Down The High Tomb

By Jud Widing

There is a building in the middle of Manhattan. Well, there are lots of buildings in the middle of Manhattan. But there’s this one in particular.

It’s sixty-two stories tall. One of the biggest on its block. Yet nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out. Which makes sense; all of the doors and windows are sealed shut.

No one seems to know what the building is, or who owns it. In every sense save the physical, the building doesn’t exist. No one seems bothered by this. Until Jenmarie. Depressed, displaced, directionless Jenmarie.

Entirely by accident, she discovers the mystery of this building. And she makes it her business to get to the bottom of it.

No matter how far down it goes...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jud Widing
• Release date: Nov 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463046548

Jud Widing

Jud Widing is an itinerant book person.

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DOWN THE HIGH TOMB

by

Jud Widing

Copyright © 2020 by Jud Widing

Cover artwork by Tony Sobota

www.tonysobota.com

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Designed by Jud Widing

www.judwiding.com

Facebook/Twitter: @judwiding

H I N D S I G H T

Lives shift in silence. Listen.

This one had been a fragile thing, a globe of clouded crystal that could still catch the light, if held at the right angle. Such an angle as could be found at the slack end of thirty years' fast grip, for example. As the prize slipped from her fingers.

Never would her ball of brittle dotage appear as beautiful to her as when it was falling to the floor. That was the nature of things, she supposed.

Shh.

Before that she had been happy, which was to say she'd found ways to keep a half-step's lead on her disposition. This would become apparent to her later, too late, with the other horrors. Until then, Jenmarie Bell ground on, not greeting each new day but squaring up with it. Fight the sunlight to a draw, and retire. The nature of things. What rest she could pry from the dark would have to suffice for the coming day's battle. This, she had convinced herself, was just life in the city. It was normal to feel this way, in the city.

The city, then. It was too tall, too loud, too dirty, too angry. New York, in other words. This was not a place for people to live, she would realize. It was a playground that construction equipment had built for itself. Humans were not inhabitants - they were an infestation.

That was the noise talking. Jenmarie had never had thoughts like that before moving here. Such bargain basement nihilism wasn't her. It was beneath her. Had been.

Of the five years she and Eddie had been together, and of the two years they had been (and would be) married, only the last of them had been spent here. This second anniversary was a far less joyous affair than had been their first, which they'd celebrated back in Atlanta, but Jenmarie considered this a natural enough consequence of time's passing. Days chip away at the gleeful peaks, piece by piece. Yet this was not without consolation; as the heights sloughed down to ground level, their runoff lifted the valleys. Time as an equalizer. What a novel thought.

That was the sort of thought Jenmarie would once have cared enough to voice to her then-husband. Eddie Mark had been a philosophy major at Emory. In Jenmarie's defense, she hadn't known that until their third date. She'd just assumed he was a fellow medical student, having met him at a purported medical resident's getaway that her best-friend-since-third-grade Mavis' brother Lucky had organized in Athens. Georgia, not Greece, though she'd first met Eddie in quite the Socratic mood; absolutely blasted on cheap wine, and full of questions. On that score, he was well-met; Jenmarie had gotten a Zyp car to the first-night party after pregaming in some soggy dive on Edgewood. As she'd been drinking, she'd quite naturally been dancing, and vice versa, quite naturally. Had she expected to be going as hard as she had (turned out it was Earth Wind & Fire night, and she was only human), she wouldn't have worn her three-inch heels. But she hadn't and had, respectively, which made for a pair of unhappy feet delivering their burden into the Zyp car. So of course Jenmarie kicked those little terrors off during the ride, and of course again, she failed to reclaim her discomfort at the ride's end. It was only as she stepped shoeless onto the driveway of the faux-Colonial house Lucky had rented for the week - rented not off AirBnb but instead from VRBO, a detail Jenmarie was inexplicably annoyed that she knew - that she realized she had lost her sole mates. It was hard to miss; the driveway was gravel, and her feet were marshmallow. Too bad; the Zyp car was already vanishing into the night, and what chase the fully turnt Jenmarie could give was indistinguishable from her doing a line dance in a hurricane. Not that she didn't try.

You forget something? a voice from the porch called.

Jenmarie stumbled to a halt and looked to the house. The porch lights were off, but the voice sounded like it was coming from the vaguely unsettling silhouette on the moon-kissed bench swing which no doubt creaked every time the wind blew. The house itself wasn't old enough to be haunted, but the swing seemed like it had been installed to give the impression that it was. Yeah, she replied to the night, gesturing to her feet.

