by Eugen Bacon
They gobble scorpiurus flowers and amethyst worms with saffron rice. They wash it down with wine and russet cheese, grilled and served with sweet radish.
He is to her more than a seasonal interest. He is a prospective soldier.
She is unrushed. She feeds him a truffle. Port. She swings a leg over him. He trembles as she strokes him. Her eyes blaze like comets. She bares teeth, injects her potion.
When he wakes, she will be gone; perhaps already to Planet Ishtar, or Lune, or Rigolith. She has little time but ample to do, drafting soldiers into her battalion. Selenius might note the bite mark on his neck, but he will not comprehend it. He will remember little of the night, nothing of Ace Zone. But for Sanz, its new emancipation battle, he will give everything, everything, when Ace commands it.
A PINING
She has lips like the bows of a ribbon. She climbs a seesaw in the park and rocks; it doesn’t budge, weighty for her frame.
“I can’t do it,” she says. Her coffee eyes are wide, gazing at you. “On that end,” she points. “You sit.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Couldn’t be.”
“Then who?” The little girl laughs. Her youthful eyes are unmarred by life experience. She is wearing a turtleneck inside a pinafore dress. Butterfly socks to her knees.
“See?” she shows, the unrocking seesaw. “I can’t do it.”
“Keep trying,” you say.
“Why?”
“It’s a start.”
Every dawn . . .
***
“Ellie!” a woman calls out. “Who’re you talking to?”
“That’s my momma.” Ellie. She puts a finger to her face.
“Picking your nose?” You.
“I’m trying to put it back,” she says.
You smile. You are easy like this with girls: little ones, big ones. You genuinely like them. Without ulterior motive, you find fascination with them. Perhaps they remind you of Rocket. You see them, you see her, your demeanor warms.
Rocket, before she died.
So precious, so easy to lose.
Every dawn, each dusk . . .
***
Your own mother never recovered from the loss. Barely brought herself to set eyes, let alone fingers, on the lone breathing child. If she’d had her way negotiating with Death, obvious which child she would have offered first. But cancer is random, unpicky. There is no negotiating with it. The odds . . . like Vegas. When the house wins, it snatches everything.
Stepping into Rocket’s private room at the Royal Children’s was like entering a den filled with rot. Her stool: tarmac-black goo in nappies. Hair gone, bone-thin, she never lost her belief in you. The feeble squeeze in her palm when you held it told you of her trust in your devotion.
***
“Seesaw with me,” Ellie pleads.
“Ask your momma.” Your tone is gentle.
The woman stands by a swing, her meerkat eyes alert to strangers.
But strangers do not hurt you like people you know.
You shiver, not from a late evening breeze. Pepper’s betrayal was heartless. It takes a certain kind of person . . . A tinge at the side of your head hammers to a migraine.
Every dawn, each dusk, clutching the pillow . . .
***
Pepper lay on top facing you, rubbed her body against you, sat when you put hands to her waist. Her mouth fell open, the muscles of her face relaxed. She took a breath. Watching her, your head felt lighter. You put fingers to her face, closed your eyes.
In that silence, as you lay consumed by her scent, she spoke. “He’s a dentist.”
Your body betrayed you, ignored the conflict of her words and your desire. When she hooked her legs around your waist, you rolled, uncurled her leg and raised it to your shoulder. You took her with a cry and, for the first time, you led. When your lips caressed her breasts and she gripped your head, you pushed her against the pillow, gazed into her eyes and thrust again and again and again.
Later, much later, she untucked from the bed, traces of you on her thigh still. She tossed her fringe. Door open, door slam. The roar of a shower. She snatched scattered clothes one by one from the bed, the floor, atop the chiffonier. Lace stockings. Slid into leather boots. You locked eyes for a moment. She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it. The silence between you was one that shouted. It was an unusual kind filled with different energy. The kind of silence before a bullet.
She grabbed her purse, exited without makeup. As a door snapped you wondered about her dentist, if he had an opinion about the levels of propylene glycol in the whitening toothpaste, minty fresh, in your bathroom.
