THE GENIE OF CENTRAL PARK. A Love Story

 

 

 

THE GENIE OF CENTRAL PARK.

A Love Story

 

By

John William Tuohy

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Someday you will be old enough to starting reading fairy tales again” C. S. Lewis

 

 

THE GENIE OF CENTRAL PARK

CHAPTER ONE

 

“There are good days and there are bad days. And this is one of them” Lawrence Welk

 

“So, I’m dying” Henry Donick asked, “Is that what you’re saying?”

“To everything there is a season” Doctor Shay said softly, soothingly “A time to be born and a time to die”

“And this is my time” Henry said through hallow words as he stared at the vague pattern in the white tile floor. Sitting upright now on the examining table hoping against hope that the Doctor would tell him that it was not his time. That that was not what he meant, Henry had misunderstood him.

“And this is your time” the Doctor repeated softly.

“Damn it” Henry thought.

“Is there anyone I contact? Family?”

“No” Henry answered quickly in the perfect pronunciation of his class, he didn’t like this question and wanted to get part if quickly “I’m alone. It’s just me”   

The Doctor had not expected that answer and he stumbled for the next thing to say and both men looked out the window, across Central Park and then returned their view to the sterile but neatly appointed room.

“Maybe” the Doctor said, searching for someone who would care   “Maybe social services. Maybe they can arrange for you to talk with someone about this” 

“How long?”  Henry asked

“Oh, I should think they would talk to you for however long you like”

“No. For me. How long?”  Henry asked again.

The Doctor hesitated to answer. All Doctors hesitate when they don’t know the answer,

“It’s….it’s difficult to tell, Henry.”  He answered without lifting his eyes from the white tile floor. With his head still lowered, the doctor walked Henry to the door, sighed, and patted him on the back as he left and when he assumed Henry was out of ear shot said to his nurse “All right, people I’ve got a squash court scheduled at the Yale Club in ten minutes, so that’s a wrap, we’re out of here” 

Henry decided to walk to his home on the West Side. He strolled up Park Avenue, and absentmindedly turned in to Central Park, and walked across the snow covered knolls where he had frolicked as a child.

Alone with his thoughts in the calm of park, he was genuinely surprised at his own calm, at how well he had taken the news of his impending death. Then he spoke the words out loud to himself “You are going to die very soon.”

All that answered was silence. It was the loneliest moment of his life. His world was falling apart before him and all he  could do was stare blankly and watch it happen. On the other hand, he thought,  the one time in his life he desperately needed someone came at the same time he so desperately needed to be alone.

Then he panicked. Against his will he started to shake and he couldn’t breathe and he stretched his neck high into the air and took enormous gulps of breath.

Then it passed. He bents over quickly because the park was spinning around him. He staggered over to an ice covered  bench, sat and wrapped his arms around his ribs. He felt pale and he was certain he would faint.

An old man, haggard and strained pushing a shopping cart overloaded with junk wheeled up before Henry and his bench and his panic attack and stopped.

“You okay, Mister?” the man asked.

Henry was so relieved to hear the words, kind words that against his will, his eyes flooded with tears and he quickly brushed them aside.

“I’m dying.” he said. “I’m going to die and I’m scared”

It felt good to say that.

There was a pause between them and then the man with the shopping cart reached out and gently placed the very tips of his fingers on the back of Henry’s hand and said “It’s okay to be scared. I’m old and I’m scared a lot and dying, heck, I mean gosh, I don’t blame you for being scared. Dying’s a scary thing for everybody no matter who you are”

More tears came to Henry’s eyes and he hated himself for it.

“It’s not that” Henry said “it’s……” and then he looked around the park as if the words he needed were hidden behind a tree, but they weren’t. He laughed but he didn’t know why and he said “I don’t want to die, not now”

The man hung on Henry’s every syllable, for people, especially people dressed as a nicely as Henry, rarely spoke to him, and if they did it was never of things so emotional or true. This was a very important moment in this man’s life. He leaned into Henry and whispered “This is what I’ve learned. You have to look for a miracle, they are all around, and you just have to look for it to see it”

Miracles. Henry Donick, a scion of great wealth and power built from generations of  relentless opportunists, did not believe in miracles and the sly smile that slowly came across his face said as much. Regardless, the man smiled and winked at Henry, took his cart in hand and pushed his way down the snow covered tar path through the park. Henry watched him leave. He looked around him and for some reason the day seemed less gloomy than it had a minute before. And then the depth of the man’s decency and concern seared its way into his mind and he called out “Sir!”

But the man kept walking and so he called again, louder this time “Sir!”

This time the man stopped and turned and looked at him.

“Thank you” Henry shouted and then added in a lower tone “Thank you for your kindness.”

Henry reached into his jacket pocket and took out his black leather wallet opened it and realized he had no cash. In that he respect, he was like the rest of the truly rich, he never carried cash.

“Thank you” the  man waved back with a shout.

“For what?”  Henry asked

“For calling me sir. Remember, look for the miracles” the man said with a strange, knowing smile. In fact, there seemed to be such knowledge in his smile that Henry was forced to ask, “How will I know them when I see them?”

The man laughed. “Oh, you’ll know them, you’ll know them” and with that he turned and disappeared around a corner to Strawberry Fields.

“Wait!” Henry called out “What do you know?” but the man was gone, vanished into the blinding whiteness of the snow that covered the park.

Now composed, Henry cut up on the path and crossed over to West 72^nd Street where he lived at the Majestic.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.” Isaac Asimov.

 

Henry walked through the grand old buildings majestic arched main entrance, a Porte cohere large enough to accommodate the horse-drawn carriages that once, in a different and more elegant age, entered there. Unlike so many properties in New York, the majestic had kept all of its original glory.

 It was the last of its kind in Manhattan, a  small condominium building, three floors and sixty-five units each with four to twenty rooms, no two being alike. It was situated on a cozy, tree lined corner of West 72nd Street and Central Park West. Most of the original tenants from Henry’s childhood still lived there.

Henry was the son Sam Donick,  a corporate raider and a fifth generation New Yorker, and Mildred Donick, also a deeply entrenched  New Yorker who could trace her ancestors back to the Knickerbocker Dutch.

After his father and mother’s death Henry remained in spacious 14 room apartment in the Majestic where no room t was smaller than 40 feet long, with the longest, the main pallor, being 50 feet long. The ceilings were a magnificent 14 feet high, and the floors were made of mahogany, oak, and cherry except for the dining hall which was fit with  a distinct inlaid Roman marble with sterling silver edges.

The main parlor and master bedroom boasted high gables, balustrades, and terracotta spandrels and fine hand carved panels and were located in the front of the apartment facing the park, while the other twelve rooms overlooked the courtyard in the center of the building which was a patchwork of small gardens, one of which belonged to Henry, although he wasn’t aware of that fact, a croquet lawns, and a tennis court. All of the major rooms were connected to each other and were also accessible from a back hall for servants. An elevator operator brought each tenant to their individual apartment and all guest s were announced.

Henry entered the Majestic’s large Victorian lobby and walked briskly passed a large group of elderly tenants who spent most of their day sitting in the big over stuffed leather chairs and couches that lined the wall. All of them knew Henry since his childhood. They knew he had grown into a solitary man of forty years who had never married.

In the silence of the elegantly designs elevator, he fumbled with his house keys as a way to a void looking at his reflection in the mirrors that lined each wall. When the lift operator opened the thick oak doors on the fourth floor, Henry Donick felt a great sense of comfort and safety fall over him.

He strolled into his den,  a cozy small room lined oak bookshelves on every wall so that the great works surrounded him at every turn and gave him a great sense of calm and safety. It was here that he plied his trade as editor-in-chief of Modern Curator Magazine, an annual publication he underwrote.

Although he was successful in his profession, finances had never been an issue for him. On his father’s side, he was a direct descendant of Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck, a lawyer and landowner in New York in the 1600’s when the city was called New Netherland. It was from van der Donick title that the city of Yonkers, New York, took its name. Later generations changed the name to Van Donick but that was changed with the event of World War One to the less distinguishable, less Germanic sounding, Donick.

Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck, in addition to being a leader in the political life of New Amsterdam, due to his considerable connections within the powerful Dutch West India Company which enabled him  to buy up enormous tracks land on Manhattan Island, Brooklyn, Yonkers, and Long Island, all of purchased on credit and a handshake.

The original family estate, Colen Donck, was a 24,000-acre property that ran along twelve miles of the Hudson River, making up what would eventually become the Bronx and southern Westchester County. The estate was so large that its first owner, Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donick, came to be called Jonkheer, a title equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon title of Esquire. From van der Donick title, the city of Yonkers, New York, took its name.

As for the Bronx, it took its name from another family member, Jonas Bronck, who had married into van der Donick clan and moved to what was then the wilds of the Harlem River Randalls Island. There, he built a 680-acre farm on what became Bruckner Boulevard. In 1624, another relative established a settlement he called Valcke Bos, which became Flatbush in an area the Dutch called Breukelen, or Brooklyn

Henry’s mother was a Van Rensalers and a very distant relative to his father. She was also, on her mother’s side, a direct descendant of Peter Minuit who had, in 1626, so famously bought Manhattan Island from the locals for 60 Dutch guilders, what was then about $24.

Mother’s more direct ancestor was Killiaen van Rensalers, a diamond merchant in Amsterdam and member of the board of directors of the West India Company. The Rensalers had earned its first great fortune in Jamaica, on their vast sugar plantation.

Killiaen van Rensalers purchased most of northern New Jersey and then sold it off at a considerable profit to become a merchant’s banker in Manhattan. He married the equally wealthy Margaret De Peyster, and the couple kept a mansion on what is now central Broadway as well as "Rose Hall" at Flatbush, Long Island NY.

Their son, Nicholas Bayard van Rensalers increased the family fortune through a series of fraudulent land grants and protection money from pirates in partnership with the notoriously corrupted Governor, Benjamin Fletcher.

His son, John van Rensalers, was a businessman who invested the family money into flourmills, wholesale merchandising, and shipbuilding. He would eventually become the first Colonial Mayor of New York City, where he was alleged to have stolen millions in taxes.

John van Rensalers son was Frederick Philipse van Rensalers. a staunch loyalist during the war for Independence had the good sense to switch sides in mid-battle and as a result avoided having his land and fortune taken from him. In 1785, Frederick Philipse van Rensalers daughter, Marie married Andrew van der Donck, who now used the family name Van der Donck and the vast fortunes were merged.

In the late 1850’s, some two hundred years after Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donick had died, the van der Donick and Van Rensalers were still the largest land owners in New York City. But the value of land rents diminished and it was more profitable to sell the lands rather than keep them and in 1860, the families sold off all of their lands for $610,000.00 for a modern value of millions and millions of dollars.

As the generations of the van der Donick and Van Rensalers grew smaller, the family fortunes increased, trust funds grew, and now Henry Donick was the last of both lines. There were no brothers or sisters or cousins. Just Henry Donick. The extremely wealthy and well insulated Henry Donick.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  The Bible

Henry removed his hand crafted Italian leather shoes and his Edward Armah tie and replaced them with a pair of friendly, well-worn Glerup slippers and an equally worn Turnbull and Asser cardigan and at exactly noon, he entered his den and soaked in its comfort while he stared out across Central Park and tried to make some sense out his dismal news.

It took him five hours to consider every angle of his predicament, but the bottom line was always the same, he was going to die in a few months and that was that. There was no one to share the story with, and that, h7e knew, was the sad legacy of his life that he was, despite all of his fortune and position, absolutely alone in this world. Of course, he always knew he was lonely but he was comfortable with it, but this was different. This time it was a gnawing loneness because he was comfortable with it.

He had few friends, none of whom were close. He just wasn’t that sort of man, the sort that makes friends and keeps them through the years and confides in them. Still, it would be good to speak to someone about his pending death, anyone really. He raised his eyes to the rustic cooper ceiling and studied it while he searched for a name of one person he could talk too. And the name Nancy Jeddy entered his mind. She worked as a private financial adviser at his bank and they had dined together several times in the past year, always discussing his fiscal matters but more and more recently,  they had talked about other things. She liked to talk about other things and so it came to her naturally that while she spoke she had the most delightful habit of lowering her eyes, which, he had noted were intelligent but soft and light in their blue color and she twirled her brown hair in her fingers, he liked that.

 He was surprised at how much he remembered of what she had told him. She was 38 years old, never married. She lived in a one bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, only blocks from his apartment. She had goldfish but wanted a cat but she worked late hours and though it would be cruel to leave the poor thing alone for so long.

She enjoyed reading romance novels mostly. She enjoyed Beethoven and bluegrass and yard sales and when she drank too much wine her face went ever so slightly crimson in color. He was fairly positive she wasn’t involved with anyone. But he couldn’t call her, not about this, in fact, he thought not about anything, theirs was not that sort of relationship.

The stress of it all had worn him out and closed his eyes  and promptly fell asleep.

Waking from his nap two hours later, he was refreshed but kept his eyes closed until he was fully awake but then he caught the glimpse of his worries coming at him from a far corner of his mind and braced himself for the next attack. Then he heard his mother’s words “Keep your mind busy dear and all that is useless falls away.”  He stood from the chair, the first time he had been on his feet since noon. It was now 7 PM.

He would have to start by getting his affairs in order, his finances, legal matters, that sort of thing. He shook his head to dismiss the thought; he had people to do that sort of thing but then reconsidered since so much of whatever was stored in the house were personnel items. He should at least look at what was there.

He walked down the long, wide hallway to room that had been converted into archive. In it were rows of neatly stored boxes of his mother’s most cherished belonging, personnel papers and, he suspected, a fair amount of junk. He had never opened the boxes or examined the papers. He feared that one day all of his memories would be here one day, in dusty sealed boxes that no one would ever see and he thought that to be such an awful thing because memories should to be shared.

The first few boxes contained hand written letters, in cursive and set in a rich dark ink. Some of them dated back almost two hundred years and appeared to be from various Van Rensalers and Donick mothers to their daughters. After that, the next several dozen rows of boxes were filled with reams and reams of legal papers detailing family holding back to the 1600’s. Then came the boxes of photographs, at least a thousand of them, capturing the usually unsmiling faces of his ancestors.

It was all enthralling to him, as a historian, every piece of paper, every document, and every photograph so that when he looked out the tall, brown draped window at the end of the room, he was surprised to see that night had fallen. He looked at his watch; it was 10:30 in the evening. He had no appetite for lunch and he had absentmindedly forgotten to have diner, something he did often,  but he felt better, less lost and overwhelmed and decided he would finish perusing the last few boxes on the shelf and then treat himself to a late but luxurious supper.

He opened the next box and found it filled with women’s jewelry that was encrusted with diamonds, rupees, pearls and all of it trimmed in fine, rich gold. The next box was also filled with fine jewelry, men’s jewelry.

The next box was marked “explorations.”  Inside were  black and white photographs, take in the early 1900’s,  of exotic places with camels and ruins. There was also a long, elegant Colt 45 pistol, a fine leather holster and some ammunition. Henry’s guess was that the items belonged to one of his mother’s great-uncles, Hillyard Van Rensalers, a noted Middle East explorer at the turn of the 20^th century.

Under the weapons was an exquisite blue glass bottle, lavishly decorated with gold painted decorative patterns. With his considerable knowledge in antiquities, Henry judged the bottle to be 7^th or 8^th century and definitely Middle Eastern. He lifted it slowly from the box and admired its beauty and decided to take it to the kitchen to clean and perhaps place it in his den.

 

He stood in the center of the large roomy kitchen and realized he had absolutely no idea where any of the cleaning products were kept. He seldom entered the kitchen since it was the sole domain of Esmeralda, the Peruvian housekeeper-cook. He opened and closed a few cabinet doors and did a halfhearted search before deciding to leave the project to Esmeralda in the morning and gently placed the bottle on the kitchen counter.

The bottle had left his hands filled with dust and washed them in the sink and then took a wash towel, wet it in warm water and dabbed some of the dust from the bottles neck, revealing a splendid deeper blue color he had missed before. He wet the cloth again and gently and slowly rubbed the bottle down from to top to bottom.

When he reached the base on the third stoke, the bottle started to shake violently and he immediately assumed that rodent of some kind had somehow made its way into the bottle but that couldn’t be, he noted, because the top was sealed. Nonetheless, he stepped backwards from the bottle and as he did, its top blew off and flew across the voluminous kitchen. Suddenly a fantastic cloud of grey smoke lifted from inside the bottle and made its way a few feet across the room where it stopped motionless for a minutes before the figure of a man appeared. He was tall, perhaps six feet, slim but muscular and wore a sky blue knee long cloak, pants, white silk shoes that came to a point and a turban.

“What are you? Who are you?”  Henry asked as he took several steps backwards.

“I am Fakrash- El Aamash. I am of the sacred tribe of the Suret al-Jinn, in service to Sultan Zabibe of Qedar.” His voice was booming and deep. Then he leaned forward and asked in a hushed tone “He is here, the Sultan?”

“Not that I know of, but it wouldn’t surprise me, you’re here after all” Henry answered. “How did you get in here?”

 “Are we in the Kingdom of Qedar?” he asked looking around the room.

“No” Henry said, “This is New York. How did you get in here?”

“It is a very small place, New York,” the Jeanie said.

“This is a room in an apartment in the city of New York,” Henry answered, “How did you get in here?”

“And in what Kingdom is New York?” the Jeanie asked

“The Kingdom of crazy” Henry said extending is open palms to the Jeanie. “What do you want? I don’t keep any cash in the apartment”

“I want nothing from you. You have freed me from my prison. “The man said and pointed to the bottle on the counter “I will now grant you one wish, anything you desire, anything at all”

“One wish?”  Henry asked skeptically.

“One wish” the Jeanie answered dismissively.

“I think I’m supposed to get three” Henry said.

“No” the Jeanie answered in a small voice that sounded nothing like the deep booming voice he had just used   “You get one. I am not empowered to give you three”

“I’m pretty sure it’s three” Henry countered.

“Well,” the Jeanie said with a tilt of his head, “You’re wrong. Now, what is your wish?”

“What happened to your voice” Henry asked.

“Nothing” the Jeanie said defensively.

“Your voice changed”

“No, it didn’t”

 “Yes it did. A second ago, you were talking in that deep voice the movie announcer uses when they show the previews and now you’re talking regularly”

The Jeanie smiled sheepishly and shrugged “It’s really hard to talk in that deep voice for a long time” 

There was a brief silence between them and then Henry smiled.

“You know what you are?”  Henry said pointing finger at the Jeanie.

“What am I?”  Jeanie asked retuning Henry’s smile.

“You’re a figment of my imagination brought on by the stress of the illness.”  Henry said, “That’s all this is. ”

“Okay” said the Jeanie “That’ll work. Now if you would just make your wish, I’ll be on my way”

“That’s all this is, a figment of my imagination, drawn up under stress” Henry muttered

“You can have riches” the Jeanie said counting off on his fingers “There’s beauty, talent, wisdom” he stopped and said as an aside “You don’t get many requests for wisdom”

“I know you aren’t real” Henry said, “But I have to ask, how do you know there aren’t many requests for wisdom for wisdom?”

“Well,” the Jeanie said with a guilty expression “Let’s just say this isn’t my first time out of the bottle and leave it there”

“See?”  Henry said to himself soothingly “A repeat offender Jeanie, there’s no such thing”

“How about power” the Jeanie said with a squint of his eye “Power is always a big hit; you want endless power?”

“I made this up” Henry said “Invented this to keep my mind off of my problems”

“All righty then” said the Jeanie clasping his hands together “You need a minute right? I understand completely, take your time” and left the kitchen.

“My figment just walked out of the room” Henry said and followed the Jeanie into the main pallor.

“You have no harem?” the Jeanie asked as the Jeanie sprawled across the couch.

“Yes but they‘re off on Mondays. Make yourself comfortable, don’t be shy”

The Jeanie looked around the room with narrowed eyes “And your servants?”

“Esmeralda” Henry answered. “She doesn’t work nights. She barely works days actually”

“I have arrived in the house of a peasant” the Jeanie said dismissively and then turned to Henry and smiled “So be it! But with you wish, all of that will change perhaps, have you given it anymore thought?”

“No, I haven’t “Henry said “I’ve been sidetracked, what with a talking, judgmental figment of my imagination strolling around the house, I’m sure you understand”    

“I hardly think I was being judgmental” the Jeanie said obviously displeased.

“I have a splendid idea” Henry said.

“I just have a few observations” the Jeanie said and then looking around the apartment “Astute observations I might add”

“Why don’t you leave?” Henry smiled and started to walk towards the apartment door “And I’ll get back to you later on that whole wish thing, doesn’t that sound peachy?”

 “You know” the Jeanie said making his way into the den “I’d love to, I really would, I mean it’s not that you’re not just great company and all, but I have to stay”

“Why?” Henry asked

“It’s a genie thing” the Jeanie said with an exaggerated shrug “I have to stay within the reasonable confines of your home until you make your wish”

“And what would happen if you left my home without my making a wish?”  Henry asked.

“Well, that’s the thing of it” the Jeanie replied “I mean literately can’t leave your home. The powers won’t allow. I’m trapped here”

“You seem to get trapped a lot” Henry said.

