Missed Connection, page 1
MISSED CONNECTION
By Michael Laimo
A Gordian Knot Production
Gordian Knot is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Crossroad Press digital edition 2024
Copyright © 2024 Michael Laimo
ISBN: Epub Digital Edition: 978-1-63789-013-4
ISBN: Trade Paperback Edition: 978-1-63789-012-7
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
Michael Laimo is the author of eight novels and over 100 short stories. Twice nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, his novels Deep in the Darkness and Dead Souls have been made into feature films. He currently resides on Long Island with three women, two cats, and a parrot fish.
DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
Visit the Crossroad Press website for information about all available products and its authors
Check out our blog
For information about new releases, promotions, and to receive a free eBook, subscribe to our Newsletter at the bottom of any page on our website
Find and follow us on Facebook and Bluesky
We hope you enjoy this eBook and will seek out other books published by Crossroad Press. We strive to make our eBooks as free of errors as possible, but on occasion some make it into the final product. If you spot any problems, please contact us at crossroad@crossroadpress.com and notify us of what you found. We’ll make the necessary corrections and republish the book. We’ll also ensure you get the updated version of the eBook.
If you have a moment, the author would appreciate you taking the time to leave a review for this book at the retailer’s site where you purchased it.
Thank you for your assistance and your support of the authors published by Crossroad Press.
What good is faithful if faithful doesn’t do any good?
—Peter Delmonico
Table of Contents
Prologue
One Week Earlier
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Prologue
The pain.
It’s extraordinary: head pounding from skull to jaw, wrists and ankles burning beneath layers of duct tape, bare nipples chafed under loops of once-white-now-pink fishing rope. The threadbare necktie knotted around my head holds the dress sock in my mouth, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
Somewhere, just beyond the closed door, the people I love the most are silent. Where…are…they…?
No answer from the devil or the angel.
The room is a suburban battlefield. Computer in pieces. Clothing strewn. Standing lamp a fallen comrade in the center of it all. Early-morning wall-shadows threaten to suffocate me, boding a traumatic end to my life.
The door bursts open. The man who put me here limps in, slams it, crack!, a towering heaving behemoth in need of an answer. Gripped in his tattooed fist, an eight-inch kitchen knife, steel blade slick and red.
He demands, “Where is it?”
I squirm, buck, grunt, a man with no answer.
He yanks the necktie down, pulls the sock from my mouth, grabs a fistful of my hair and presses the knife against my throat. The bloody hilt creeps into focus, the hand gripping it, the cursive snake tattoo slithering across his knuckles, revering Lola. “Last chance. Where’s the fucking money?”
My words are beaten down, every syllable a life of agony: “Where…is…my… daughter…?”
He backhands me across the face and I drown in a wash of pain (…you’re six-seven-eight years old hiding in the closet dusty shoes mothballs the BELT comes down your mother screams she flees she can’t stop it she can’t help you…).
He clenches and grinds. “If you don’t tell me now, I will kill her…”
My tearful silence is torture to us both.
He circles and growls, a caged beast, then exits the room, slamming the door in his wake, crack! Moments or hours later he returns with my crying daughter in one arm, angel face hidden beneath hills of tattooed muscle, golden curls wet with sweat and tears.
He presses the bloody knife to her neck. “WHERE’S THE FUCKING MONEY!”
No-no-no-no-no-no-no! My body seizes, my muscles scream, a chain reaction consuming me: adrenaline flowing, nerves igniting, speeding heart rate, labored breathing…synapses bursting, amygdala shutting down.
I face my attacker.
I must act now.
If I don’t, my daughter will die.
And to think, all of this happened because I chose to take some photos in the park.
I lie. “I’ll show you where the money is…”
One Week Earlier
Chapter 1
Point.
Click.
The August sun casts its golden beams across 5th Avenue.
A perfect day for shooting.
I pluck a dust cloth from my attaché and gently clean the new Nikon lens on my camera. It’d cost a bundle but was worth it. Never in the past have my pictures come out so detailed. So crisp and clear. So lifelike.
As far back as I remember, I’ve always loved photography. At age nine (…you struggle to forget ages six-seven-eight, you REPRESS…), I graduated from a Polaroid Instamatic to a Canon digital and have ever since developed a love for purchasing supplies I don’t really need. You should see my little darkroom, jam-packed with enough equipment to fill the shelves at B&H Photo. Buying all these things serves as a diversion from all the wrong in my life. Some people set their sights on Dunkin’ Donuts. I turn to telephoto lenses and developing tanks.