***
Long after you pushed off the park and strolled hands in pocket, walked against the rasp of weary wind beneath a setting sun, you remembered Ellie’s smile, genuine and big.
When Pepper left, clicked the door and abandoned your house, your heart, you thought you would stay proud and strong. But all you remembered were three words: He’s a dentist.
Couldn’t she just have said: “His name is Jack?”
Or: “I’m done.”
Why did she have to bring up a profession? Was it a white-collar thing, a comparison: you’re a plumber, he’s a dentist? Didn’t she . . . was it not . . . how she said over and over about loving the sand in your hands? Coarse from plumbing, rousing on her velvet skin. A single touch and her whole body came alive.
Yet how swift, so strong, those three words from her mouth.
But they were not enough to kill your desire. Every dawn, each dusk, clutching the pillow against which you held her . . .
***
Finding solace in the park is different, much less primitive than your first instinct to go as far as possible, to Africa, to a place you could sleep with lions, swim with crocs, at sundown in some wildlife lodge. Perhaps it was a death wish. Hippos are the biggest killers of humans in the wild.
You’d even got a brochure from the girl with canary-yellow hair and gazelle legs in shimmering tights at the travel agency. She was dressed like a teenager. Easy rapport. You allowed her to talk you into a cultural experience in the heart of some jungle full of trails and hills and a meander of rivers.
“It’s more than scenic,” she cooed, oblivious to the sudden tears stuck in your eyes.
She was on a yarn about how the safari escapade would make you happy, breathless, safe and wild when you shot to your feet, hands balled into fists.
But your voice was full of implore: “Could I please not?”
Every dawn, each dusk, clutching the pillow against which you held her as you claimed her one last time . . .
The whip of wind on your face was a welcome distraction from the shock of solitude that suddenly struck you.
***
You circle a few blocks, hands in pocket still. The night is red, angry. A side street. The creak of a door. A cat drifts out like a ghost. Shimmers of rain . . .
Every dawn, each dusk, clutching the pillow against which you held her as you claimed her one last time, you swallow the fullness of her lips, interlock your legs with hers. Something snaps, explodes.
You walk until your headache washes away.
You arrive at your apartment, filter through the door. In bed, you wonder about the streets. People. There must have been people. But you cannot remember them, same as you cannot remember how heavy the rain. You weren’t drenched when you got home.
You wonder if you’ll ever find Rocket.
After Rocket, her passing, and then Pepper, her betrayal, something tipped inside you one dawn. You gave up trying to remember, or to forget, and gave your mother her wish.
Like Vegas and its odds . . . you snatched everything.
***
You enter the bathroom. You step back into your bo
dy.
It is sprawled, wrists slit, its resting place a crimson bath. You wonder when someone will find him, if his mother will find him, or perhaps it will be a stranger . . .
Strangers don’t hurt you like people you know.
It is a stranger who will rescue him from his water tomb.
***
Together you think about the girl in the park, her lips like the bows of a ribbon, her eyes wide with the curiosity of childhood.
You wonder how she will turn out. Will she grow into a woman with long, long legs that climb out of boots to her navel, who wears a musky rose fragrance with a hint of cedar, who likes gold highlights on a sidewise fringe, who loves with no borders and then in a twink whispers three words of change: He’s a dentist?
DYING
It hurt each time he died. The first time it happened, Bluey was on his way to Kinetic, the insurance firm he worked for. That morning he woke up to the alarm at 6 a.m. Showered, cerealed, took the lift to the ground floor. He was crossing the road to catch a No. 78 tram into the city when he went splat, flattened by a truck. A mural on the pavement: flesh, blood, brain and bile.
***
6 a.m., the alarm woke him. He sat up in bed, scratched his head. He looked at his torso, his feet. Everything was there. Perhaps it was a just bad dream. He showered. Chewed a bowl of cereal soaked in milk. He took the lift—gray floor, blinking mirrors, steel walls as usual. He walked through the sliding door of his apartment building to a whooshing wind. Cobblestones. Trees on the sidewalks. A kid wearing a yellow shirt and green shorts whizzed past on a scooter. To the side of the street: parked cars. In the street: running cars. An Asian woman rode past on a bike, headed opposite.