“I know! Right?” the Jeanie laughed

Henry rolled his head backwards in thought, closed his eyes  and said, “You know how we can solve this?” and he picked up his  phone and pushed a speed dial number and waited for a few second. When it was answered, he said “Mr. Ozturk, Henry Donick, 4-a, would you be kind enough to come up here for a moment?”

He waited for the reply and said “Yes, I know it’s late. It will just take a moment.”

After a few seconds, he said, “Thank you Mister Ozturk” and hung up the phone. Turning to Jeanie, he said “Demir Ozturk, building supervisor. He’s on his way up”

 The Jeanie shrugged in boredom.

“So” Henry said, “you say you are from Qudar?”

“Yes, Qedar”

“Why don’t we take a look at that?”  Henry offered and walked to his desk and typed the words “Kingdom of Qedar” into his lap top. After several seconds, he leaned into the screen, he read aloud “Kingdom of Qedar. Circa 8th century BCE. The Qedarite were the most organized of the Northern Arabian tribes, at the height of their rule in the 6th century BCE; the Kingdom of Qedar spanned a large area between the Persian Gulf and the Sinai. An influential force between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE, Qedarite monarchs were eventually subsumed into the Nabataean state after their rise to prominence in the 2nd century CE.”

“The Nabataean” the Jeanie said in low awe.

“You know of them?” 

“No” the Jeanie said in equal awe.

“Then why……”  Henry began to ask and then thought better of it.

“You are a Sultan?”  Jeanie asked with genuine interest.

“No” Henry answered “I’m a historian. How long have you been in the bottle?”

The Jeanie rolled his eyes upwards, used his fingers to calculate, muttered numbers and said “I have no idea”

“Okay, lets start with the basics. Who put you in the bottle?”  Henry asked.

“The great and glorious Sultan Zabibe” the Jeanie replied

“Why?”  Henry asked, “What did you do?”

“Some said that perhaps I had slept with the wife of the Sultan” the Jeanie replied looking around the room and trying to avoid Henry’s gaze.

“And who” Henry asked already knowing the answer “Were the some who said that?”

“The wife of the Sultan” the Jeanie whispered “She was a very vindictive woman”

“You slept with the guy’s wife?”  Henry asked

“He had many wives” the Jeanie responded.

“You slept with the guy’s wife?” Henry asked again

“He had 150 wives” the Jeanie said “He was a very selfish man”

“You slept with the guy’s wife” Henry said flatly

“You make it sound” the Jeanie said and then searched for a perfect word to weasel his way out of the dilemma he was in

“Underhanded” Henry asked. “Slimy?”

“Well,” said the Jeanie slightly offended “When you put it that way.”

“So, he put you a bottle?”  Henry asked

“Yes” the Jeanie said lowering his head. ”But that isn’t the complete story”

“I will say, it seems a bit harsh” Henry said.

“I agree!” the Jeanie said, “Especially when he did nothing at all the first ten times I was caught”

With genuine interest, Henry asked “How does one go about putting a grown man, a large grown man such as yourself, in a bottle?” 

“Ancient ritual” the Jeanie answered “If you know the ritual, it isn’t all that difficult”

“Of course,” Henry said.

There was an exceedingly loud knock on the door, more of a banging actually. Henry knew the sound. It was Demir Ozturk, the buildings perpetually displeased, exasperated, crude and rude supervisor. Ozturk purposely slammed each door with his ham fists, it was a means to intimidate and it tended to work, especially on the elderly tenants. For years, the condominium board had contemplating firing him because of his obnoxious ways, but for some reason, Ozturk outlasted them and survived another year at the Majestic.

“Now” Henry said with a smile, “Now we’ll get to the bottom of this.” And then walked the length of the sitting room to the door and opened it “Please come in Mister Ozturk”

“You know what time it is, Donick?” Ozturk sneered “It’s ten PM!”

“Silence knave!” Jeanie yelled with a wave of his hand.

“What did you call me?” Ozturk roared and moved several feet towards Jeanie but Henry stood in his path.

“So, you see him?” Henry asked Ozturk.

“Who?” Ozturk asked “See who?”

 “You tell me” Henry said with a sly smile.

Ozturk slowly pushed him aside and stuck a thick, hairy finger into Jeanie chest “You call me a knave again, clown and I’ll flatten you”

“So, you do see him?” Henry asked.

“Clown?” asked Jeanie indignantly.

“Yeah” Ozturk said looking over Jeanie’s attire “Clown”   

“Mr. Ozturk” Henry interrupted “Do me a favor, please”

“Depends” Ozturk said without turning to face him “What is it?”

“Pinch that fellow would you?” Henry asked “I want to make sure he’s real”

“What?” Ozturk and Jeanie asked at the same time.

“Pinch him” Henry said “Or slap him if you prefer, I just need you to touch him”

Ozturk turned his considerable girth on Henry and pointed a finger in his face and said

“Look Donick, I always figured you were some kind of weirdo-sex pervert guy, but I’ll tell you now I’m not, you got that? So don’t try to get me involved in your sad and masks sex”

“Sadomasochistic?” Henry asked in his deadpan fashion

“No, not that either!” Ozturk yelled “I don’t do none of that weird stuff you got that? I’m no homo sap e  in”

Ozturk stormed to the door, opened it and gave them both one last, long disgusted look, exited slamming the door  behind him.

“Why did you do that?” Jeanie asked but Henry turned and walked into the dining room and called the police.

“911 what is you emergency?” the voice on the bored other end of the one droned.

“There’s a loon in my apartment 807 West 72^nd street 4-a” Henry said frantically

“By a loon sir, are you referring to the large bird or do you mean loon as in loony-tune crazy person” the voice asked.

“Are you serious?”  Henry asked, “Why would I have giant bird in my apartment?”

“It’s New York.”  The voice answered tiredly “You got a giant bird, I send a guy with a large net, you got a loony-tune crazy person, and I send a guy with a much larger net”

“I’ve got a loony-tune crazy person in my apartment” Henry said.

“I’ll have car there in a few minutes” the dispatcher said before he hung up.

By then the Jeanie had entered the room. Henry closed his phone and gave him an uneasy smile.

“Would care for a glass of something?”  Henry asked

“Of what?” the Jeanie.

“Well, anything, you like, really” Henry answered

“It’s just that you made it sound like you had one specific thing in mind” Jeanie pressed.

“How did you come to that conclusion?” Henry asked

“Well, you said ‘glass of something’ I though, you know, what the something was, but you weren’t going to tell me until it got here, because you were afraid that if I knew what it was I wouldn’t want it” the Jeanie said.

“Well,” Henry began and realized he had absolutely no answer for what the man had just said. Instead, he said “Well, I suppose you’re famished, what with not having eaten in four thousand years”

“Sure” the Jeanie replied “I could use a little something”

“What would you like?” Henry asked walking towards the kitchen with the Jeanie following him.

“Some Kibbeh would be good, perhaps a Gauss” Jeanie said.

“Peanut butter and jelly?” Henry replied “No problem”

“No, no, no, “said the Jeanie “Kibbeh or Gauss”

Henry stopped and turned to look at the Jeanie and said “You know, we’re fresh out of Kibbeh or Gauss”

“What a shame” said the Jeanie.

“I know, right?” said Henry and went about the business of building the Jeanie sandwich.

 

 

 

When the Jeanie was half way through his sandwich, the awkward silence was broken by a heavy knock on the door. “New York City Police Department, answering complain call”

Henry opened the apartment door and showed in two burly policemen into the entrance way.

“I’m Henry Donick, I called” Henry announced. “That was fast. I just phoned”    

“Yeah, we were parked out front. We spoke to your building super down in the lobby. The older cop said.

“Mister Ozturk” Henry said.

Mister Unhappy Turk is more like it” the younger cop said “He says you kiddies wanted him to play”

“What can we do for you today, Mister Donick?” the older cop said wearily.

“Well,” Henry said “This man claims to be a Jeanie”

“Well, that’s nice” the cop said. “What can we do for you today, Mister Donick?”

Henry was momentarily dumbfounded.

“Well, I just think that” he stumbled and then paused “You don’t find that unusual?”

“I been a New York City beat cop for twenty three Mister Donick” the policeman said “You’re gonna have to do better than a guy who thinks he’s a Jeanie”

“There’s three guys over on 48^th Street who say their God” the other cop added “They throw invisible lightening at each other all day”

“That’s actually more entertaining than unusual” the older cop rejoined.

“Yeah” the young cop said “You’re right”

“So did you get your three wishes from the Jeanie or what?” the older cop asked Henry.

 “It’s one wish” Henry said.

“It’s one wish” the Jeanie said.

“No, I think its three” the older cop said and then turned to the younger cops and asked, “its three, right?”

“I’ll have to check the Jeanie Handbook when I get back down to the patrol car” the young cop answered “But, yeah I think it’s three”

“Look” Henry said “Let’s get back to the point, this man is a Jeanie”

“Of course he is” the cop said with a soothing smile.

“I’m not some kind of a nut, he is a Jeanie, a real Jeanie” Henry said.

“And how do you know he’s a Jeanie sir?” the young cop asked.

“Because I rubbed that bottle and he came out of it in this, well, puff of smoke” Henry said.

“And” the older cop said “You asked him for your three wishes”

“I didn’t ask him” Henry said 

“Well, you did actually” Jeanie said “You brought it up. Remember? You asked about your three wishes and I said, no there’s just one and …”

“This is a really a case for the Jeanie squad” the older cop said 

“Now hold on, Bill,” the young cop rejoined “Since this involves a wishes dispute, it could be a case for the Tooth Fairy squad”

“You’re right” the older cop said cautiously “We don’t want to get on the wrong side of those Tooth Fairy goons, they play rough”

“All right” Henry said “Have your fun, but I think that you should at least file a report of something”

“Your right” the older cop said taking out a pad and pen “Alice and the Mad Hatter will want a complete run down on this”

“You got any ID on you pal?”  The younger cop asked Jeanie.

“No” he answered

“Where do you live?” the cop asked

“Here” Jeanie said.

“How long you lived here?” the older cop asked

“At three thousand years, maybe longer” the Jeanie replied.

“Are you a foreign national sir?” the cop asked

“I am of the Kingdom of Qedar” Jeanie answered proudly.

“Can I talk to you out in the hall?” the older cop asked and then Henry followed him out to the hallway where the cop leaned in closely and said in a low voice “Are you in an abusive relationship with Jeanie?”

“What?”  Henry squawked “No! No, for God’s sakes, we’re not involved”

“Hey” the cop said holding up a finger “You don’t have to be sexually caught up with a guy for the relationship to become abusive”

“We’re not Gay” Henry said “Well I’m not Gay, I can’t speak for him. I don’t know if they have Gay Jeanie’s”

“Yeah” the younger cop replied thoughtfully “I should think they would. Look, if you want, I can make him leave for the night, have the folks down at Bellevue check him”

“No” Henry said shaking his head. No one deserved a night in the Bellevue mental ward. “He can stay here”

The older cop called for his partner to join him and as they walked towards the elevator he shouted to Henry over his shoulder   “Play nice, kids”

Henry walked back into his apartment and said to Jeanie “Well, it appears that you are real. Either that or the whole of New York is insane, both are real possibilities”

“Your name is Henry?” the Jeanie asked.

The question surprised him and he realized he had not introduced himself “Yes” he said with a nod “I’m Henry Donick and this is where I live.”  He sighed heavily “It’s been a long day; long day and I’ll have to deal with this tomorrow. You can take a guests bedroom if you like. I’ll show you”

 They walked down the long hallway to the guest suit, the last series of rooms in the apartment

 “There’s your bath” Henry said flicking on the light to the toilet “and here is your porch” and opened the veranda doors to a small balcony that looked over the 72 street. Stepping back into the room he pointed to a small alcove and said “You’re dressing area, bed and TV”

“What is a TV?”  Jeanie asked.

It took Henry a while to answer because he pondered whether he should answer. He was still convinced he was talking to a figment of his imagination who was, somehow, visible to others. Instead of answering, he took the remote, turned on the set and floated across the channels. He handed the remote to Jeanie and before leaving the room, he said, “There are pajamas in the closet somewhere” and then left and closed the door behind him.

 

CHAPTER

FOUR

 

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

 

While Henry slept, the Jeanie mastered control of the TV remote and within a half hour he was skilled channel surfer. He zapped through channels, remaining on one program just long enough to take in a sound bite before hopping to another station. Not once did he watch an entire show from beginning to end largely because he didn’t understand that television programs had beginnings and ends. There were no prolonged engagements with plot, only snippets interested him.

 At first, commercials were given the courtesy of a quick stop but that ended within the first three hours of roaming the vast electric  wasteland. However, as a man of the 5^th century he was not aware of the murky world of infomercials and how they were able to entrap the casual viewer into watching them.

Three infomercials later Jeanie found his way into Henry’s room.

“Henry” Jeanie said in in a hurried whisper “Henry wake up”

Henry lifted his head from the pillow, looked at Jeanie, looked at the clock on the nightstand, and looked at the Jeanie.

“What’s wrong?” he asked in a throaty whisper, his eyes half opened.

“The Amazing Gin-su Rama knifes are on sale for another fifteen minutes” Jeanie said frantically “After that, they’re off the market…….. forever, Henry….for-ever!”

“Who are you?” Henry asked in a confused state.

“It’s me” the Jeanie answered

“Who?” Henry asked.

“Fakrash- El Aamash of the sacred tribe of the Suret al-Jinn, in service to Sultan Zabibe of Qedar.”  Jeanie answered “Now in debt service to Henry the Donick of New York”

“Who are you?” Henry asked his eyes opening slightly.

“The…what did you call it? The figment, the figment of your imagination” the Jeanie answered.

 “The Jeanie” Henry said opening his eyes.

“Yeah, okay, we’ll go with that” the Jeanie said “Henry the Amazing Gin-su Rama knifes are on sale for another fifteen minutes. After that they’re off the market…….. forever, Henry….for-ever!”

“What?”  Henry hissed.

“The Amazing Gin-su Rama knifes” Jeanie said “I think it would be a good investment. You don’t have any in your portfolio”

“How do you know?” Henry asked.

“I was looking through your personnel belonging and the portfolio was there” the Jeanie answered.

“You’re insane aren’t you? Even in the world of make believe I’ll bet you the Easter Bunny and everybody else thinks your insane” Henry asked, “That’s why they put in you the bottle in the first place isn’t it? Bottles were the first insane asylums”

 “So, you’re no buying the Amazing Gin-su Rama knifes?”  Jeanie asked

“No!” Henry said “No!”

“I think you’re making a large financial mistake. The Amazing Gin-su Rama knifes last forever and makes a fine edition to your home or office” the Jeanie said.

“Get out of my room, or I’ll buy a The Amazing Gin-su Rama knife and stab you with it” Henry said rolling over to his side.

“I’ve upset you haven’t I?” the Jeanie asked.

“Get out of my room, or I’ll buy a The Amazing Gin-su Rama knife and stab you with it” Henry answered.

“I’m going to take that as a yes” The Jeanie said and returned to his room and the wonder of infomercials but turned down the volume on the television and laid back on the large bed and closed his eyes. Jeanie’s don’t sleep but they do dream.

As he slept, in the way Genies sleep, he knew he was dreaming the dream. It was always the same dream, the same dream that had haunted him for two thousand years. For all us dreams are only true while they last, but for him, unlike us, he lived in his dreams and even while awake, he lived in his dreams and it was always that same horrible dream.

He was in Qedar now, the Sultans wife, the Sultana Zaafira was leaning her lips closely into his “Join us” she whispers. “The Sultan has grown old and weak. Our kingdom needs new blood”

“I cannot” he answers and moves away from her making his way towards the door but she stands in front of him blocking his path. “He will listen you” she purrs “he heeds your advice.”

“He does” the Genie answers averting her deep gaze for she was well versed in the ways of the Succubi, demons who take the form of beautiful women who seduce men by night and copulate with them until they were exhausted, drawing energy from their encounter. Perhaps that was why she wanted the aged Sultan dead. He simply had no more energy.

“Then advise him” she whispered into his ear while she ran her long slender hands across his chest “that on the night of the next full moon to seek his destiny in the desert, south beyond the oasis” 

“And there you’ll have him killed?” he asked

“And you will share in my kingdom” she purred.

He pondered it, but only for a second before pushing her back away from him and taking his leave from her. He returned to his rooms and replayed the Sultana Zaafira words. What if she were successful in her coup? What then? What would she have done with him?

He paced the room and decided he wanted no part of it. He would go to the Sultan and warn him and at that moment, the Sultan himself appeared at his door. Two massive Eunuch’s held the Genie’s arms tightly around his back. The Sultan appeared flanked by his generals.

“You have lived well, in my kingdom Fakrash- El Aamash.” The Sultan hissed at Jeanie “And you thank me by betraying me. You plan to have me killed?”

“I have not betrayed you, my Sultan” Jeanie cried “It is the Sultana Zaafira who plots against you”

“You accuse my loving adoring wife of treachery against me?” the Sultan said waving his bejeweled hand towards the door where the Sultana Zaafira now stood, a sly smile creased across her thin lips.

The dream changed. He was in the Sultan’s dungeons now. He was standing before the Sultan who sat on his throne, beside him sat the Sultana Zaafira and to his right was a Jinn, an evil spirit made of fire who cared out the will of man within the Genie realm.

“Fakrash- El Aamash” a haunting voice called out from the fiery spirit of the Jinn “You have betrayed your earthly master …”

“I have not!” he cried out.

“Silence!” the spirit voice echoed out

An uneasy stillness fell over the chamber.

“Fakrash- El Aamash” the voice cried out as its width and size increased “You are sentenced to be a prisoner to the Sultan of Qedar, to live out your endless existence in confinement”

Confinement. Since a genie cannot ever die confinement for eternity was the same as death, worse perhaps.

He saw it all happen before him. A horrendous swirling sound forced him to cover his ears and fall to his knees. And then a multiple of fire spirits surrounded him and pushed him down wards into a blinding swirl and when he opened his eyes the only thing he could see was the bottle being closed.

  

 

CHAPTER

FIVE

 

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”  J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

 

The next morning Henry found his way to the shower. He liked showers. Long hot showers. Most of the great life decisions he had made were concluded in the shower. He also believed that while in the shower he was amongst the world’s greatest tenors. He knew that not to be true outside the shower, but the thought of it pleased him.

Afterword’s he made his way into the kitchen. A few moments later, Jeanie entered and threw his open palms on Henry’s head and screamed “Je-sus, I say Je-sus, he done loves ya son, Je-sus done love ya, kin I git an A-men for Je-sus?

Henry gently pushed him off and said “You were watching Christian Broadcasting Network, weren’t you?

“All righty then, kin I get an A-men fer Je-sus loves ya?”  Jeanie asked

“Stop it” Henry said stirring his eggs “You are not a southern, you’re not even a Christian”

“How bot jess an old timey A-men for the hell of it?” 

“Where is all the…Henry voice tailed doff ….. you drank all the coffee didn’t you?”

“I ad-mit” The Jeanie said in a south of Georgia drawl “I did and it twas not a Christian act, son”

“You figured out how to make the coffee machine work?” Henry asked

“The coffee machine?” Jeanie said  “We’ll have to discuss that”

“Meaning?” Henry asked

“Well,” Jeanie answered slowly “You don’t want to put it on a flame”

“So, where’s all the coffee?” Henry asked

“I used it to put out the fire”

“Look, why don’t you go out? Get some air” Henry said, “Go for a walk around the city”

“I can’t”

“Why not” Henry asked.

“I have to remain in your domicile until you make your wish,” Jeanie answered.

“And after I make my wish?”  Henry asked  

“Then I will be free of all obligations from the curse of the Sultan. I will be able to come and go as I wish”

“Well, have you thought about that?”  Henry asked, “About where you’ll go, what you’ll do?” 

“I’ll live here with you” Jeanie replied.

“No, I don’t think so” Henry said. ‘You’ll have to get your own place; you’ll have to get a job. Have you given that any thought?”

“My job is being a Jeanie” he said

“Of course,” Henry said, “How stupid of me” and made his way to the hall closet and took out his wool overcoat and put it on and said “I have to step out, I’ll be back in an hour or so”

“Where are you going Henry Donick?” Jeanie asked

“To see a psychiatrist. I need to know if I’m sane” Henry answered  

“I’ll be here when you get home” the Jeanie said with a smile.

“Of course, you will” Henry said and let himself out the front door.

The doorman flagged him a cab and Henry made his way downtown to 30 East 36^th Street, the home of The New York Museum of Antiquities.

He was scheduled to meet a visiting scholar, Professor Sayyid Abdulhakim Effendi who had arrived to the museum two months before. Although Henry Donick was president and Chairman of the Museum board, his hands on dealing with the museum were rare which was why his phone call to Professor Effendi office early that morning had caused such a stir at the instituting.

Donick had told Professor Effendi’s secretary that he would be stopping by the museum and wanted to discuss Jeanie’s with the him and now Effendi, a smarmy character, dressed in a gleaming back suit, stood in the museums white marble lobby waiting for the arrival of Henry Donick.

Moments later, Henry entered the building.

“Mr. Donick, such a pleasure ” Professor Effendi said, revealing the slightest British accent.

