The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2)

by Norwood, Shane

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Hurricane. Am I right?”

  “Do I look that much like a tourist?”

  “No, ma’am, you look like a woman who’s seen more than she wanted to.”

  “And what’s the remedy for that?”

  The barman held up a finger and walked away. The old man began to sing in his beautiful cracked-bell voice.

  “A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces.”

  The barman came back with a tall slender glass. Inside was a liquid the color of a cloud at sunrise. He placed it before Asia and walked away.

  “An airline ticket to romantic places.”

  She took a sip of the drink. It was like taking a mouthful of hot coffee with an ice cube in your mouth. She moved the glass from her lips and looked at it in surprise. It was clear, yet she couldn’t see through it. She swirled the glass. It seemed as if some shadow dwelt within it. She had the weirdest sensation that the drink was alive, that it was observing her. She took another drink. That time it burned, and tasted like smoke.

  “Oh how the ghost of you clings.”

  Am I losing my mind? I feel transparent. I feel weightless and crushed by the weight. I am afraid but I fear nothing. I am hollow. I echo with emptiness and yet I am full to overflowing with a love I do not feel. I have a hunger I cannot feed. A need that can never be fulfilled. Did I die? Really. Am I gone? From myself. From him. Am I lost? Was the string broken, were the breadcrumbs eaten by birds? Am I abandoned? Or do I myself abandon. Is something stolen from me? I feel everything and nothing. If I feel nothing, why do I cry? When they do a Cesarean, they tear the womb, because tears heal quicker than cuts. Is that true? Do they heal? Is a scar a message? That you can never run. Never hide. Never escape. Will I always feel like this? Do I have the strength for this? No. Does he deserve it? No. But I don’t know him anymore. I cannot be with him. I cannot touch him. Heimdall will not open the gate. I cannot pass. I want it, but I cannot will it to be so. The days have passed and so the night, and the storm has raged and turned me inside out and torn from me cries of passion and desperation, but the rope has parted and the chain is broken and the rain has extinguished the fire that burned and was supposed to burn forever, but oh, why did it not? Oh, why did it not? And the loneliness already howls in my soul but I cannot turn back for I am not who I once was, and neither is he, and neither are we, and where in God’s name will I find the strength to tell him, at this, the worst of times, and where will I find the words that I dare not speak and yet I must?

  “These foolish things, remind me of you.”

  Asia stood. The tears streamed down her face and dripped onto her blouse. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing. It’s on the house.”

  The sweet remembered words stooped like a hawk and clutched her heart in their talons. “What’s this called?”

  “A Kiss from a Stranger.”

  Asia lifted the glass. She poured it down in one. She looked defiantly at the bartender. “What’s in it?”

  The bartender smiled. A car went past and turned the corner. The headlights briefly illuminated the barman’s eyes; they flashed wildfire red. He leaned forward.

  “Fucked if I know,” he said.

  Asia walked toward the door. The piano player stopped playing and looked up as she passed. She looked at his milky pupils. He waved. He had two fingers missing from his right hand. She walked out into the young night. It was cool. A light rain had fallen and stopped. She looked around. A man played a saxophone on the corner. A group of young men walked down the street with their arms around each other’s shoulders. A cop watched them, twirling his nightstick. A man got out of a cab. He shouted something at his girlfriend inside. The door slammed shut and the cab drove off. The man stood in the middle of the street watching it go. A cat climbed out of a trashcan. A drunk was passed out in an alley. A big black car sprayed water from a puddle. Somewhere a glass broke. Someone sang. Someone shouted. A breeze picked up and riffled the sleeves on her blouse. The tears in her eyelashes turned the streetlights to diamonds. She turned and walked back toward the apartment.

  To tell Baby Joe Young that she was leaving him.

  ***

  “Strewth. Strike a fucken light, mate. It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.” Wally was expressing his opinion of the local meteorological conditions to the postman, who was driving him by sleigh to Bjorn Eggen’s house.

