by Mark Teppo
The One That Got Away
A haven for raconteurs and fabulists, the Alibi Room was a velvet-lined sanctuary where suggestion and persuasion were the watchwords and truth was such a devalued coin that it couldn’t purchase a condom from the dispenser in the men’s room. Once through the unassuming door and the voluminous coat check where racks of costumes, disguise and false uniforms waited, the patrons redrafted their pasts and invented possible futures. The promise of altered company meant that everyone—the regulars slouched on the narrow stools at the mahogany bar, the graceful and discrete staff, the liars grouped around lacquered tables or sprawled on plush couches—everyone could pretend the world beyond the rust-colored brick and the old growth timber was the fantasy. The only reality that mattered was the invented one wrapped in velvet drapery and limned with orange light.
The Alibi, with its womb darkness and ambient embrace, held Carter tight. Whispering gently to him with the forgotten white noise susurration of his mother’s bloodstream, the Alibi cared. The accounting analysis he did for Empire Financial Services had merit. His study on corporate paper waste was important; his solution, an aggressive recycling program coupled with a carefully calculated ratio of premium bond paper for external communications to recycled pulp for daily consumption. The savings to the company would never be significant—barely two-thirds the salary of one accountant—but the paper reclamation would save several hundred acres every year. That won’t be ignored, the Alibi said to him. Someone would notice, someone would call down to the Fifth floor where the bean counters and money handlers worked their precarious magic. Someone would—
“Hey, Carter. Your turn.”
Carter roused himself. “What?”
Jack waved at the waitress, a slender girl with short pigtails and a Celtic tattoo curling around her wrist. “Pay Jennie and tell us a story.”
Slowly extricating himself from the Alibi’s grip, Carter fumbled for his wallet. Thumbing through his cash like he was trying to separate blades of glass, he tried to think of a good lie. This was the way their game worked: buy a round, tell a story—the others would be a receptive audience, alternately fueling the liar’s tale or expressing mock outrage, false as everything else at the Alibi. Carter tried to compose something as he fumbled a twenty out of his wallet but all that he could think of was dead trees.
Jennie smiled at him, an ivory gleam in the midnight of the room, and took his drunkenly offered bill. She spun around, her pigtails whipping against her lean neck, and smartly marched off to the infinitely distant bar.
He stared at his wallet, his thumb and forefinger rubbing the corner of a second twenty dollar bill. He couldn’t think of a decent story—other than the one whispering in his ear. Your report will be a catalyst. The voice was a lover’s mistral, a persuasive wind that cajoled and seduced, telling him what his yearning heart wanted to hear. Like an organic infection that spreads to each tree—transferred through root and branch—the impact of the document would spread throughout the entire system. One branch, one nut, one sprout: eventually the whole forest is changed.
Deeper in his body, somewhere in the region of his gall bladder and the poison collecting in his liver, a different story was taking hold. No one cares. There was no short-term shareholder value in long-term ecological stewardship.
*
On the tourist maps, the rounded hillock at the center of Windward Park was labeled “Gloriana’s Uprising.” The name was an abandoned epitaph for a matriarch no one remembered, a truncated geological marker christened by a scientist who knew stone and rock but not history. Glory—as the name was abbreviated by the locals—was a rounded mound: verdantly carpeted with wildflowers in the spring, a naked dome with splintered bones of ragged stone poking through in the winter. Stone lion heads—half-buried, their mouths choked with long liana dotted with red flowers—ringed the base of the dome.
In the previous spring, something broke beneath the uprising. Prosaically, it was a ruptured pipe, one of the heavy conduits that ran water from the recirculation plants along the coast near Sweetlow to the downtown corridor and Ludtown to the south beyond the industrial flats of Harbor Island. But, at the Alibi Room, “prosaic” is unsustainable.
Ancient wells, capped centuries ago when the land was barren of hand-tooled stone and shaped steel, had broken open in the wake of the latest seismic tremors that periodically rattled the silverware and dishes. Artesian waters, freed, sought a way out of the their earthen prison. That spring, said the whispers at the Alibi, the lions began to drool.
