INFINITY CITY

Say for a second there was no city but you were in it. You'd still be able to hear it humming. Like a body after all thought has fled: in the last moments of consciousness, mute and inexpressible – a hum like a trembling of atoms, the silent potential for sound. So it is too with the city. Before everything else, the piled tons of concrete, the miles of sewers and wires, the mountains of dirt and rock upon which it's all built, there's only the hum, the amplified quiet, unsupported by anything else, existing only for itself. The hum picks up, speeds into a low turbine whine, and that's when it becomes something else: at first just one light in one bedroom, though there is no night and no room. Everything all around just emptiness. The light comes into being and waits.

More lights blink on: uptown and downtown, across all bays and rivers, disembodied like early stars. And when enough light reaches out the night comes down to press against it. There is the reflection first and then the waves. Same with buildings, though the bricks take a little longer to appear. The water reaches down and finds riverbeds and the air plumes out to make a sky. Deep beneath the surface of things their insides begin to take shape: steel girders for the skyscrapers and hearts for men and women. Nothing lives, nothing moves, not just yet. These events precede the others in an ontological and not chronological sense. After everything is made – every pebble of gravel set perfectly in every avenue, every streak of grime on every window – all metal bearing its load, all engines prime to fire – every LED on every sign, every filament in every bulb – every overpass soaring skyward, every strut of every bridge quivering in anticipation – every strand of hair placed just so, every fiber in every shirt or dress – it clicks into motion all by itself, the weight of it bursting the bounds of space and spilling forth, self-propelling. And every sliver of every second is constructed in just this way, every time anew, as if nothing before it had ever been.

—Say for a second, says Chris Atlas, there was no city but you were in it.

Broadway at twilight: bluish air hanging in the avenues, glowing faintly from within like a membrane filled with blood, the sky a cell wall holding back the infinite substance housed within. Heart working busily, skin perspiring faintly, Atlas swings his leg over the handlebars and guides his bike over to where the others are piled against the aluminum railing of the Market Basket deli on Broadway and 3rd.

—What the fuck did you just say, says Boston.

Cheap aluminum tables stained with sticky brown pools of former beer and soda, sauce and ice cream, dotted with dried up specks of rice and meat that keep the pigeons fluttering on the sidewalk outside the railing. Bicycle messengers slouch in their seats, taking up space, limp arms hanging over the backs of their chairs, holding beers and smokes close to the pavement.

—I said, says Chris Atlas reaching his legs over the railing, what if there was no city but you were in it.

—Hey Atlas, says Big Hector, who ever told you we wanted you to come back?

Atlas winks at him and jingles the door to the Market Basket, walking past Chin at the register, past the hot and cold buffet tables, squeezing himself and his bag past the racks of snacks and sundries to the beer fridge dripping condensation from its glass case.

—I should not even sell to you, says Chin when he brings his can up to the front. You and your friends, you are not welcome here any more.

—Chin, what did I do, says Atlas. I've been gone for a year. I just got back.

—You and your friends causing trouble. You and your friends taking up space. You and your friends scaring customers.

—You want me to talk to them, Chin? We don't want any problems.

But Chin just rings him up, takes his money, hands him change. Muttering Chinese, he slaps a plastic straw down next to the 24-ounce can of Coors.

—What's up with Chin, says Atlas carrying his beer in his right hand and with his left lifting his bag over his head and tossing it in the corner with the others. Who's been disrespecting the Basket.

—It's Spider and Fast Eddie, says Arturo using all ten fingers to roll a giant blunt. Chin says they were throwing empty cans at tour buses.

—Were they?

Arturo shrugs:

—Knowing them, man, probably.

—Well tell em to cut it out or else they're gonna blow up the spot.

—I got a better idea, says Boston. How bout you tell em.

Atlas perches on top of the railing with can in hand and watches the bicycle traffic on Broadway: girls on commuter hybrids, West Village fossils on rusty cruisers, messengers bent intently forward over their handlebars, knocking out the week's last runs or heading for the bridges downtown. He breathes deep the smell of late summer Manhattan: smoke, pretzels, asphalt, and so strong is the bouquet that he can almost taste it blending with the beer flowing over his tongue and down his throat. Like taking the straw from his pocket and sticking it into the ooze-green pool of antifreeze at the curb and sucking up the entire city – like that would be the only way to top this, the only way he could bottle this feeling before it seeps into the sky like the last of the afternoon heat. This one time this crazy Samoan guy biked from LA back to New York because he didn't want to pay for a plane ticket. He crossed the George Washington Bridge and rolled 180 blocks down Broadway and stopped at the Basket with everyone bullshitting outside and got down on his knees and kissed the filthy sidewalk. Stood up and smiled, licked his lips when someone tossed him a beer. True story – Atlas was there, he saw it.