  “Ja. For sure. You are seeing the big tree yonder. Vhen ve pass this tree, ve vill be inside the Arctic Circle.”

  In truth, Wally wasn’t seeing much of anything. He had his parka zipper up as far as it would go, and his ancient dark eyes were peering out at the world through a furry tunnel, like some mythic creature staring out of a cave. There were four reindeer pulling the sled, and Wally was perched in the back like a dusky Father Christmas from some alternate universe, as black against the snow as if he had already climbed down the chimney.

  Wally did not appreciate the cold unless it was in the form of a tin with Castlemaine XXXX written on the side of it. Fortunately, he still had his Army issue N-3B snorkel parka, which was good for up to minus fifty C. He needed it. The weather had been bitter all the way from Oslo, as if reflecting his state of mind. Normally, Wally loved a train ride. Sit by the window, suck back a few, watch the world rolling past. Look at the people and wonder about their lives. Think about your own. But this wasn’t normally.

  As Wally was carried north, the perpetually somber skies began to weigh upon him. Standing at the small station waiting for his local train to Gjudbumsenningbjerg, he watched the rails gleaming dully in the half light, seeming to hint at some lonely desolate destination, and he felt his spirits sinking like the low amber sun that had barely cleared the horizon and was already disappearing behind clouds so heavy and close that he felt he could reach out and touch them.

  He was trying to avoid the thought that it was a terrible place to die, but he could not. Thoughts of death had permeated his mind since his journey began, and he was unable to break free of them, compelled to dwell upon his own mortality as he peered out of the windows at the dark fields and trees beyond. He found himself yearning for the sun. He knew that it did not make sense to wish to die in a warm place, and that the dying would not be any less for doing so, and yet as he looked at the endless snow and ice, and watched the bleak and forbidding landscape unfurl, he wished it.

  ***

  Crispin was enjoying his chaudin immensely and shoveling it down with gusto after that dreadful hospital food. Unusually for Crispin, he was washing it down with large schooners of beer.

  “This is just scrumptious,” he was telling Asia. “I have no idea what it is, but I even like the name. I might have to indulge myself and order another one.”

  Crispin might not have been quite so enamored of his dinner if he had known he was eating a stuffed pig’s stomach.

  “And this beer is just great. I really don’t know what’s come over me. I never drink beer. Maybe I’m becoming macho in my old age.”

  Crispin giggled. His cheeks were flushed. He was so happy to be out of the hospital, and the beer and the ambience in the restaurant were making him lightheaded, and he was being animated and garrulous, even for him. He was so caught up in his own mood that he didn’t seem to notice how subdued Asia was. She was happy to see Crispin so happy, and was trying to pay attention to what he was saying, but she couldn’t concentrate. Her mind was stuck in replay, a constant reviewing of the loop. She kept hearing her own words, over and over.

  “Something has gone, Baby Joe. Just like you said it would. And I don’t know how to get it back. I want to. I want to love you again, but I can’t. I…”

  She kept seeing the look on Baby Joe’s face as he stood up to leave without waiting for her to finish. She had never seen that look in his eyes before. So desolate. So ravaged. And then the change—the look of defeat and pain gone. Replaced by a blue fire, pur
e and implacable. The eyes of Baby Joe Young. In that instant she realized what she had done. She knew him again, and loved him with a fierce desperation. She started to call out to him, to tell him to come back, to tell him she had changed her mind, to tell him that she was sorry, that she didn’t mean it.

  But it was too late. He was already gone.

  Her eyes started to fill. She excused herself and went to the bathroom. Crispin had still not noticed that anything was wrong. He was acting weird. A cartoon Crispin. A caricature of himself, wired, jazzed and intense. He was wearing a purple zoot suit that he had bought in honor of his discharge, and he had a magnolia in his lapel, and a burnt umber Gatsby hat. His eyes were shining, but brittle and a little too bright.

  The waiter came over and asked him if he wanted dessert. He was a comely young man with a dark complexion. Crispin thought he might have a little Arab blood in him.

