Free How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie Debartolo Page B

when an African American How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 65
    woman at table eight beat her.
    “Betty has Alzheimer’s. And she cheats,” Patty said.
    “Wil ie, check her card.”
    A few minutes into the third game, Patty tugged on Paul’s arm and yel ed, “Tel Luka to pay attention.” Paul cleared his throat, prompting me to look at my name tag. “Very funny,” I said. Then I inspected my card, stood up and shouted “BINGO!” as if I’d just hit the mil ion-dol ar jackpot at Caesar’s.
    Initial y, I interpreted my win as a fortuitous event, but when I tried to claim my prize, Paul informed me that volunteers were not al owed to profit from the game. Not eco-nomical y, anyway. Mary Lou did give me a keychain, and a calendar fil ed with photos of Weimaraner dogs al dressed up in sil y outfits.
    We left Bingo a little before dusk. Paul hustled me back to the Lower East Side where, if we hurried, he promised a spectacular urban sunset on the roof of the Pack-It-Away Mini Storage building that housed Bananafish’s rehearsal space.
    By the time we got there it was nearly dark, but the night was warm and clear, and we could see the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Manhattan Bridge. Paul quizzed me on what I was looking at and I scored a dismal one out of three. I got the Statue of Liberty right, but thought Brooklyn was Queens, and mistook Staten Island for New Jersey.
    “I’m not very good with directions,” I said.
    “Not good?” Paul laughed hysterical y. “You’re geograph-ical y retarded.”
    I walked to the edge of the building and Paul fol owed.
    Although he could have stepped left to avoid touching me, he let our shoulders meet.
    “I’ve been meaning to thank you,” I said, shivering even though it was stil so warm out.
    “For what?”
    “For not signing that deal. For not leaving Michael in the dust.”
    Paul shrugged, but his face softened and I could tel my words meant something to him. A while passed before he nodded toward my wrist.
    “Why did you do it?” he said.
    It wasn’t a topic I was particularly keen on discussing, especial y with someone I hardly knew. But the way Paul was watching me, with the utmost level of attention, and no trace of judgment, made me wil ing to offer him a response.
    “I was depressed,” I said, shrugging. “I was a stupid kid.
    I didn’t mean it.”
    Paul stared at me like he wanted more.
    “I couldn’t feel anything,” I final y told him. “I couldn’t feel the truth. Does that make sense? Do you know what the truth feels like?”
    “I know what it sounds like.”
    We both smiled, and a moment of complete understanding passed between us before I had to turn away.
    Looking out over the city, I was certain there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be than right there, with the blue-black sky above me, the aromas of Chinatown and Little Italy mingling below me, and the man beside me who, when standing on a dirty rooftop with a mil ion twinkling lights behind him, looked a lot more like a lonely orphan than a cocky bastard.
    I shifted to face uptown and tried to find Ludlow Street.
    Al I saw were water tanks. I’d never noticed them before, these big wooden works of rustic, industrial art perched atop almost every building in the city like phal ic offerings to the patron saint of metropolitan life.
    “Do you think I’m a coward?” I said.
    Paul lit a cigarette and backed up against the railing.
    There was a peculiar glint in his eyes as he watched me, and I swear he didn’t blink for a ful minute. Then he put his cigarette between his teeth and held it there while he reached down and flicked a chunk of tar off his shoe. After he took the cigarette from his mouth he said, “Why would you say that?”
    6“I know you know I was supposed to fly here, and that I chickened out. Now you know I’ve tried to chicken out of a lot of things.”
    Pointing at me, he said, “First of al , there’s nothing cowardly about a person