The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons Read Online Free PDF Page A

his shake, he set the empty glass on a coaster. His stomach felt better with something in it. He went into the bathroom again, listening to the show while he flossed his teeth. The hosts discussed an experimental drug that supposedly prolonged the human lifespan. Aging did not concern Marc, who had just celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday. The woman told the man that he needed to use the drug, and he asked if he could borrow some of hers. The studio audience—housewives, mostly—laughed, and Marc had to join them. He pictured the woman’s reaction, which he had seen many times before: her face red, her open mouth forming a perfect, indignant O as she slapped her cohost’s arm.
    Marc traded his floss for a toothbrush, and he laughed again when a commercial came on for the same brand of whitening paste that he had just applied to the bristles. Ah, the power of advertising! He brushed up and down, as he had been taught at the Payne Institute. When he finished, he glanced at his watch, then went to the front closet and took his cell phone out of his coat pocket. He did not have a landline. Stepping before the bedroom window, he peered through the slats of its blinds at the concrete buildings separating his apartment from the West Side Highway. His chest swelled with love for New York City.
    Tearing his eyes away from the skyline, he activated his cell phone. He had only programmed one contact number into its memory, and he pressed the auto-dial button now. After a series of electronic beeps, a phone rang on the other end and his palms turned moist.
    A woman’s prerecorded voice answered after the second ring. Marc’s nostrils flared, as if he could smell her fragrance through the phone.
    “I need to make a delivery,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the briefcase on his computer stand.

    Robby boarded the downtown Number 2 train, standing room only, and gripped the metal pole near the doors with one hand and the handle of his briefcase with the other. He avoided making eye contact with his fellow commuters, so they ignored him. He disembarked at Fourteenth Street, where a female National Guard clutching an M16 stood near the token booth, scrutinizing the departing passengers with girlish eyes. She did not even look at Robby, who followed the flow of bodies up the concrete steps leading to the street level. A tall man in a suit smiled and shook hands with the exiting commuters, pressing campaign buttons into their palms. Robby passed the politician undisturbed and crossed the street.
    Heading toward Broadway, he spotted a woman in a nun’s habit sitting on a milk crate. She played “Amazing Grace” on a portable electric keyboard and scabs covered her bare feet, which rested on a ragged piece of cardboard. Robby narrowed his eyes as a portly man deposited a coin into her paper cup. As the man moved on, Robby made eye contact with the woman, something he rarely did with strangers. Reading the glassy haze in her eyes, he saw through her habit. She stared past him with a blank expression, and he knew that she had not even noticed him.
    Smiling to himself, he turned right at the southeast corner of University Place. On Broadway, his body turned rigid as he approached a bulky Chinese man in a police uniform. His muscles relaxed as soon as he passed the officer without incident. He studied the tall, dirty windows of a used bookstore across the street. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had arrived five minutes early, and punctuality mattered to him. He idled near a hot dog vendor, his face registering disgust. With so many fine restaurants in Manhattan, why would anyone spend money on processed animal waste? He looked from side to side, observing people as usual, studying their mannerisms and ticks.
    At 11:59, he crossed the street and entered the bookstore, which reeked of old newsprint and musty cardboard.
    A paunchy black man wearing a red T-shirt sat on a raised stool like a lifeguard, looking down on the