—So how was it, says Big Hector.

—How was what, says Atlas.

—Your fuckin travels. What do you think. Boston turns his fist around to peer coolly at his watch:

—I'm not sure we got time for this.

—It was whatever, says Atlas watching the traffic. You know if any companies are hiring?

—Don't make me laugh, says Hector. It's a cold world out there right now, my dude.

—And you think I don't know that?

—If you already knew that maybe you should've stayed out west. Ain't nothin out here for you.

—But everywhere else sucks. That's the problem.

—Here sucks too, says Arturo exhaling a thick tan cloud of smoke and watching it float in front of him with slow and purple eyes.

—Here sucks but it's fuckin home, says Atlas.

—You ain't from here, says Hector. You from Sleepy Hollow or some shit.

—Irregardless, says Atlas. Irregardless.

Boston lights a smoke with a weary motion of his whole body, settling his weight against the back of his chair.

—Why don't you tell em where you been, Atlas, he says.

And Atlas counts off on his fingers, resetting to zero every time he gets to ten:

—I've been to Providence, I've been to Portsmouth, I've been to Philly, I've been to DC, I've been to Boston, I've been to Richmond, I've been to Jacksonville, I've been to Miami, I've been to Phoenix, I've been to Indianapolis. I've been to Columbus, I've been to Chicago, I've been to Milwaukee, I've been to Minneapolis, I've been to St. Paul, I've been to Champaign-Urbana. I've been to Austin, I've been to Houston, I've been to Dallas, I've been to Vegas. I've been to San Diego, I've been to San Antonio, I've been to San Francisco. I've been to LA, I've been to Portland, I've been to Seattle, I've been to Oakland. And you know what? It's all bullshit. Everywhere you go the same bullshit.

And in his excess of energy he jumps from his perch to the pavement and then jumps up again, planting both his feet atop the railing where it comes together at the corner, spreading his arms wide, half-talking and half-shouting down at his friends.

—Chill, bro, says Arturo. Talk about getting eighty-sixed.

—Check it out, says Atlas. Phoenix, for example. Or anywhere really. Those cities are like little wind-up toys. They can only do one thing. They can only ever be one thing. There's a crack in the sidewalk, it gets filled in. There's a subway station missing a tile, it's replaced the next day. There's a piece of litter somewhere, they call up some schmuck with a broom and say we got a code blue on West East Northwest Street. But here it's different.

Pivoting carefully like an ironworker upon a girder he turns around to take in the full measure of Broadway just north of Houston just short of sundown, the railings beneath him wobbling and banging against each other.

—Here you got some guy living in a hundred million dollar apartment. Around the corner there's someone else taking a shit in a plastic bag. You got bike messengers living next door to cab drivers. You got fourth generation bankers living on the Upper East Side and fourth generation plumbers living out at Howard Beach. You got pigeons, you got rats, you got raccoons. Think about it: in other cities you can go days without seeing any pigeons. If you want to see them you have to go 6 looking for them. Have you ever stopped to think about that? How fucked up that is?

Boston slams his fist on the table, knocking over a couple empties:

—Get to the fuckin point, Atlas.

—Point being, says Atlas, no mind is big enough to hold this place. So what's holding it up? It has to be something. It can't be nothing. Say for a second there was no city but you were in it—

—Hey Atlas, says Hector giving a short whistle and a flick of his head up Broadway. There goes yo girl.

—Shit, says Atlas jumping from the railing and running to the curb with one arm raised high over his head and the other still holding his beer. Sibyl! Hey Sibyl!

She looks once, looks twice, looks forward to hit her brakes and swerve around a cab backed up at the turn, waiting at the other side of the street for the traffic to pass and only then pushing slowly to the other side. Sibyl in expensive cycling gear, fitted out with lights and water bottles and gadgets and accessories, commuter panniers strapped to her rear wheel, long braid pulled through the back of her helmet.

—Chris, she says. What are you doing here.

—I'm back, says Atlas.

—Back? What's that supposed to mean? Atlas's smile unflagging:

—Back. I'm back.

—You mean like for good?

—Yeah.

Sibyl opening her mouth to talk but closing it again, knuckles going white upon her handlebars:

—And for some reason you didn't feel it necessary to tell me?

—I'm telling you now. I knew I'd see you. Babe, it's my first day. I just got here.

Sibyl wipes the sweat from her forehead and from beneath her glasses and glances at the beer in his hand and the messengers drinking loudly out front of Market Basket.

—I don't want to do this right now. In fact, maybe I don't want to do this at all.

—Why not? Come sit with us.