  “I have a twinkle in my toes, a song in my heart, and something in my pants, but it ain’t ants, baby,” Crispin said, raising his eyebrows.

  “I’m sure you do, sir. But what about dessert?”

  “I’ll have a frappé, a crème brûlée, and a Tanqueray.”

  “How would you like your gin, sir?”

  “Straight,” said Crispin, raising his eyebrows again.

  The waiter walked away, shaking his head. Asia came back. She had redone her makeup, but anyone could tell that she had been crying. Anyone except for Crispin.

  “It’s really strange,” he said as she sat down.

  “What is?”

  “Well, all these years and I never knew I was allergic. Fancy that. A little sting from a bee or whatever it was and you end up in the hospital. Where’s Baby Joe, by the way?”

  “He’s not coming.”

  “Why not?”

  “I left him.”

  “Left him where?”

  “I mean I left…”

  Before she could finish, the band started playing. Her words trailed off. Crispin started to clap. Asia looked at him. She could feel she was going to cry again. A fat man in a bright blue glittering tuxedo came out onto the small stage. He started to sing.

  Asia tried again. “Crispin. Baby Joe and me. We…”

  “Are you listening to this racket? That fat fucker can’t sing to save his life.”

  “Crispin. I’m trying to tell you that…”

  “I’m not having this.”

  “Crispin…”

  Crispin got up and charged toward the stage. The people laughed when he grabbed the microphone. They thought it was all part of the act.

  “Oi. Give me that fucking microphone, you fat bastard. Let me show you how a professional does it.”

  The people were howling as Crispin and the fat man wrestled for the microphone. The man threw his hands in the air and walked off. Crispin turned to the people.

  “Right, ladies and gentleman. No more of that shit. Who wants to hear a proper song?”

  The people cheered and whistled. Some of the people at the tables at the back stood up to get a better view. Crispin turned to the band. They were laughing too.

  “Okay, boys. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ in G. One, two, three.”

  The bandleader shrugged his shoulders and nodded. The band hit it. Crispin went into his Elvis impression and the people went apeshit, stomping and yelling and banging on the tables. Some couples got up to dance. The fat man ran up in his blue sequined tux and tried to grab the mike. Crispin kicked him in the nuts and he went down. The people fell about. They were crowding around, clapping in unison as Crispin jerked his fat leg and swiveled his portly pelvis. His bouffant was twitching like an electrocuted squirrel.

  When the cops came and hauled him off the stage, the folks thought that was all part of the act as well. As they dragged Crispin away, kicking and screaming, people realized it wasn’t an act. They started to boo. Coasters and ice cubes began to pelt the police. As the cops manhandled him out of the door. Crispin turned, wild-eyed and sweating, to look for Asia. She was gone.

  ***

  Fanny was having serious trouble lending credence to her own plot. This shit only happened in fairy tales. If she sent the scenario to her publisher, her publisher would probably ask her when she had decided to start writing science fiction. It wasn’t beauty and the beast; it was radiant and the repulsive. Leda and the fucking vulture. Zeus had transformed himself into a foul ogre and battered down the door to her castle.

  They had done a John and Yoko and been in bed for the best part of a week. The man had the stamina and appetite of a beast. And sensitivity unsuspected even to himself. She had drawn forth the disappointed child and brought him into the light. With her, the pit bull was a puppy. Talk about judging books by their covers. To her, Khuy Zalupa was a poem wrapped in the cover from a comic book, a bible bound in pages torn from a pornographic magazine, and a hero who kissed the frog but the fucking frog lied. They say that inside every fat person is a thin person trying to get out. Well, maybe inside every late-night movie-monster motherfucker there is a Leonardo DiCaprio trying to get out. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  And the man had a mind. He had ideas. When he wasn’t twirling his weird willy winky inside her, and filling her full of balloons filled with rum and hot chocolate, he was filling her mind with stories that defied belief yet which she believed to be true. Incredible stories. Drama and romance on the Steppes, poets and duels, princesses who never smiled for fear they should wrinkle their faces, queens that had stallions lowered upon them and who shot their guards through the windows just for fun, palaces of ice, lakes of fire, a man who loved a woman so much he vowed to walk a thousand miles over broken glass just to throw stones at her shit, monks who spoke words that healed, a forest that circled the world, tigers and bears, Cossacks and Tatars, a sea frozen over, a lunatic who danced naked under the moon wearing dead bats for a crown, a warrior who fought his own shadow for eternity, a river that flowed endlessly into its own source, the circle of life and death and renewal, profanity and ritual. Hope. Oh, and the current black market ruble exchange rate.