“Well, thank you for taking time to see me Professor” Henry replied in a purposely flat  and nasal American accent. As a Knickerbocker, he had a vague distain for all things English.

“I have nothing but time for the programs greatest benefactor, Mr. Donick” the Professor answered. “I have a report for you on the information you requested”

“So quickly!” Henry said.

“We say in my land “Those who ask if there are genies should be answered immediately. For, it is very dangerous to doubt if there are genies.” It is all here for you” he said and pointed to a plastic bound report entitled “Mr. Donick, Genies”

“Summarize it for me, would you please?” Henry asked.

“Of course,” the professor answered promptly, almost with a click of his heels.

“The Arabic words” Effendi said, “closets to what Western culture calls Genies are jin and jenin, which is related to the our word 'Jannat' or Paradise although the word 'jin' is the plural of the noun 'jinni.' 'Jin' means 'jinnis.' 'Peri' is Persian for jinni. There are said to be ten Jinn for every human on earth. Their legend is found not only in the Middle East but in Africa as well” he continued “In ancient Rome, the term genii, transferred into the plural form of the Latin word, genius, and referred to the spirits that watched over every man. The genius was responsible for forming a man’s character and caused all of his actions. The Roman’s believed that the genius was present at birth. Women had a similar spirit known as a Juno. Some Romans also believed in a spirit, called an evil genius that fought the good genius for control of a man’s fate. In later Roman mythology, genii were spirits who guarded the household or community.

 There are two kinds of Jin, the visible and invisible. All Jeanie’s are made of four basic substances: water, earthen substances, and air and fire. However, the Jin’s that are not visible are made only of fire and air. The invisible Jin can take any shape they so choose, a human, an animals, anything, when they take this form, the shape they have taken are visible but only for short times since maintaining the shape takes much energy from them. Those Jeni who desire to take a human form forever may do so but once they have done so their substance is transformed in to an organic forms and organs, flesh and bones if you will.

Of the visible Jinn, each is a unique individual and once made visible, the Jinn have free will and can be compelled to perform both good and evil acts. They also eat and drink.

There is an ancient book called Aqam-il-Marian, dedicated wholly to the knowledge of Jenis. I found two interesting passages in the book. It says that it is permissible to ask genies about past things. It is not permissible to ask them about the things that will happen in the future.”

“What about” Henry asked “Jeanie’s who were trapped in bottles”

“Oh yes” the Professor said “In Islam-associated mythology, the Jinn are said to be controllable by magically binding them to objects, as Solomon most famously did in the story of Aladdin’s lamp”

“Well, thank you professor” Henry said “You have been very helpful to me”

“Mister Donick” Professor Effendi said, “May I ask….why do you want to know of all this?”

Henry stepped closer to the Professor and said “Well, there’s Jeanie living in my apartment. He was living in a bottle in my storage room. I rubbed the bottle; he came out and offered to grant me one wish”

“I believe you are entitled to three wishes” the Professor smiled.

“No” Henry replied flatly  “It’s one. Anyway, I can’t seem to decide what wish I want or even if I want a wish. In the meantime, the Jeanie is running around my  apartment entertaining himself, so I thought I’d get some background information on him”

A smile was frozen across the professor’s face. He didn’t know if Henry was joking or simply being eccentric, as the Donick family had a reputation for their eccentricities. One way or the other, the Donick Fund contributed millions to different programs in the museum so it was, the professor deemed, better to say nothing.

“Anyway” Henry said “I do thank you once again for all your work and I hope to see you again soon in the near future”

“Of course,” the Professor answered with a slight bow and walked Henry to the imposing black oak doors. After the Professor had made his way back to his office, he realized that he was still carrying the bound report he had prepared for Henry. Putting on his overcoat, he asked his secretary “Do you have a home address for Mr. Donick?”

“Yes” she replied “2 West 72^nd Street”

“He’s forgotten a package we prepared for him” Effendi said “I’m going up there to deliver it; I’ll be back shortly”

“We can send a messenger” the secretary said and reached for her phone.

“No” Effendi “This is the sort of thing I should do in person”

Hailing a cab, he looked at his watch. Time was running out. The authorities would be on to him soon, a month, maybe slightly more, but certainly no more than two months. Then the Federal Marshals would be coming to arrest him on a federal warrant to deport him back to Egypt to face a myriad of charges stemming from his wholesale looting of the National Museum of Antiquities while he was an assistant director there.

The Egyptian police were already closing in. They had discovered the plaster and glass  replicas he had used to replace the authentic items he had meticulously stolen from the museum and sold on the black market over a period of four years. Despite the best efforts of the Egyptian government to keep the scandal under wraps, the Cairo newspapers said that the police had a suspect in custody. Although they didn’t give name, he knew it was his assistant and partner in crime, Assad, a young intern that   Effendi had recruited into his schemes.

Considering the brutal investigative methods used by the Egyptian secret services, Effendi guessed that Assad would hold out for a day before he told them everything and named him as the mastermind.

The wonderful thing about the cautious world of national Antiquities was that no one wanted the indignity of a scandal around their collection. Because of that, the Egyptian Embassy would approach the American authorities through back channels and request his deportation. If that failed, or if the American’s didn’t act fast enough, the Secret Police might kidnap off of the street some day and bring him to justice.

To avoid arrest, he would have disappear into the vast of America. But he would need money. He had long ago spent almost all of the money he had made from the stolen artifacts and New York was much more expensive than he had calculated it to be. Although his salary as a visiting director of the New York Museum of Antiquities was very generous, it would never provide him with the lifestyle he so desperately sought.

And so, with all of those factors together, Professor Sayyid Abdulhakim Effendi, decided to kidnap Henry Donick, one of the world’s wealthiest men. It was a painfully simple plan. Henry Donick would attend the next Directors meeting at the Museum, in the first week of November at 8:00 PM, long after the building was closed to the public. As usual, Henry would more than probably linger behind long after the other directors had left the building. He always did. He enjoyed poking around the new exhibitions while he listened to Effendi’s running commentary.

That’s when he would kidnap him. Effendi would lure Henry into his office, an area not recorded by surveillance cameras, and once inside he would inject Henry from behind with a strong dose of Chloral Hydrate, knocking him out. Then, Patty Olson and Effendi would tie him up, blindfold him and drag Henry’s limp body through the corridors and stairs that were off the surveillance grid and hidden in an ancient casket from Mesopotamia that Effendi had refitted to allow in air.

After three days, he would phone the New York Police and inform them that she had others members of the People’s Liberation Front, a terrorist organization fabricated by Effendi, had kidnapped Henry Donick and would release him for $5,000,000 in cash, a mere pittance of the great Donick fortune.

CHAPTER

SIX

 

“You can't depend on your eyes when your  imagination is out of focus.” Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

 

As Sayyid Effendi hailed a cab uptown, Henry Donick was downtown, sitting in the peacefully ornate waiting room of New York’s leading psychiatrist, Dr. Alan Mane. As he was in all things, Henry was on time and the Doctor was late. After twenty minutes, the dark oak door opened and Doctor Mane stepped out and introduced him.

“Mister Donick” he said with a disarming smile “I’m Alan Mane”

The two men shook hands and Mane ushered Henry into his office where they sat across from each other in large brown leather chairs.

“I want to tell you, Mister Donick” Mane opened “That I’ve read about your enormous contributions to the city and I admire the work you do to improve the lives of others”

“Thank you” Henry replied as he always did “You are very kind say so”

“So” Mane said “let’s talk. What is going in your life? What would you like to discuss?”

“Well, two things” Henry replied.

“Fine” the Doctor said, “Which first?”

“Well actually” Henry said “They’re related. I’m dying of a terminal disease and I have a Jeanie living in my apartment”

“Fine” said the Doctor nonplussed “Why don’t we start at the beginning. What’s the Jeanie’s name?”

So, Henry told Doctor Mane the entire story of the day before, of his fateful visit to the Doctor, the walk across the park, searching through the family records, finding the Genie, their conversation with Ozturk the building super, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the police and television. When he was finished and looked at the doctor who seemed not all phased by the fantastic tale and asked “Well? What do you think?”

“What do I think?” asked the Doctor “Well let’s see. Do you feel that you are a threat to yourself in any manner, way shape or form?”

“No” Henry said “My terminal and uncurable illness is doing that for me”

“In that case” the doctor continued “Do you belief yourself to be a threat to others?”

“No, I do not” Henry replied.

“And I concur” the doctor said.

“So, am I insane?” Henry asked.

“Based on what you’ve told me, no” the Doctor said “I wouldn’t worry about it. Unless you feel this Genie fellow is more than you can handle, we can make him go away”

“How?” Henry asked leaning forward in his seat.

“Drugs” the doctor said flatly “Wonderful, magnificent drugs that will take care of all sort of illusions, Genie or otherwise”

 “If he’s an illusion, then how did Ozturk see him in my apartment?” Henry countered.

“Are you sure this Ozturk was actually in your apartment?” the Doctor asked “Might you have imagined it? You say this Ozturk is a disagreeable fellow, do you think that he would answer his phone after 5 PM?”

“That’s true” Henry said.

“And you were acting under extreme duress. It isn’t every day that we learn we are going to die” the Doctor continued “And you saw a genie that had lived for 5,000 years”

“Yes” Henry said feeling somewhat sad that the Genie was nothing more than the results of a bad day.

 The overactive brain, can see anything it wishes, Mister Donick” the Doctor replied.

“What about the cops?” Henry said with a snap of his fingers “They saw him?”

“Did they?” asked the Doctor “New York’s finest are perhaps the most skilled psychiatric street practitioners in the world. They deal with people under stress day in and day out. What can they do? Arrest all of the mentally ill people in the city? No. So they sooth. They are master at placating”

“And that’s exactly what they did to me” Henry whispered.

“And that’s exactly what they did to you” the Doctor repeated.

Henry relaxed and leaned back in the comfort of the chair and laughed.

“Feel better?” Mane asked.

“Yeah” Henry said “I do. So now that we’ve established I’m a little bit crazy, what do we do?”

“Whatever you like” the Doctor shrugged. “You have a limited time left on this planet, so enjoy what you have left. I think it’s wise that you drop by and see me twice a week to make sure everything is going well, but otherwise, enjoy.

When Henry stepped out of Dr. Mane’s brownstone and  into the cool fall sunshine that had overtaken Waverly Street, he felt like a new man, like a man who had just had the weight of the world taken from his weary shoulders. He breathed in deeply and didn’t fight the smile that was beginning to splash across his face. Life was good again. He spotted a small comfortable looking coffee shop across the corner on Gay Street and decided that a cappuccino was in order and jutted out into the otherwise quiet street.

A taxi screeched to a halt and avoided hitting him by inches.

“I’m sorry” Henry said with a nod to the driver and then, walking over to the cabbies window he added “You know, I’m dying, wouldn’t it be ironic if I were run over by a cab instead?”

“No” said the cabbie “What be ironic is that I should die of a heart attack because your too stupid to look both ways before you cross a street, this I would find ironic” 

Henry found a small table in the outside seating section that was delightfully shaded by a tall elm and ordered a biscotti and cappuccino. While he waited for his order to arrive, he closed his eyes and took in the familiar sounds of the city. Peace at last, he thought, peace at last.

 

“Humans are suspicious and jealous creatures. When they see something perfect, they want to find a flaw.” Gosho Aoyama, Meitantei Konan

 

While Henry basked in a sunny New York afternoon, Immigration and Naturalization Special Agent Arthur Terrlet directed his driver to pull the car to the side of the road. When he did, the agent took out a camera with a super lens out from under the car seat and snapped photographs of Professor Effendi sliding out of the back seat of cab that had parked at the front of the Majestic, several hundred feet in front of the place where Agent Terrlet and his assistant were parked. They watched and photographer as Effendi explained to the doorman who he was.

The buildings day time doorman was Harold Whitney of Harlem. In his fifty-five years Whitney, as the tenants called him, had never travelled outside of the city of New York and even then his journeys had only taken him as far Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan. However, this did not stop Whitney from affecting French accent every other day when on the job at the Majestic. On the days when he was not Plus français que les Français he took on his version of a British upper crust accent. Not only did the otherwise fickle tenants not mind, but they also encouraged Whitney’s linguistic eccentricities.

“We Monsieur” Whitney said to Effendi “I shall phone Monsieur Donick’s suite”

"Ah !" Effendi Said, “Tu es français ! Où en France, vous grêlez -tu, mon ami ?”

“On Tuesday Monsieur” answered Whitney replied.

Jeanie answered the phone and Whitney told him, “Wee Monsieur Jean-nine?”

“Ichu bin en Berliner” Jeannie replie.

“There is a guest for you, a Professor Effendi. May I send him up, sir?”

“Up sir?” Jeanie asked assuming it was all one word and was the name of another kingdom.

“Yes” the Doorman replied, “Should I send him upstairs to your apartment?”

“Okay, if you want to” the Jeanie answered. “It’s up to you. But may I say, my good man, you need to start being more sure of yourself, you just can’t call up people randomly and ask for advice, especially not from me or people like me since I don’t anything”

“Merci beaucoup” ” the Whitney said.

“Mercy Boubou is here too?” Jeanie asked.

Merci, thank you”

“Volkswagen” Jeanie answered

Once again bewildered by another conversation with Jeanie, the doorman turned to the Professor and said, “Apartment 4-A sir” and held the large mahogany and glass door open for him and pointed to the fourth floor elevator.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

 

“When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.” Cathy Guisewite

 

Earlier in the morning, Esmeralda, Henry Donick’s reasonably faithful housekeeper of thirty years, had arrived with the week’s groceries and as usual made her way to the kitchen as she did every Monday morning.

As usual, the apartment was pleasantly quiet and that was what she adored about her position as the Donick housekeeper, the blessed sameness of it all, its predictability. Nothing about the Donick household had changed for three and half decades. Each morning at 10:00 AM, she prepared Mr. Donick’s breakfast, coffee, melon slices, toast with butter, and an egg any style with sausage or bacon. Lunch was at noon every day and was always a sandwich. He usually dined out most evenings but otherwise he was content to eat whatever she prepared for him. There was virtually no housework to do, the pay was very good and the hours were easy and the Majestic was less than a half hour and only one transfer away from her apartment on East 118^th street.

Esmeralda didn’t know that Jeanie had spent the morning watching reruns of “Gunsmoke” on cable and the rest of the morning rummaging through Henry’s private papers in the archive, which is how he found the  long, elegant Colt 45 pistol, its fine leather holster and ammunition in the box marked “Explorations” that Henry had left open on the floor. It took him a while, but the Jeanie eventually figured out how to load the pistol and as the five bullet holes in walls of den testified.

Esmeralda was taking the weeks melons out of the plastic store bag when Jeanie, dressed in a turban and what Esmeralda assumed were women’s clothes, leaped into the kitchen, pistol in hand and shouted “reach for the sun, pard’ner”

Even Esmeralda was astounded by the incredible velocity that she could swing the melon bag and when the bag holding the three remaining melons knocked Jeanie clear across the kitchen, he accidentally squeezed off the last round in the pistol chamber, killing Henry Donick’s dishwasher in the prime of its life.

Looking down at the unconscious man in the turban and what she assumed to be women’s silk pajamas, Esmeralda decided that she had killed the crossing dressing burglar who had undoubtedly murdered Mister Donick, whose lifeless body, she was sure, was sprawled across his bedroom.

At that point, Esmeralda did what any self-respecting illegal immigrant would do, she ran like hell from the apartment, wiping her handprints from the furniture as she left, just as she had seen it done on the Spanish language version of Murder She Wrote. Opening the apartment’s front door with her blouse, she stopped to look down the direction of Henry Donick’s bedroom, blessed herself and returned home to Spanish Harlem.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” Roald Dahl

 

Stepping out of the ornate brass elevator, Professor Effendi strolled down the red carpeted hallway and knocked on Donick’s door. Then he knocked again. And several minutes later he knocked again but this time, the knock was answered by a similar knock from the inside.

“Hello” Effendi said quietly.

“Hello” Jeanie answered from inside the apartment “Are you a spirit? Show yourself!”

“No” Effendi said quietly “I am a research scientist. I will gladly show myself if you open the door” 

“Do you have any melons?” Jeanie asked.

There was a long pause before the answer arrived ‘No. I have no melons. Would you please open the door?”

For several seconds, Effendi could hear a series of doors inside the apartment being opened and closed.

“The main door to the apartment” Effendi offered. A second later, Jeanie opened the door and asked, “Did you hear knocking?”

There was an enormous welt on the side of his head and his left eye was black and blue.

“Why yes” Effendi said, startled at the Jeanie Turban and his silk pants and shirt “I was knocking. Is Mister Donick at home?”

“No” Jeanie answered “He has gone to see a fellow named psychiatrist to see if he is insane”

“Oh?” said a startled Effendi.

“I don’t think it’s any of Henry business of this psychiatrist fellow is insane, do you?” Jeanie asked.

“I quite honestly don’t know” Effendi said examining the high quality and authenticity of Jeanie’s outfit “Why are you dressed like that?”

“Everyone in my kingdom dresses like this” Jeanie replied. “Why are you dressed like that?” he asked giving Effendi’s suit the once over.

“May I ask where you are from?” said Effendi.

“Yes” Jeanie replied and then they fell into silence for a moment.

“Well, “Jeanie finally said “are you going to ask or not?”

“Where are you from” Effendi followed.

Again, there was an awkward silence until Jeanie asked, “May I tell you where I’m from?”

“Of course,” Effendi answered slightly annoyed “Why did you think I asked you?”

“I assumed it was customary to ask permission at each stage of the conversation” Jeanie replied slightly offended and again they fell into silence.

“Well?” Effendi asked.

“Well, what?” Jeanie asked

“Where are you from?” Effendi asked.

“Oh, we’re back there again” Jeanie said. “I am of the sacred tribe of the Suret al-Jinn, in service to Sultan Zabibe of Qedar.”

At first Effendi was slightly stunned that such a seemingly stupid man would even know the name Suret al-Jinn, and then he laughed politely “So you are a Jeanie?”

“I am Fakrash- El Aamash.” Jeanie answered.

“What happened to your head?” Effendi asked as he examined the full effect of the damage.

“A woman came into the apartment, hit me with a bag of melons and left” Jeanie said. You ask me, Henry should forget this psychiatrist fellow and find out if that woman is insane”

“I have researched the Sultan Zabibe of Qedar.” Effendi said, “I have visited his archaeological site”

“His archaeological site? “The Jeanie asked greatly interested.

“His palace ruins, his grave site” Effendi continued

“So, he is dead?” Jeanie asked with even greater interest.

“I should assume so” the professor replied “It’s been several thousand years after all. You speak as if” Effendi’s words dropped off suddenly and he stared intently at the deep red rubies encrusted red sash around Jeanie thick waist.

“Does something below my waist interest you” Jeanie asked and the professor pointed downward.

“Your rubies are engraved with the mark of the Sultan Zabibe. Only his courtiers were allowed to possess such jewels.” He dropped his hand and looked up into the Jeanie’s face “Who are you?”

“As I told you before “the Jeanie said, “am of the sacred tribe of the Suret al-Jinn, in service to Sultan Zabibe of Qedar.”

“Why are you here?” Effendi asked. He was certain he had seen this face before.

“I was brought here” he replied

“By whom?” Effendi queried as he leaned forward in interest.

“I should think by one of Henry’s ancestors” the Jeanie said.

“Henry Donick?” Effendi asked

“Donick” Jeanie said and then considered the word again “Donick. Sort of falls off the tongue like a stone doesn’t’ it?”

“Hillyard Van Rensalers” Effendi snapped.

“I don’t speak that language” Jeanie said “Let’s stay with English. I just picked it up and I kind of like it. Very direct language isn’t it”

“Professor Hillyard Van Rensalers” Effendi repeated into the air “The explorer. And that was why Mr. Donick insisted on discussing Genies at my office today.”  He looked directly at Jeanie and asked, “You were exiled by Zabibe of Qedar weren’t you?”

“In a manner of speaking” Jeanie replied sheepishly “Yes”

“You are Fakrash- El Aamash” he whispered

“I am he” he acknowledged with a vainglorious smile and then narrowed his eyes and asked, “How do you know me.”  He stepped forward and grabbed Effendi by the tie and yelled “Zabibe has sent you hasn’t he?”

“No, no, no” Effendi said pulling himself loose from the Jeanie’s grip and then, leaning into him to calm him he whispered “ Zabibe is dead and has been dead for thousands of years” and then stepped back and bowing his head deeply, he  said “I am a student of your time, your culture and I stand in awe of you”

They spoke for several more minutes before Effendi realized that Henry could return home at any minute, he said in a hushed tone “My friend, I shall return another time and we shall speak of many great things, however, for being, I ask you only one favor”

“Anything” Jeanie replied magnanimously, his arms wrapped around his chest in his most regal pose.

“Perhaps” Effendi said thoughtfully choosing his words “It is best that we not discuss our acquaintance with Mister Donick, he…..um…he”

“Tends to misunderstand our people” Jeanie said finishing the sentence for him.

“You understand my every thought” Effendi said and embraced the Jeanie.

