Seven Thousand Gates

Seven Thousand Gates

by Mick Hale

The route was fixed so one foot followed the other. Lenny drifted to some distant place in his skull where the tenor of his thoughts paced with the pounding blood of his racing heart. Down University, up Fordham Road, cross the Deegan on the Heights Bridge, move through the back alleys of Upper Manhattan, over to the park on the other side of Inwood. He did it every day, clocked about eight miles in thirty minutes. Good pace.

Old guy named Henry, who owned the fruit stand Lenny passed, always yelled, "Hey, where's the fire?" Henry thought that was a funny thing to yell. It always cracked him up.

Then there was Mr. Lee, who owned a Chinese Restaurant downtown. Mr. Lee practiced tai chi in the park every morning. As Lenny sped by, Mr. Lee advised things like, "Slow" or "Balance" or "Upright." Always one word timed to sneak into Lenny's ear and reside there like a flea as he ran past.

One day on his run he met Sibyl.

Along the banks of the Harlem River, at a spot called Spuyten Duyvil, he stopped, walked and caught his breath. He met Sibyl on a crystalline morning, sun climbing into a high blue sky, light breeze from the west carrying a scent of the plains and mountains beyond the Hudson.

Sibyl dressed for another world: long flowing skirt, sandals, blouse stitched with beads and tiny mirrors that caught the morning light. Her auburn hair hung loosely to her shoulders. In her eyes danced dreams no one else saw. There was a frailness to her, as if a strong wind might come and lift her away into the scudding clouds.

She smiled at Lenny and held out her hand, each finger bedecked in a silver ring.

"I see you coming every day to this place," she said.

Lenny took the hand and felt the fine bones arrayed beneath her alabaster skin.

"Off with you now," she said.

She turned and walked away.

Sibyl became the finish line of every morning run. Lenny sped across asphalt and dirt, running toward something now, a woman in long flowing skirts, standing by the narrow waters of Spuyten Duyvil.

"Do you know what that name means?" Sibyl asked one day. "Spitting Devil. The old folk used to think a devil lived in these waters. They were correct."

Sibyl appeared to have a direct line of communication to some other place. Lenny never understood it, but he accepted it.

"What is the point of all this running?" she asked on another morning.

Lenny was always out of breath when he met Sibyl. Often she just answered her own question.

"There's something chasing you," she said.

Lenny wasn't sure about that. He ran to burn off excess energy. He worked the night shift on a security team down at the Con Ed plant. He didn't get home most nights until dawn, and there was no sleeping then, so he ran.

He tried to explain it to her.

"Think what you want," she said. "I see it there, right over your shoulder."

He actually turned to look. It made him laugh.

"What world do you live in?" he asked.

"The same one as you," she said. "There's just more of it."

One day he sat on a bench. There was no place to run to now. He was where he wanted to be, sitting by the muddy waters of the Harlem, next to this woman.

On the river a crew team stroked across the mirrored surface. A train rumbled across the bridge, a long roll of freight. A silver jet banked above, making a slow turn toward the runway at LaGuardia.

"What was her name?" Sibyl asked.

"Whose name?" Lenny replied.

Sibyl didn't answer. She watched the crew stroke in practiced cadence down the river.

After a time Lenny said, "Her name was Kelly. She was from the Bronx, like me. The first time we kissed I was gone. A passion like that, it can eat you up, you know? You stoke the fires red hot -- the whole thing can explode. We were together five years. I loved her every minute of it. We used to go at it over everything. Politics, food, clothes, how to raise kids, every damn thing you could think of. My work hours were pretty funky, so we talked on the phone a lot. I mean we'd be on the phone for hours sometimes. Maybe it wasn't such a good thing. Kelly had this tongue, sharp as a fang bite. I got it though. I knew going into it -- you want a passion like that there's two sides to it. I was just crazy with her. She could say anything and I didn't care. One night, we go out, and maybe have a couple too many glasses of wine, and finally I say something, probably shouldn't have, I just answered back. With Kelly I knew I had to hold my tongue. I thought it made me a better man. But that night I said something just to piss her off and she said, that's it, don't ever call me again, I'm leaving and don't bother looking for me, you'll never find me. I never saw her again."

"And you didn't want your heart back."

Lenny shook his head.

"I gave that woman everything I had. I've got nothing left," he said.

The next day he ran extra hard. If there was a hill he tore into it. He didn't stop for traffic lights. He weaved through lines of cars, brushing sheet metal and chrome. Mr. Lee was doing his tai chi, but Lenny moved too fast to get the day's word. He reached the path along the river. He waited, but Sibyl never came.