By mid-summer, the heads were vomiting. And the waters, long preserved beneath the scarred and tormented surface, were so pure they caused the plant life at the center of the park to eruct.
The floral eruption spawned such a cloud of pollen and miasma of rotting fruit that strange creatures were drawn to the wild park, lured out of their hidden demesnes and secret valleys by the redolent paradise’s scent. By the time creeping honeysuckle began to grip the paint-flecked sign of the old Rialto Theater at the corner of Glacier and 17th, anecdotal sightings were part of the pub-speak at the Alibi. Cats the size of Huskies and as black as a starless night. Flying monkeys that clustered like ravens on the broken fire escape railings. Rabbits and gophers that walked upright. Hypnotic serpents, exothermic lizards, slick-skinned nereids, birds that molted gold leaf: the stories grew more fanciful with each passing week, just as the green crept further and further into the houses and streets ringing the traditional boundary of the park.
Winter froze the spread of the trees and vines, arresting their invasion of the brick and stone. The moon floated low over Glory during the cold months, its icy gaze layering rime and ice on the rounded hump. Pathways to the heart of the park became blocked and redirected, hiding the frozen paradise so that it became a sanctuary for the strange creatures that had been drawn to the city.
When the unicorn’s side was pricked, it fled back to the hidden heart of Glory. Bloody spatter, stark and black against the frosted ground, was the precious trail that led the hunters through the icy maze of Windward Park.
*
David knelt and touched the red smear on the whitened ground. His face knotted with disbelief and uncertainty, he showed his stained glove to the others. “It’s blood,” he said.
Jack grunted as he reset his crossbow. “I told you I winged it.” He fished another metal bolt out of the nylon pouch on his belt and slipped it into the groove of the stock.
“Winged what?” David asked. “There was nothing . . .” His voice faltered as he smeared the blood between two fingertips, feeling the sticky lubricant slide between his gloved fingers.
“It was standing right here,” Jack said, pointing at the ground. “Carter saw it too.”
Carter hunched his shoulders as David looked at him. “I saw something,” he muttered. “Looked like—”
“A fucking unicorn,” Jack interrupted. “Come on. Say it. You saw it.” He mimed the presence of a protrusion from his forehead. “You saw the horn.”
“I don’t know what I saw, Jack,” Carter said. “I mean, you were shooting at it before I could really be sure what it was.”
“Oh, that’s such bullshit.” Jack scuffed the ground, throwing up a spray of ice slivers. He turned to the fourth man for support. “Did you see it Hurley?”
Hurley, his gaze focused on the David’s stained gloves, swallowed heavily and shook his head. Carter noticed his hands were tight on the stock of his crossbow and his breathing was shallow and quick.
Jack shook his head. “I know what I saw. It was all white, and its mane was like glass. It was standing right here.”
Carter looked at his feet instead of meeting Jack’s fervent gaze. His eyes ached, and his tongue was
thick and heavy. Words seemed like bricks, too unwieldy to shift with his fat tongue.
“You wanted this too, Carter.” Jack’s face had the feral gleam again, that focused rush of the adrenaline talking. He crouched beside David and swiped his fingers through the spray of blood. He smeared unicorn blood across his forehead and down his cheeks. “We could have come without you, but you’re the one that wanted something more than just a made-up story for the Alibi. You wanted something real.” He stalked away, following an irregular path of crimson dots that led deeper into the park.
David’s eyes followed Jack, and Carter saw him register the irregular spatter that Jack was following. “I didn’t see anything,” he said to Carter, his voice low enough that Jack couldn’t hear it. “Nothing but shadows.”
“Shadows don’t bleed,” Hurley said, stepping close to the other two as if engaging them in a conspiracy. “There was something there, wasn’t there Carter?”
Carter touched his throat, rubbed his gloved hand across the cold skin of his neck as if he was trying to massage out the stuck words.