Agent Terrlet, snooping from behind a pillar in the hallway, watched Effendi and Jeanie. He noted the time Effendi arrived to the apartment as well as the time he left. “Target Effendi arrived to Donick apartment and spoke at the door with a tall muscular man, dressed in what can best be described as clothes a Jeanie would wear. To be clear Middle Eastern attire, ala Hollywood. He also made a note of the name “Zabibe” and wrote after it “Zabibe has sent you hasn’t he?” He photographed Effendi bowing to Jeanie and noted “possibility that target Effendi is somehow connected to or associated with Middle Eastern Terrorist cells operating within the greater New York area.

 By sunset that day a team of INS agents had stationed themselves in the building as floor cleaners, engineers and delivery men. The Donick apartment was now under surveillance twenty four hours a day.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

 

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.” G.K. Chesterton

 

When Henry Donick returned home to the apartment at 4:30 that lovely brisk end of winter afternoon, he found Jeanie sitting in the main pallor with the ancient Mrs. Gilda Steinberg from the third floor and the equally timeworn Mrs. Eileen Fitzpatrick, also of the third floor.

“Wherever” Mrs. Steinberg asked in her much exaggerated Long Island Lockjaw tone   “did you find such an enchanting and delightful young man, Henry?”

“He’s a Jeanie.”  Henry said, “He was living in that bottle over there.”

“It’s a lovely bottle, dear.”  Mrs. Steinberg said to Jeanie.

“Thank you” Jeanie whispered back

“Appearance is everything isn’t it” she continued “Even in ones bottles”

“I rubbed the bottle, he came out” Henry continued

“Rubbed the bottle?”  Mrs. Fitzpatrick asked.

“It’s a Gay thing,” Mrs. Steinberg said.

“It’s not a Gay thing,” Henry said flatly.

“I thought as much,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick asked. “A Gay thing.” She was drunk, again.

“It’s not a Gay thing,” Henry said again, just as flatly as before.

“It’s all right dear.”  Mrs. Steinberg said with a wink, “We’ve all rubbed a thing or two every now and again” 

“It’s not a Gay thing,” Henry snapped.

“He can be so cranky.”  Jeanie said.

“Straight men can be the same way dearie” Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “Cranky men, that’s why we love them dear”

“You make for a handsome couple,” Mrs. Steinberg said tapping Jeanie’s knee.

“He got out of the bottle” Henry said throwing up his hand to cut off Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s next question “No “Out of the bottle” is not a sexual term,  Mrs. Fitzpatrick.”

Putting his hand down, he continued “And now I get a wish, one wish”

“You’re supposed to get three wishes, dear,” Mrs. Steinberg whispered.

“It’s one,” Jeanie said.

“You’re getting gypped, you ask me,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “Everyone knows Jeanie give three wishes”

“It’s one wish,” Henry said.

“Maybe its Gay thing” Mrs. Fitzpatrick added.

“It’s not a Gay thing,” Henry said to the carpet “I’m not getting gypped. It’s one wish, that’s all you get” 

“Maybe you should force him back into the bottle until he gives you the other two wishes” Mrs. Fitzpatrick suggested and then turned to Jeanie and wagging a boney freckled finger at him and said, “Cheat’n foreigner is what you are” and then turning to Henry she asked, “Where do you keep the hooch?”

“The hooch?” Henry repeated.

“The shine” Mrs. Fitzpatrick added.

For a second or two Henry thought that the old woman was tossing about some sort of racial slur. He had known her since his childhood and he had always considered to be insane, pleasantly insane but insane, nonetheless.

“The swish” she said and made a drinking gesture.

“Alcohol?” Henry asked.

The old woman, slightly drunk, answered by trying to place her index finger on her nose but missed and stuck herself in the eye.

“Why didn’t you just ask for a drink” Henry inquired.

“I did” she spat back “You’re not hip enough to know the lingo”

“I don’t drink, Mrs. Fitzpatrick” he said.

She looked him up and down in disdain and said, “No Irish in you at all, is there?”

“Oh Henry” Mrs. Steinberg said rising from her chair “You are such a hopeless Puritan. But then again, you always have been. “And then turning her glance to Jeanie she said to Mrs. Fitzpatrick “I say we take this this soiree to my place”

“I’m Arab actually” Jeanie said. ”I’m not Soiree”

“Splendid idea” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said rising from her chair pulling Jeanie up to his feet and locking her arm through his proceeded to leave.

“I’ll sit this one out” Jeanie said.

“Are you sure dear?” Mrs. Fitzpatrick asked “You never know, you might get lucky”

She gave him exaggerated wink.

Henry, firmly but gently, guided her to the door “Have a wonderful evening, Mrs. Fitzpatrick”

Closing the door behind her, Henry whistled gently as he eyed the wine shelf.

“You seem very happy Henry” Jeanie said “Happy Henry. I like the sound of that, why don’t we call you happy Henry from now on.” 

“Ohhh thank you” Henry said “But no thanks you. I’m happy because I saw the leading psychiatrist in New York. He says you’re not real. You’re simply a figment of my imagination due to the stress of my illness”

“Well good, as long as you feel that way about me” Jeanie said holding up a melted blender “I blew this up. I touched a bunch of buttons all at the same time and fire came out and it blew up. That seemed like a bad thing, but I don’t know maybe it’s supposed to do that”

The next morning as Henry walked from the kitchen with his morning coffee he spotted Jeanie standing in the living room wearing a straw Trillby with a bright yellow band, a plaid sport coat topped off with a very wide tie that held hand painted scenes of New Yorker’s version of a Hawaiian girl dancing into a setting sun. Under the tie, a white plastic belt supported seersucker pants that down over a pair of white and black bowling shoes.

“Dear God” Henry asked, “What are you wearing?”

“You like?” he asked and then did a half twirl that ended with a bump and grind.

“Stop that” Henry said, “Where did you get those clothes?”

“Do these pants make me look fat?”  Jeanie asked.

“No, they make you look like a diabetic strip club operator” Henry said flatly, “Please tell me you weren’t trolling through the garbage bins”

“Mrs. Steinberg gave these to me” Jeanie answered, “They belonged to her late husband, My Carl”

“Carl” Henry corrected him “My Carl is a term of endearment”

“No, I’m Jeanie” he said, “She calls him My Carl,”

“Carl” Henry corrected him “My Carl is a term of endearment”

“And I think she would know what his name was.”  Jeanie answered and then added with a Yiddish accent “For forty years they were together, praise God.”

“You look like a pimp from the AARP,” Henry said. The comparison brought a smile to Jeanie’s face mostly because he didn’t know what a pimp or the AARP was.

“Gosh” he said admiring himself in the mirror, “You think so?”

“Listen, old boy” Henry said “There is a woman who works here as my cook. Esmeralda. Latin woman, late fifties, heavy set. I haven’t seen her in a few days; you haven’t accidentally killed her or anything have you?”

 Henry watched the Jeanie’s eyes narrow as he recalled the woman and the melon attack and then followed Jeanie’s eyes to the bullet holes in the dishwasher.

“Oh my God” Henry said, “You killed Esmeralda haven’t you?” 

Then came a knock on the door.

 

CHAPTER

NINE

 

Arthur Terrlet was a very, very serious man.

“Terrlet, INS” said Terrlet with the stoic face.

Although Henry Donick’s net income that years was 3 million dollars, Esmeralda, his housekeeper, who made sixty thousand dollars, paid twice the income tax Henry had paid. His accounts, as are all the accountants to the very rich, were experts at loop holes.

“I don’t deal with the tax situation” Henry said starting to close the door “See my Attorney’s Willoughby and Moore, they’ll help you”

“Not IRS” Terrlet said in a way that as ever so visibly annoyed “INS” he said placing a great emphasis on the letter N.

“Immigration and Naturalization Service” he said sharply. “I’m Terrlet”

“Terrlet” Henry repeated with a chuckle     

“Terrlet” the man said “It’s my name”

“And isn’t that unfortunate?” Henry chuckled.

“I see no humor in it, sir” Terrlet said.

 “Of course, not” Henry said suppressing his joy in the man’s name “and why would you, you poor man you” 

“And what is your country of origin, sir?” Terrlet asked. Jeanie who was standing behind Henry

“The Kingdom of Qedar” Jeanie replied and Terrlet jotted down his reply.

“And are you currently residing within the borders of the United States on a valid VISA or work permit?” the Agent asked.

“No” Jeanie said, “could you wait until my program is over?”

“And how did you enter the United States Sir? Airplane. Ship. Bus?” the agent asked

“He’s a Jeanie.”  Henry said, “He was living in that bottle over there. I found the bottle, I rubbed it, he came out, said he would grant me a wish and he hasn’t let since.”

“A wish?” the agent asked

“Yeah” Henry said “A wish”

“I think you’re supposed to get three wishes” the agent said.

“No” Henry answered “That’s just on TV”  

 “What is all this about Henry?”  Jeanie asked “Because I can’t hear my program”

“That cop, the one who was here” Henry said “He reported us to the Immigration Service”

“The cop who laughed at us being a Gay couple?”  Jeanie asked.

“Yes” Henry said and then quickly corrected his answer and told the Immigration man “We’re not a Gay couple”

“The police reported you to the government because you’re Gay?”  Terrlet asked

“Well,” Henry began.

“I won’t stand for that” Terrlet said. Then he leaned forward and gently touched Henry’s arm “We, our community, we won’t stand for that. We will fight the power of oppression and darkness!”

He stepped closer to Jeanie and whispered, “What happens to us, our kind, in The Kingdom of Qedar?”

“New Yorkers?”  Jeanie asked

“Is that what they call us?” Terrlet asked.

“He’s talking about Gay people, Jeanie” Henry explained.

 “Oh” Jeanie said with a laugh, “The Sultan has them beheaded. He says they are an affront to God”

“And those policemen wanted you to be returned there?” Terrlet asked and then buried his face in his hands “The injustice of it all. Well not on my watch, no sir, not on my watch!”

“Is there any reason you are here officer Toilet ?”

“Terrlet. Not toilet”

“Forgive me, Officer Terrlet?”

“Special Agent not officer”

“Is there any reason you are here special agent Terrlet ?”

“Sayyid Effendi. You  employee him through the Donick Museum of Antiquities”

“I’m aware” Henry answered cautiously “What of it?”

“Sayyid Effendi is a highly accomplished international antiquities thieve who is wanted on four continents. He’s been looting protected archaeological sites for decades

Why don’t you arrest? You know where he is.

He’s wanted in Europe, Asian, Africa and South America but not here. He’s never broken a law here not do we have a request from any other nation to arrest him. We have him on film meeting with this fellow” he said pointing to Jeanie and then showed Henry phonographs of Efendi and Jeanine speaking at the door.

Jeanie walked up behind Henry and looked at the photos “That’s me”

Henry turned and to face Jeanie and asked, “Can you explain this?”

“It’s called a photograph, Henry and no I can’t explain it. It’s made through some sort of process I would guess.

“No, not photography can you explain why you were meeting with Afendi?”

“Ah yes!’ the Jeanie said and took an envelope from the entrance table. It was the report on Jeanie’s that Henry had asked Efendi to put together.

“Your friend, the guy in the photo came by and asked me to give this too you. He speaks my language ” 

“Did you tell him who and what you are?”

“Didn’t have too” the Jeanie beamed “He knew all about me”

It took Henry several seconds to figure out what had happened. Efendi was after Jeanie. He turned to Terrlet and asked, “How do we get this guy locked up?”

                                                                     CHAPTER

TEN

On Wednesday afternoon, Jeanie discovered one of the many hidden amenities of the Majestics infrastructure, a complex dumbwaiter system that ran throughout the building, a left over from the days when the property had a large kitchen and dining hall on the center floor and would send food up to apartments by the dumbwaiters.

   Meanwhile, across town, Esmeralda the housekeeper, sat in her kitchen and plotted her return to the Donick apartment. She had to return because her money, over $30,000 in cash was hidden there, in a sealed tin box marked “Crackers” that was stashed in the back of a high shelf in the kitchen.

   She didn’t want to keep her savings there but she had no choice, not really. As an illegal immigrant she couldn’t open a bank account and her fourth floor walkup on East 118^th Street in Spanish Harlem had been burglarized at least three times that year alone. No, she told herself, the money was safe in the kitchen. Mister Donick rarely entered the kitchen and when he did he seemed surprised to learn the room was a part of his apartment.

But now, by her figuring,  Mister Donick was dead. The giant transvestite-burglar had killed him, and she,  holding her up head in triumph, she had killed the giant transvestite-burglar with a melon. The police would find the bodies soon and they would come looking for her. If she could get her money before the police arrived, she could run away, some place far away, very far away, New Jersey, maybe.

That afternoon Esmeralda took the Lexington Avenue bus to the Donick residence and lingered outside on the sidewalk until the doorman stepped away, allowing her to slide into the lobby and take the service elevator up to the 7th floor west, overlooking Central Park.

 Opening the door with her house key, she carefully, stepped inside, closed the heavy oak door behind her and cautiously tip toe into the kitchen and turned on the light. The remaining melons she had bought the other day were lined up in a row on the marble counter top.

From behind her she heard a rumble. She turned focused on the far wall where the noise seem to be coming from. It grew louder and louder and finally it stopped, somewhere behind the refrigerator. She heard the sound of a chain pulley opening a door of some sort and then loud grunting.

Cramped inside the dumbwaiter, Jeanie was shoving and pushing the refrigerator from behind and finally, with one mighty push, the refrigerator slipped slowly across the floor where a terrified Esmeralda, melon in hand, was screaming the words “Travesti gigantesco!”

Jeanie did manage to get out the plea “No don’t!” before the melon struck him in the head and knocked him out as Esmeralda ran screaming from the apartment.

 When he awoke a half hour later he asked himself  “Who is that crazy lady? And why does she keep throwing melons at me?”

Down on East 36^th Street, at the Donick Museum of Antiquities, Sayyid Effendi stood in the Pharaoh’s Hall, shrunk by its enormity and pondered the possibilities of controlling the Jeanie’s wishes.

 On Thursday afternoon there was a light but continuous rapping on the front door. Henry opened it to find Jeanie sprawled out across the floor, snoring loudly. His pants were undone and his shirt was unbuttoned. A swaying Mrs. Fitzpatrick stood over him, a whiskey bottle in hand. Seeing Henry at the door, she said “For a man that’s spent his life in a bottle you’d think he’d hold his drink better”

“Mrs. Fitzpatrick” Henry asked, “Why are Jeanie’s pants undone?”

A sly smile spread across her craggily face “Well, I’ll tell you…….”

“Never mind” he said “I don’t want to know. Would you please help me bring him inside?”

 “No” said the ancient woman as she staggered down the hallway “I dragged him all the up here, he’s your problem now”

Henry leaned over and dragged Jeanie into the apartment and shook him awake. He noticed that he had a large red welt over his right eye.

“Oh” the Jeanie said with eyes half closed “Hello Henry”

“Had a nip or two, I see” Henry said and then pointed to the welt. “Mrs. Fitzpatrick do that?”

“No” Jeanie said “Every few days a crazy woman comes into the kitchen and hits me with a melon”

Henry nodded understandingly “Of course”

“Henry!” Jeanie said pointing his index finger up to the sky “Billion dollar idea. I mean it could make you a billionaire”

“I already am a billionaire”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Go ahead”

“Smoke alarms that turn off when you yell “It’s not a fire it’s just me cooking” 

The Genie paused, a self-contented smile on his face and said “Well?”

Henry stared at him for several seconds and answered, “Your problem is that you have really fantastically bad ideas” and watched as the Genie fell asleep.

 On Friday morning, Jeanie rushed into the apartment, caught his breath and asked “Henry, if you had to reattach a fire escape to a building, where would you begin?”

 On Friday afternoon, Jeanie left the apartment to walk around the building. He returned a half hour later and exclaimed to Henry “DO not try to drink water from the main boiler”

“You know” Henry said “Ther are rules”

“I know, but Henry, if you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun.”

   On Friday night, there was light but continuous rapping on the front door. Henry opened it to find a moaning Jeanie supported by Mrs. Steinberg and Mrs. Goldwin, the widow from 11-B.

“What happened?”  Henry asked in much the same way one would inquire about an unusual but interesting car accident.

“I invited him over for Friday night Shabbat dinner” said Mrs. Steinberg.

Jeanie lurched forward and draped himself over Henry “I think I’m going to barf” he said.

“And what happened?”  Henry asked.

“Barf means to throw up” Jeanie said.

“So, we said” Mrs. Goldwin added  “Eat! Eat! You’re made of nothing, so eat already”

“I’m telling you what barf means” Jeanie said to Henry “Because you don’t get out much”  

“And what happened?”  Henry asked.

“Well,” Mrs. Steinberg. “He kept eating and eating”

“And eating” Mrs. Goldwin added. “Can Jeanie’s explode?”

“You know there was no kitchen in that bottle of his” Mrs. Steinberg.

“Give him a nice bromo seltzer” Mrs. Goldwin

“And sit him on the toilet for a while” Mrs. Steinberg as she turned and left with Mrs. Goldwin

 

 Henry credited the psychiatrist for his acceptance of the fact that a Jeanie was living in his home which he treated as a sort of frat house for mythical characters.

On Saturday morning, Henry sat at his desk and watched Jeanie rush in to the apartment, out of breath, chain lock the door and move the sofa in front of it. From out in the hallway there was a man with a very deep voice was yelling “Where are you? I’ll break you in half I ever see again.”

 Jeanie gasped in a deep breath and whispered to Henry “It’s a long story”

   On Saturday afternoon, Jeanie entered the apartment and asked “Henry, if you had accidentally crashed an elevator, what would be your next move?”

   On Saturday night, Henry sat at his desk and watched Jeanie rush in to the apartment, out of breath, chain lock the door and move the sofa in front of it. From out in the hallway there was the God-awful wail of a fire alarm. Jeanie gasped in a deep breath and whispered to Henry “It’s a long story”

 “Why do you do these things?” Henry asked

“We have a saying where I come from Henry “You can’t bite your own teeth”

Henry considered it for a moment and said “That has no relevance to what we’re discussing and it’s also a really dumb saying”

“I know”

“Then why’d you say it?”

“It filled the air for the moment”

“Oh”

“You think I’m stupid don’t you?” Jeanie asked

“No” Henry lied and then they each waited for Henry to tell the truth.

“Okay yes.” Henry added “I think you’re stupid”

“Well, you’re wrong, I ‘m a smart person who does stupid things”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No. I chose to experiment with stupid sometimes because this is my life, be it what it is. It’s society that makes the rules, and they did it without asking me what I think, and they don’t know me or what I’m made of,  well I think we can break out of the rules if we so chose. What we do with the times between when we’re born and when we die is completely up to us. See here’s the thing Henry. You see the things I do as pointless. I see them as a good investment of time because they make me happy. You don’t see things as they are Henry, you see them as you are, but I suppose that’s true for all of us isn’t it?”

 “Do Jeanie’s die?”

“I say all that important stuff and that’s all I get…do Jeanie die? No, well, yes, only when their made whole but that’s this big drawn out long story, but back to what I was talking about, the same rules applies to Jeanie’s as well”

“Do you ever learn not to do stupid things?” Henry inquired

“Yes Mister smarty pants in fact I do. Sometimes when I do stupid things and it hurts I say to myself “Wow, I’ll never do that again”

“Maybe you should plan more” Henry said

“Maybe you should plan less” the Jeanie countered “You don’t always need a plan Henry. Sometimes you just need to leap in head first and see what happens”

 

 On Sunday, an odd peace fell over the apartment and it worried Henry. He searched the apartment for Jeanie and finding him still in bed at noon he asked, “No catastrophes planned for today?”

“Oh Gosh no” Jeannie said, his eyes still closed “I’m exhausted”

 On Sunday evening, at the start of sunset, after a day filled with lying on the bed watching cartoons and laughing until his stomach hurt, Jeanie discovered the Majestic’s roof while wandering the property. There he found the Majestic’s electricity room and the in-house power plant and central heating system as well as a long neglected children’s playroom where Henry had spent many hours as a child. There was also a full gymnasium that had been outfitted in the latest equipment of 1910 and never changed. And it was there that he also found Sasha.

He found her on an outdoor patio, leaning over the ledge of the building. She was tall and blond and slim and wearing a black fur stole and hat. Her breath, frozen in the cold night air, rose slowly from her lips and disappeared into the darkness. The pale white lights sprinkled across the roof top gave her an effervescent glow and her believed as he had never believed anything before, that he loved her and that he would never stop loving her.

“I can feel you staring at me” she said as she turned to face him “Who are you?”

“I am Fakrash- El Aamash. I am of the sacred tribe of the Suret al-Jinn, in service to Henry Donick.”

“It must take your friends a long time to ask you something” she said.

“They call me Jeanie” he said.

“Why?” she asked for all things American amused, interested and fascinated her.

“Because I am a Jeanie” he said proudly.

“This is a good reason. I am a Russian” she said with equal pride having no idea what the word Jeanie meant in English.

“Do you live here?” Jeanie asked

“No” she said. “This is the roof. I live downstairs in an apartment. And you?”

“I don’t live here either” he answered “I also live downstairs in an apartment” 

She spun around and pointed into the night “You can see New Jersey from here, if you look that way. Have you been to New Jersey?”

“No” Jeanie said peering off into the wonders that are Northern New Jersey.

