There was no sound. It was not raining. There was a gray light in the window. Could it be that it was also morning in his imaginary barn?
He smiled drowsily. It was all too charming. He would have to try it in the afternoon to see if the barn were fully lighted.
He started to pull the blanket off his head, when there was a rustle by his side.
He caught his breath. His heart seemed to stop and there was a tingling in his scalp.
A soft sigh reached his ears.
Something warm and moist brushed over his hand.
With a scream, he flung off the blanket and jumped onto the floor.
He stood there staring at the bed and clutching the blanket in his hands. His heart struck with gigantic beats.
He sank down weakly on the bed. The sun was just rising.
For a week, he slept sitting up in a chair. At last, he had to
have a good night's rest and lay down on the bed, fully dressed. He would never use a blanket again.
Sleep came, dreamless and black.
He didn't know what time it was when he woke up. A sob caught in his throat. He was in the barn again. Lightning flashed in the window and rain was pounding on the roof.
He felt around in dread, but there was no blanket anywhere. His hands slapped at the air, frenziedly.
Suddenly, he looked at the window. If he could open it, he might escape! He stretched out his hand as far as he could. Closer. Closer. He was almost there. Another inch and his fingers would touch it.
'John."
A sudden reflex made his hand plunge through the glass. He felt the rain spattering across the back of his hand and his wrist burned terribly He jerked back his hand and stared in terror at where the voice had come from.
Something white stirred at his side and a warm hand caressed his arm.
"John," came the murmur. John."
He couldn't speak. He reached around clutching agonizingly for his blanket. But only the breeze blew over his fingers. There was a cold wooden floor under him.
He whimpered in fright. His name was spoken again.
Then the lightning flashed and he saw his wife lying by him, smiling at him.
Suddenly, the edge of the blanket was in his hand, and pulling it down, he rolled off the bed onto the floor.
Something was running across his wrist; there was a dull ache in his arm.
He stood up and put on the light. The bright glare filled the room.
He saw his arm covered with blood. He picked a piece of glass from his wrist and dropped it on the floor in horror.
On his lower arm, the prints of her fingers were red.
He tore the sheet from the bed and ran down the hall to the bathroom. He washed the blood off and poured iodine into the thick gash and bandaged it. The burning made him dizzy. Drops of cold sweat ran into his eyes.
One of the boarders came in. John told him he had cut himself accidentally. When the man saw the blood running he ran and called a doctor on the telephone.
John sat on the edge of the bathtub and watched his blood dripping on the tiles.
The next day the cut was cleaned and bandaged.
The doctor was dubious about the explanation. John told him he did it with a knife; but there was no knife to be found, and there were thick patterns of blood all over the sheets and blanket.
He was told to stay in his room and keep his arm still.
He read most of the day and thought about how he had cut himself on a dream.
The thought of her excited him. She was still beautiful.
Memories became vivid.
They had lain in each other's arms in the straw and listened to the rain. He couldn't remember what they'd said.
He was not afraid she was coming back. His outlook on life was realistic. She was dead and buried.
It was some aberration of the mind. Some mental climax that had put itself off until now.
Then he looked at his wrist and saw the bandage.
It hadn't been her fault though. She didn't ask him to crash his hand through the glass.
Perhaps he could be with her in one existence and have her money in another.
Something held him from it. It had been frightening. The wet straw and the darkness, the mice and the rain, the bone stiffening chill.
He made up his mind what he would do.
That night he turned out the lights early. He got on his knees beside the bed.
He put his head under the covers. If anything went wrong he had only to pull away quickly.
He waited.
Soon he smelled the straw and heard the rain and looked for her. He called her name softly.
There was a rustling. A warm hand caressed his cheek. He started at first. Then he smiled. Her face appeared and she put her cheek against his. The perfume of her hair intoxicated him.
Words filled his mind.
John. We are always one. Promise? Never part? If one of us dies the other will wait? If I die you'll wait and I'II find a way to come to you? I'll come to you and take you with me.
