JM01 - Black Maps Read Online Free PDF

maybe ten degrees above freezing now, with a nasty wind. Rain, mixed with the occasional snowflake, was being driven sideways. Nice weather for a run. I’d keep it to five miles or so.
    I headed west to Ninth Avenue, worked my way south through the quieter streets of the West Village, and then west again to the highway and the piers. I was slapped around by gusts for a mile or two, and it was hard to find a rhythm, but the wind settled into a steady blow from the north as I came to the river and my pace steadied and quickened. For a while I ran along the edge of Ground Zero, and the wide gash of sky there was still disorienting, and somehow oppressive. Even after all this time, a charge of anger and sadness surged through me.
    As they often do when I run, my thoughts sprinted away on their own. I thought about Clare, and the last time I’d seen her, on Monday. As always, we were at my place, it being a little awkward to go to hers. I’d fallen asleep and woken up groggy and disoriented at dusk. The last dregs of pale, cold daylight came in through the big windows. The apartment was dark otherwise. Clare had showered and was dressing. I’d watched her for a while in silence—her precise movements as she pulled jeans over her long legs, pulled on socks, laced her shoes, fastened her heavy steel watch, and brushed out her long, pale hair. And as I watched I felt, quite suddenly, as bleak and lonely as I had in a long time. Maybe it was because I was still half asleep, or maybe it was the fading light that brought it on. Or maybe it was that, even watching her familiar ritual of dressing and departure, Clare seemed utterly a stranger.
    She had paused to examine the profile of her small, bare breasts and flat belly in the mirror, and saw that I was awake. She smiled and kept on inspecting. When she was satisfied, she pulled on a black turtleneck, bound her hair in a ponytail, and packed all her toiletries into the leather duffle she always brought with her. Time to go.
    She’d slipped on her coat and was bending to kiss me when I caught her arm and pulled her down to sit. She’d looked puzzled. For no reason I could think of, I’d asked her what she was doing for Thanksgiving and if she wanted to spend it with me. At first she’d thought I was joking. Maybe I had been. I wasn’t sure why I’d asked her, or if I actually wanted to spend the holiday with her at all. Then she’d gotten mad.
    “What?” she’d sputtered. She’d pulled her arm away and stood. “That’s . . . what is this bullshit? That’s not . . . I thought we had an understanding here.” She’d checked her watch, annoyed and impatient. “I’m supposed to be somewhere. I can’t do this now.” And she’d left.
    She was right to be mad, really. The rules, though unstated, were clear nevertheless, from the time we’d started up months ago. We’d see each other once or twice a week, most weeks. The sex was good, athletic and inventive, and with the added frisson of the illicit. We didn’t talk about much, and what we did say mostly amounted to facile observations on current events and on the various urban types we both knew. We most definitely did not talk about her husband or about the lives either of us led outside the confines of my bed. She made small gestures— she’d bring flowers or coffee, pastries or fresh orange juice—but they were the habits of a well-mannered guest more than tokens of affection. We were a convenience to each other, amusing, undemanding, needing zero maintenance. She was right to be mad; I’d crossed a line. And even a couple of days later I wasn’t sure why.
    And then I settled fully into my stride. My thoughts ran on to someplace I didn’t follow, and all I knew was the rhythm of my own breathing and the sound of my shoes on the pavement. The rain, the wind, the terrain, even the pumping of my arms and the pounding of my legs were abstractions now. I didn’t feel the cold, and the thinning traffic was