“Me either. I have not been anywhere in America, except the airport and here on 72^nd street. New Jersey was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against the British. George Washington…..do you know of him?”

“No, I have no met the gentleman. But that is a very distinguished name isn’t it?” Jeanie said and then pointed his chin towards the dark blue sky and whispered “George Washington”

“He was a great general” Sasha told him in great seriousness “and the first President of the United States. He crossed the Delaware River in New Jersey”

“Why did he cross the Delaware?” Jeanie asked.

“I don’t know this, perhaps to see what was on the other side, but it is a very momentous event in the history of the United States” Sasha replied and added “My Russian name is Sasha.” And she held out her small, delicate hand.

“Sasha?” Jeanie smiled “It is a very beautiful name.”

“It means, in English, Alexandra. So, I am Alexandra…Alexandra Ozturk” 

“Ozturk!’ he laughed, “The imbecile who runs this building is named Ozturk”

 “Yes. I am married to Mister Demir Ozturk, the building superintendent.”

“You’re Ozturk’s wife?”  Jeanie said skeptically “I don’t believe it”

“Why is that so unbelievable?”  Sasha asked with a quizzical smile.

“Well for a many reasons” Jeanie answered

“Like what?” she asked teasingly.

“Well, he is a toad and you are the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen” Jeanie said, “He is short and hairy and he grunts and you are the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen.

“Stop” she laughed loudly “This is terrible”

“He is also a very stupid fellow, have you noticed?” he asked her through a large smile. She nodded her head, laughed, and buried her magnificent smile in her gloved hands.

 “And he has the strangest odor” Jeanie said which made Sasha double over in laughter.

“He does,” she laughed between gasps for air “He does”

“Like pickles and wet clothes” Jeanie said, “While you are the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen”

She laughed a bit more and smiled at him “Thank you” she said softly “I have not laughed since I left Russia. We Russians, we love to laugh. You American’s do not know that about us, you think the Russian people are grim…do you say “grim?”  This is the right word?”

He had no idea where Russia was but assumed it was somewhere not in the immediate neighborhood.

“Why not!”  Jeanie said, “Grim is a perfectly lovely word when it comes from your lovely lips”

    They turned and in leaned against the east wall and overlooked the pleasant darkness of Central Park. They stood there in a comfortable silence for a while.

   “Demir Ozturk is a terrible man” she said more to herself than to Jeanie.

   “Then why did you marry him?” he asked without looking at her.

   “It was a way out” she said still looking in park, “It was a way out”

   “Out of Russia?” he asked

   “Out of poverty, out of a life of desperation” she said and then she turned to him and said, “And it was a way into America.”

   “How did you met him?” he asked

   “Through an agency” she said looking back into the park “A marriage agency. I paid them a fee and they found me an American husband. In three years, I will have my American citizenship”

   “Then why is Demir Ozturk a terrible man?” he asked.

   “It doesn’t matter” she said. She turned to him, smiled and said “It is good to have a friend. I have no friends here, so we will be friends, good friends”

    “I agree” he answered.

    “Do you have many friends, Jeanie?” she asked.

   “Is a matter of fact I do.” He answered with some pride “There is Henry, of course, Henry Donick.”  He turned to her and nodded “We share a duplex.”

    She did not know the word duplex. She assumed it was some sort of car. She liked the sound of it and she repeated the word softly “Duplex.”

    “Then there is Mrs. Fitzpatrick” he continued “We get drunk together and of course there is also Mrs. Steinberg who makes me wear her husband’s clothes. His name was My Carl”

    “My Carl” she repeated with a knowing nod.

    “He’s dead” Jeanie added. “He was too good for this earth.”

“Oh, Poor my Carl”

“Yeah. Hey, have you been there?” Jeanie said pointing into Central Park.

“The Park. No, I have not. Husband says why do you want park, is nothing but trees and grass”

“Oh, that’s just terrible” Jeanie said. “I’ve not been there either.”

  He turned to er and smiled “We’ll go together someday”

“Yes!” Sasha said delighted in the idea “And what shall we do there?”

“Why” Jeanie said stumbling for answer “Why…we’ll do park things!”

Sasha looked at her watch and her eyes narrowed “I must go”

    “Why?” he asked desperately “Stay!” taking her hand.

     “No, I cannot” she said pulling her hand away and walking hurriedly towards the door “My husband is very jealous, like a crazy person.”  

    “When will I see you again?” he asked.

   “Here!” she said as she strolls for the door “Tomorrow night, at the same time”    

He watched her disappear into the darkness and slip through the large black door into the majestic and into his dream forever.

 

 

That next evening Jeanie arrived on the snow covered roof one hour early and waited for her, his eyes never leaving the large black metal door that she would enter from like a great actress to a stage. He dressed for the occasion. He was wearing a tux that once belonged to My Carl. The pants were tight around the knees, calves and ankles so Jeanie slice them open with Henry’s letter opener, which once belonged to Abe Lincoln, which bent and broke in the process, but, on the other, now the pants fit perfectly although they looked like bell bottoms.

She was like him, he thought. Happy. Pleasant. People like us, he thought, have always been rare in a world that was angry without cause and unpleasant without need. He could see it in her eyes how much they were alike, her eyes that were a brilliant blue and welcoming.

He envisioned himself with her, taking a cab to Russia to meet her family so he could announce that their daughter would no longer live in poverty nor would they be poor because  with a blink of his eyes, a fortune in gold would fill their home. That would happen because he would ask Henry to make that his wish there wish, and good old Henry, being good old Henry, would let it happen.

He heard the black door open and he watched Alexandra appear from the lighted hall and step into the darkness of the night. She saw him and smiled brightly and suddenly he felt weightless and he laughed for no reason. He was in love. That’s what we do when we are in love. We laugh for no reason other than being a happy.

She sat with him on the edge of skylight and sometimes they talked and sometimes they just sat and looked into the lights of the city below and it was during one of those moments of silence that she reached across and took his hand in hers and suddenly the night was perfect and all in the world was right.

“Tell me all about yourself” he told her, “and take your time, you can go on for a few centuries if you like, I don’t mind.”

 

CHAPTER

ELVEN

 

 “You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Dr. Seuss

 

Sasha managed to meet Jeanie on the roof for the next several nights. A giant square shaped skylight occupied the middle of the roof and the couple would lean against its short wall at the furthest end of building, looking out over the wide and mighty Hudson River into the twinkling lights.

“I miss you when we are apart” Jeanie said

In Russian we don’t say “I will miss you.” We say “You are missing from me”

They both listened silently to the stars. They could hear them because for lovers and dreamer  stars are the voice of a life, of life to come, of life that could be.

Jeanie and Sasha  were those special, rare people who were alone together. He thought and she thought that maybe they were once part of the same star.

“I come up here sometimes “she whispered “when we cannot be together and I look up into the sky and wish for a star to light so I know you are thinking of me too.”

“If a star lit up every time I thought of you, the nights would be brighter than the days” he said.

“But I love the night sky” she answered.

“Why?”

“Because there are no right stars or wrong stars.” she said “One is better from the other but they’re all different. You just accept them as they are. I wish life was like that”

“You know how stars are born?” he asked her .

“No I do not” she answered. “But I think you do”

“Well, is a matter of fact.  I do. The way I heard it, when two people love each other the way we love each other, every part of them…their dreams and hopes….smashes into the every part of the one they love and a star is born in celebration.”

She smiled and looked up to the sky, foucsed on a star and said “That is a good thing. I will always believe that to be true”

Jeanie said in all sincerity “I wonder if clouds ever look down on us and go “Look at that one! He looks like a giraffe!”

She laughed  and he turned to look at her and he smiled because  for that one spilt second everything stopped and her laughter cut through all the noise of the world below them and for that second, that one second, everything was perfect in his life, and he felt safe and special.

She thought that it was wondrous to find someone, in a world so vast, who wanted to hear all about the things she thought. She cherished that about him for she was a woman for whom no one, ever, had cared about the things she thought and she considered that certainly, the entire universe had conspired to help him find her. And when all of that was taken into consideration she had to asked “Why do you love me?.”

“Because” he answered without hesitation, “you are the only person I can talk to about all the things that interest me and even if you don’t understand them, you’re happy for me. I can tell by the way you look at me when I tell you about them, like that cloud I saw the other day that looked like a dog driving a fire engine, how sometimes flowers smile at me…..stuff like that, the stuff  regular people would thing was weird.”

  That was good enough for her. They sat in the wonderful silence that two people have when they know each other’s hearts, who have  known each other forever and will go on to know each other forever. They were warmed in the knowledge that what they had between them wasn’t connected by words but by their hearts.

   They  fixed their eyes to the sky and she said “To me you are the moon and the sun, you are like the sun if it were living and breathing with us here on earth. You are beautiful.”

  “I know” he said and continued “Why do you love me”

  “Because you make my heart smile.”

He was dressed in his best clothes for the occasion, wearing a piece from the My Carl wardrobe that he truly enjoyed, e the sweatshirt emblazoned with the words 80 and loving it baby!

And he wore cologne for her. Sort of. It was lemon scented floor polish that he found in the kitchen to be just perfect for those brief magical nights.

She made him want to be a better man, a man of honor and that was why they had never kissed. He wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t. She explained to him that for better or worse she was a married woman and such behavior would be unseemly. It didn’t matter; their relationship was so much more than that. So, they sat in the cold on the roof and held hands and stared at the stars made bright by the winter skies.

“In my country” answered Sasha “We have a story. A small boy looked at a star and began to weep. The star said, ‘Boy, why are you weeping?’ And the boy said, ‘You are so far away I will never be able to touch you.’ And the star answered, ‘Boy, if I were not already in your heart, you would not be able to see me.”

 One night as they sat on the cold roof looking up at the stars and eventually turned their attention across the icy river.

“What do you suppose that place there is called?” Jeanie asked pointing to the lights on the Jersey shore.

“It is called Hoboken New Jersey” Sasha replied “I have looked on a map to find out the things we look at and that is a place called Hoboken New Jersey”

 They were silent for a moment and drank in the twinkling lights across the water.

  “We will live there in Hoboken New Jersey” Jeanie said “Someday”

  “In our own special home and it will always be a happy home” Sasha said.

Suddenly the calming coat of darkness that surrounded them was shattered by cold white light from the stairwell entrance.

“Sasha!” came the gruff, loud roar that was Ozturk’s voice.

They froze in surprise and then in terror. They learned in closer to the wall as a flashlight beam crossed just above their heads.

“Sasha!’ he yelled again as he waved the flashlight across the roof.

“What should we do?” a horrified Sasha asked “If he finds you here, he will beat me”

“I won’t let him” Jeanie said staunchly.

“And then he will kill you” Sasha finished.

“Oh” the Jeanie said deeply. “Do you mean that literately or just as a figure of speech?”

“He will throw you from the roof” Sasha pled “He has the strength of ten men”      

“Sasha!” Ozturk boomed again, this time sounding agitated. “Where are you?”

“Let’s run for it” the Jeanie said grabbing her hand and preparing to flee.

“Run where?” Sasha replied “We are on a roof. He is blocking the only exit”

“That isn’t good is it?” he asked.

“Stay here” she whispered and then rose to her feet.

“I am here, my husband” she said with a wave “I will come to you”

“No!” he bellowed “You stand there!” and with that the husky fat man moved with unlikely speed to the spot where Sasha was standing.

“”Go!” she whispered to Jeanie “He’s coming down on the right, quickly crawl to the lift and go down the stairs”

 “No!” the Jeanie said in a loud whisper “I will not crawl away on my knees!”

 “He will rip your head off and tear your heart out!” she hissed. “Now go!”

“Well,” he replied, “if you insist” and crawled away under the safety of the skylight wall just as Ozturk came to Sasha.

“Who are you with?” he hissed as he frantically looked around “Who? Where is he?”

“I am here alone my husband” she cried.

Ozturk picked up an iron pipe from the floor and slowly made his way towards Jeanie escape route but Sasha pulled him back “My husband, let’s go home, I am cold” she pleaded.

“Without your lover here to keep you warm, huh?” he growled.

“I have no lover” she said.

“Then why are you up on the roof alone?” he yelled “Night after night, every night!”

“Because I need air” she pleaded “You won’t let me out of the building”

“Because you will run a way!” he snapped. “All you wanted from me was a free passport to America! You think I don’t know that?”

He grabbed her hard and pulled her to him and hissed in a low menacing voice “Where is he hiding?” 

At that moment Jeanie, who was crawling very fast in the darkness towards the sole exit door when he crawled face first into a large metal water faucet that jutted out from the floor.

“Ouch” he said loudly and realizing what he had done he added “Well that is just one stupid place to put a water pipe”

Ozturk sprang towards the direction of the words and hearing the big man’s heavy footsteps, Jeanie leaped to his feet and rushed towards the exit door, leaping down the first flight of stairs and repeating he jump down the second flight with Ozturk in close flight. But the dash winded him and Ozturk gave up the chase.

Jeanie flew into the apartment, slammed the door behind him and locked the latch and then threw himself against the door frame “Hide me!” he screamed at a pajama clad Henry who came out of his bedroom to investigate the commotion.

“I hate to even ask this” Henry said in a bored fashion “but, what’s going on?”

 “Ozturk” the Jeanie said trying to catch his breath “Ozturk”

“Yes, Ozturk” Henry repeated.

“Is going to kill me” Jean gasped.

“Mister Ozturk does not what to kill you” Henry said calmly and at that second there was an enormous pound on the door.

“Who is it?” Jeanie said in a falsetto voice.

“It’s Ozturk. Open the door”

“Gee” Jeanie said, “Why do you want me to open the door?”

“So, I can kill you!”

 “See?” Jeanie said to Henry “I told you so”

Again, Ozturk battered on the door.

“Open this door!” he yelled. “I’m going to kill you!”

“Mister Ozturk” Henry said calmly “Henry Donick here. May I ask, sir, why do you want to kill Jeanie?”

Ozturk uttered back a reply which Henry heard as “Because he is havsensack an afar witma life”

There was a pause and then Henry said “Who is Havensack?

“What?” Ozturk shouted back

“You said havsensack an afar witma life” Henry said

“No, I didn’t” Ozturk said

“I think you did” Henry said.

“Me too” Jeanie said.

“You!” Ozturk replied “Shut up because I am going to kill you”

“You know that’s getting tiresome” Jeanie answered “Kill, kill, kill”

“And you” Ozturk continued to Henry “I did not say havsensack …..Or whatever you said I said”

“I think you did” Henry said firmly

“I don’t know anybody named Havensack!” Ozturk bellowed “Why would I want to kill someone I don’t know?”

“Good question” Jeanie said “Because let’s face it, we don’t really know each other, so go home”

“I am going to kill you” Ozturk said quietly.

“See?” Jean said to Henry “There he goes again. No wonder Havensack doesn’t like him anymore”

“I don’t know Havensack!” Ozturk screamed.

“Then why do you want to kill him for God sakes!” Jeanie shouted

“You were on the roof with my wife!”

“All right” Henry said walking towards the door “This is insane”

Henry caught Ozturk with his ear to the door when he opened it.

“Jeanie was not on the roof with your wife, nor does he have any interest in your wife” Henry said.

“Nor do I know Mister Havensack” Jeanie tossed in.

“You…” Ozturk growled at Jeanie and took a menacing step forward before Henry, who was dwarfed by Ozturk, put his palm on the big man’s chest and pushed him backwards.

“That’s enough” Henry said “Leave”

Ozturk smirked “You think you can stop me little man?”

“No” Henry replied “I can’t stop you but my big fortune can buy a lot of law, now step back”

“I know it was you” Ozturk hissed at Jeanie who made the situation worse by making faces at the Ozturk.

“You don’t know anything” Henry said “Jeanie has not left this apartment all night. He was here with me”

“Why should I trust you?” Ozturk said. “You are with him”

“Because we are lovers!’ Jeanie said stepping forward.

“What?” Ozturk asked

“What?” Henry exclaimed.

“That’s right” Jeanie said taking Henry into his arms “Lovers!” and then he dipped Henry backwards and kissed him and stood him back up.

“See?” Jeanie asked Ozturk “We have a deep abiding love for each other”

“If you ever do that again I will kill you” Henry said “I will hang you from the rafters. I draw the blood from your body and burn the remains”

Without moving his gaze from Ozturk, Jeanie said “Of course it is one of those deep abiding loves where we torture each other and hit each other…wadda call that?”

“Insane?” Ozturk replied.

“How could you do that to me?” Henry asked. “It was horrible!”

“See?” Jeanie asked Ozturk. “Cruel words turn us on”

“Mr. Ozturk, I expect that word of this will not be spread across the building” Henry said knowing full well it would be.

“Of course, not” Ozturk lied.

“It is not what it looks like” Henry continued.

“It is none of my business “Ozturk said throwing his hand in the air “It’s America, anything goes.”

 “Again” Henry said “It is not what it looks like”

“In my country you would be flogged in public, but…” Ozturk said.

“Flogged you say?” Jeanie swooned while clasping Henry’s hand and winked at Ozturk “You kinky devils you”

Henry pulled away his hand roughly.

“He’s not one for PDA” Jeanie said, this time clasping Henry’s hand to his chest. Henry yanked his hand back and snapped “Do that again and I’ll jam you back the bottle”

“Someone’s feeling frisky huh?” Ozturk smirked.

“It never ends” Jeanie said rolling his eyes.

“Oh, for God’s sakes” Henry said “Good night, Mister Ozturk”

Shutting the door closed, Henry turned to Jeanie and began to speak before Jeanie cut him off.

“I had too Henry. I had to see her.” he said “If I didn’t I’ll never see her again. And I truly believe that my life without her would be …” he could find the words and then decided to simplify “Without her I would be really, really sad. I need her Henry.

For his stiffness and seemingly condescending mannerism, Henry Donick was, at his center, a good and decent man.

“You’re in love” Henry said feeling foolish over his initial anger of being kissed by a gigantic Jeanie.

“Yes” Jeanie said “But…it’s, it’s not that…its” he searched for the words and finding them he said “I’ve been in loves many times. That’s easy. But I have never been loved in return. She loves me Henry. She wants to be with me more than any other person in the world, and I with her. I trust her enough to tell her everything about myself, even the things I’m ashamed off…..”

“I find it very difficult to believe that you are ashamed of anything” Henry chuckled.

“I made out with Mrs. Steinberg” Jeanie said hanging his head in shame. “I’m ashamed of that”

“She’s ancient” Henry whispered in disbelief “How could you?”

“When you’ve been in a bottle for ten thousand years you stop being picky” Jeanie said “And we were drunk” then he sighed and added “This isn’t a time to fill your need for kinky details Henry, Sasha makes me feel safe and normal and comfortable. You know Henry, when she sees me for the first time, she smiles and I look around to see who she’s smiling at and when I realize it’s me, my knees get weak. She takes me to a different place. Did you ever have that? When you’re around someone and the two of you talk without speaking and you’re in this like…I dunno…..bubble of understanding.

He sat down on an Ottoman, which seemed appropriate. “I used to think love was just one thing, but it isn’t. It’s a thousand things all at one time. That’s why you can’t measure love because I’s just not one thing”

“That’s very true” Henry said gazing off into another place.

“Otherwise” Jeanie said “You would have to spend your whole day measuring something, it’s like when I spilled a can of motor oil on that silk chair in the den and I had to spend the whole day cleaning it off before you got home, but I ended up just throwing the chair out the window and it landed on that truck…. it’s like that”

Henry was about to say “Where did you get motor oil” but then he watched the Jeanie rubbing his massive hands over his face and say tiredly “I think Ozturk hurts her. He keeps her hidden away down there in that dungeon apartment of his and now, after tonight, I’ll probably never see her again”

Henry sat on the couch across from Jeanie and said “You will, don’t worry. True love always finds a way. I don’t claim to know much about human nature, or Jeanie nature for that matter, but I do know that true love between two people always finds a way. Even if one of you is a figment of my imagination.

“No” Jeanie said “Sasha’s real”

They fell silent for several moments and Jeanie joined Henry on the couch.

“Motor oil. I won’t ask but you threw out the white silk chair in the den huh?” Henry asked.

“Yeah” Jeanie said “It was a goner”

They didn’t talk for several minutes, each of them lost in their thoughts.

“Why do you love her so much? You barely know her. What’s the reason?”

“Reason? Love doesn’t need a reason, Henry. Love should never depend on a reason because reasons change. Haven’t you ever been in love, Henry?”

“Oh, I think so, once. A long time ago”

“Did it hurt?” Jeanie asked, “Did it bring you pains?”

“Yes” Henry said after giving the question some thought “Yes it did. Love hurts sometimes”

“Who were you in love with?” Jeanie asked.

“There is all sorts of love isn’t there?” Henry said.

“Is this going to be another talk about Gay people, Henry?” Jeanie asked.

“No.” Henry answered tiredly “I’m simply making the point that not all love is about wine and roses and the moon in June. Sometimes love hurts, it simply hurts”

“Like what?” the Jeanie said “Give me an example”

“Well, like my father. He was, he was a good man, but he was a distant man, not warm. I can’t recall…..and I think about this quite often…I cannot recall him ever, not once, hugging me or, well anything actually. I hugged him, once or twice and he stiffened up like a dead fish. It made him uncomfortable. It was not a warm childhood. My parents assumed wealth would make me secure but no matter how much one loves money it never loves one back and it never gives out a hug. ”.