And now I have gone. You made me that drink and I died. And you opened the window so the breeze would come in. And now I am back.
He began to shake.
Her voice became harsher, he could hear her teeth grinding. Her breath was faster. Her fingers touched his face. They ran through his hair and fondled his neck.
He began to moan. He asked her to let go. There was no answer. She breathed faster still. He tried to pull away. He felt the floor of his room with his feet. He tried hard to pull his head from under the blanket. But her grasp was very strong.
She began to kiss his lips. Her mouth was cold, her eyes wide open. He stared into them while her breath mingled with his.
Then she threw back her head and she was laughing and lightning was bursting through the window. Rain was thundering on the roof and the mice shrieked and the horse stamped and made the barn shake. Her fingers clenched on his neck. He pulled with all his might and gritted his teeth and wrenched from her grasp. There was a sudden pain, and he rolled across the floor.
When the landlady came in two days later to clean, he was in the same position. His arms were sprawled in the dried puddle of blood and his body was taut and cold. His head was not to be found.
12 – DANCE OF THE DEAD
I wanna RIDE!with my Rota-Mota honey
by my SIDE!
As we whiz along the highway
"We will HUG and SNUGGLE and we'll have a little STRUGGLE!"
Struggle (strug'l)
Act of promiscuous loveplay; usage evolved during W.W.III.
Double beams spread buttery lamplight on the highway. Rotor-Motors Convertible, Model C, 1987, rushed after it. Light spurted ahead, yellow glowing. The car pursued with a twelve-cylindered snarling pursuit. Night blotted in behind, jet and still. The car sped on. ST. LOUIS-10.
"I wanna FLY!" they sang, "with the Rota-Mota apple of my EYE!" they sang. "It's the only way of living…"
The quartet singing
Len, 23.Bud, 24.
Barbara, 20.
Peggy, 18.
Len with Barbara, Bud with Peggy.
Bud at the wheel, snapping around tilted curves, roaring up black-shouldered hills, shooting the car across silent flatlands. At the top of the three lungs (the fourth gentler), competing with wind that buffeted their heads, that whipped their hair to lashing threads-singing:
"You can have your walkin' under MOONLIGHT BEAMS!
At a hundred miles an hour let me DREAM my DREAMS!"
Needle quivering at 130, two 5-m.p.h. notches from gauge's end. A sudden dip! Their young frames jolted and the thrown-up laughter of three was wind-swept into night. Around a curve, darting up and down a hill, flashing across a leveled plain-an ebony bullet skimming earth.
"In my ROTORY, MOTORY, FLOATERY, drivin' machi-i-i-i-ine!"
YOU'LL BE A FLOATER IN YOUR ROTOR-MOTOR.
In the back seat
"Have a jab, Bab.""Thanks, I had one after supper" (
pushing away needle fixed to eye-dropper).
In the front seat
"You meana tell me this is the first time you ever been t' Saint Loo!""But I just started school in September."
"Hey, you're a frosh!"
Back seat joining front seat
"Hey, frosh, have a mussle-tussle."(Needle passed forward, eye bulb quivering amber juice.)
"Live it, girl!"
Mussle-Tussle (mus'l-tus'l)
Slang for the result of injecting a drug into a muscle; usage evolved during W.W.III.
Peggy's lips failed at smiling. Her fingers twitched.
"No, thanks, I'm not…"
"Come on, frosh!" Len leaning hard over the seat, white-browed under black blowing hair. Pushing the needle at her face. "Live it, girl! Grab a li'l mussle-tussle!"
"I'd rather not," said Peggy. "If you don't-"
"What's 'at, frosh?" yelled Len and pressed his leg against the pressing leg of Barbara.
Peggy shook her head and golden hair flew across her cheeks and eyes. Underneath her yellow dress, underneath her white brassiиre, underneath her young breast-a heart throbbed heavily. Watch your step, darling, that's all we ask. Remember, you're all we have in the world now. Mother words drumming at her; the needle making her draw back into the seat.
"Come on, frosh!"
