Voice of the Blood

by Jemiah Jefferson

  I know too much about myself; if my flesh didn't heal, I'd be crisscrossed with scars from samples, biopsies, attempts to brand myself, eat myself with acid, wear my skin off with diamonds. Not a whit. Everything I uncover leads to questions and more questions, and the more I see, the less I understand.

  Daniel actually called me the other day. I hadn't heard from him since that night, and assumed I never would again. I finally opened the rat pocket watch after perhaps six months of living in Portland, and in it found the number of the bank account where he'd put money away for Lovely and me. I took some of it out, but left the rest there. It's quite a lot—enough to buy a different house, if that urge ever overcame me. Eventually I'm sure it will.

  Daniel's somewhere on the other side of the world; I'm not sure where, but it's not England. The connecting operator had a British Empire accent, but it sure wasn't England. The first thing he said was, "Do you still have my jacket?"

  "I wear it almost every day," I said truthfully. "The kids all think I'm some kind of dominatrix."

  "No, it's just style. Do you miss me?"

  "I've begun to miss you. It's been long enough. I was thinking that the Van Helsing Society had caught up with you or something."

  "Van Helsing was a vampire. Anybody who's seen enough Christopher Lee movies knows that. Guess what? I'm writing plays!"

  "Great."

  "They're all filled with sex and damnation—you know, fun stuff. I've got these actors who are dying to perform them… mainly we just put them on in the front room, you know, over some iced tea and cucumber salad."

  "Have you heard from Ricari?"

  "No, why? He's gone, isn't he."

  "Yeah, he took off for Toronto a while ago."

  "I doubt that he's there actually. He tends to hop around, hoping he won't be found. It's ever so Ferdinand Marcos of him. I haven't heard from him, heard of him, or anything… that's probably for the best. He really hates my guts."

  "He doesn't. You just freak him out."

  "Do I freak you out?"

  I smiled against the pillow. He'd interrupted me in the middle of my late afternoon lying-abed, not asleep, but staring at the pinkened peak of Mt. Hood out my bedroom window as the sun went down behind me, out of my sight. "Pleasantly."

  "I was afraid you'd answer the phone and say 'Fuck off!' " He laughed. "You'd only be right to do so. I'm a terrible, terrible person. I should have died a long time ago."

  "Hush up, none of that. You can't help being alive any more than a baby can."

  "And I seem to have no more control over myself. Ah, Ariane. I've been trying to change. I've been trying to be a good boy and not fuck shit up. But how do you do it? Destroying things comes so naturally to me. I've always been this way. In Berlin, in the twenties, I was a madman! I lived to drink, fight, and fuck. I don't know how else to do it."

  "I don't know, Daniel."

  "Oh, God, did I wake you up? I didn't even think."

  "No, it's fine. It's fine. You know, there's a parking lot where the Rotting Hall used to be."

  "Marvelous, that's the way it should be. I can't wait until it's all parking lots. I should go. Can I call you again sometime?"

  "Sure, Dan. Anytime you want."

  "You're the best," he said softly.

  "I know," I smiled.

  "I must run. Take care, look out for the sun."

  "I'm looking out," I said.

  "Bye." He hung up before I could respond.

  John, now still, lies beside me in bed. Neither of us is asleep, though the sun is beginning to brighten the gray rain clouds. This is the longest he's stayed with me in a very long time; usually, he comes in, ravishes me, and before the sweat has cooled on our bodies, he kisses me and disappears, well before the dawn. "The sun's coming up," I say to him. "You should go now, before it's too late."

  His eyes are closed—his thoughts swirl around me, amazingly calm for him. Usually his brain is in a state of psychotic turmoil—a tangle of anger and loss and compulsive recall of physical principles. I've learned a great deal about particle physics, just being inside his head. "John?" I prod again. "You don't want to go out in sunlight."

  He opens eyes at last and smiles at me. "No sun," he murmurs, his voice a scratchy wreck. He almost never speaks. "Gray."

  "Doesn't mean it can't hurt you, love."

  "I'm not going," he whispers. "Not yet."

  I don't let the excitement and pleasure show on my face, which is pointless, as he can read my mind as easily as I can read his. "You can always stay," I tell him. "You know that."

  "Not forever," he sighs, and buries his beautiful face into the pillow.

  "Forever as far as I'm concerned," I say.

  "Sleep," he says into the pillow.

  He takes me into his arms and presses me to him, his flesh already starting to lose its warmth, its color. I relax and let consciousness and life drain out of me until I'm as good as dead.

  When I wake up at sunset he is leaving. He's put on his still-wet, still-muddy, cast-off clothes, dumpster wear, appropriate for his hideout underneath the Pioneer Courthouse post office, but shameful on his body. Already his head hangs down; his hair obscuring his face. "Don't go, please," I plead, knowing it's useless. John is not mine. John is John's.

  He glances up at me for a second. "Come with me," he offers.

  "No, John, I like to have a house."

  "And I like to have a road" he explains. "I like to have earth. Earth… and… sky." His eyes nutter closed for a second, and he slips into a beautiful, untouched, heavenly reverie; then he is back, and the pain in his mind takes over again. "I love you… but I can't… forgive you."

  "I know."

  He touches his temple and smiles apologetically. "It… doesn't work anymore," he sighs. "G'bye."

  "Wait—another kiss—" I start half out of bed.

  He stands at the door and kisses the back of his hand. Then he waves the hand, and he is gone. "I'll be back…" His voice floats faintly to me. I roll over in bed and stare out the window.

  Such is the world.