Excerpt from the book Geoff Rickly is currently working on, from this video of him at the Franklin Park Reading Series posted by Rose Books, 2026.
Everybody’s been so good tonight and so polished. I’m going to read something that I’m working on right now, actually. I’m writing a new book about revenge.
There was a break in the woods ahead. Some faint corona of light haloing the clearing where Nicholas could almost grasp an outline of the oncoming terror.
Real quick. The main character is actually a writer who’s with both of these brothers. He's a vice writer, so you know he's a real piece of shit. Just kidding.
There was a break in the woods ahead. Some faint corona of light haloing the clearing where Nicholas could almost grasp an outline of the oncoming terror. Definition was taking shape, just not many of the configurations he was used to. Pain was a sound here. The sharp voice caught in the raw throat. What was that shaking just beyond the bare branches? From what hole in the ground had the knight's anguish come?
Nicholas pushed through the bramble, emerging into a ring of low hunkering (?) into the alert stiffness of small bodies. For a moment, everything was still except for the flashing eyes of the two little dogs. Then a sudden lunge, a small engine roar of turbulence in the tall grass and the gnashing of teeth. The dogs switched position, their tiny frames set parallel to one another. What's gotten into you guys? Nicholas extended a hand, squatted low. Bandit, Sparky, what are you fighting over? Bandit growled, pacing the perimeter of a white mound. It was 4ft long, 2ft high, and looked like a gravesite, only above the ground instead of below.
Sparky nuzzled his nose into the mound's thin snow covering, tore away a piece of whatever was underneath and swallowed it. Jesus. Nicholas stumbled back and put a hand over his mouth. The scent of fermented decay was so strong he felt bile rise in the back of his throat. A shriek came from the woods. There was a note of melancholy trapped inside the threat. Some prehistoric longing. The dogs circled the mount, resumed their territorial positions. Bandit barked with a fury that shook his little body forward several steps despite his locked knees. Sparky lifted a leg and pissed on the white mounds. "It ain't me you guys are scared of, is it?" Nicholas asked, edging closer.
Then another shriek from the woods. It sounded of a thing caught between. It sounded of wilderness in the heart of the city. He spent a moment examining the mound where Sparky had pissed. The snow began to melt, revealing an unblinking black eye. Nicholas looked at the shape, but couldn't place the physionomy. What animals lived in this park? A bear? It was too formless for that, too big to be a rabbit. A scattered flurry of yips came from all directions. He spun in place. At his back, the white mound in the Delacorte Theater behind him. They were exposed on three sides, but the acoustics of the open theater made it impossible to tell from where the barks were coming. Peering into the darkness, Nicholas could make out the suggestion of movement only, a movement that multiplied in a volley of growls, snarls, and yelps.
His teeth were chattering. Cold pushed in through every fiber of the thin red hunting jacket he had taken from Chevy. Then the wind shifted and the night went quiet. Nicholas knelt and brushed some snow away from the mysterious mound, revealing the dead animal's skin. It was slick, rubbery, and purple. On the end furthest from Nicholas, the hint of a tail fin. Was there an aquarium in the park? Had a nearby restaurant missed the delivery of some massive tuna it was meant to break down into toro…? It didn't make sense. The rotten fermented smell wafted up from the fish again. But there was something else. He swore he could smell Selene's perfume.
Bandit ducked under Nicholas's hand and whined softly, shivering with fear. It's okay, boy. Despite the quiet, Nicholas sensed something getting closer behind him. Danger had entered the clearing now. He could hear panting, but the little dogs at his side were completely still. Peril has its own senses. The animal in Nicholas felt its scammerized (?) and anticipation of violent contact. If he turned around, it would be a confrontation. If he didn't, he'd never even know what had come to kill him.
