where one might encounter new people and even new adventures. There was a can-
holder above the stationary bike’s rudimentary control panel, and into this he’d
slipped a can of Red Bull, which purported to be a power drink. He was wearing an
old Oxford shirt over his exercise shorts, because it had a pocket. Into this he’d placed
two oatmeal-raisin cookies. Oatmeal and raisins were both supposed to be lipid-
scrubbers.
And, speaking of them, The Lipid Company was gone for the day. Oh, they were still
on duty in the painting upstairs—the useless, marketless painting that was so unlike
him—but down here they’d piled back into Freddy’s Dodge, had headed back
to…to…
“Back to Poughkeepsie,” he said. “They’re listening to Kateem on WPDH and
drinking beers out of paper bags. Today they…what did you do today, boys?”
Put in a couple of culverts, a voice whispered. Spring runoff damn near washed the
road out near Priceville. Then we knocked off early.
Good. That was good. He wouldn’t have to dismount his bike and walk around the
washouts.
Richard Sifkitz fixed his eyes on the wall and began to pedal.
III. On the Road to Herkimer
That was in the fall of 2002, a year after the Twin Towers had fallen into the streets of
the Financial District, and life in New York City was returning to a slightly paranoid
version of normal…except in New York, slightly paranoid was normal.
Richard Sifkitz had never felt saner or happier. His life fell into an orderly four-part
harmony. In the morning he worked on whatever assignment was currently paying for
his room and board, and there were more of these than ever, it seemed. The economy
stank, all the newspapers said so, but for Richard Sifkitz, Freelance Commercial
Artist, the economy was good.
He still ate lunch at Dugan’s on the next block, but now usually a salad instead of a greasy double cheeseburger, and in the afternoon he worked on a new picture for
himself: to begin with, a more detailed version of the projection on the wall of the
basement alcove. The picture of Berkowitz and his crew had been set aside and
covered with an old piece of sheet. He was done with it. Now he wanted a better
image of what served him well enough downstairs, which was the road to Herkimer
with the work-crew gone. And why shouldn’t they be gone? Wasn’t he maintaining
the road himself these days? He was, and doing a damned good job. He’d gone back
to Brady in late October to have his cholesterol re-tested, and the number this time
had been written in black instead of red: 179. Brady had been more than respectful;
he’d actually been a little jealous.
“This is better than mine,” he said. “You really took it to heart, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did,” Sifkitz agreed.
“And that potbelly of yours is almost gone. Been working out?”
“As much as I can,” Sifkitz agreed, and said no more on the subject. By then his
workouts had gotten odd. Some people would consider them odd, anyway.
“Well,” said Brady, “if you got it, flaunt it. That’s my advice.”
Sifkitz smiled at this, but it wasn’t advice he took to heart.
His evenings—the fourth part of an Ordinary Sifkitz Day—he spent either watching
TV or reading a book, usually sipping a tomato juice or a V-8 instead of a beer,
feeling tired but contented. He was going to bed an hour earlier, too, and the extra rest
agreed with him.
The heart of his days was part three, from four until six. Those were the two hours he
spent on his stationary bike, riding the blue squiggle between Poughkeepsie and
Herkimer. On the plat maps, it changed from the Old Rhinebeck Road to the Cascade
Falls Road to the Woods Road; for awhile, north of Penniston, it was even the Dump
Road. He could remember how, back at the beginning, even fifteen minutes on the
stationary bike had seemed like an eternity. Now he sometimes had to force himself to
quit after two hours. He finally got an alarm clock and started setting it for six P.M.
The thing’s aggressive bray was just about enough to…well…