Read Hot Poppies for Free Online Page A

said to myself. I turned on all the lights, looked around the loft that was all mine—white walls, big windows, wood floors. I put Fats Waller on the CD good and loud, threw off my clothes, took a long hot shower, put on clean sweats so old they were soft like cashmere, did six push-ups to prove to myself I could, and called Lily’s machine so I could listen to her voice.
    Upstairs, the guy who moves his furniture every few days was at work on his sofa and the hardwood floors creaked under him. Across the hall, the banker put on Woody Guthrie. Next door, the dachshunds yapped and the kids yelled. People were home, tucked in, safe against the weather. I was starving.
    In the fridge I unearthed some hot salami, a jar of roasted red peppers and a chunk of real provolone from Joe’s Dairy. I heated up some black bean soup, opened another bottle of Merlot and tossed a bottle of olive oil into the garbage, impelled by the weird stink it gave off. This was no virgin, as Ricky would have said. In the microwave I zapped a loaf of semolina bread. I scooped up some law school catalogues and the Sunday Times car section, sat on a stool at the counter that divides my kitchen from my living room, and ate. People could be dead and you could still be hungry.
    I ate. I tried to imagine myself in a suit in an office, a picture of Lily on my desk, money in the bank, and a red Cadillac in the garage. Except for Lily and the car, the image was blurry. I changed the CD to Tony Bennett doing Rogers and Hart.
    â€œParty time, Artie,” someone shouted through my door. “On the roof.”
    I got dressed, grabbed my ski jacket, shoved open the back window and climbed out onto the fire escape.
    The air was cold. Snow fell. Yawning to suck extra oxygen out of the thin air, I tripped over the pots of dead geraniums and climbed up to the roof.
    Snow had gathered in knee-high drifts on the roof, on the water tank, on the shed where Mr Tae lets me keep my bike and pieces of a boat I bought one summer but never sailed.
    In the downy snow, some of my neighbors had lashed a pair of canvas beach umbrellas to the shed and, underneath the yellow striped umbrellas, they sat, wrapped in blankets, playing poker with their gloves on. There was a yellow light fixed to the roof of the shed; in it, the faces were like Halloween pumpkins, round and flat and grinning.
    From a portable radio, Springsteen sang “Born in the USA”. A blue plastic pail was filled with snow and planted with bottles of beer and wine and vodka. Lois passed a jar of nuts. The door to the roof opened and Louise appeared. Head encased in a knitted hat with a pompom, she held a huge steaming box.
    â€œPizza,” she called, triumphant.
    â€œBeer, Artie?” It was Dave, an architect who lived on the second floor. “Rescue me from all these babes,” he laughed.
    â€œWhere’s Kathe?” I said.
    â€œStill at the hospital.” Dave’s wife, Kathe, was a doctor; more than a few times, she had stitched me up in the middle of the night. “You in, Artie?” Dave said. “You want to play a couple hands?”
    But the view in the other direction distracted me. Chinatown. That night, looking down from the roof, I saw it obscured by the storm, lost in snow, a village, a rural backwater, its lights almost invisible. It was an illusion. But it was there all right, spreading inexorably. It lapped at my feet. I had to go. That was what I told myself, but it was a fucking lie. I wanted to go.
    Yesterday, I’d been a guy without much going on, now I was spinning a bunch of plates. I was wide awake, the adrenalin was flowing for the first time in a long time. It felt good.
    â€œSave me some beer,” I called to Dave. Then I scuttled back down the fire escape and through my loft, slamming windows. In the street, I jumped in my car. If it couldn’t make it to Riverdale, it could get me to Pansy. To make sure she was OK. To make sure