The Falling Man by Patrick Quinlan

Author:Patrick Quinlan [Quinlan, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-19T23:00:00+00:00

*

Nestor took an early lunch in his room – baked stuffed sole, French fries, and a green salad on the side. Hot apple pie. A bottle of wine. He stared at the water through his bay window as he ate the meal. He hadn’t felt this calm in some time. He was so relaxed that he could think of the past without pain, and without fear. He closed his eyes and let the memories of Florida wash over him.

“Do you never learn, Nestor?” Marisa had said, one evening several months after the shooting. They were sitting in his roof garden, at the table, enjoying a light meal and a glass of wine. The view of the ocean was like a fantasy. The sun was beginning to set to the west. Nestor would miss this place. It had taken him too long to get back on his feet. He was months behind on the rent. The gardener had already left, and the garden was going to seed all around him. He had sold the Porsche, and had fallen back on the Toyota. Indeed, although loyal, grounded Marisa was still here, inconstant, flighty Angelique had already left. It was a symptom of how far Nestor had fallen that a woman thought she could just up and leave him without retribution.

“Perhaps not,” he said.

“They will kill you this time for sure.”

“Why will they kill me? Because I am selling roses?”

“No. Because you are stupid.”

He slapped her then, and regretted it immediately. He had let his temper get the best of him. But she should not have called him stupid. Couldn’t she see that if he was selling roses again, it was for the both of them? How could they keep their lifestyle, the things that they loved, if he didn’t do what he knew how to do? He had no skills to use in the workplace, and there was no chance – no chance – that at the age of thirty he would consider a job flipping burgers.

Her hand to her face, she said. “Just remember that I tried to protect you.”

“What does that mean?”

She stood and downed the last of her drink.

“It means that you and I are finished. It means that two men grabbed me today in the parking lot at the Publix supermarket. They drove me around, and they said that if you are still here on Saturday, you will be dead. It means that I will not stay here and die for your stubbornness.”

Nestor sipped his drink and gazed out at all that deep blue ocean. The ocean didn’t care about the problems faced by pitiful humans – their constant setbacks and failures. No, the ocean didn’t care. Vast and eternal, it flowed with energy, with life, and each individual life was no more important than each passing moment, than any particular wave crashing against the sand.

Nestor had been thinking for some time about moving to New York. He knew things were over for him in South Florida. He was finished.

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