He reached the main road. He took extra care at the intersection. A tall thin man in a tar-black cloak crossed with him. He was safe on the tram platform when a fire engine all lit, full siren, roared past on the street. It was headed to the city. The tram was six minutes away. Bluey thought for a moment that he should ditch it, leg it all the way to the city. The tram came, he took it. As did the tall thin man. In the city, there was the lollipop woman at the pedestrian crossing with its zebra lines. Bluey got to work carefully, without incident.
At the ground foyer of Kinetic, he walked on a polished floor, all marble. Wall décor: climbing vines snaking to the ceiling. Up on the ivory-white ceiling dappled with baby angels were blinking dots: smoke alarms. There was the receptionist behind her desk, even faced, cobalt haired. Round wide eyes, all lashed up. Potato cream suit. Bluey smiled. She smiled back.
***
He took the lift to the ninth floor.
“Mornin’ Bluey,” said Geoff Coles the team lead, approving claims at his desk.
“Morning, Joffa,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothin’. Glad to be alive, I guess.”
“Golly gum. First time I heard a ginger say that,” said Coles. He pointed at Bluey’s carroty curls. “Always so uptight.”
They laughed.
Coles was a gun whore, always yabbering about some weapon or another. Sometimes he brought guns to work, sneaked in a drawer: rifles, shotguns, semis—harmless things really, Bluey was sure. Coles was a brag. A gun-toting brag. Sometimes Bluey called him Indiana Jones.
Bluey sat at his desk. He looked at the yellow phone. It never rang. All day he stamped insurance claims, approved some, rejected some. Day in, day out. That was his job. Stamp, stamp, sign. Today was no different. Or was it? He refused to think he had died. Pushed it out of his mind. Someday he would joke about it with Coles. He and Coles were tight. Coles wasn’t just a gun-flashing brag. He was also a giver. Last Christmas he gave Bluey a nutribullet. Who named a juicer something close to a gun? No wonder Coles fell for it.
Their eyes met.
“Change your mind about being alive, I got a Colt 45 in my drawer.”
“Sure thing, Joffa.”
“It’s got a grip safety and a thumb safety.”
“No shit, Indie.” Stamp, stamp, sign.
They ate sandwiches in the kitchenette. “Nana’s brisket,” said Coles. “Grainy mustard.”
“Wilco that.” Bluey licked his lips.
Coles wife was a grand cook. Bluey had never met her. But he’d met her sandwiches: tomato, basil and mozzarella; super steak; apple and blue cheese. Today Nana’s brisket. Back to work. Stamp, stamp, sign.
The lollipop woman was still at the pedestrian strip. He was on his way home, about to cross the road, when he tripped on a shoelace, fell into traffic. A racing motor bike leaped to avoid him. Its revolving wheel struck and decapitated him. His head rolled seven meters from his body.
***
6 a.m., the alarm clock. He woke up in bed. He touched his head. It was there. Shower. Cereal. Lift. He thought about cycling to work, decided against it. The bike, a nine-year-old thing that had seen better days, was in the basement of the apartment building. He called up an app on his phone: Uber.
The Uber guy was chatty. “Turks and Dutch at it now.”
“Turks?”
“All over the news. Godamn politics. Hibernating or what?”
“Or what.”
He smiled at the receptionist with her cobalt hair, lashed up eyes and potato cream suit. Baby angels and sunbathed clouds on the ivory-white ceiling. She smiled back. Ninth floor.
“Headache,” he told Bluey. “Yabbering Uber chap. Couldn’t shut him up.”
“Exercising his freedom of speech. Next time just shoot him. Trams not running?”
“Mid-life crisis, I guess, Joffa.”
“Roger that.”
Bluey approved some claims, rejected some. Stamp, stamp, sign. They had lunch in a new joint two blocks from Kinetic. Coles got a plain risotto sprigged with truffles. Bluey went simple: a beef pie. Back to work. Stamp, stamp, sign. A mild cramp in his stomach came and went. A wall clock chimed. He stood up.
“Golly gum. You clock-watcher.”
“A man’s gotta be something, Joffa.”
