
and looks at the empty buildings, and considers all the empty
buildings beyond them, that he has passed and will pass again one
more time. “It’s not New York, it’s just buildings.”
The next day, he rises early, food and clothing in a backpack,
liquid and clothing in the carrier, and goes uptown. He leaves a
note in his apartment but nobody will read it.
Later that morning, as he pedals across the George
Washington Bridge, an easy slalom around scattered cars and
trucks piled into each other or the railing, he stops once to look
back at the skyline. The empty home. He’ll return there on
occasion, carrying hope and bearing away disappointment, he is
sure of that. Near the other end of the bridge, near the Palisades, he
sees a coyote on the opposite side of the road, trotting toward
Manhattan. Their eyes meet briefly, then each goes on.
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