Henry stood and made his way over to his mother photograph, smiled ever so slightly, and said “My mother was a nicer person. She was older when she had me. You know, she was, she was, Mother, I mean, she did her best, but she came from a time and place where things were different, families were different. Restraint.”

He turned and faced Jeanie and continued “Restraint. A very large, ever preset issue in my tribe” 

“Your tribe?” Jeanie asked.

“Oh yes” Henry answered with a sigh “My people, people like me, people of a certain understanding”

Jeanie nodded but he had absolutely no idea what Henry was talking about and so he assumed Henry was an American Indian.

Almost against his will Henry said “I don’t know how to work for love, I’ve always just gotten attention from people of course because most of it came ….no wait….all of it, came because of what I have, the money and all, not for who I am….Then it wasn’t love was it?...but of course I prefer not to see it that way because them I would have to face the horrible truth that I have gone through my life unloved by anyone”

 Jeanie said, “You are a good man, Henry.”

“And how can you tell that?”  Henry asked

“Because you are not at all interested in what I have, in what I can offer, only in who I am” Jeanie said.

“That does not make me a good man. It makes me a contented man” Henry replied with the slightest of smiles as he focused on a small ivory figurine on the fire mantle. He wasn’t comfortable with praise. People of his class seldom are.

“I’m not interested in any wish you could give me, in your capacity as a Jeanie, because, let’s face it, old boy, what wish could you possibly give me that I can’t give myself a hundred times over?”  Henry asked dispassionately.

‘That you be loved” the Jeanie said “That is the finest and noblest wish of all”

“I am loved” Henry said with a soft smile “In my dreams, anyway, I am loved”

“Well, that’s something isn’t it?”  Jeanie said not really believing his own words.

“It’s more than some people have I suppose,” Henry answered. “But you know, I’ve never had my heart broken. I think we all need to have our hearts broken, at least once in this life. It shows us that at least we tried for something. And that’s my problem with never having known love, I never tried. Terrified of a broken heart”

“I love you Henry” Jeanie said “I love you because you love me and I’m a difficult person. I am exasperating. I know I am.”

“Well,” Henry said in an effort to defend his only friend’s shortcoming. But the Jeanie held out his hand to stop him.

“No” he said “It’s true, I am. I have lived in this world for 5,000 years. I know all the things I am, I am exasperating, and yet you have never lost patience with me because you are a kind and gentle man and love is kind, Henry. Love is gentle, its patient. You have protected me and forgiven me, over and over again. That means a lot to me, especially after all the last guy who didn’t forgive me, locked me in a bottle. But you, you, Henry, you have stood fast by me in my worst moments. Like now. What I’ve learned after 5,000 years is that you have to tell people who are important to you how you feel about them because you humans, you come and go without warning, your life ends so much sooner than any of us, Hen or human  expect it too. So, I figure you’re here now with me and telling you how much I admire you is worth saying as much as anything else, more maybe. “ 

“Well….” Henry said and again allowing the rest of the comment to filter off.

“Love protects, Henry. Love forgives and overlooks. You rejoice in my happiness, because that is what love does, love holds no envy; it celebrates even the smallest victories. I have never felt love Henry, but I have now, thanks to you, and Henry, I know your worried about dying, everything will be alright”

“You think so?” Henry asked.

 “I don’t know. I was on a roll so I just kept going”

Jeanie stood and held out his arm for a hug “Come here Henry, its hug time!”

“No, it isn’t. Sit down”

He grabbed Henry and pulled him in close for a hug

“Why don’t we just shake hands like men?”

“Henry, Henry, Henry” the Jeanie said as he laid his chin on the top of Henry’s head “A hug is a handshake form the heart”

After several seconds of hug time Jeanie said “Henry always remember, when one door closes another will open”

“Well, thank you for saying that I….”

“If it doesn’t” Jeanie cut him off “There’s always the window.”

“Thanks”

Jeanie bear hugged Henry tighter “Don’t forget that”

“I won’t, thanks. Now please unhand me”

The sun showed itself, or a part of it did anyway, through the tall, elegant windows and Henry sighed. “Why the sigh, Henry?”

“Another day”

“Well, that’s a good thing.” Jeanie said and then corrected himself “No, that’s a great thing”

They both continued to look at the rising sun and Henry smiled “Why? Why is that a great thing? It’s just another day, another morning”

“No, it isn’t.” The Jeanie said as he walked back towards the exit door from the roof  “Morning is God’s way of saying one more time, my child, go make a difference, touch a heart, encourage a mind, inspire a soul and enjoy the day. Another day is another chance to make it right”

Henry considered what he had heard and he thought there, in front of him, was a being with broken heart who still saw the goodness in everything.

“Hey” Henry called out.

The Genie stopped and turned to face him.

“You are a good man” Henry said with the warmest smile he could muster “and we’re going to get that girl for you, and everything will be alight. I promise. I think we should have this young lady of yours over”

“Over what?” Jeanie asked.

“I should invite her to dinner”

“Can I come?”

“Yes, we’ll all three have dinner together, here in the apartment”

And so, several night later Jeanie took Sasha to Henry’s apartment, by way of the fire escape from the roof. Henry, dressed in informally in evening attire, wrongly assuming Jeanie and his date would enter his home via the front door, and waited to greet them at the entrance. Then Jeanie and Sasha entered the apartment from the window.

“Henry” Jeanie called as he offered his hand to Sasha as she glided into the apartment “I’d like to meet Sasha. Sasha, this is Henry.”

Quickly turning to face his guests Henry bowed slightly and said “Sasha, a pleasure” “Henry” Jeanie continued “is afraid of dying. Aside from me, he has no friends and he swears he’s not gay And he says it all the time, like he never stops mentioning the whole gay thing”

Sasha held her hand to her heart and said to Henry “Jeanie loves you”

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend either.” Jeanie continued.

“Okay” Henry smiled “I don’t think Sasha needs to know…..”

“I don’t why” Jeanie cut him off “I mean he’s loaded; he’s got millions and he’s not all that ugly”

“Why don’t we have some drinks?” Henry said and led Sasha into the main pallor.

Later, after Sasha’s had left, again via the window,  Jeanie helped Henry wash the dishes.

“You know, I once had a maid he washed the dishes. She seems to have disappeared after you arrived”

“And you say you don’t know anything about who shot the dishwasher to death?” Henry asked putting his finger on the bullet whole.

‘I’m going to duck that question by saying I don’t know what a dishwasher is”

“Have you ever considered law school? Henry asked and then added  “So what are your plans?” Henry asked as he soaked another dish

“Plans?”

“Yes, plans, a good woman requires a man to have a plan…so what’s your plan…..do you plan to remain a Jeanie or would you like to join the rest of here on the planet”

“I will remain a Jeanie until I redeem myself ” Jeanie answered.

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“I ain’t got a clue” Jeanie said.

“What about Sasha, does she know you’re a Jeanie?”

“I told her I was a Jeanie”

“And?”

“She thinks it has something to do with baseball, whatever that is”

 

 

“Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.”  Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

 

That night, Henry lay awake deep into the night thinking about the fact that he would die soon and that when he did die, no one would ever know he had been alive once. There would be no one at his funeral because he didn’t know anyone who would care enough to attend. And he thought about the fact that what he had told the Jeanie was true, that the only place he was loved was in his dreams.

He thought about those same things when he awoke the next morning, a bright, beautiful spring morning. He stared up at the fine pine trim in the ceiling, his hands clasped behind his head. He allowed his mind, in fact he encouraged it, to think about Nancy , the attractive financial adviser from his bank with whom he had sat through endless financial meetings and trust plannings.

He recalled again how she how, when she was relaxed, she had the most delightful habit of lowering her eyes when she talked and twirled her blond hair in her fingers. He liked that. He liked her. He would call her. Ask her to dinner. What if she said no? And was it appropriate to ask her? After all, he was a major client, what could she say but yes?” So, it was a tad unethical and he decided he would use that as his excuse not to call her.

 

CHAPTER TWEALVE

 

The next morning Jeanie barged through the Henry’s bedroom suit with breakfast, served on a priceless antique English marble chessboard. Placing the tray on Henry’s chest he announced,  “I love the morning; I just hate that it comes so early in the day.”

“You know” Henry said “we have trays for that. Breakfast trays, we call them”

 Jeanie stopped and said “Yeah but I thought this would class things up a bit”

“Of course,” Henry said “How silly of me. You realize that is a priceless 600 year old chessboard, right?”

“See?” Jeanie winked “Classy”

On the chess-tray were three bright red roses, stuck upright in a coffee cup. Henry  briefly pondered asking where Jeanie had gotten the flowers but thought better of it. “So, what have we here?” he asked looking over the multi colored piles of food on the tray.

“Breakfast!” Jeanie answered.

“Yes, but what it is?” Henry countered. He recognized peanut butter, jam and ….could that be sardines. Dear God, it was.

“Oh, a little of this and little of that” Jeanie beamed.

“Say listen” Henry asked, “You didn’t accidentally kill the maid did you? Short, heavy set Latino lady, mid-fifties”

 “Nope” Jeanie answered.

 “You sure?” Henry countered suspiciously.

 “Yep” Jeanie said “I’d remember that. Say listen, since I won’t be seeing Sasha tonight, what do you say you and I have a guy’s night on the town?”

 “No.” Henry answered “I’m going to ask someone special out to dinner”

 Jeanie smiled broadly and lowered his head and said “I accept”

   “Not you, you ninny” Henry said “A woman”

   “Who?” Jeanie asked

   “I’m not telling you” Henry answered

“If it’s Mrs. Steinberg, you’ll score, trust me” Jeanie said with a wink.

“It not Mrs. Steinberg” Henry said. ”My God, she’s a hundred years old”

“You don’t know any other women”………….”Jeanie cut himself off and whispered “Is this a make believe woman? If it is, it’s all right. I don’t judge”

“That’s all you do is judge”

“Okay I was searching for something to hold over your head”

“It’s a woman. A fine lady who handles my finances” Henry said poking at his breakfast “Is this a fried pickle? You fried a pickle? I mean….you know…it’s a pickle” 

  Jeanie bent over and looked at the object on Henry’s fork “No, there were no pickles in there, interesting. What is that?”

 

Nancy Jetty had been at work for two and half hours by the time Henry finished his morning shower, thrown away Jeanie’s version of breakfast and perused the Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Nancy was 38 years old. She lived in a large and airy one bedroom on the Upper East Side in a building that was upscale but not exclusive. She had goldfish but wanted a cat but with late hours she worked she though it would be cruel to leave the poor thing alone for so long. So, she made do with the nameless goldfish.

Her apartment was filled with books on every conceivable subject but she hadn’t read most of them. She picked them at thrift shops, most for less than a dollar. She bought them  because she felt that books are noble and gallant things that should be saved from the rubbish heap and Henry would have adored that thought.

She was an only child. Her father had passed away years ago and her mother still lived alone in the large home they had built together in what had once been the farm lands of rural western Connecticut. It was less than an hour away from Manhattan and she returned there several times a month, usually on Sundays for church and then lunch with her mother.

Back in the city, she had her community of women to keep her busy. It’s what women do that men don’t do. They build communities. There was the book club, the girls at the health pool, the tennis ladies, and the charity work with the city’s foster children and so on. She was a successful in her career as a banker to the extremely rich, the fact that she was trusted enough to handle Henry’s fortune was testament to that.

So, while she was seldom lonely she was also without any romantic prospects in her busy life. It had nothing to do with her looks. She was pretty, fashionable and bright. And there had been men in life over the years and for one reason or the other none of them ever worked out into a lasting relationship or a proposal of marriage.

Back in his massive apartment, Henry had off-handedly remarked to Jeanie that he was considering calling Nancy for dinner and that he had since changed his mind and Jeanie refused to drop it.

“When are you going to call her Henry?”

“Soon”

“Why be lonely Henry? Call her. Love is great Henry. I mean there’s a reason they have all those songs and poems about it. Call her”

“When I get around to it” he said slowly “When I get around to it”

“I’ll call her” Jeanie said.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Then you call her.”

“No”

“Henry you’ve got to stop relying on me so much”

“What?”

“Your problem is Henry…and far be it from me to interfere in a person’s life….but you’re problem is that you’re more than you think you are, but don’t worry everybody’s got that problem, everyone doesn’t think enough of themselves…..now, call her”

“No. Go away”

“Okay don’t call. But explain to me what the point of being alone is, because I don’t understand what that’s all about.”

“I don’t know why” Henry replied “Mankind has asked that question…”

“Well, I know why” Jeanie interrupted.

“Yeah I figured you would” Henry said.

“People” Jeanie said “are lonely all over the world and they won’t reach out to other lonely people. You know what I think it is?”

“I’m afraid to ask”

Everybody in entire world is scared of each other, that’s what I think it is. Sacred of being hurt, let down, of not measuring up. But it’s worth the risk Henry because you must have a romance in your life Henry. Without romance everyday life is just dust. Romance transforms the dust of life into a magnificent golden haze.”

Henry considered what had just been said and then replied “You know that’s actually sensible.

“The difference between me and you Henry” Jeanie said “Is that I chose to live a life without regrets. That’s my religion. You got your religion. I got mine.”

 And that too made sense to Henry although he doubted the Jeanie had a religion.

“I’m going out” Henry said.

Out on West 72^nd street , away from Jeanie’s ears, Henry phoned Nancy.

When she answered he spouted out “Would you like to have coffee?”

There was a momentary and then she asked, “Who is this please?”

“Henry Donick” he replied and added “I should have  opened with that”

“Its fine” she said.

“Allow me to start again. This is Henry Donick. I’m nervous. Would you like to have coffee? By the way, just to be clear, I meant would you like to have coffee with me…not like a generic question”
 “Yes, of course” she replied. “When?”

I understood that and yes, of course” she replied. “When?”

“Well, how about now?”

He felt a flash of guilt and selfishness rush through him. Of course she would have to say yes, what else could she say? He was her banks biggest client.

 “Sure” she said “Right now is fine”

He hesitated long enough for her to ask, “Henry are you still there?”

“Look, let me explain” he said with a sigh “This a personnel call. Let me start over again. I think you’re really pretty. I know I should probably have thought that sentence through a bit more maybe added some sophistication to it but….”

“No, no” she interrupted “Pretty is good, I’ll take pretty. Let me make this easier for you, would you like to meet for a coffee date? I would”  

“Yes” he said and then added “and thank you for taking command here although I would have gained my footing after a couple of hours”

“I’m sure you would have.” She said,  “Now where shall we meet?”

 

They had agreed to meet at Pasticceria Rocco on Bleeker, just outside the village, Nancy stared out the cab window at the passing street scenes and smiled. She’d thought a lot about Henry Donick. And why not? He was quirky and cute. Interesting and funny. Handsome and well-kept but in that relaxed frat boy sort of way. She had flirted with him over the years, ever so slightly, but he never caught on, never reciprocated but yet she  knew he was interested in her. They locked eyes and smiled whenever they spoke.

 She’d considered asking him out but never did. It would have been, or at least it would have seemed, inappropriate and unprofessional. He struck her as that old fashioned type of man who would have been taken aback by it. But now, he had phoned her. He was perfectly clear about the purpose of the call;  it was a date. And that was well worth smiling over.

Henry, being Henry, arrived early and spent several minutes changing tables and then, having chosen a final table, he spent several more minutes changing chairs, judging each seat by how its background reflected on him. It exhausted him.

“This is exhausting” he mumbled to himself before deciding the chair with rear view of an exposed brick wall put him in the best light. He was sitting there, contemplating leaving, when she arrived.

He stood to greet her and she smiled that lovely, innocent and honest smile of hers and said “I’ve never been here” as she looked around the room, which was really an effort not to look at him.

“They have the best Italian city of cheesecake in the city” he said and then realized he had said it backwards

“I’ve never had Italian cheesecake” she said. She understood him. She understood he was nervous and so was she, which gave her the temporary abilty to understand backward speak.

“It’s a New York invention” he replied, “I’ve never seen it in Italy” and then in the same breath asked, “Is this weird?”

“Well,” she answered thoughtfully “Cheesecake is cheesecake I suppose”

“I mean is it weird that I called you and asked you out”

“Not at all. In fact, I think it’s rather nice. I always wanted you to call me” she said and then added “That’s way to much information isn’t it?”

“No, not all”

“I mean how desperate does it make me look?”

“Not worse than me” he answered “Look, I’m guessing your as nervous and uncomfortable as I am”

“Yeah” she said “I think so too”

“I’m thinking that we both know only one side of the other person”

“True” she said.

“Well, why don’t we leave those two people in an office someplace and right now, in this place, just be the two people we don’t know…….does that make sense?”

“It makes a lot of sense” she said and for the first time she was relaxed enough to sit back in her chair where she could watch the tension slide from his shoulders. “Why don’t you sit down?”

He gave a quick glance to the seat with the exposed wall, mentally apologized to it and then sat across from her.

 “Didn’t you just love Italy?” she asked “I did”

“Yeah I did” he said wistfully

“When were you there?” she asked.

Without skipping a beat, he replied “I’ve never been there, I don’t know why I said that”

She found it hysterical and laughed out loud and said “It’s okay”

And so, they talked. And they talked. The warm afternoon went by them and the warm evening arrived with a large ample moon and they talked some more until the waitress told them the restaurant was closing and they would have to leave.

“My goodness, what time is it? “Nancy asked.

 Henry looked at his watch “Almost midnight. I’m hungry. How about you?”

“I could eat”

 Monte's Trattoria on Macdougal Street was still open but barely but they knew Henry and seated him. And they talked. And they talked.

 After dinner they strolled through Washington Square Park and then, with no destination in mind, sojourned up 5^th Avenue and stopped at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and sat on its majestically wide steps. They were exhausted but felt good. They were happy, almost giddy. From where they sat, Henry could, just barely, see the distinct pointed green roof of the Majestic. He thought about Jeanie, his unwanted but oddly comfortable houseguest and he smiled and shook his head.

“A billion for your thoughts” she said

“A billion? Wow”

“Well, you are Henry Donick after all. So, I didn’t think a penny for your thoughts would motivate you. what are smiling about?”

“Nothing, everything.” He paused reflectively and added  Sometimes life is good isn’t it?”

“Yeah it is” she whispered “Life is always good. You wanna watch the sun come up?”

“Sure”

At that, she moved closer to him sat in a comfortable silence. She braced herself against the early morning chill by leaning closer into him and he noticed, unusual for him. He didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t good at affection, so he did what a gentleman should do and removed his sports coat and placed it over her shoulders. After a few moments she rested her head on his arm.

“Why did you say life was only good sometimes, Henry?”

“Because right now my life isn’t all that good” he answered quietly “but too be honest, most of my life hasn’t really been all that good, not really”

“Looking at all, you have Henry, I find that difficult to believe.

“Oh, I’m a lucky man.” He replied “But a lucky man doesn’t translate into a happy man”

“Why are you unhappy?”

“I think, and I’ve thought a lot about over the past few days, and I think it’s because I’m a loner. I think that’s the core of it all”  

“You’re a loner by choice” she said “There’s nothing wrong with that. You enjoy your solitude”

“No” he said softly as he gazed out into the rising sun “Loner’s aren’t alone for the solitude, although I think that’s what we’d like all of you other people to believe. We’re loners because when we tried to fit in to the world, we couldn’t or the world wouldn’t have us and we couldn’t take the rejection and the disappointment so we left the world alone. I mean solitude is fine and all but’s worthless unless you have someone to tell that your fine with your solitude”

He paused and turned to her and said “I don’t have anyone, not one single soul, to share my memories with. There is a special sort of terrible in that, especially now, here at the end, is not having anyone be share my memories with.

She lifted her head looked up at him and asked, “The end?.”

He stumbled for an answer and not able to find one mumbled “I don’t know. You know when the end of  life happens”

“Well Mr. Donick, I don’t see any point at all in thinking about that now” and she placed her back not his arm and they sat in silence and watched the rising sun rise flood the city in light.

 

Late the next afternoon Henry awoke to find Jeanie leaning over him, smiling “You snuck out and had a date didn’t you, you little scamp” 

“Go away”

“I want details and I want em fat and juicy”

“Go away” Henry said and pulled the covers over his head.

Jeanie climbed into the bed next to him “Details”

“Get out of my bed”

“Details”

“Fine. We had coffee in the village. That went well and we decided to have dinner. That went well so we walked up Fifth Avenue and sat on the steps of St. Patrick’s and watched the sun come up. After that she took a cab home and I walked across the park and got into bed. There. Details. Now go away. Let me sleep. Come back in four hours. No, you know what? Come back in forty years, that would be good”

“So did you kiss?”

“I’m not telling you”

“That is so romantic. Henry you little devil, you”

Jeanie sat silently for a minute knowing it would unnerve Henry.

“Okay”  Henry said taking the covers off his head and sitting up “We had a lovely time; she’s a lovely woman. A good conversationalist. Intelligent certainly. Feminine, for sure and we’re seeing each other again tonight”

“Where you going?”

“I’ll tell you if you get out of my bed”

Jeanie leaped to the floor “Where you going?”

“Nowhere. She’s coming over to see the place. I thought we would order something in”

“Fantastic idea! What are we having?”