“Headed out to the horizon?”
“And beyond.”
“Not so far a sniper can’t hit.”
They laughed.
Ground floor. Receptionist. Uber. Out in the street, he saw a woman who looked like the one who rode a bike outside his place. Wilco that.
His stomach was knotting by the time Bluey arrived home. In an hour, he was passing watery stool. In another half, it was bloody stool. By the time he thought to reach for a phone, his body caved, the agony excruciating. This is how he died of diarrhea.
***
6 a.m., the alarm. He touched his stomach. It hurt no more. He swung his legs off the bed. Pondered a moment. Shower, no cereal—today he was changing it up. He pulled the nutribullet from under his bed. Tore it from its glitz and ribbon wrapping. Rinsed it. Plugged it. Tossed in a few carrots from the fridge. Healthy living, hey? He flicked the switch and the blender hummed, hummed, exploded. Hot sticky sauce leaped toward his face. He dodged. A vomit of carrot spread along the tiled kitchen wall. There was a splatter on the floor. He looked at the mess, the mess looked back at him.
He grabbed a mop and a bucket. Took him an hour to clean it up. Finally he sank to the floor against a wall, wrapped his arms around himself and shivered a whole two hours. This was more than coincidence. Death was actively hunting him. He started laughing, laughing. Rolled on the floor laughing, laughing. This is how he died of loss of oxygen to the brain.
***
6 a.m., the alarm. He thought about the shower, decided on a bath. He was climbing into the tub when he tripped on a floor mat, hit his head on a shiny faucet, zonked out and drowned in the stagnant water.
***
6 a.m., the alarm. Outside it was pouring. A bolt of lightning licked the window. Bluey wrapped a nightgown around his pajamas. He went to the basement, un
hooked the bike. He rode out into chopping rain. No kid on a scooter. No woman on a bike. He rode against the traffic. Cars swerved.
A flash of lightning lit toward him. He started laughing. “That’s right. Do it. Get over with it now.” A clap of thunder. Cars horned.
“Death wish, you fucker?” someone yelled.
Bluey pedaled faster in the rain, madly laughing as he rode. He aimed for an oncoming car. The driver braked. “You outta your head!” the driver yelled. He pedaled on and on, on and on, away from the city, toward the mountains. No bolt of lightning struck him. It stopped raining. The gray sky turned milky. He rode past a beach. The water was a turquoise blue. He pedaled until his legs hurt.
And then he saw it. A cliff! He huffed and pedaled toward it. The poison in his muscles was killing him. “Just one more pedal,” he whispered. “One more. Just one. Here, baby, cliffie. I know you want me.” The pedals refused to move. He was laughing, crying, his leg muscles stone. The bicycle tipped and he fell to the ground weeping. He was still sobbing when the coppers found him.
Soon as the hospital discharged him, Bluey hired a car. He drove out from the city, toward the mountains, past the beach. He arrived at the cliff. He sat in the car a moment, and then put the foot down. The car coughed, spluttered. He floored the accelerator, again, again. Nothing happened. The car allowed him to turn it away from the crag. It sped him away from danger.
Suddenly he had a purpose. Yeah, purpose: kill himself. Not like there was anything to lose. Nobody special to leave behind, someone to miss him. Maybe Coles, as in miss him, not like he was that special. No, Bluey didn’t have anyone who . . . loved him. He felt a bit sad at this thought.
***
6 a.m., Bluey towel-bathed, chewed an apple. Didn’t choke on it. Pity, he smiled.
He took the lift with its gray floor and blinking mirrors. The door of the apartment building glided and he was out into cobblestones. There was the kid, whizzed past him on a scooter. He took a tram to the city, a train to the countryside: Glen Ranges.
He walked, walked, walked, he didn’t know how long. Finally he saw a farm with big black bulls chewing hay. He jumped the fence, lay on the ground by a huge bull’s feet, goaded it. “Do it, fuckwit. Do it.” The bull gave a lugubrious sigh and lumbered away. “No!” Bluey grabbed it by the tail but nothing seemed to agitate it much. The bull’s kick was so half-hearted it barely left a scratch on his shin.