“You did see something,” David said. “Just like Jack.”
Carter nodded, still reluctant to speak of what he had seen. The unicorn had been nearly invisible against the backdrop of frosted tree trunks. But once Carter had been able to distinguish the difference between unicorn horn and tree branch, once he realized the distinction between ice-bleached bark and sleek hide, he had been able to see the creature without any difficulty.
Jack’s crossbow bolt had caught it high on the right hip. Carter had watched it rear, moonlight twisting its pearlescent horn, and he had almost closed his eyes. As if such a denial would undo what he had witnessed.
*
Hurley arrived in time to pay for the next round of drinks. He gave a credit card to Jennie and then stared at the rocking motion of her backside as she walked away. “Man, it’s like clockwork,” he said, making a ‘tick-tock’ noise with his mouth. “I never get tired of watching that.”
Jack and David laughed, an eager audience response to the “Laugh Now!” marquee powered by Hurley’s ego and wit. A gregarious salesman, he was well on his way to becoming a florid man; his ready smile and loosely hinged jaw spread his features out toward his ears. His hands were large, engorged so as to stretch around the gravid circumference of his stomach, and his reach was like the open wingspan of a heron.
“You will not believe the day I’ve had,” Hurley started. When Carter, the designee to be vocally incredulous by virtue of being on Hurley’s right, said nothing, he spread his hands wide like he was reaching to hug the entire table. “It was pretty incredible.”
Jack dismissed Carter’s vacant stare. “Some report he turned in. Got him in a funk.”
Hurley’s grin stretched as wide as his hands. “Okay, so there’s this Executive Assistant who works for the Vice-President of Sales. I hear she’s, like, forty-eight years old or something. You’d never believe it. Toned, tight—must spend four hours a day at the gym. Just an amazing piece of ass.
“Anyway, we’re in the elevator today—coming back from some meeting on Four—just her and I, and she catches me sneaking a peek at her tits. Know what she says? She says—”
“‘Take me back to your office and fuck me’?” Carter surfaced from his reverie, revenant rising from an ancient tomb, drawn back to the table by Hurley’s story.
Hurley’s smile faltered, real-time erosion stripping away the edge of a cliff. “Hey, Carter, come on.”
“You always tell the same story.” Carter looked at the others, inspecting their faces for a sign that they, too, were aware of the persistent core of Hurley’s tales. “Aren’t you tired of it?”
“It’s not the same,” Hurley countered.
“Oh, what was last week’s?” Carter asked. “An intern in the copy center who wanted to get copies of your dick. Was that it? And the week before—something about a car wash?”
“Come on, Carter, we’re at the Alibi.” David put a hand on his arm. “Does it matter?”
Carter shoved his hand away, drunkenly missing his wrist and having to use his whole arm to push the other man away. “Yeah, maybe. Maybe if we’re going to lie to each other—to ourselves—we ought to be a little better at it.”
“Who pissed in his drink?” Hurley groused.
“No, damnit. I’m serious. Aren’t we getting too old for this? How long are we going to keep coming here and telling the same banal lies?”
“I thought that was the point.” Jack raised an eyebrow.
“What are we hiding from?” Carter countered.
Jack reached for his drink. “Well Carter, since you’re the one pissing in the stories, why don’t you tell us. What are we—what are you—hiding from?”
The room lurched beneath Carter as if Jack’s words were punctuated by a quake—tremors rumbling through the manmade bluff of the city’s edge, threatening to calve off the Alibi Room and throw it down into the bay. A muscle in Carter’s cheek twitched as if he had just been stung by a wasp. Does it matter?
Does any of it matter? An existential black hole lurked in wait for him. The velvet womb of the Alibi tried to hide him from this pit, tried to keep him from spilling into the limitlessness of . . .
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“Then quit spoiling it for everyone else.”
*
“So, are you a virgin?” Hurley asked Carter as they walked along the path beneath the frozen branches.
“Excuse me?” Carter said.