The car groaned its shifting weight around a curve and centrifugal force pressed Peggy into Bud's lean hip. His hand dropped down and fingered at her leg. Underneath her yellow dress, underneath her sheer stocking-flesh crawled. Lips failed again; the smile was a twitch of red.
"Frosh, live it up!"
"Lay off, Len, jab your own dates."
"But we gotta teach frosh how to mussle-tussle!"
"Lay off, I said! She's my date!"
The black car roaring, chasing its own light. Peggy anchored down the feeling hand with hers. The wind whistled over them and grabbed down chilly fingers at their hair. She didn't want his hand there but she felt grateful to him.
Her vaguely frightened eyes watched the road lurch beneath the wheels. In back, a silent struggle began, taut hands rubbing, parted mouths clinging. Search for the sweet elusive at 120 miles-per-hour.
"Rota-Mota honey," Len moaned the moan between salivary kisses. In the front seat a young girl's heart beat unsteadily. ST. LOUIS-6.
"No kiddin', you never been to Saint Loo?"
"No, I…"
"Then you never saw the loopy's dance?"
Throat contracting suddenly. "No, I… Is that what… we're going to-"
"Hey, frosh never saw the loopy's dance!" Bud yelled back.
Lips parted, slurping; skirt was adjusted with blasй aplomb. "No kiddin'!" Len fired up the words. "Girl, you haven't lived!"
"Oh, she's got to see that," said Barbara, buttoning a button.
"Let's go there then!" yelled Len. "Let's give frosh a thrill!"
"Good enough," said Bud and squeezed her leg. "Good enough up here, right, Peg?"
Peggy's throat moved in the dark and the wind clutched harshly at her hair. She'd heard of it, she'd read of it but never had she thought she'd-
Choose your school friends carefully darling. Be very careful.
But when no one spoke to you for two whole months? When you were lonely and wanted to talk and laugh and be alive? And someone spoke to you finally and asked you to go out with them?
"I yam Popeye, the sailor man!" Bud sang.
In back, they crowed artificial delight. Bud was taking a course in Pre-War Comics and Cartoons-2. This week the class was studying Popeye. Bud had fallen in love with the one-eyed seaman and told Len and Barbara all about him; taught them dialogue and song.
"I yam Popeye, the sailor man! I like to go swimmin' with bow-legged women! I yam Popeye, the sailor man!"
Laughter. Peggy smiled falteringly. The hand left her leg as the car screeched around a curve and she was thrown against the door. Wind dashed blunt coldness in her eyes and forced her back, blinking. 110-115-120 miles-per-hour. ST. LOUIS-3. Be very careful, dear.
Popeye cocked wicked eye.
"O, Olive Oyl, you is my sweet patootie."
Elbow nudging Peggy. "You be Olive Oyl-you."
Peggy smiled nervously. "I can't."
"Sure!"
In the back seat, Wimpy came up for air to announce, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
Three fierce voices and a faint fourth raged against the howl of wind. "I fights to the fin-ish 'cause I eats my spin-ach! I yam Popeye, the sailor man! Toot! Toot!
"I yam what I yam," reiterated Popeye gravely and put his hand on the yellow-skirted leg of Olive Oyl. In the back, two members of the quartet returned to feeling struggle.
ST. LOUIS-1. The black car roared through the darkened suburbs. "On with the nosies!" Bud sang out. They all took out their plasticate nose-and-mouth pieces and adjusted them.
ANCE IN YOUR PANTS WOULD BE A PITY!
WEAR YOUR NOSIES IN THE CITY!!
Ance (anse)
Slang for anticivilian germs; usage evolved during W.W.III.
"You'll like the loopy's dance!" Bud shouted to her over the shriek of wind. "It's sensaysh!"
Peggy felt a cold that wasn't of the night or of the wind. Remember, darling, there are terrible things in the world today. Things you must avoid.
"Couldn't we go somewhere else?" Peggy said but her voice was inaudible. She heard Bud singing, "I like to go swimmin' with bow-legged women!" She felt his hand on her leg again while, in the back, was the silence of grinding passion without kisses.
