Swarms of pigeons sail in, wings flared, and land with raucous bustling as they vie for the grain I toss to lure them. The April sky frames their flight in vivid shades of blue and I can’t help but marvel at their chaotic acrobatics. Dozens drop to the ten story rooftop where my resurrected hibachi smokes in anticipation.

With my hand outstretched, cupping a meager offering of grass seed, I wait as a gray-colored bird eyes the meal. It feints a peck, tilts its head, seems to calculate the risk and extends its neck over my spread fingers.

Whoosh! I snatch its head and before it can alarm the others I give it a snap to break its neck. The commotion drives a few into the air but the gaps are soon filled. Before long I’ve harvested an easy eight–plenty for the three of us eking out a living in what remains of the city. Gerard will no doubt complain though, the glutton that he is.

Cleaning is gruesome but quick—I’ve mastered the technique. Pigeon skin tears like crepe paper so, at their throat, I pinch and rip a hole that bears their naked breast meat. In my left hand I fold the wings and grip the back. With my right I slide two fingers through the neck and into the body cavity. The warmth inside them always surprises me. My thumb and ring finger press against each breast while my index and middle displace their lungs and heart. With a squeeze and a crack I yank the chest, bone and all from the carcass.

I save the livers and hearts, the rest I toss over the edge. Feral cats that roam the streets below clean up the remains.

In five minutes the grill is full and the smell of barbecue wafts across the rooftops of the Upper West Side.

The steel door behind me opens with a creak and Gina says, “Better be careful, Rafe, you’ll have the skaggs from the park sniffing out our digs.”

“Ha. Have ’em bring dessert, we’ll make it a potluck.”

Gina and Gerard showed up last fall as the freeze hit my garden. They saw the smoke from me burning the corn stalks, made it up through the last barrier full of traps where Gerard took a sharpened wooden stake through the calf. What could I say? I like my privacy.

I flip the pigeon breasts, splash a bit of salty garam, home made fish sauce fermented from shad caught last summer, and nod appreciation at Gina’s clever use of bottled cabbage and pickled carrots.

“I found the fennel seeds,” she says, “figured we could spare a few for the meal.” She smiles with rich hazel eyes flecked with gold. “I hope you don’t mind.”

I could listen to her Canadian lilt all afternoon.

She keeps her brown hair short, easier to clean, she says. My own gray locks she graciously trims short; knocks ten years off my age, she says. I felt uncomfortable the first time she cut it, given Gerard’s grumbling as she fussed. Lately, the more he complains the more I feel his welcome wearing thin.

Gerard shows up just as the cooking and prep are done. He found a smoking jacket in an apartment below and wears it constantly, insists on sucking an empty pipe and gripes about me not growing any tobacco in the seven years I’ve been grubbing around in the dirt. “If you find seeds, you’re welcome to farm the next building over,” I tell him. He sucks his pipe until it whistles.

“Rather a meager buffet,” Gerard says, already reaching for a dark roasted breast of squab. “Too bad you can’t catch those fat mallards, spend their day down there shitting in the park ponds.” He waggles the juice-dripping meat at me and says around a mouth full, “Must be a hundred of those lazy duckers down there. Ha-ha. Duckers.”

Gina and I grimace. I see her take a deep breath, gives me a face of annoyance. I nod. We both turn to the meal and dig in. We ignore Gerard and chat about extending the garden to the building south of us. There’s only a narrow alley separating it from ours although it’s one floor shorter.

“Couldn’t we run a makeshift bridge from its roof to the floor beneath us?” Gina asks. She holds her fork level and sets it atop two water glasses. “Though I have no idea where we’d get the lumber to make it.”

“We’d need some pretty long boards and a railing of some kind.”

Gerard nabs another portion. “You won’t get me circus dancing across some bridge you two build. Although,” he pauses to gain our attention, “I will help you haul up any gear you need, boards or pipes or what have you. I owe you guys that much.”

“Wasn’t there a set of scaffolding down on ninety-fifth?” Gina gives Gerard a weak smile, lifts her fork from being suspended upon the glasses and stabs a carrot. She bites it and even pickled it still snaps delightfully. “I’ll bet those boards are plenty long enough.”

“Three would do,” I say, watching her chew. “Though, we should probably double them up.”

Gina catches me watching and wipes her mouth free of a nonexistent smudge. I chuckle inwardly and whisper, “you’re fine.”

Gerard has been having his own conversation, reciting how he’d flown around the world patronizing Cirque du Sole wherever they deigned to perform. He crams the last of the pigeon between his teeth, launches into another tale of personal interaction with the actors and ceases to breathe. A distressing gurgle tips out and he makes the universal sign for choking.