You can call them, the porchvoice suggested, which was rich given that quite a lot of the heartbreak five years in Jenmarie's future would come via fucking text message. That's an option on the... The voice did a poor job of stifling a sneeze. ...the app.

Indeed it was: Jenmarie said gesundheit and then called the driver and told him about the shoes. The driver asked her what kind of shoes they were, as though there were countless pairs rolling around the well of his back seat. Three-inches, she informed him. Black. Strappy. Mhm, the driver averred, before calling out the description to somebody else. He had another ride already, it emerged - he would swing back with the shoes. When? Once he was done with his latest fare. Which would be? Later.

She hung up, and the porchvoice asked her you gonna get your shoes back?

He'll be back with them after a while, she told him. A h-while. That Tennessee drawl had a way of creeping up on her, and fully pounced whenever she let slip that stupid folkism. After a h-while. She'd caught that young, like a disease.

Well, wondered the voice, you mind if I keep you company while you wait?

Jenmarie didn't. In fact, she welcomed it.

She scaled the six-or-so steps up to the porch, clinging to the fat wooden handrail of the steps, jerking and slamming her way up as though crossing the deck of a storm-tossed schooner. When she finally completed the ascent - the most challenging climb any human had ever attempted - she saluted the silhouette on the swing.

The silhouette laughed and returned the honor.

I'm Jenmarie, she told him, as she staggered over to the swing. Move over.

The porchvoice - now a porchperson - did as bidden. Is that hyphenated?

What?

Is Jen-Marie hyphenated, or is it two separ-

"It's not two names. It's not one name. It's...it is one name. She lifted her arms and swept her hands through the space before her, a gesture suggestive of a name in lights. Jenmarie. I'm not Jen, and I'm not Marie. I'm both at the same t- She made to plant her elbow on her knee, but missed, nearly rolling forward off the bench. Shoot, she mumbled as she straightened herself back up. I'm both at the same time. She blinked. That was really embarrassing."

You're throwing yourself off balance. You talk with your hands so much.

Hm. Jenmarie tried to think of a flirtatious response to that, but came up short. So she said hm again, and followed it up with what's your name?

I'm Eddie.

Hi, Eddie.

He smiled. It was only as he smiled that Jenmarie realized she could make out features on the silhouette. Make out, what a versatile little pair of words that was. Hi, Jenmarie.

She suddenly felt very, very sober, and also very much the opposite. Not sober, not drunk, but both at the same time. Like her name. Like a callback. Her first inside joke with Eddie. She couldn't wait to tell him.

But she did wait. And then she forgot, because Eddie proved an able conversationalist. The time positively flew by, time enough for Jenmarie to well and truly sober up, yet in the end the Zyp driver still returned with her footwear far too soon for her liking. So she and Eddie turned the end into just another middle bit, remaining on the porch even after the shoes were back on, or rather under, her feet. In hindsight, knowing his peccadillos as she would come to, it was probably the sight of the strappy black heels that really got Eddie's engine revving. His questions became less Socratic and more Machiavellian. Steering the conversation, with a rather charming lack of finesse, towards a carnal conclusion. At this distance, she couldn't remember any of those piercing interrogatives save the last, for which she had been waiting patiently, and to which her answer had been yes.

They ended up not having sex that night; Eddie couldn't get it up. He would briefly try to spin this as his having been moved by a chaste and chivalrous spirit to leave off the blotto maiden, and Jenmarie would take great pleasure in disabusing him of this notion. So the night wasn't a wash after all.

That was how it began, not that Jenmarie imagined there was any it to, well, it. They didn't have much interaction for the rest of the getaway. Back at Emory, though, they bumped into one another at the DUC-ling. That led to a proper (read: successful) hookup, which led to another, which led to a proper date (Italian at some local joint neither had been to, but which had four stars on Yelp), which led to their first sexual encounter that could be considered something more than just a hookup, which led to a second date (drinks at a local bar called Checkers that had all kinds of board games, though they spent more time talking than playing), which led to a third (at which they discussed all of the things they liked more in theory than in practice, like hiking and stand-up comedy, a conversation which helped narrow the focus on what they would do for date number four). Given Jenmarie's grueling residency schedule, the outings were far apart and often at slightly awkward hours. That Eddie bent over backwards to make these work, she took to be a good sign. This had the potential to become something to which there was an 'it.'