Dance of the dead. The words trickled ice across Peggy's brain.
ST. LOUIS.
The black car sped into the ruins.
***
It was a place of smoke and blatant joys. Air resounded with the bleating of revelers and there was a noise of sounding brass spinning out a cloud of music-1987 music, a frenzy of twisted dissonances. Dancers, shoe-horned into the tiny square of open floor, ground pulsing bodies together. A network of bursting sounds lanced through the mass of them; dancers singing:
"Hurt me! Bruise me! Squeeze me TIGHT!
Scorch my blood with hot DELIGHT!
Please abuse me every NIGHT!
LOVER, LOVER, LOVER, be a beast-to-me!"
Elements of explosion restrained within the dancing bounds-instead of fragmenting, quivering. "Oh, be a beast, beast, beast, Beast, BEAST to me!"
"How is this, Olive old goil?" Popeye inquired of the light of his eye as they struggled after the waiter. "Nothin' like this in Sykesville, eh?"
Peggy smiled but her hand in Bud's felt numb. As they passed by a murky lighted table, a hand she didn't see felt at her leg. She twitched and bumped against a hard knee across the narrow aisle. As she stumbled and lurched through the hot and smoky, thick-aired room, she felt a dozen eyes disrobing her, abusing her. Bud jerked her along and she felt her lips trembling.
"Hey, how about that!" Bud exulted as they sat. "Right by the stage!"
From cigarette mists, the waiter plunged and hovered, pencil poised, beside their table.
"What'll it be!" His questioning shout cut through cacophony.
"Whiskey-water!" Bud and Len paralleled orders, then turned to their dates. "What'll it be!" the waiter's request echoed from their lips.
"Green Swamp!" Barbara said and, "Green Swamp here!" Len passed it along. Gin, Invasion Blood (1987 Rum), lime juice, sugar, mint spray, splintered ice-a popular college girl drink.
"What about you, honey?" Bud asked his date.
Peggy smiled. "Just some ginger ale," she said, her voice a fluttering frailty in the massive clash and fog of smoke.
"What?" asked Bud and, "What's that, didn't hear!" the waiter shouted.
"Ginger ale."
"What?"
"Ginger ale!"
"GINGER ALE!" Len screamed it out and the drummer, behind the raging curtain of noise that was the band's music, almost heard it. Len banged down his fist. One-Two-Three!
&
nbsp; CHORUS: Ginger Ale was only twelve years old! Went to church and was as good as gold. Till that day when-
"Come on,come on!" the waiter squalled. "Let's have that order, kids! I'm busy!"
"Two whisky-waters and two Green Swamps!" Len sang out and the waiter was gone into the swirling maniac mist.
Peggy felt her young heart flutter helplessly. Above all, don't drink when you're out on a date. Promise us that, darling, you must promise us that. She tried to push away instructions etched in brain.
"How you like this place, honey? Loopy, ain't it?" Bud fired the question at her; a red-faced, happy-faced Bud.
Loopy (loo pi)
Common alter. of L.U.P. (Lifeless Undeath Phenomenon).
She smiled at Bud, a smile of nervous politeness. Her eyes moved around, her face inclined and she was looking up at the stage. Loopy. The word scalpeled at her mind. Loopy, loopy.
The stage was five yards deep at the radius of its wooden semicircle. A waist-high rail girdled the circumference, two pale purple spotlights, unlit, hung at each rail end. Purple on white-the thought came. Darling, isn't Sykesville Business College good enough? No! I don't want to take a business course, I want to major in art at the University!
The drinks were brought and Peggy watched the disembodied waiter's arm thud down a high, green-looking glass before her. Presto!-the arm was gone. She looked into the murky Green Swamp depths and saw chipped ice bobbing.
"A toast! Pick up your glass, Peg!" Bud clarioned.
They all clinked glasses:
"To lust primordial!" Bud toasted.
"To beds inviolate!" Len added.
Nightmare At 20,000 Feet Page 17