Gina responds immediately. She circles behind him, they both stand and she proceeds to compress his diaphragm.

Gerard flails his arms as his face reddens. With each squeeze the pair of them move backwards. In fact the big man is actively shoving Gina closer and closer to the edge in growing desperation.

“Stop struggling, Gerard Let. Me. Do. This.”

I find myself fixated on the fellow’s bloating face and bug eyes. Realization arrives late and I scramble forward, reach out and grab Gerard by his jacket’s lapel. I yank as he reacts and thrusts away from me. Gina’s hands fly up and her scream, as she tumbles over the edge, is cut startlingly short.

I shove Gerard out of the way. He slides sideways a few steps and sits on the building’s ledge. I step up and peer over the side—fearing the worst. But Gina is there, only twenty feet down, sprawled on the fire escape. She stares at me, eyes imploring. Her arm looks wrong, bent funny.

“Stay tight there,” I yell. “I’ll come get you.” When she struggles I tell her not to move. She nods and rests her head.

“What the hell, Gerard, you almost killed her.” I turn to give him a scathing look but he’s starting to slump. “Fuck.” I’d forgotten all about his choking. I rush to him, reach and… hesitate. I stare at him, that bulbous face. I think about him modeling that silly jacket after he found it. How heartily he laughs. But I realize that he never has a kind word for Gina. That he’s loud and ill-mannered. And that, yes, despite my age, I consider him competition. Yet, there are so few of us anymore…

I flex my fingers. In and out. In and out.

With the barest of wheezes, Gerard tilts his chin up, eyes dull, leans back and rolls off the building like he was lying down to sleep. Beneath him only air and concrete cushion his fall. In the seven seconds it takes for him to plummet I wonder about the sound he’ll make. I clench my fist. It’s less dramatic than I imagine.

Thump.

His body lays motionless, crumpled on the weed-covered sidewalk. I dwell on the possibility that the impact dislodged the chunk of pigeon wedged in his throat. Blood spreads beneath his head, flooding to stain his saddle-colored jacket.

“Rafe.”

Crap. “Gina, sorry. Be right there.”

Down the stairs to the 9th floor, maneuver around the traps, use the master key to open the door to apartment #907, dash to the window and push with all my might to slide it up, forget to unlatch it, finally push it open, crawl through and apologize for taking so much time.

She’s managed to prop her self up against the rusted iron bars of the railing. Up close, the sight of her left arm makes my stomach turn . “Damn, that looks like it really fuckin’ hurts.”

Gina closes her eyes, due, no doubt, to a wave of pain overwhelming her. “Gerard?”

When she seeks and finds my face I shake my head. “Accident. He lost consciousness and fell off the roof.”

“I saw.” Gina’s jaw works and she presses for more. “And?”

What did she see? I consider her state of mind and figure she’s unable to rationalize the situation. “It’s ten stories. He felt nothing, I’m certain of it.”

Her eyes droop and she seems to ponder the finality of my statement. Resolutely she says, “Yeah. Well, my arm’s fucked, it’s gonna be agony setting it, and I think I hurt my lower back.” With her good arm she signals me close. “You sure as shit better have scrounged up some major pain killers in your scavenger hunts.”

“Bottles of them.”

“Then help me inside and let’s get this over with.”

I end up twisting my own back attempting to avoid further injuring Gina as we bend and crawl through the window. We wind up stumbling into a bedroom that I’d left intact, it being attractively arranged. Plumes of dust rise as I toss off the comforter and sit her down on the bed.

With Gina situated I dash upstairs, fetch a half dozen medicine bottles, water and a pair of scissors.

She downs a hand full of varying pills and I cut her shirt off to the shoulder. Bruising has enveloped her entire upper arm and the thought of what I’m about to do makes me nauseous.

“We’ll give the meds a few minutes to take effect. I don’t need you trying to bite my nose off when I straighten this boomerang break of yours.”

While we wait we ignore the unpleasant topic waiting on the ground outside. Instead, we chat about the people who may have lived here. There are modern paintings on the walls and a deep purple glass sculpture on a dresser. We conclude they were probably assholes.

I begin cutting a spare bed sheet into strips that I’ll use to make a cast for her arm and I notice her starting to nod off. “You should sip some more…”

“What a helluva thing,” Gina interrupts, the adrenaline and oxy kicking in, “Surviving all the terrors of this ugly fucking world only to choke on a pigeon and fall to your death.” She sniffs a small laugh. “At least he went out doin’ what he loved, eatin’ and flyin’.”

I stop my work and give her a look. She lifts an eyebrow and bursts out laughing. I can’t help but join her.