Hurley stopped and put his hand on Carter’s arm to slow him down. “You know the stories. The unicorn can only be snared by those who are innocent of sin. You know, virginal maids sitting out under trees, waiting for the unicorn to come lay its head in their lap. Maybe that’s why they were bait; they could see the animal.” He shrugged. “Ergo: since you can see it, does that mean you’re a virgin?”
Carter looked at the ice-fused branches of the poplars and birch overhead. As a child, he had chased squirrels in the park, laughingly pursuing them into the thickets of trees until they darted up the knotted trunks. It had been a long time, but he remembered always seeing the sky: blue through the partially interlocked puzzles of the leaves. Now, winter linked the trees in the awkward embraces of estranged cousins at familial funerals. It was like being inside a cathedral, a sacred place where confessions were heard and one’s holy worth was considered. Are you a virgin? Are you worthy of God’s embrace?
Suddenly colder, his spine reacting to an impression—a latent memory that was more instinct than personal recollection—Carter shivered and looked away from the dome of ice.
Ahead of them, David and Jack tracked the unicorn’s trail, eyes watching for the chaotic pattern of each successive spatter.
“Listen,” Hurley said, “It’s not a big deal if you are, but—”
“What about Jack?” Carter interrupted, indicating the two men ahead of them. “Is he a virgin too?”
Hurley opened and closed his mouth several times. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“By your argument, non-virgins can’t see the unicorn, which would explain why long-time studs like you and David can’t see it. You’re blind because you shook your dicks at too many girls over the years. Is that how it works?”
“It’s just an idea—”
Carter cut Hurley off with an abrasive laugh. “Maybe I’ve not had the ‘office romances’ that you’ve had, but I lost my virginity when I was fifteen, Hurley. And I’ve slept with a few women since then.”
“Fine,” Hurley snapped. “You got a better explanation?”
“We should be asking Jack. He seems to be the resident expert.”
“Right,” Hurley snorted. “David would know better. He’s been hunting—”
“What?”
“Maybe that’s what it is.” Hurley grabbed Carter’s arm. “Listen, maybe it’s like that theory that every story is augmented and changed with every telling. You know, like that game we
did in school as kids where we’d all line up and the teacher would whisper something to the first kid. He’d pass it along to the next and the next to the next, you know, on down the line. The last kid then says aloud what he is told, and it is always different. Maybe the myth of the unicorn is the same thing. After all these generations of telling the story, the details have gotten muddled. Maybe it’s not about being a ‘virgin’ but about being innocent.”
“Innocent. How?”
“You ever been hunting, Carter? Have you ever killed anything?”
“No. Jesus, Hurley.” Carter grimaced. “I’ve never even held a crossbow before tonight.”
“Right. And David and I have. He’s taken me bow hunting with him a couple of times now. This isn’t my first time.”
“But that would mean that Jack is innocent too.” Carter glanced at the receding pair. Until he found his quarry again. Until they caught up with the wounded animal. His chest tightened as if a python was squeezing his ribs. “What happens to the unicorn if we kill it?”
Hurley hefted his crossbow, getting a better grip on the stock. His eyes were bright and clear, unstained by alcohol. “Maybe that’s when it becomes visible again. Maybe that’s the only way the rest of us will ever see it.”
*
The waitress replenished their drinks, removing the ice-filled glasses as if she was clearing the detritus of an expired ceremony. The four men made no eye contact with one another for a moment, their faces turned in random directions like a quartet of demagnetized compasses. The foursome, cast adrift from their collective mood by Carter’s outburst, sought other distractions. Hurley stared after the waitress; David grew fascinated with the play of light on the half-moon of his fingernails; Carter’s eyes roved around the room as he tried to pretend he didn’t feel the feral burn of Jack’s gaze.
“Are you tired of listening to us, Carter?” Jack asked. “Is it too much of an effort to have a beer and play along for a few hours? Have we bored you that badly?”
Carter stared at his glass, unwilling to raise his head. “I’m just tired,” he said. “Long week. It’s got nothing to do with anything.”