“Nancy and I are having Chinese. You’re having television in your room” after a second a smile came to his face “Or you could leave.”

“Ow, where would I go?”

“They say Fiji’s nice this time of year”

“I can’t leave Henry, you know that” Jeanie laughed “Besides, what you do without me?”

“Oh, many things. Seriously, stay in your room tonight because there is  no reasonable way to explain you.”

“I’m a visiting relative”

“No and for two reasons. I don’t want to be related to you even in a pretend world and she’s in charge of my will and knows I have no living relatives”

“I could be the waited from the restaurant”

“The Chinese restaurant?”

Jeanie collapsed to his knees and folded his hands together and whines loudly “Let me stay. I want to see what she looks like PLEASE!!”

“No” Henry said “And I want your word that you will stay in your room through the entire night. You solemn word”

Jeanie hung his head in defeat and said, as sadly as he could “You have my word”

At seven-thirty that night the doorman called to announce Nancy’s arrival and several minutes later there was a light knock on the door. Henry walked from his study to answer it when Jeanie, wearing My Carl’s old tuxedo, flew out of his room at top speed threw Henry a body block that knocked him flat. He was still on the floor when Jeanie flung the door open.

“Nancy?”  he shouted.

“Yes” she answered and Jeanie grabbed her in a bear hung and said “Welcome to the family! Come on in!” and he whirled her into the apartment.

“Henry get off the floor” Jeanie said, “We have company, a magnificent specimen of a woman is here” and then he looked at Nancy and rolled his eyes.

Henry picked himself up, walked over to Nancy, kissed her cheek and took her coat “Welcome to my abode” and then he whispered to Jeanie “You promised you’d stay in your room”

“I lied” the Jeanie said.

“What was that?” Nancy asked.

“Nothing” Henry said.

“Henry wanted me to stay in my room when you were here and I said I would but I lied”

“Oh, Henry! That’s just terrible!” Nancy scolded “Why would you do that. Your friend is adorable”

 “I know, right?” Jeanie added.

Nancy extended a hand and said “I’m Nancy, Nancy Skala”

“I know! I know I’m so excited to meet you” Jeanie said with a clap of his hands “Your all Henry talks about”

“That’s not true” Henry said.

“And you are?” Nancy asked Jeanie.

“I’m a Jeanie. I lived in a bottle for like, thousands of years, it’s a really story and then Henry rubbed the bottle and here I am!”

Nancy laughed a good laugh that made Henry and Jeanie smile and she touched Jeanie arm and said “Your riot! Henry! Your friend is a riot”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it” he answered.

“I didn’t get your name” Nancy said.

“Of course you didn’t, silly. I got my name. You got your own name” Jeanie said slowly to make sure Nancy comprehended his words.

“Nancy ” Henry said somewhat formally “Jeanie. Jeanie, Nancy”

“Your repeating yourself Henry” Jeanie said and took Nancy’s extended hand, knelt on one knee and gently kissed her fingers.

“Oh My” Nancy said.

“Henry?” Jeanie said extending Nancy’s hand to him “Wanna give it a shot?”

“Why don’t we have drinks?” Henry suggested.

“I think she came for dinner Henry” Jeanie said as he guided Nancy to a seat to him on the couch “I’m so glad you’ve taken mercy on poor Henry. He’s miserable you know”

“Really?” Nancy answered.

“Jeanie, why don’t you go in the kitchen and prepare a us a snack?”

 “Oh yeah, he’s a mess. I think he’s the loneliest guy I ever met. And I’m 5,000 years old so that’ really saying something”

“Or better yet” Henry said “Why don’t you go up to the roof and jump off”

“I don’t think the guy’s ever had a date” Jeanie told Nancy and then leaning in close to her he said “I think he’s a virgin”

“Better yet” Henry said “Maybe I’ll jump off the roof”

Henry had phoned Esmeralda the maid several times over the weeks since he had last seen her but there was no answer. He did note, however, that Esmeralda disappeared with the Jeanie’s arrival.

For her part Esmeralda, convinced that she had killed an armed gigantic transvestite in Henry’s kitchen, had stopped answering the phone, certain that either the police were coming to arrest her or a gang of armed gigantic transvestite wanted revenge.

It so happened that one morning when Nancy came to Henry’s apartment he spent a good part of the evening tidying up and apologizing for the mess which included a weeks’ worth a dirty dishes.

 Nancy offered to help by washing the dishes.

“No, please don’t trouble yourself” Henry said “The dishwashers broken”

Nancy bent slightly and looked at the washer “Is that a bullet hole?”

“Who knows?” Henry answered as he began to wash the dishes  “I had a house keeper, Esmeralda. She’s been with the family for decades. Mother hired her. Anyway, it seems she’s disappeared on me”

“Well, what became of her?” Nancy asked moving him away from the sink and taking over the chore “Have you phoned her?”

Henry shrugged “No”

“Well Henry, that’s just awful. I mean the woman has worked for you for years. Show some concern. You say you wish you weren’t cut off from the world….well start here. Call the woman and makes sure she’s alright”

  She was right. He had acted selfishly. “I wouldn’t know where to reach her”   

 Nancy’s office issued Esmeralda’s pay check and tax forms so she phoned her secretary to get Esmeralda’s phone number and address. She wrote the number down and handed it to Henry “Be a good boy, call”

When Henry said there was no answer Nancy replied “Then we’ll go there”

“I don’t have an address” Henry said

“9 East 118^th street, apartment six –A”

“How do you know that?”

“I mail paycheck to her twice a week”

As the cab took them up Fifth Avenue towards Esmeralda’s apartment, Henry noted to himself that in the four decades that made up of his life, all of them were spent in Manhattan and never once had he ventured above 96^th Street. It’s not that he was opposed to going above 96^th Street it was just that he could not think of one possible reason to wander that far.

They arrived at Esmeralda’s door at midday, winded from walking up the six flights of stairs.

Henry knocked on the door and but there was no answer.

“She’s not here” he said.

Nancy stepped forward and knocked on the door longer and harder.

“Call her” she told Henry.

 “Esmeralda!” Henry  called out and several seconds later came the reply.

 “Mister Henry?”

“Yes, dear, it me” Henry said speaking the words into the dark metal door.

   “Are you here?” Esmeralda asked.

   Henry looked at Nancy “Do I have to answer that?”

   “Yes” Nancy whispered “And be nice”

   “Yes I’m here” Henry continued “I’ve come to make sure you’re alright”

   “The police are with you?” came the reply.

   “No, dear, no police”

   There was a pause.

   “Anyone else with you? She asked

   “Yes” Henry said “Yes there is”

   “Oh! Mio!” came the cry from inside the door which caused Nancy to step forward and say “Miss Esmeralda? Hi!, hello, I’m Nancy, Henry’s friend”

 “Mister Henry” Henry whispered.

  Nancy rolled her eyes.

 “Well, you don’t want to confuse her” he said

 “Who are you?” Esmeralda asked.

 “I’m Henry’s ….” She paused for a right word and not finding it she said “friend, Henry’s friend”

  “Mister Henry has a friend?” she asked

 “See? I told you” Henry said.

 “Yes” Nancy said.

 “Mister Henry has a friend?” the maid asked.

 “Yes” Nancy answered.

  “And you are a woman?”

   “Yes”

   “A real one?”

   “Yes”

   “Esmeralda” Henry said “Nancy is my girlfriend”

   He turned and smiled at Nancy and she tilted her head in response and said “Aww”

   “And” Henry continued “I wanted you to meet her in person because you are important in my life”

   “Wow” Nancy whispered “That was really good! Good for you! See? If you want a friend you have to be a friend.”

   “Well,” Henry whispered through a broad smile “I’m trying to do what you said, you know be more verbal about how I feel and so on. Was it too much?”

 “No, no, that was really good” Nancy whispered “I’m impressed”

 There was a pause and Nancy said, “Girlfriend huh?”  She twirled a strand of hair in her finger and looked into his eyes. Several second passed by.

 “Mister Henry? Did you go?” Esmeralda asked.

“No!” Henry said standing at attention.

 Esmeralda was reluctant to open the door but the thought that Henry was actually with another person, a friend, and a girl no less, intrigued her. Slowly the door opened and Esmeralda’s moon round face appeared. A large smiled came across her face when she saw Henry and then her eyes quickly turned to Nancy.

“You are so pretty” she said to Nancy and then embraced her “I am Esmeralda”

“I am Nancy, Esmeralda, it is a pleasure to finally meet you”

 They entered the apartment which was small and cramped but clean and decorated nicely if inexpensively. A massive crucifix hung on the wall above the kitchen table. Otherwise, every other piece of wall space was covered in framed photographs of family and friends and children, dozens and dozens of children.

Esmeralda, uneasy at having a Donick in humble home, took a dishrag and wiped down the sink and offered her visitors to the sit at the table as she prepared coffee.

With the coffee served Esmeralda sat with Henry and Nancy and after several moments she asked, “The police have sent you?”

“No.” Henry said “Goodness. Why would the police send us?”

Esmeralda didn’t answer. “It could be a trap” she thought. She was a regular viewer of the popular TV show “Investigador de la Policía” and from that she knew informants sometimes wore wires to record incriminating conversations. It was better to say nothing.

After a while Nancy whispered “Perhaps there are issues Henry”

Henry’s eyes widen. He had never considered that Esmeralda could be illegal. He nodded to Nancy and grasped Esmeralda’s hand and said “You secret is safe with us”

“So, they knew” Esmeralda thought. They knew about her murdering the Travesti gigantesco.

“I had no choice, Mister Henry” she said.

“Of course you didn’t” Henry answered.

“I agree” Nancy added. “We respect you for what you did”

“You do?” Esmeralda asked.

“Yes” Nancy answered, “It took courage to do what you did.”

“I salute your will to survive” Henry said. “Now come back to work. I miss you and I have someone else I want you to meet”

“It is safe to return to work, Mister Henry?”

Henry waved her off “Don’t worry. I have many high placed fiends in government. One or two phone calls and this entire problem will be gone, I promise you”

It was true, Esmeralda thought, the Donick’s were wealthy and powerful people. It was the same in her country. The rich can make anything happen that they wish. So, it was finally over. She was not going to jail for killing the Travesti gigantesco. Her eyes weld with tears.

“Now, now” Nancy said and embraced her “Everything is going to be fine”

The next evening at Nancy arrived at Henrys promptly at 7. He had phoned her early in the day and promised “something unusual” and it intrigued her.

When she announced herself at the door, the doorman walked her to the elevator and “Mr. Donick has asked me to direct you to the roof level this evening Madam.”

“The roof?”

“Yes Miss, the roof”

Jeanie greeted her at the door to the roof,  dressed in a My Carl issued  Shriners outfit, complete with fez and large plastic sword dangling from his waist. He waved his arm to where henry was standing and then he left.

“This is lovely” she lied pressing her teeth together to stop them from chattering.

“It is” he laid back and knew his hands were turning blue from the cold.”It was Jeanie’s idea”

 She looked up at the stars and he looked up at the stars and he said, “This is nuts.”

“Let’s go down and sit by the fire” she answered and then added “But Henry, this was one of the most romantic experiences I’ve ever had”

“But it flopped” he signed.

“Naw” she said as she rose from her chair with her wine glass “Romance and love is all about good intentions”  

He was relaxed for once in his life. Completely relaxed.

One look at her silenced all his demons and it was good. He knew three things about happiness. One was that in order to be happy a person had to have something to do. He had that. The other two keys to happiness are to have someone to love and something to hope for. He never had that before. But he had it now.

“It’s all in the middle” he said more to himself then her.

“What is?”

“Everything. Everything in life that’s important is found in the middle, I mean, in other words love, friendship, all the good things are between you and someone else.

 He considered now that the worst part of being alone, of being lonely is that there is no one to share your memories with, even the bad memories. Memories of a life are meant to be shared, even the bad memories

Some weekends they just stayed at her apartment, never leaving the bed, tucked up in blankets watching old black and white movies and drinking coffee. Some afternoon they walked through Central Park and sat on a bench and watched the trees and said nothing.

“It was a good day.” He said once and pausing for a moment he added “No, no….it was a great day”

“Why? What made it a great day?”

He thought about it and shrugged “I don’t know…..I guess because for once nothing hurt”

“Until I met you” she said “I really didn’t mind being alone”

“I spent my entire life listening to my intellect” henry said “and as a result I’ve missed so much of life. I never jumped off of the bridge of life so to speak. To accomplish that, I shall buy a hotdog from this street vender ad I shall eat it”

And he did,

“Want a bite?”

“No” she answered “Not hungry”

He knew he wanted a bite and that was different from being hungry and he held the hot dog out for her to take a bite and she did. Sometimes things like that is the basis of a lifelong love.

“My nose is cold” she said between chewing

He leaned over and kissed her nose.

“In some cultures,” she said “That would make us man and wife”

He opened his coat and wrapped her in it. He held her hand. It was the first time he had held anyone’s hand and while he thought such a public display would embarrass him it didn’t. Instead, it felt like the most important thing to do at that moment.

She woke up early that next morning and every morning thereafter. She sat on her window ledge, looking out over the frozen city, a warm mug of coffee in her hands. There was a song in her heart because for once the mornings weren’t crowded with thoughts that didn’t matter.

As for henry, his morning was filled with thoughts that kissing her would give him answers, all the answers and when that day came he wasn’t at all surprised to find that he was right about that. But kissing her left him questions as well and he didn’t know why because he didn’t know that this s the stuff of love and that everyone, since the beginning of time, has felt the same way.

Most evenings, they watched old Disney movies that Henry has missed as a child. Jeanie would join them, talking through the film and usually crying at the end. They adored long walks inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, finding pieces of art no one else seemed to notice and they would adapt that work as their own. When the phone rang and he knew it was her, he got butterflies and it took him a while to figure that that butterflies are different from nerves.

On the morning following the night they stayed together, he noticed Jeanie standing  outside the guest room, his fists clenched

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked Henry with deep concern “ Is she hurt? Should we break down the door?”

“She’s singing”

“Not very well I have to say…..why is she singing?”

“Singing in the shower. It’s a thing”

“Why?”

“It’s what we do when we’re happy”

That afternoon, in the park that was warming for spring he said “I’ve always tried to be strong because I’ve never really accomplished anything in my life. I’ve never earned an honest dollar. My greatest fear is that everyone, even those who only know me superficially, they see me as spoiled child whose life was handed to him, which it was. So, I pretend to be strong.

“The problem with always being strong” Nancy said “is that you don’t feel as much pain as you should feel. Pain is a part of life. I always saw it this way; the strong ones in this life are the ones who have felt pain and dealt with it. They accepted it and learned from it and moved on. They didn’t run from it. But you do get your heart broken out here, that’s for sure”

“Isn’t that awful?”

“No” she answered “It isn’t awful at all. Getting your heart broken and your dreams trampled on just show you believed in things of the heart and you help fast to your dreams. It shows you’re human and you are living a life worth fighting for and those are all good things”

“I must say, I want you to know, that when I’m with you I wonder if I’m confusing a dream with real life but the truth is, I don’t want to know the answer. You know what my greatest regret is? My greatest regret was how much time I sunk into the future and missing everything that was happening here and now.

Well sir” she replied I shall say this about you. I love all the things about you that you hate about yourself and I say, as an admirer, you shouldn’t change those things, just work on become more of yourself, that would be good” 

She was, for him,  a rainbow in the perpetually cloudy skies of his life.

“It would be so much easier” he said, “ if life just went by the numbers that it followed a logic you know?”

“Well, it doesn’t, Henry Donick. The road of life is filled with potholes, dangerous curves, dead ends, road signs that don’t make sense and traffic jams.”

“I know. Isn’t it awful?”

“Naw, that’s the beauty of life.”

“What is?”

“That we never know what’s going to happen next. Life is a risk, or at least it is if you’re living it the right way.”

“I have a lot of flaws” he offered

So, do I. So does everybody. You work around it; you work around the bad stuff people have. I mean, you know, anybody can love all the wonderful stuff about somebody, that’s easy because the good stuff will always be there.

 

 

 

 

It’s not good Henry” the doctor said “I’m sorry. I wish I had better news but I don’t. The illness has progressed much faster than we figured it would”

Henry had been so happy over the past few weeks, no, the last few months, he had to give Jeanie credit where credit was due, that he had forgotten about his illness and his pending death.

“Okay” Henry said slowly “What the down side? What’s worst of it?”

The doctor was reluctant to answer “Well, I guess…..”

“Just tell me” Henry said softly.

“You’re going to die much sooner than we had planned. Much sooner than we had originally told you”

Henry let that sink in and then asked, “What’s the upside?”

The doctor took a deep breath and sighed. He had no answer. Henry nodded that he understood. This was it. This was end….and just when everything, absolutely everything in his life was perfect.

On the way home he took his familiar path through the park, half looking for the homeless man who had spoken to him on that first day when he learned he was dying, but the man was nowhere to be found.

He sat on a bench and considered that it was wrong to lead Nancy any further down the path of believing they would have a long life together. It was cruel to ask her to stay until the end, which he knew she do. It was better, nobler, to break off. And the thought of it made him wish that he would die then and there.

 

 

 

“You never loved me, Henry”

“That’s not true”

“It is true. You loved the idea of being in love” she lowered her head and hated, absolutely hated herself for crying. She knew now that words could cut because she was the one bleeding. She wanted to punch him. She wanted to beg him to change his mind. She wanted to scream. She hated him and she loved him. She collected her coat and bag and she left.

Jeanie overheard everything of course and unlike his old self, he somehow knew not to intrude. An hour later he made his way to Henry’s den.

 “How do you feel?” he asked

“I feel nothing”

 “Humans break so easily”

“I have a broken heart. You think you will die from it, but you just keep living, hour after hour…..and you wonder why…..” and he breathed deeply and sighed a long tired sigh, shook his head and sobbed.

Henry Donick was human.

 

 

A gloom took over the apartment and Jeanie could feel it and it tired him. He wandered down to lobby and looking out into the park he spotted Nancy, standing along looking up at Henry’s apartment.

He got her attention and waved for her to come closer.

She shook her head  “No”

They were mimed out what he assumed was  “I can’t leave the building because I’m a Jeanie” but what she interrupted as “I have a lozengier lodged in my throat”

She cross the street and stood in the building drive.

“Do you know what hell is Jeanie?” she asked  “Hell is when the person you love the most reaches right into your soul and rip it out of you. And they do it because they can.”

She lowered her eyes to the bricks and added “It’s so strange how life works. You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.”

 

Over the next three days Henry moped around the apartment, listless and hurt. He slept more, woke up later, ate little and didn’t shave. It was hard enough to go alone but to go on alone with a hope for the future, well that was just plain cruel and the silence he had once cherish now depressed him because now it was a different kind of silence. It was the silence of life without her.

On the afternoon of the third day, Jeanie called Henry on the phone.

“Henry, far be it from me to interfere in your life but why did you break up with that perfectly decent, kind and beautiful woman?”

“Because it was the honorable thing to do”

“I don’t understand”

“I didn’t think you would. We’re not going to have this conversation on the phone”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s ridiculous, your ten feet away from me on the other side of the door”

A second later there was a knock Henry’s door.

“Come in”

“”You don’t even ask who it is?” Jeanie said

“What do you want?” 

“Henry, far be it from me to interfere in your life but why did you break up with that perfectly decent, kind and beautiful woman?”

“You just asked me that”

“And I’m going to keep asking you that until you answer. I have a right to know”

“Why do you have a right to know?”

“I don’t know, it just seemed like a good opening. Look Henry, here’s how it works. You get three kinds of people in your life, you get the ones who are there for a reason, others who are there for the season and lastly the ones who are there for a lifetime. Right now, in your life, your batting two out of three. “

Henry considered asking Jeanie where he had picked up the baseball lingo and realizing that conversation would go nowhere he said  “I broke it off with Nancy because I’m dying. I have a terminal illness and I’ll be dead soon. I didn’t want to burden her with that she doesn’t deserve it, to have carry that burden alone”

Jeanie fought to catch his breath and when he did he sat down on a chair and stunned, he looked at Henry for a full minute and said, “But you would burden me with your death?”

It was the first time he had seen Jeanie, profoundly, deeply hurt.

“It’s not the same thing” And as he spoke those words he knew they weren’t nearly enough to cover the wound he had inflicted on the gentle giant before him. After that he didn’t know what else to say, so he said nothing.

 Jeanie finally spoke “It’s so awful Henry but do I mean so little to you? Everyone means so little to you. What’s wrong with you Henry?”

“I’ll tell you what” Henry said smiling broadly “I’ll give you the old gun back and you can accidently shoot somethings, how about that?”

Jeanie stood from the chair and said “I’m not a child, Henry. I’m going to go up on the roof for a while and hold my breath”

“I’ll come along if you like.”

“No Henry” Jeanie said as he walked towards the door “I’d rather just…..no thank you Henry”   

In the days that followed, Henry Donick was the most miserable man on earth. Jeanie avoided him and when they did interact, the happiness and spontaneity was gone from his friends conversation. Nancy was gone. She didn’t answer her phone and the bank told him she had taken an extended leave from her work and they had no idea where she had gone or when she would be back and once again Henry Donick was alone in the world.