Jolie, my wife, focuses on working out, putting in two hours a day at the Central Park Sports Club. Once upon a time (prior to her three-year affair with the gym), she supported my love of photography. That was a happier time, when I liked her, and she liked me. Then she got pregnant, and anger and depression and irrationality became her most enduring (not endearing) qualities. Once Rachel came into our lives, she pushed me away even further, both mentally and physically, forcing me to spend more time pointing and clicking at strangers, and less time regarding her in the flesh.
Whatever I like, Jolie hates. I’m Soundgarden and steaks, she’s Britney and beets. I’ve often wondered if this is how relationships actually work between married couples: living lives at opposite poles, marching to different beats, harboring anger, resentment, hostility.
I look at my gold wedding band and ponder the choice I made six weeks before my thirtieth birthday: It was a good day. Forty of our closest friends and relatives. My dad, your mom the cunt, remember how we joked about fixing them up? You were showing a bit but it didn’t matter because you looked like a queen with your dirty-blonde hair and Audrey Meadows eyes and spray-on tan. You were the most beautiful woman in the world to me that day. And making love to you in the hotel was the height of our most memorable night together, because ever since then…
I peer ahead, seeking a distraction from my problems.
There. Between 41st Street and 42nd Street. The columns of the NY Public Library, towering like monolithic sentries. The angle of the sun’s rays striking the coarse detail of their grooves makes me wonder how they might develop at this time of day; how the multicultural cast of people on the expansive steps would just pop with three-dimensional clarity.
Point.
Click.
If only Jolie could see the beauty (and humor) I see in my photos. If only she could feel the thrill of capturing the perfect shot, then maybe she’d understand my love for the craft. Then maybe she’d be more agreeable to my hours spent away from home. Then maybe we’d get along. Maybe. See? I really do want things to work out between us, if only for the sake of our daughter.
I glance at my cell. Just after 6:00. Late again. Five unread texts from Jolie corroborates this. I snap the lens cover on and pace up 42nd Street toward the N-line subway entrance.
On my left: the open lawn of Bryant Park. Lots of activity. Hundreds of people enjoying a beautiful day. So many sights and colors, so many potential moments to capture on film. I think of Jolie and glimpse the subway entrance. She’s at home, brimming to rip me a(nother) new one for being late again. To remind me just how fucking miserable my marriage is.
Only a few more pictures.
I head off into the park.
Chapter 2
Like Jolie, Bryant Park is brimming. With picnickers. People of all denominations soaking in the faultless summer climate, more than likely pleased their workdays have come to an end.
Ahead, near the 6th Avenue entrance, a seven-piece jazz band performs upon a fold-away stage. The music is bright and cheerful, speaking the tongues of nearly everyone present. Sometimes after a tour of duty in the darkroom, I can easily evoke the sounds of the events I capture, as though a soundtrack has been recorded in my head to accompany the developed photo. It’s a talent inventive photographers possess, and I’ve got it. The jazz band and the assembly of people facing the stage would make for a wonderful picture, one worth making a detour for. My heartbeat ramps up a few notches, validating my choice with this prospective shot.
I march along the gravel path, passing the reading room and the well-read books shoved into portable shelving units. Behind me, the chatter of happy hour attendees at the outdoor bar and grill—businessmen who’ve loosened their ties and women who’ve let down their hair—succumbs to the buoyant sounds of cymbals crashing and horns blaring at the opposite end of the park.
I love people-browsing. It’s an integral part of the process as I search for the ideal candid. I’ve built a shameless habit of taking pictures of strangers (…neighbor…) and have a portfolio that satirizes those happy-people portraits that come with the purchase of a new frame. A portion of my work is made up of photos like these—photos poking fun of someone.
I also have a lookbook that takes my inner caricaturist to the next level. This one is filled with more colorful types, body-modified weirdos and the like that have no trouble turning heads, even in Greenwich Village. Aptly titled Freaks & Geeks, it focuses more on my morbid curiosity of those choosing to take paths less-traveled. They don’t know I’m taking their photos and I don’t show them to anyone other than myself, but the practice makes me laugh and exhibits my talent as a photographer, all in a single click.
This moment in the park is a people-browser’s dream. Late-afternoon sun shining. Everyone coming and going, mindful of their after-work purposes: a gentle stroll, a scenic detour, the pleasure of a friend’s company.