Sibyl turns her head back down Broadway and shakes it slightly, reaching watery eyes up at the windows glowing in the office buildings above them.

—I don't want to sit with your fucking friends, she says quietly. I can't believe how stupid you can be.

—Let's go somewhere else then. She takes a while to answer: still shaking her head, once more reaching her fingers up under her glasses to wipe the sweat from her eyes.

—Alright, she says in a tiny voice. Okay.

Together they glide through the gridlocked traffic, cyclists cloaked in silence and darkness, twisting and turning through the gleaming hallways of car windows. Streets bathed in blue, the dusk prolonged by the light beamed into it from above and below, from every food cart and cellphone screen, from every computer monitor in every window of every building, light from headlights and streetlights and from the swiftly circling moon juicing the air until it seems to grow veins and substance, til it starts twitching and pulsing like another world in embryo. Atlas swivels his head back and forth to make sure he isn't missing anything: SoHo fashionistas, teenagers on skateboards, sneaker thieves lounging at Broadway and Houston – groups of lost rich Euro tourists, a kid on Prince Street singing Michael Jackson songs for tips, the street torn open where they swing left on Spring, workers jackhammering through the pavement and the spotlights shining through the dust cloud into a trenchwork of earth and wood and wire. How strange it always is to see dirt beneath the pavement: as if it would make more sense for the street to open up into another New York, a drop from the height of the sky down into the same city, and if you pried open the streets of that one you would find the same thing over and over again. One time Atlas and the guys dropped acid before a race from Van Cortlandt Park to Coney Island, and it felt exactly like that. They came in last but it felt exactly like that.

They lean their bikes against the railing at the center of the bridge and climb up on top of the fencing, feet swinging in the air above the J/M/Z trains shuttling constantly forth. Skyline striped with interrupted light like genome sequences, boats and ferries flashing beacons green and red in the water below, cars backed up north and south on FDR Drive – last light draining from the air, bicycle commuters and Hasidic Jews and strolling lovers and idiot kids passing past on either side of them, suspended in the pinkish-reddish cage of the Williamsburg Bridge bike path. Atlas swings his bag over his shoulder and takes out a couple beers.

—So you're drinking again, says Sibyl.

—I was always drinking.

—Except you moved out of the city to dry out. That was the story at least.

—I did dry out. Now I'm back. I'm celebrating.

Light shines forth upon the airborne horizon, the tracks catching the first rays before the spotlight makes its daybreak: another train rising up the incline, met in the middle by a train heading inbound. They snake alongside each other and then disappear into darkness, flashing sparks, marking time with syncopated clicks and clacks.

—When did you start again? she says.

—Just today.

He drops the empty can onto the tracks and fishes in his bag for another one.

—And where are you staying, says Sibyl.

—With Boston, for now.

—For now. And what happens after "now." Do you have any idea what rents are like these days?

—I was only gone a year.

—That's all it takes. And I'm not sure if you had any idea before you left either.

—I'm sorry, babe. I'm an idiot. I'm a moron.

—Are you really sorry? Or are you just saying that?

—Maybe I'm not sorry. I am a moron.

And from the corner of her eye she can see his smile flash in the wan greenish illumination of the bridge.

—I know you're not sorry, she says. And I'm glad you think it's funny. You didn't even call me.

—I was in a new city every week.

—No texts. No emails. Nothing.

—Babe, I never thought I was coming back. I told you that.

—But I didn't believe you. Because of course you would. Because here you are.

—If I knew what it was gonna be like I never would've left. I didn't know how bad it was everywhere else. But now I do.

His can, half full, makes a small splash when it crashes down onto the tracks. He reaches his arm around and tries to grab hold of Sibyl's waist.

—No, she says. You're going to make me fall.

—Babe, I'll never leave again.

—Leave what. Me or the city.

—Both. Why can't it be both?

—Forget it, she says. Just forget it.

She leaves her beer on a nearby beam and drops gingerly down to the platform. There are a couple guys smoking weed off in the shadows next to a couple misshapen trash bins streaking the floor with pungent garbage-water. She paces up to the fence and laces her fingers through the mesh like a jumper having second thoughts – a jumper who only wanted to get a closer look at the water. And now here it is, and now here she is. Atlas hops down from his perch and works his arm around her waist one more time.

—Say for a second there was no city but you were in it, he says.

—Alright, she says breathing deep and closing her eyes and opening them again. Okay.

by Nicholas Clemente

Nicholas is a writer living in New York City. His work has appeared previously in Glimmer Train, Hobart, Expat Press, and other journals. ‘Infinity City’ is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel-in-stories of the same name. For more information visit his website: NICHOLAS CLEMENTE (wordpress.com)