Henry walked to Nancy’s apartment. He knocked and when she answered “We were together and then we were apart and now I’m here. I forget everything before that. How are you?” he asked in a whisper.

“I’ve been sleeping a lot.” She said but she looked exhausted. “You don’t feel anything when your sleeping and you can’t get hurt either”

“I can’t sleep at all” he said.

You know what I was thinking? I was thinking that it’s so ironic that the person you love most in the world can break you into a million pieces and you just know that when it’s over and you start to put yourself back together all you want is to go back to that person.

For me, you are a star in the sky”

“For me you were the whole sky” he replied

 

“You know Henry love isn’t when you don’t have any fights. Love is when you fight and its over you’re still in love. But we never had a cross word between us. What did I do? Why did you do this to me? It’s incredible. All that love has been forgotten in the blink of an eye. I know I don’t have much to offer.

“That’s not true.” He countered You give me all you’ve got. You give me all of your thoughts, long hugs. You give me an ear to listen to me. You give me someone to talk too, someone to care for, a hand to hold. You give me someone I can lean on. I love you and because I love you it’s like the beginning of everything started when I first kissed you, when I first held your hand, when you looked at me for the first time in the way I wanted you to look at me. Before you I spent my time trying to figure out ways to have people remember me so my life seemed like something that had been worth living and now if you remember me after I’m gone I could care less what the world remembers of me. You’re all that matters to me in this life and in the hereafter as well. I miss you and I think I have always missed you, I mean, even if we never met I would have missed you.

“Then why? Why did you hurt us?”

“Because I’m dying. I’m dying quickly. I have a few weeks left, at best. I wanted to spare you from that.

 “Everything will be okay in the end.” She assured him.

“What if it’s not okay?” he asked

“Then it’s not the end.” She answered “Look Henry, forget the situation your life is in and just pay attention to your life with the time you have left. Be here and now. All that situation stuff is all in your mind anyway. It isn’t real Henry but I’m real and I’m here and I need you here with me”

“But I need to know…..” Henry said.

“No” she said cutting him off “You don’t need to know, not everything, not all the time. Let’s leave room not to know. Let’s not know the end of our story. That’s how hope dies. Maybe this will turn out to be one big mistake or beginning of something new and wonderful. Maybe good things will happen. Life is like that, Henry. Just trust, that’s all. Remember how you said you never had the courage to jump off of lives cliff? Well, this is it, this is your chance to jump and trust in the wind. Whatever happens, it will happen to us together.”

It took a while but they were okay and in the spring there was a wedding ceremony was held at Henry’s apartment, mostly because Jeanie still couldn’t leave the apartment. Of course he was the best man, Sasha being the bridesmaid, although Jeanie held out for both positions. After a honeymoon in Paris, the Donick’s settled down to a happy life and planned Henry’s demise.

Jeanie was deeply moved by Donick’s story and decided that he and Sasha would marry. It was decided by him and Sasha, without consulting Henry at all, that the honorable thing to do was to speak to Demir Ozturk together. The would explain to Ozturk that Sasha never loved him, that he was not a good husband, that he was, in fact, a horrible human being and that Sasha would be leaving him to marry Jeanie.

“He’ll understand” Jeanie said “He seems reasonable enough” 

And so it happened that on the first day of summer, Jeanie and Sasha, holding hands and smiling, knocked on Ozturk’s door and said their piece.

Jeanie was amazed that a man of Ozturk’s considerable girth could run as quickly as he did while screaming threats. He chased them up the wide carpeted steps to the fourth floor, but suddenly, mid-chase, Ozturk stopped, turned and walked back down the stairs.

When a winded Jeanie and Sasha made to Henry’s apartment, they slammed the door behind, locked it and threw themselves on a couch. Hearing the commotion, Henry and Nancy, came out to greet them. Jeanie explained what they had done to which henry said, “You did what?”

“No” Jeanie said “It’s okay, he good with it. He was chasing us but he stopped. I guess he accepted it”

“He probably went back to apartment to get a gun and kill you”   Henry said. At that very moment there was a knock on the loud door.

“It’s probably Ozturk” Nancy said

“It’s Ozturk” Ozturk said.

“What do you want?” answer asked.

“I have a gun and  I want to shoot your life partner”

 “He’s not my life partner” Henry said “how many times do we have to go over that? Now turn around and go home or I’ll phone the police”

They were all amazed that a man of Ozturk’s considerable girth could knock down Henry’s solid oak door as easily as he did. But there he was, gun in hand, heaving like a bull.

Henry quickly reached behind the television set where he had hidden the old Colt pistol he had found in his storage boxes; the one Jeanie had used to shoot the dishwasher.

“Don’t worry” he whispered to Nancy “I have a gun” 

“All right, all of you, to the roof.”

“Why” Jeanie asked.

“So, I can kill you” Ozturk shrugged and pointed to the pistol in his hand.

 

“Why not just do it here” Henry asked

“Or” Nancy said shooting a look of exasperation ”a better question would be, why do it all” 

“Guna loud, the noise will bring around nosey neighbors and there are a lot of nosey neighbors in this place”

“I know, right?” Jeanie

“Especially those new people on the third floor”

“Oh, their awful” Ozturk added “So we’ll go up to the roof, I’ll push you off, you’ll die, no muss no fuss”   

“See, now it makes sense” Jeanie said

“You should have explained that from the start” Henry said

“I’m sorry” Ozturk said “I’m new at this, so let go, line up”

 After Ozturk has ushered them to the top of the Majestic, he moved them all close to the edge.

““Henry “Nancy said louder than she wanted to the words to come out.

“Yes?”

“I love you..”

“Thank you”

“I just want to say Henry” Jeanie said “I love you too”

Do I have to listen this?” Ozturk whined.

“Not now” Henry said.

“Henry, you have to learn to deal with your emotions” Jeanie said. “And with the emotions of others.”

“He’s right, Henry” Nancy said “Listen to him. Let others in to your life”

“Bad advice in stereo? You know what?” Henry said to Ozturk “Just throw me over the side of the building, kill me now, let’s get it over with it”

“Me too Henry” Sasha added “I mean, I don’t love you. I love Jeanie as you know of course, but he tells me many times you are desperate, lonely, bitter, angry man with no hope, no dreams so….”

 “Okay thank you Sasha” Henry said.

“Looking at all that in your life maybe death is not such a bad thing” Sasha added.

All right that’s enough ” Ozturk said pushing them all closer to the ledge.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Henry yelled “You can’t do this!”

 “Why not?” Ozturk asked with a laugh.

“My life insurance won’t cover this” Henry answered “I don’t know, maybe it will but I’m pretty sure it won’t cover this” 

“You die today and her too” Ozturk said pushing Nancy closer to Henry and then he grabbed Jeanie. “You first magic person”

Suddenly a voice boomed across the roof   “Hold it right there, INS!”

Arthur Terrlet’s agents had Henry’s apartment under 24 hour surveillance and every day the INS teams reported back to agent Terrlet that  Professor Afendi was also keeping Henry’s apartment under watch from across the street in the park. Agent Terrlet determined that Afendi intended to kidnap Henry Donick and hold him for ransom. he was sure how or when Affendi would strike, but he was positive he intended to make his move soon. As he was required to do by INS regulations, Terrlet decided the time had come to speak about Henry about the possible danger he was in.

As he entered henry’s floor Agent Terrlet caught the tail end of Ozturk’s forced march to the roof. The lawman leaped behind the covering of a nearby pillar, drew his weapon and waited for Ozturk and the other to arrive on the roof.

The assembled group turned as one to see Agent Terrlet, badge in one hand,  pistol in the other aimed at Ozturk.

“INS?”  Ozturk replied.

“That’s right fella, INS, so drop the Jeanie.”  Agent Terrlet said and then added “But not over the side of the building”

“I paid my taxes,” Ozturk said still holding Jeanie.

“So what?”  Agent Terrlet barker “You still can’t push a human beings over the side of building; you could hurt someone”

“You know that’s very thoughtful of you Mister Toilet” Jeanie said.

“It is” Sasha agreed. “In Russia they just throw the guns over the side of the building, I can’t tell you how many people gets knock-ted out”

“No, you can tell me” Jeanie said.

“IRS” said a confused Ozturk

“No, no, no” Agent Terrlet said, obviously disappointed “INS, immigration, and naturalization service. I. N. S.”

“Notice how he stressed the N” Jeanie said in a needless effort to clarify the difference.

“I didn’t hear the stress on the N at first” Ozturk replied and then turned to Agent Terrlet and said “You know, you think you hear IRS, so that’s what you hear, you know”

“I know, I know” Jeanie said, “We all do it and you know why? People don’t really listen”

“I’ve noticed that” Ozturk offered “In fact….”

“Hey!” an agitated Terrlet yelled  “Come on, let’s pay attention here. Step away from the Jeanie”

“Somebodies cranky” Jeanie said.

 “You don’t have to yell” Ozturk added

“Okay” Terrlet said “Release the Jeanie and his life partner”

 “I’m not his life partner” Henry protested. “We went over that”

“Life partner?” Ozturk said to Henry “You know, he’s cheating on you with my wife”

“There is no need to hide your affections, Mr. Donick” Agent Terrlet called out “It’s a new age in America!”

 “Oh, for God’s sake” Henry said.

 “Hold it right there” a voice boomed from across the roof. It was Effendi and he was holding a pistol aimed at Terrlet. “Please be so kind as to  bring the Jeanie over here to me Mr. Ozturk

“Who are you?” Ozturk asked.

I’m the one with the gun!” Affendi replied

“Well around here that’s really nothing special” Jeanie said. “I mean Ozturk has a gun and Agent Toilet has a gun”

“It’s Terrlet” Terrlet said.

“Both of you drop your guns” Effendi said and when their guns hit the roof, he stepped closer.

“Now” he began dramatically “I…”

“And Henry has a gun” the Jeanie said “Let’s not forget that. It’s in his back pocket”

Effendi pointed his pistol at Henry “Take it out and drop it”

“And not over the side of the building either” Jeanie said and then gave Terrlet a wink and thumbs up.

“What is wrong with you?” Henry snapped at Jeanie as he placed the gun on the roof top. “Why did you tell him I have the gun?”

 Jeanie rolled his eyes “Henry, you have to follow the conversation. That nice looking man said he had a gun and I said……”

“But wait” Ozturk said “You left out the part where he said it like he was the only one with a gun, cause I had a gun”

“Yeah” Jeanie said. “Besides, Henry, the gun doesn’t work. I know because…well let’s just leave it at that”

“And the toilet guy form the tax department he had a gun” Ozturk said.

“It’s Terrlet, TERR-LET, Terrlet  and it’s not the IRS…” Terrlet said “You know what? I’m not having this conversation again” and he folded his arms and turned away from the group.

“Somebodies cranky” Jeanie whispered.

“It’s all the bad food they eat in this country” Sasha said “It’s bad for the bowels they can’t make the toilet they get angry”

“It is not a bowel issue” Terrlet said.

“Hey!” Effendi shouted to Terrlet “Stop talking!”

 “No!” Terrlet said

“What a baby” Ozturk whispered.

“You must stop taking!” Effendi said.

 “Why?” Terrlet asked.

“Because I have the gun. Tell him!” he told Jeanie

“Yeah” Jeanie said “He’s the gun nut now”

“Who are you anyway?” Ozturk asked

“Who is he” answered agent Terrlet as he turned to face the others “He is Sayyid Abdulhakim Effendi, international artifacts thief. We meet at last” 

“The institute trusted you Dr. Effendi” Henry said.

“Oh, he’s no Doctor” Terrlet said “That’s just one of his covers”

Ozturk, acting with a grace and swiftness that defied his girth, swooped down and grabbed his pistol from the roof, leaped behind Jeanie and held the barrel to the Jeanie’s head.

 “Please be so kind as to release the Jeanie” Effendi said.

 “No” Ozturk laughed “I don’t think so” and with that Effendi fired a shot over Ozturk’s head.

   “So, you can pull a trigger? So what?” Ozturk smirked

   “So, I can kill you” Effendi said.

 “No, you can’t” Ozturk answered “I watched you. You pulled the trigger; you didn’t squeeze it. You’ve never fired a gun before”

“I can still kill you” Effendi sniffed.

“No” Ozturk said “You’ll probably miss. Hitting something with a bullet is harder than it looks. I spent twenty years in my countries military; believe me I know. I’ll tell you what, I’ll keep the Jeanie and  kill him and you can have Donick to kill”

“Donick is useless!” Effendi snapped.

“Hey” Henry replied.

“It’s the Jeanie I want” Effendi said to Henry “I wanted you at first but I changed plans”

“Useless?” Henry said “Really? Really? That’s so mean”

“Alright, I’m sorry” Effendi shrugged.

“I was on the search committee that found you for the museum” Henry said.

“I misspoke” Effendi shrugged again.

“They wanted to bring you in a lower salary, but I said no” Henry replied, “I urged a higher salary and now I’m useless?”

“Alright, for God sakes, I said I was sorry” Effendi said defensively.

“It was a mean thing to say” the Jeanie said.

“I have to agree” Ozturk said. “I mean, killing a man is one thing, but you don’t have to hurt his feelings”

“All right” said an exasperated Effendi “At this moment in time, Mister Donick is of no present use to my future plans….all right?”

“He sounds sincere, you ask me” Ozturk said to Henry.

“I mean it” Effendi said “Sincerely”

“Yeah, sure” Henry answered “I guess”

“Now” Effendi said stepping closer to Ozturk “Release the Jeanie. This is the last time I’m telling you”

 “Or what?” Ozturk said stepping towards him. Effendi squeezed the trigger and released a round into Ozturk’s massive foot and causing him to fall to roof, howling in pain and  holding his wound.

“Or” he said “I will shoot you in the foot”

“You are supposed to make the threat before you do it” Ozturk yelled.

“Wow, what a cheater” Jeanie said.

“Well, I’m in a rush” Effendi said. “Next time”

“It’s in all the movies” Ozturk said.

You know” Jeanie added “He’s got a point. I don’t have a job so I watch a lot of cable and the bad guy always issue a warning first. Always”    

“That’s true” Henry said.

“Okay” Effendi said to Henry “You want a warning? Here is a warning; you and she will    die by falling off the roof in what the police will call a lover quarrel” 

“I’m too young to die” the Jeanie said hanging his head in sadness.

“I’m not talking to you” Effendi snapped.

“To young to die? You’re 5,000 years old, for God’s sake” Henry said.

“I’m not talking to you” Effendi said, “I’m talking to Donick and the woman.”

 “Nancy” Nancy said.

“What?” Effendi snapped again.

“Nancy” my name is Nancy” she said “I was introducing myself”

 “Oh” Effendi said with a slight bow of the head “Pleasure”

“I just thought that since you were going to kill me that we should at least met each other properly” she continued.

 “Of course,” Effendi said with a polite smile “No need to be uncivilized”

‘And my name is Sasha”

“Pleasure to meet you, Sasha” Effendi said with a polite smile “Now I’m going to have to kill you so please move to left, a bit closer to…” he paused and raised his eyebrows “Was it Nancy?”

 “Yes” Nancy replied with a smile.

 “Such a pleasant name, Nancy” Effendi said flirtingly

 “I’m too young to die” Jeanie moaned.

 “You’re three thousand years old” Henry said to him “for God’s sakes, man up”

 “I’m not going to kill you” Effendi snapped at Jeanie “you fool, I need you”

 “I thought you needed me” Jeanie asked

 “I do” Effendi shouted back.

 “Then why did you say you weren’t going to kill him?” Jeanie asked.

 “He was talking to you” Henry said

  “I was talking to you, fool” Effendi joined in.

 “Well excuse me” Jeanie snapped as he crossed his arms over his chest “I’m feeling exposed right now”

 There was a pause and Henry said “You mean vulnerable”

 “No, exposed” Jeanie answered “I said exposed I mean exposed”

 “I have to agree with Donick” Effendi said “Exposed implies bare, naked”

 “All right fine, vulnerable” Jeanie said.

“Well,” Effendi said straightening his suit coat “If we’re all ready, I’m going to start shooting now” 

In the meantime, Esmeralda the housekeeper had returned to work and since it was Monday, she had gone food shopping as she had done every Monday for the past three decades. As she was setting down the grocery bags took use her key to open the apartments front door, she noted that the hallway door to the roof had been left ajar and travelling down the voluminous metal stairs she could make out Henry’s voice and another man vice, a voice she didn’t recognize, mentioning something about killing Henry 

 Just as Effendi lifted the pistol and started to squeeze the trigger, he caught the sight of Esmeralda the housekeeper in his side vision. She had a melon in her right hand. Before Effendi could turn the gun on her, Esmeralda released the melon in a pitch that would have been the envy of any major league ball player. The melon struck Effendi square in the right temple, knocking him out.

The group stood in silence except for Jeanie who pointed and yelled “I told you! I told you!”     

“That little woman” Nancy said “has an amazing arm. Do the Yankees know about her?”

While all eyes were on Esmeralda and her magnificent arm, Effendi crawled to his gun, retrieved it, aimed it at Henry and fired. Jeanie watched it all in horror. Reacting quickly, he threw a body block that pushed Henry from harm’s way. Agent Terrlet grabbed his gun, aimed and just as he was prepared to shoot Effendi, Esmeralda flung another melon, her last one, that landed square on Effendi’s head, knocking him out.

Once again, Esmeralda and her melons had saved the day. However, the bullet from Effendi’s gun had struck Jeanie, inches from the heart. When Henry and Sasha reached him he was laid out on the roof top moaning.

 “Lay still” Henry said and removed his suit coat, folded it and placed it under Jeanie head. Sasha laid her head on Jeanie’s chest and wept.

“I’m a go’n to that big round up in the sky, Henry” he gasped.

Henry clasped Jeanie’s hand “Hang in there, pal, just hang in there. Helps on the way”

“I just…I just…”Jeanie fought to get the words out.

“What?” Henry asked as Nancy knelt down beside him “What do you wish”

“That you believed in me and that I was able to grant that one wish”

“I believe in you, pal. You gave up your life to save mine” Henry whispered “I believe that you are everything that is good and pure and innocent in the world and  I wish that you would stay alive and always be a part of my life” 

Jeanie rolled his eyes “But, but…don’t you wish…you didn’t have that awful illness that’s killing you?”

“Yes” Henry said softly “I wish didn’t have this awful illness that’s killing me”

Jeanie sat up straight and said “Whew, you know I was beginning to think you would never wish anything and I would have to stay around here forever”

 “Wait” Henry said. Several thoughts went racing through his mind and he brought up the least relevant one first. “What’s wrong with here?”

 “You’re a lot of work Henry and you know a lot of strange  people.”

 “I do not”

 Jeanie pointed to Effendi and Ozturk.

 “I barely know them” Henry said.

 Jeanie looked at Esmerelda and whispered “Yeah but you know her and she just shows up throws melons at people and leaves”

“Aren’t you dying? Henry asked “He shot you, I saw it”

Jeanie nodded “Yeah but I’m a Jeanie, shooting doesn’t work on us. But you wouldn’t believe the number of people who have tried over the centuries”

“Yes I would” Henry said.

“So, you got your wish  three wishes and I am free from your debt, I can wander around now” Jeanie announced and looking up to Sasha he said “Now we can realize our dream of moving out of this dump to over to Hoboken”

“Wait” Henry said, “Three wishes?”

“Yeah. I wished that I would stay alive. That’s one. You wished that I remain a part of your life. That’s two. And you wished you didn’t die from wherever it is that’s ailing you. That’s three.”

“You said I only got one wish”

“Yeah, I lied” Jean said

Sasha clapped her hands  around Jeanie neck and hugged him and it was then that she saw the blood. The Jeanie was bleeding    

“You’re bleeding” Sasha gasped.

 “Naw” Jeanie smiled “Can’t bleed. Jeanie”

 Sash pointed to the blood staining Jeanie shirt.

 “I’m bleeding!” he shirked “Henry! I really going to that big round up in the sky.

 “Easy, easy” Henry said “An ambulance is on the way”

 “I don’t even know what a round up is” Jeanie said.

  “It’s all right” Henry said soothingly “It’s all right”

  “No, it isn’t” Jeanie said “I think a round up has something to do with killing roaches fast…..no wait…that’s a different commercial. I hate television. Well, I don’t hate it….I mean there’s some good stuff on”  

 “You’re human again” Henry interrupted him “By giving your life to save mine you have redeemed yourself. You’re free”

 “Yeah big deal” Jeanie said “I’m also dying”

An ambulance rushed Jeanie to the New York Presbyterian Hospital on 61^st street. Ozturk and Effendi were jailed for a while and then deported to their respective countries.

Special Agent Arthur Terrlet was promoted to Regional Special Agent in Charge but resigned to work for Henry as Chief of Security at the New York Museum of Antiquities. Later that year he changed his name to Arthur Turell.

Esmeralda, having had the Jeanie situation explained to her, still works for Henry.

Jeanie and Sasha were married at St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral on East 97^th Street. Henry was the Best Man. Nancy, the Bridesmaid. They took an apartment in  Hoboken. Jeanie held down a series of jobs, 27 in six months, and was fired from them all. Sometimes within minutes. Henry stepped in and created a trust fund for them and they lived happily ever after.