Eddie graduated with no particular academic distinctions (i.e. a doctorate in philosophy). His focus was in political philosophy, and so his dissertation, which he insisted he'd done a hell of a job articulating and defending, had been called Radical Metanthropontological-Scientism: A New Study Of The Politics Of Thought As Occurs In The Body, As Contrasted With Those Thoughts As Occur In The Mind, And Let's Not Forget Heidegger. Something like that, anyway. He'd once read some of it to Jenmarie, during which recitation there were three instances of him needing to take a breath in the middle of a word. When called upon to summarize what the fuck he was trying to say with all of those twelve-syllable words, Eddie had flashed his pulse-quickening grin and told her I'm trying to say, 'somebody give me a faculty position, please.' He was uncommonly virile that night.

Yes, Eddie was after a faculty position, which could come from any quarter of the country. Yet he consulted Jenmarie each step of the way - should I be looking on the East Coast or West Coast, what do you think about Minneapolis - which led her to suspect the very thing she put to him one quiet Friday night in line for a food truck specializing in 'savory ice cream.'

I feel like we're going to be together, she mused, arms crossed and shoulders slightly hunched, casual as if she'd been remarking on an unexpected cold snap.

Eddie visibly wrestled with a witty riposte, then smiled, wrapped his arm around her, and held her closer to him. I hope so. He leaned his head against hers. I love you, Jenmarie.

Jenmarie, despite herself, gasped quietly. No one she'd dated had ever said that to her. At least, not in such a way as made her believe it. She pulled her head back and boggled at him, not caring how idiotic the grin she shined up at him was. What?

He met her eyes and repeated himself.

Gasping a few more times, Jenmarie couldn't manage a reply before the hipster dockhand running the food truck pointed at them and shouted you two, what do you want? A bit of awkward chuckling and shuffling ensued as they disengaged from each other and went to place their order. So it wasn't until Jenmarie had a cone of savory, overpriced ice cream in her hand that she managed to reply I love you, Eddie.

It turned out that the savory ice cream was basically just mashed potatoes, but that wasn't terribly important.

Eight months later, they moved in together, into a cramped studio in Home Park with a wall-mounted A/C unit that sounded like two jumbo jets making love. Eddie didn't have any great affection for Atlanta, so he'd done a bit of harrumphing about signing the lease, but Jenmarie still needed to finish her grueling radiation oncology residency, and Eddie hadn't wanted to move in to her old place. Thus: the new place, with the kitchenette that was just a tile countertop set opposite the windows, and the dusty ethernet hookup dangling off the street-facing wall from a few technicolor wires. Not a great place, this new place. But Jenmarie and Eddie were in love, and destined for better things. So it was cute. It was fine.

In the final months of said residency (and after nearly a year of generally blissful cohabitation, except for...well, all couples fight, don't they, so yes, call it generally blissful), an apocalyptically exhausted Jenmarie lucked into a week off of her professional duties, during which she hoped to take a trip with Eddie. Ideally something active; yeah, she was wiped from the brain-liquifying hours and emotional extremity in which she spent most of her day, but she also had an atomic fuck-ton of nervous energy to burn. Classic Jenmarie. Hiking (yes, hiking, she really was anxious) an approachable middle bit of the Rockies was her first choice, but she was open to just about anything. Which was more than could be said for Eddie; every idea she proposed, he shot down with a shrug. Rafting in Asheville? Eh. Dancing in New Orleans? Maybe some other time. Skydiving at...actually no, she didn't want to skydive, but, uh, camping in Big Sur? Not this year.

Alright, Jenmarie demanded. "What do you want to do?"

Jem, Eddie replied, his pet portmanteau for her, which obligingly sidestepped her distaste for hearing her name split in two, we just don't have the money this year.

This was flatly untrue. Eddie's parents had paid for his degree, so he was free of student debt. Jenmarie was not, but she had folded the payments into her monthly budget, which budget also appropriated a modest sum for her savings account, which account she intended to tap for a trip. This year, by god! She told him as much.

You're right, Eddie replied at once. "I should have said I don't have enough."

That was a new one. Eddie, who was so fond of splashing out on just about any concert or art show that caught his eye, suddenly turning his pockets inside-out? Oh, but those frivolous expenses were most often going towards experiences that he wanted to have, that had been his idea.

I'll pay for the whole thing, she offered, knowing it would be in vain.

Eddie proved her right by shaking his head.