It’s times like this that spark envy in my mind. I’m almost thirty-four, working a six-figure job as the northeast regional V.P. of Johnson Apparel Group, proud and smug to have worked my way up from lowly sales trainee to one of three upper management positions. Of course, it didn’t hurt that prior to his retirement my stockbroker father once had the CEO of Johnson as a client, earning him nearly seven figures and me a career in fashion. Insert wink-emoji here.
Despite a great career and the ego massaging that comes with it, it’s not as rewarding as taking photos. As taking the perfect photo. Taking photos makes me happy…
(…you look out the window HE is with her you point and click…)
…but happy photographer plus unhappy marriage equals, You were out every night this week taking pictures. Pictures of what? Skies and birds and storefronts and ugly people? It must really get you off when you click that little button. What the hell do you do in your darkroom anyway? For God’s sakes pumpkin-eater, throw that stupid fucking camera away!
I know this sounds cruel, and dear God I love my daughter (love?), but sometimes I wish I’d never met Jolie. Everywhere I go there are so many pretty girls. Single ones. Married ones. Younger ones. Older ones. Thin and hard-bodied ones, curvy and buxom ones. Many of them looking for a handsome, well-to-do, driven, passionate man—like me—to love and respect.
It’s a battle that wages in my head every day.
(…sex helps you REPRESS without it you feel six-seven-eight…)
Time and time again I remind myself how blessed I am to have such a darling little angel in Rachel. But I wonder: what would’ve become of my life had I not gotten Jolie pregnant? Would I be pursuing my dream as a professional photographer, exhibiting in village galleries with no binding ties and unreasonable demands draining me of my time, energy, and money, a beautiful woman by my side who loves and cherishes and respects me? Would I?
I peer at my phone again, an unwanted habit forced upon me by way of Jolie’s shitty-ass attitude. Her shassitude. This morning she texted that our nanny Carmen called in sick again, third day in a row, and when are you going to take a day to watch your daughter, pumpkin-eater? Two hundred bucks a day for childcare, and what do I get? Fuel for the inferno that has torched my marriage, that’s what. With client meetings and luncheons packing my calendar, it was Jolie who volunteered to play the sick card from her sales position at Saks Fifth Avenue to take care of Rachel. The events that followed are still fresh in my mind: Jolie complaining about how her day was “completely fucked,” me eating a bowl of oatmeal and wondering how the world could keep on spinning without Jolie there to straighten up the racks in the Saks Fifth Avenue dress department. I finished my breakfast and walked out the door, cold-shouldering her final words about needing to leave for a 6:30 abs class, and “you better be home before then pumpkin-eater, so help me God!” As mentioned, just as photography is my means for escapism, exercise is Jolie’s means for blowing off steam. And she has a lot of it.
In a way I feel sorry for her. She’s only twenty-six. Twenty-two when the pregnancy test disclosed two lines. And when the girl you're fucking is a millennial with a right-to-life patch on her backpack, and when the girl you're fucking turns up the volume during infomercials of starving Ethiopian children, you suck it up and plan to grow old together. We hadn’t even gone to the movies yet and there we were, planning for parenthood.
The road was bumpy from the get-go, but I navigated every turn, filled every pothole, armed and ready with an easy-going attitude, loving (albeit judgmental and cynical), more than willing to make it all work because I only want to love (and be loved by) someone. But that was then, and this is now. Today I’m a frustrated jellyfish, drained of vigor and sapped of virtue. Who wouldn’t be with a shitstorm of post-partum depression and busted-condom resentment raining down on their parade?
I look at my phone. The minutes…they’re crawling by like bomb-ticks as my mind sweats out with crystal-ball clarity what must be happening at home: Jolie sitting in the kitchen, eyebrows furrowed into a headache, fingers intolerantly tap-tap-tapping the table as a bathed and fed Rachel fidgets on her lap.
I’m not asking for much. I just want to take pictures. All by myself. With no one to bother or distract me or curse me out.
(…or stir up six-seven-eight…)
Some Renaissance artist—not sure which one—once said that solitude is the foundation for ingenuity. That’s smacking the nail right on the head. An artist and his solitary thoughts make for the greatest achievements in creativity, not one hampered by an angry, depressed wife and a three-and-a-half-year-old that still doesn’t have the whole potty-training routine down yet.
Damn you Peter, don’t you ever do anything right?
Daddy, I just did number-one in my panties.
I walk out onto the lawn and position myself in front of the band. The spraying fountain behind the stage glimmers in the sunbeams and provides an array of natural light like that of a rig in a concert hall. It’s a magical scene, a perfect moment in time. And I’m about to capture it forever. This picture is going to make my day.