  Theirs was an epic debauch. Champagne corks cannonaded the walls, and an army of empty caviar tins lay siege to the bed. Orchids and roses lay strewn around the room like exhausted dancers. Shostakovich and Prokofiev flowed from the speakers. He read to her: Nabokov, Sholokhov. He played his violin and sang sad gypsy songs, the monster weeping in his chains, and she cried and was inspired, and vowed to write her masterpiece and dedicate it to him.

  The only sour note was that creep Oleg, and that big fucking dog. They were always outside the door. They never left. They ate there and slept there. Sometimes, when Khuy was asleep, sucker-punched by passion and out for the count, she lay there in the darkness and could hear Oleg snoring, and Bolshoi grunting and farting…or maybe that was the other way around too.

  Anyway, she had made up her mind. Her mirror did not lie. She was forty-two years old, and her search was ended. She had finally found a harbor where she could drop anchor and be secure for the rest of her days, and be rocked gently to sleep by the tides, but that sinister motherfucker Oleg and his mangy pet hyena were not part of the domestic arrangements and were going to have to go.

  ***

  Wally’s journey had been long enough for him to begin to question the wisdom of it, but now he was here, he knew it was the right thing to do, and he was anxious to see his friend. The postman, whose name was Sven Svensson, had a nose like a year-old carrot and eyes like fried quails eggs. It may have been due to his age, or a lifetime’s exposure to severe weather conditions, or it may have had something to do with his more or less constant intake of aquavit, which he now offered to Wally.

  “Shit a brick, mate,” Wally offered by way of appreciation, and the aquavit brought tears to his eyes which quickly froze on his cheeks. The sled slid to a halt. Wally saw the steam rising from the flanks of the beasts, and the condensed air from their nostrils.

  “You must walk from here,” Sven said. “The ho
use is through those trees. If he is not in the house, follow the trail behind to the trees.”

  Wally climbed down and handed the bottle back to Sven.

  Sven shook his head. “Keep it. You will need it more than I.”

  Wally nodded. “Good on ya, mate.”

  He watched the reindeer make an elegant turn and trot away down the road, diminishing into the whiteness under the dark trees. It was a melancholy sight. He suddenly felt very far from home. He turned and began to trudge through the deep snow, feeling ungainly in the huge boots.

  When he reached the house the door was open. He walked in but nobody was there. He was about to call out when he saw that the back door was also open. He went out and followed the trail. He could see the frozen lake in the distance. Under a huge fir, a side trail forked off at an acute angle. Through the branches, Wally could see something red. It was a hat. He headed toward it. He passed a line of wooden crosses, each with a dog collar attached to it, the leather twisted to black iron by the elements.

  He stopped when he saw Bjorn Eggen sitting by the grave, wrapped up in a white parka, his hat a rare bright bloom against the whiteness. An elkhound lay at his feet. He could see his breath rising around him. The dying sun cast the last of its sad, pale light on the snow. Wally watched Bjorn Eggen raise a bottle to his lips. He smiled and stepped forward.

  Chapter 10

  The late, lamented Dmitri’s boss had much in common with many other bosses, insomuch as he was an arrogant self-serving asshole with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. That was probably what led to his adopting an entirely inappropriate attitude when one of the members called him and irately informed him that someone was exercising a dog on the third hole, and that it had defecated right next to the pin.