Footsteps, solid and heavy. Nicholas looked up. There was something standing directly in front of him. Having approached from the theater's open gate, they had made no sound until they were directly upon him. It took a beat to understand what he was seeing. James was holding a rifle. He pressed his fingers to his lips. Shhhh. Then he raised the gun until its barrel was chest height. Nicholas wanted to laugh. He understood now that he had wandered into a game the rules of which he had never fully grasped. It didn't matter. Not really. He wasn't going to play anymore. He was going to regain his time, even just for a few fleeting moments. He didn't need to watch the rest or hear some trite justification for why it had to be this way. There were answers here. He was sure of that, but they were no longer of interest. He closed his eyes and saw his mother's face, finally.
I'm going home, mama. He tried to launch through the veil of space and time into her arms. Not as the stranger she was now, God knows where that was, but as she had been when he knew her. Through death, he would leave the old rules behind. He would travel, find love, be at peace. And yet, he couldn't make it so. His body wouldn't let go that easily. It was filling his nervous system with adrenaline, dilating his pupils, flushing his airways, occupying itself entirely with the thankless business of staying alive. No one had ever told him how vividly he'd feel the aim of a gun when it was pointed at him, physically feel it, just the same as he felt the eyes of a stranger who wanted to take him to bed. How it would liquefy his muscle, run over his skin hot like a string of urine.
A small click, then the bomb went off. Everywhere was blast radius. This sound pounded through the park, trailing off into the bramble and returning as a low rolling thunder. Eyes closed but still seeing his orange cannon flash. Nicholas held on a beat longer, waited for his cells to reconvene in the shape of his body.
No words to pray with, no voices to listen for, save the animal yelps receding in the distance. James held the rifle broken open in the center, loading another shell. A wisp of steam or smoke escaped from the barrel. It was impossible to tell which. Coyotes, James said, pointing the sparking bandit (?). Grabbing, checked for bites. Nicholas picked Bandit up and ran his eyes over the length of the dog's body. No bites, he said. Check every inch, James said. Nicholas put Bandit down and squatted to begin work on Sparky. James closed the rifle. Romeo and Juliet, he said, leveling the gun at the amphitheater's gates. He walked the wooded perimeter and returned to the center.
By the way, that's what they call the coyotes. I don't know if you know that in Central Park around the theater, they call them Romeo and Juliet.
Um, Strawberry Fields, James said, kicking the top layer of snow. Now, Moby Dick, this park, it's all connected violence. James, are you okay? Nicholas asked. The coyotes, he said. It's because of Shakespeare in the park, right? A lonely siren yawned in the distance. Nicholas stood and approached James. But this, James said, pointing at the fish. This is too far. Nicholas looked at the dead fish and back at James. The man hadn't raised his voice once, though hatred was pulsing from his body in hot waves. Snow didn't touch him, whereas Nicholas's own shoulders were dusted white. "He did this," James said, pressing them out with the toe of his boot. Sending a message. "Who?" Nicholas asked gently.
"The man who killed my mother, don't you see? It's a message to me and my brother and to you to stop searching." Nicholas looked over James's shoulder into the empty theater. He was acutely aware of the rifle in James's hand. Then help me understand messages. James attention roamed the treeline, the clearing. Eventually finding Nicholas, he said, "It's a whale, brother. It's white." Nicholas touched his own lips, chapped in the cold. James had called him brother. Was he confused, lost in the dream? Where was the man's center?
Staring into his eyes, there was only storm and drift. Forces were churning through him. Did he believe that he was with his brother William now? Or that he and Nicholas shared a mother? The story of the white whale is the quintessential revenge storm. Yes, James continued, agreeing with his own private monologue. Really though, it's a tale about justice. Ahab wishes to get revenge on nature. So, he hunts the whale. He stops at nothing. Yet, the whale is blameless.
And in fact, the whiteness of the whale is its key, an unblemished state of pure justice. And that's what we seek, right? James placed his hand on Nicholas's shoulder. The man was staring not into his soul, but through it. Was this what it felt like to be a lens? Nicholas could see what James was seeing. His mother being hit by that car over and over all the time. A nightmare loop that never stops playing. It was truly unbearable. He leaned over, scooped up the dog, and said, If you want justice, I think we're going to need a bigger fish.
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