Two weeks passed. Lenny ran to the same place day after day, even on a Sunday, a day he usually didn't run, but Sibyl was gone.

One day he stopped by Mr. Lee and asked, "Do you know the woman who walks in the park most mornings?"

He described the way she dressed.

"Sibyl," Mr. Lee said.

"That's right."

"I haven't seen her lately."

"Do you know where she lives?"

Mr. Lee looked at him for a moment.

"Do you think running is a good thing for the body?" Mr. Lee asked. "I think you sweat too much. You lose too much vital fluid."

"Maybe." Lenny didn't know what to say.

"You come tomorrow. Maybe I can help you then."

Run, Lenny. Glide the paths of DeVoe Park. Jump the jersey barriers on the bridge. Yell Fire! as you pass Henry's fruit stand, Henry laughing in your wake.

Mr. Lee was there the next day, a slip of paper in his hand.

"This is Sibyl's phone number," he said. "She said you can call."

Lenny left messages on Sibyl's answering machine. At first he left one each day, then one a week, then every month or so. Sibyl never returned his call.

Winter came and Lenny ran. Even in the bitter cold he ran his route. The holidays inched by and Lenny kept his eyes to the asphalt. He was so afraid to feel these days, so afraid of the hurt still there at the center of his heart.

Then one winter Monday morning he returned home to find a message from Sibyl.

"Meet me at the park today."

His feet were never lighter. He floated through the streets. When he got to the park, Mr. Lee signaled him over.

"Come with me," Mr. Lee said.

He led Lenny across the park to a street where a van was parked. In the back sat Sibyl.

"Would you come with me for a ride?" she asked.

Mr. Lee drove the van south. Lenny sat in the front and swiveled round to see Sibyl. She looked very pale, but her smile still filled his eyes.

"Where are we going?" Lenny asked.

"Mr. Lee's driving us to Central Park. I'd like to go for a walk. Is that alright?"

They drove until they reached 96th Street, then Mr. Lee pulled over. "I can pick you up here in a couple of hours," he said.

He got out of the van, went to the back and unloaded a wheelchair. Lenny watched him lift Sibyl into the chair and didn't utter a word.

Sibyl laughed.

"I should have been more accurate, Lenny. You walk and I ride. Like a queen."

Mr. Lee drove away. Lenny and Sibyl started for the park.

Lenny struggled for words.

"Sibyl, I . . ."

"You want to know what is wrong with me?"

"Yes."

"Everything, dear. Everything in a physical sense. Mentally I feel perfect."

"How long have you been ill?"

"I'm dying, Lenny. I've been dying for such a long time. Dying shouldn't be a forever thing. I'm tired of all this. I'm ready for the next thing now."

They entered the park.

Ahead was a river of orange, twisting and turning through the trees, fabric catching the wind and light, sometimes opaque, sometimes translucent, long shadows fluttering in a breeze, a fabric flow marching across hilltops, winding through granite ravines, circling round a field, a promenade of gates, a living thing come to rest in the park this winter day.

They passed under one gate after another, and each seemed to lead to a new place created just for the steps they were taking. Lenny had run through the park many times, but this park was new, he'd never seen this place before. It was like the veins of the park were exposed, orange blood coursing through the trees, surprising glimpses of orange through branches, the sky pale blue, then orange again. They walked entranced. There was no end to the choices they might take. All the paths seemed to flow together in an infinite twirling orange spiral of fabric.

On the crest of a hill they stopped.

"Look at that," Sibyl said.

Throughout the park was an orange-sketched wind. Shadows painted flags, strokes of branches caught in a falling sun. On outcrops of rocks people stood in an orange sea. Angles and elevations traced the park paths, bridges and tunnels framed in orange trim.

"Sibyl," Lenny said, "why didn't you call me?"

Sibyl looked up and smiled.

"She didn't take your heart, you know, that woman Kelly. Your heart's your own to keep. No one can take it from you."

"Kelly seems so long ago now," he said.

It was not what Lenny wanted to say. There were words in his head, a question to ask, but he didn't want to hear the answer.

"Do you know the most amazing thing about this labyrinth of gates?" Sibyl asked.

Lenny wasn't thinking about the gates. He was wondering how much time Sibyl had left. I'm tired of the dying, she'd said, I'm ready for the next thing. Lenny wasn't ready. He felt at the start of something, not the end.

"We're walking through the gates," Sibyl said, "and it's like time stops. They flow one into the other. It feels like they go on forever."

Lenny nodded his head. "Maybe they do."

He grabbed the back of Sibyl's wheelchair and they began to walk again, wandering the orange paths and shadows and dancing fabric streaked with light. On they walked as the long shadows grew, and the pale winter sun slipped behind the towers to the west.