Free Sophia by Michael Bible Page B

hunkered in the hull.
    The fuck do we do now, Darling says.
    Gimme your phone, I say.
    We’re gonna die, says Doubting Eli.
    I just sent Hal and Al Malchow a message, I say. They got the Internet to order one thousand pizzas to this address.
    Cops are too busy asking who ordered anchovies to see us backing up the boat, unhitching in the water. We’re pushing off into the Hudson River. News choppers like vultures in the sky. One spotlights us. Our hair going wildly in the wind, we raise sails.
    Fire two flares, Eli, I say. Distract the pilot.
    Darling, I say. Grab the scuba gear.
    The city behind us erupts in gunfire.
    Two flares. That way, Eli.
    We’ve found ourselves caught between a gunfight and New Jersey.
    I take a hard left and we hug the coast. There is quiet out on the water as we see the statue for the first time. So lonely beside the furious city. Tough as a woman, soft as a girl.
    We drop anchor and put on our scuba gear. I fall backward into the water and blow my boat a kiss goodbye. A ship so sweet she did not need a name. I hit the detonator and she explodes.
    Falling to shore my mind’s made up—love is an unwise and beautiful adventure. Battery Park and we’ve beaten back the pigs. We’re presumed dead. From where we are we have a straight level shot of Lady Liberty in front of us. The Freedom Tower at our back.
    Eli, you are first shift lookout tonight. If the cops come, keep them occupied with tales of lunar phenomena.
    Take your hand off the wheel of time slowly. We could be happy as children running naked in their first rain. I fill Darling full of love. Her dark eyes look to heaven as if in prayer.
    St. Oscar is assassinated while he raises the chalice at the end of the Eucharist. The altar boys think it’s a firecracker lit off by one of the school bullies and continue their duties.
    The snow is now coming in sideways. The broken spokes of the wheel keep spinning. A cup of black coffee and the dead famous actor with a needle in his arm. An indecent landscape out there. Not a proper backyard for miles. Down on our knees, Eli, for some heroic sign. A clue to help us clean away what’s the matter.
    Strange Spanish whispers from the garbage men. We are broken again. Suffering for food. Unflappable gauchos, Eli, yet Cataract is closing in.
    We are tourists on this earth. We get brief access to the fire and ice. There is another message. On a menu at the little French bistro we can’t afford.
    I am with Nono, it reads. We’re coming for you. Let’s play a Manhattan-size game of chess. Black or white?
    The child pains increase inside Darling. I am filled to the brim with love for our forthcoming family. History is unfolding under our feet. Chasing us. A new Christ for Yankees and Rebels.
    We’ve got to mount a worthy defense, Eli.
    Are we going to have to get the crew back together, I say.
    I’m afraid so.
    The Holy Ghost rises from bed and brushes her hair. The light of heaven is heavy in her eyes. She is all the women I have ever loved. She is my Darling, too. There is hunger in the bellies of babes in the arms of refugees. There is sand in my toes from the beaches of Babylon.
    The planes look like they’re floating, says Eli, but they are moving with incredible speed.
    I tell the skywriter to spell out, WE’LL PLAY THE BLACK PIECES. YOUR MOVE .
    Nono plays his queen, Darling is ours. Tuesday and Finger are rooks. Al and Hal are black knights. We are playing a human-sized game of chess throughout this island. We pay the local weirdos to be pawns.
    The Aztecs believe St. Thomas is their God. I shrug at the coming apocalypse, he says.

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    e4 e5
    At dawn they send a Haitian man in a dashiki to Central Park and we counter with a girl in cornrows to greet him. They are young and understand only their hormones. Our first pawns into battle.
    What’s Cataract doing here, Eli. Walk me through it.
    Control the center.
    The seasons are spiraling. The calendar pages are flying away.
    What’s the