Alice Fantastic Read Online Free Page A

the train came. I braced myself for the screeching of brakes. There wasn’t any. The train charged into the station. The doors opened then closed. No one got on or off. The train pulled away. There was just one guy left standing on the platform. He was looking down at the tracks.
    My fingers were numb and I was getting a headache.
    I slowly walked up the platform. Found my Metro- Card in my coat. Slid it in and went through the turnstile. I walked to the edge and looked down at the tracks. There was an arm separated from the rest of the body. Blood pouring out the shoulder. The head twisted at an angle you never saw in life. I wasn’t sure how the train conductor had failed to notice. The MTA has been very proud of its new One-Person Train Operation system that requires just one human to operate the entire train. Maybe that’s not enough to keep an eye out for falling bodies.
    I felt nauseous. I started to black out and then he steadied me, putting his hand at the small of my back
    â€œHe was talking about you,” said Clayton, staring down at Vito’s big mangled body, “said you were going to blow him in exchange for him getting rid of me. He was just trying to upset me but it was disrespectful of you. I just wanted to scare him but I pushed him too hard and he fell onto the tracks.” Clayton spoke so calmly. “He was talking shit about you, Alice,” he added, raising his voice a little.
    â€œWell,” I said, “that wasn’t very nice of him, was it?”
    Clayton smiled.
    He really wasn’t a bad-looking guy.

2. ELOISE
    T he phone woke me.
    â€œYeah?” I said, after reaching blindly toward the nightstand, knocking the lamp off, and finally grabbing the phone.
    â€œEloise Hunter?”
    â€œYes?” It sounded like very bad news.
    It was.
    Indio, my lover, a Brazilian trapeze instructor, had plunged to his death while scrambling up the side of the Queensboro Bridge.
    His family had been contacted in Brazil but could not come up. They had given the medical examiner my name. Would I identify the body?
    â€œThe body,” I said.
    â€œYes,” said the voice. “If you could.”
    Could I?
    I said I would.
    I hung the phone up. Looked at the clock. It was just after 8 a.m. I picked the bedside lamp off the floor. I went into the bathroom. I banged my shin into the toilet. I tried to vomit but could not. I threw water on my face. I looked around the bathroom. The tiny, blue-tiled bathroom of my tiny apartment on Riverside Drive and 101st Street. I don’t know what I was looking for. There was nothing to find.
    Indio and I had broken up. Seven times. He wanted to be around me constantly. I wanted to be around him occasionally. I didn’t love him but he was always there. Now he was a body that needed identifying.
    He had told me about it. How he was going to practice, in the middle of the night, an illegal stunt he planned to do later in daylight, for a few dozen invited friends. Swinging from one part to another of the Queensboro Bridge. When he’d told me about this plan, I had just shrugged. It wasn’t any stranger or more dangerous than other stunts he had performed. At least, I hadn’t thought so.
    I went into my small kitchen. My cat, Hammie, was on the counter, clamoring for breakfast. I fed her then knelt down and ran my hand over the gray fur on her spine. I hunkered over her and sniffed at the back of her neck, taking in the soothing creature smell there.
    I stared around at my little kitchen. I got the can of Café Bustelo out from the cupboard. Scooped some into a filter and started the coffee brewing. I watched the thick brown liquid drip down into the glass carafe.
    It was long done brewing by the time I was able to make my body move in order to pour myself a cup.
    I went to sit at the edge of my bed. I picked up my book. A Harry Crews novel I was just starting. I’d planned to have a lazy morning, reading in bed. I