She starts recollecting about better times, years ago, when she and Gerard had first met. Soon she’s sobbing with the realization of today’s events. While she’s distracted, I sidle over to her left, slip off my shoe, place my foot in her arm pit, grab her left wrist tightly and tug hard and steady. Her bones realign with a sickening lurch. The sound she makes gives me goosebumps, like a demon wailing behind the gates of Hell. Its frequency rattles the light fixtures and I hope to never hear anything like it again.

“You mutherfuckin’ BASTARD.”

“I’m so sorry, Gina, but it had to be done.”

“Mutherfucker.”

Delicately I wrap her arm, using takeout chopsticks for splints. Thankfully, the fracture wasn’t compound, but I suspect it was close. It’s gonna take weeks to heal.

As I finish up, Gina passes out. I tidy my equipment, cover her with a blanket from a closet and sit in a recliner opposite–who has a recliner in their bedroom? I rest my head in my hand and watch her breathe. Did I give her too many drugs? Could she have a stroke from a blood clot?

And what about Gerard’s body. With the hundreds of bodies I’ve gotten rid of over the years, all of them dragged to the river and dumped, I question whether that’s the wise choice now. I knew none of those people the comet’s toxin killed. Gerard was a tedious man, but I never wished him dead. Not exactly. I dwell on those few seconds of indecision. “The past is past.”

I inspect Gina’s features. Her high cheek bones and sharp jaw line can make her look severe. But it’s her canted eyebrows that lend her a sad expression that draws me in.

The night passes with only small whimpers escaping through her dry lips. Morning brings awkward bathroom duty, more pills and a necessary scan for missed injuries. She’s got a wicked bruise on her back, below her ribs.

“That’s why I’m having trouble breathing.”

“You must have hit the ladder railing.” As she returns to the bed, I help support her broken arm and check her skin color above and below the cast. “How’s your hand doing, can you make a fist?”

She tries but her ring and pinky fingers don’t quite close.

“They’ll work again, won’t they?”

I smile. “The trauma is temporary. They’ll come back for sure.”

Gina decides to move into this apartment permanently. I fetch her few personal effects from the tenth floor flat she’d shared with Gerard and, over the next few days, clean it as best as I can, under the circumstances: No running water, no electricity, little light—mostly provided by windows and a wind-up flashlight.

“I never liked that apartment Gerard picked. This one has better afternoon sun.”

I put the disposal of Gerard’s body out of my mind. By the third day Gina, who seemed to also have ignored the issue, makes it back onto the roof and over to where Gerard tumbled to his death.

Pigeons have gathered to scrounge for seeds in the cracks of the asphalt roof. The grill sits just as it had that day of our feast.

“Why does it feel like ages have passed?” She looks over the edge. His body hasn’t moved. The blood that seeped out is black like tar and there’s a pair of cats scratching at the fat man’s belly. “Maybe not ages…” Gina turns away. “What are we going to do about that?” She daintily points her right index finger down. Her left arm remains in the sling and the pain meds continue to keep her agony at bay.

“I… I once again apologize. I should have taken care of—that.” I mimic her finger-down motion and urge her to come sit at the picnic table. “I’ve given the matter some thought and what about this, I’ll pile some wood, and place him on it. We’ll make a pyre. A send off worthy of a survivor.”

“Right down there?”

“Well, I guess not.” I squint my eyes, thinking. “What about close to the river. We can see the flames and the smoke and pay our respects from up here.”

“Thank you, Rafe. That should work.”

I pour a glass of sun tea. We’ve run out of sugar, but there’s tea foraged from the eighty or so apartments in the building. Years ago I figured the survival rate from the comet’s destruction was about one out of ten-thousand. By the time any scientist or government official could have done any tallying, much less warning, the damage had been done.

The air filled with toxins and less than one tenth of one percent survived. No one knows why.

“Rafe?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You have that look you get some times.”

I nod my what-can-I-say nod.

“My arm’s gonna heal OK, right.”

“Yup.”

“And we’re gonna expand the garden, right?”

With my glass of tea I tip a dollop of water into a tomato seedling sitting on the table. “You betcha.”

“And we’re gonna be OK? I mean, you and me, we’re good, right?”

I set my glass down and let a frown drift in. “I sure hope so. I don’t know if we’re lucky or cursed the way we ended up here. But, without you, I’d be lost.”

Gina’s smile warms me to my toes. “I feel the same.” She downs her tea and points to the hundred or so pigeons circling above. “I’m gettin’ kinda hungry. Any chance…”

I echo her smile. “Squab on the barbie, comin’ right up.”