Please. I need to let off some steam. I really want this, she added.

Her boyfriend looked at her as though she were a dog he were putting down, wishing desperately that he could just make her understand.

Eddie. We have the money.

...no we don't.

I mean, unless you've been sneaking out to the horsie races, we absolutely do.

Maybe, but we can't spare it.

...and why is that?

Jenmarie could practically hear the Wheel of Excuses clicking along in his mind, with force enough to snap its mount and go rolling off into the ocean. We just can't!

What's your problem? If you don't want to go, just tell me!

"That has nothing to do with it. I want to go, bu-"

"Since when do you not have the money for fucking anything that you want to do?!"

Since I'm trying to save up and buy you a fucking ring, Jem!

...was Jenmarie's reply. She added,"

Eddie looked at his lap and smiled.

Jenmarie did the same. Looking at her own lap, that was. Not his.

You're gonna have to give me a proper proposal, you know, she finally said. That doesn't count.

They both laughed, because at that point it was funny. It would remain funny right up until the divorce, at which point it would retroactively become an omen. Jenmarie would come to wonder if Eddie truly had been saving to buy her a ring, or if he'd used that as a dramatic deflection from the simple truth upon which she'd struck, that he simply didn't want to go on a vacation that hadn't been his idea. Eddie, after all, loved being right. He loved winning. The revelation about the ring had been, if nothing else, a way to do just that, to shut Jenmarie down, cast himself as a martyr, and even make her feel a little bit bad about having pressed him into spilling the beans. The man had more than a bit of Machiavelli in him; she'd learned that, and recognized that, on the night they'd met. Had he been exercising that manipulative muscle on the day of the not-so-proposal? This was a question that would only occur to her once she was certain of the answer.

The proposal itself, which came a few months later, wasn't much better. It was classic Eddie, post-divorce Jenmarie would note. Flawless optics; he'd rented out Cobbler's Wife (the obscenely sophisticated, would-you-like-some-meal-with-your-garnish-type restaurant which crowned the towering De Dernberg hotel), and curated a four-course dining experience with all of her favorites, impossibly juicy salmon and a semi-sweet pinot gris being the main event, with the actual main event being some heavenly cinnamon-sprinkled riff on bread pudding, all consumed to the sweet sounds of a string quartet that had learned just about every song by The Dear Hunter, Jenmarie's favorite band at the time. The Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta glittered outside the windows; indeed, this may well have been the first time Jenmarie had ever associated the words Atlanta and glitter without making the connection via the word bomb. But glitter or sparkle or shimmer or shine, whatever you wanted to call it, the city was gorgeous, stretching through clarity to the horizon, and over the far side. It was a perfect proposal, right up until Eddie got down on one knee and actually proposed.

Jenmarie Bell, he said, proposingly, would you marry me?

Would. Like it was a hypothetical. Like he wasn't kneeling in front of her, brandishing a stone that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a Ring Pop (which - worth mentioning - was about as far from Jenmarie's self-consciously unpretentious shirt-and-jeans aesthetic as one could get).

I would, she replied, with an acidity that paired poorly with the meal, if you asked me properly.

Will, was all he offered by way of correction.

Even at the time, that had seemed a pretty ominous way to start things off. But she'd said yes, and so felt that a portion of the blame for the forthcoming pain was hers.

Until then, they were happy, remaining in their studio and saving up their pennies for the next step after Jenmarie graduated. She exhausted herself at residency, and was refreshed by her time at home with Eddie. They dreamt dreams about where they'd go next (Jenmarie having to constantly remind Eddie that she was limited to wherever I can get a fellowship, a caveat that never quite seemed to penetrate his limitless ideals) as they made an art of the night in, laughing away the hours with nothing but a bottle of wine and a deck of cards. Here was another omen-in-hindsight; Eddie, tired of losing hand after hand to Jenmarie, had taken up trash-talking from behind. If the object of the game was to get rid of one's cards, as in Speed, he would ironically taunt Jenmarie with variations on the theme of gosh, it must be hard to shuffle with so few cards. Then he'd riffle his stack of cards - nearly the entire deck - and make relieved noises. Or if they were giving the cards a break and playing Jenga, and Eddie pulled out the block that toppled the tower, he would leap up and dance around the room as though that had been his plan all along. At first it was funny in a cute way, which was to say it wasn't actually funny, just endearing enough to pass. But then he kept doing it, continuing to revel in failure in a way that denied Jenmarie her victories. The mock-celebrations became indistinguishable from real ones; Jenmarie couldn't help but wonder if Eddie had perhaps convinced himself that for him and him alone, participation and triumph were joined at the hip. An inverse relationship developed between Jenmarie's patience for the ostensibly harmless behavior, and the degree to which the behavior seemed emblematic of larger trends in the relationship.

But they were just games, she reminded herself. It was ridiculous to fret over things like that. Over games. She was being ridiculous.

They got married in New Orleans, a city that both of them had visited and fallen in love with independently, to which they had never been together. Both had suggested Preservation Hall, the legendary jazz venue in the French Quarter, as a wedding venue, neither quite believing they would be able to get it. Surprise surprise, the Hall was available, and within their means. And so, utilizing the limited capacity of the space as an excuse to keep the guest list small - sorry, exclusive - Jenmarie and Eddie were wed by a so-called Humanist Chaplain named Sean, who spoke movingly of the institution (though from the depths of her newly-single despair, Jenmarie would hate-Google quotes about marriage and discover that Sean had cadged most of his material from the top result, a page called 30 Adorable Quotes That Best Sum Up Marriage). Even better, he kept his comments brief. Jenmarie and Eddie exchanged vows, both opting for a balance between humor and sincerity, Jenmarie favoring the latter, Eddie the former. Then they smooched by Sean's command, and hey presto, they were wed. Eddie Mark remained Eddie Mark, and Jenmarie Bell remained Jenmarie Bell. The last thing I need, she averred in a tone that would brook no further discussion, is another first name. Eddie never pushed the point.

The happy couple deferred their honeymoon until after Jenmarie's graduation; there was no sense jetsetting to parts unknown (or at least, as-yet-to-be-determined) with a beeper that didn't know the meaning of the words out of network. Hindsight again: Jenmarie couldn't believe that, deep down, she hadn't recognized the honeymoon would need to be postponed once more, until she could complete her fellowship interviews and have some sense of direction, some concept of where she and Eddie had to choose from for their much-discussed next step. Within a few months she had completed the interviews and received offers from: NYU Langone in New York, Brigham and Women's in Boston, and UW in Seattle. Naturally, she could have gotten one at Emory, but not for a single second did she consider staying in Atlanta. Life was starting to feel a bit...stale, that was a way to put it. Not the right way, but a way. And a change of venue was just the shake-up she needed. Plus, Eddie was chomping at the bit to move on, having stuck around for her to finish her residency. And so, she looked elsewhere. She'd really been hoping for an offer from LSU in New Orleans, but none was forthcoming. Eddie pitched this as a positive: "visiting's cool, but why would you want to live in a city that's perpetually about to be wiped off the map? Jenmarie, from her privileged position of not underwater," found something romantic about living, metaphorically speaking, on the precipice of a great height. As is always the case, amongst those who cannot conceive of taking a great fall.

Her heart drove her towards Boston, a city in which she had a great many friends - well...she had some friends, a great many was relative, and honestly, who needs a great many friends, quality over quantity, you know? - and for which she had a boundless adoration. It was such a quaint little city, wasn't it? Hardly any buildings over three or four stories tall. Granted, last she'd checked it had been largely overrun by chain restaurants, and there was that not-so-undercurrent of racism (though, she hated herself for noting with mixed feelings, her skin was light enough that she would be spared the worst of it)...but the rest of it was positively storybook. So, on second thought, called it boundful adoration. Some friends, and boundful adoration. Cool.

The moment she pitched this to Eddie, she knew they weren't going to Boston.

It was his face, the way it wrinkled and narrowed, that gave him away. Even as he said that's definitely an option, which wasn't much more than a factual statement a la that's definitely a city, Jenmarie knew that he was lying. It wasn't an option. Eddie didn't want to go to Boston, but he would never admit this to her, sure as he would never back down. He had to be right. He had to win.

He would. He did. Eddie, it emerged, wanted to give the Big Apple a try. He'd been a few times, and loved what he'd seen. And what he'd seen, Jenmarie discovered, was Times Square. That he'd loved it was a fact that fell upon Jenmarie as heavily as if she'd discovered he was having an affair. In some ways, she might have preferred that. He had loved Times Square? Her Eddie, who owned no tweed jackets but acted as though he was always wearing one, who sipped wine and smacked his smiling lips as though he were joking (when in fact Jenmarie knew he was using irony to shield his pretensions to having a palate), who had long insisted to