“Keep your head down through the crowd,” he says and she does. The sense of being smothered by the slaloms of shoulders reminds her of swimming, though actually drowning in racing thoughts of a new place. A new play at life, a new plain, a new picture to live.
“Where to?”
“The path to anywhere, everywhere and often nowhere in particular, your perception of it I guess,” he says, then noticing the grimly grimacing faces floating against the currents of the crowd. They start waving quartz and brass badges, and shouting inaudibly while quickening their approach toward the two. Pushing themselves through the strap hangers swarming to their daily graves.
“Why so rough?” she says “are they after us?”
“We've got to get out of here.”
“We just got here,” she says, counting three in pursuit, a fourth swipes at her head, missing. Instead getting tangled with a pedestrian and falling under the sleepily stampeding feet of the crowd. Giving Anna a look of worry before being swept from sight. A gust of wind wipes a newspaper stand into the air clouds of spreading sheets blot out the sky with the morning's stories. A page of the InterAlto timeless, a main InterAlto rag, shows a glimpse of a picture in passing. Of a face and a passage and large letters reading “Wanted” “alive or not so much, either way two thousand gallons silver” “Apples ‘Cider’ Cider of the notorious juice box gang.” The face in the picture is holding an expressionless gaze, unsettling her soul and contradicting the boyish charm of the man leading her to supposed safety.
The two spill from the morning swarm into the streets of a four story sleepy village the size of a small city. They flee to the side streets, tucking into the nearest alley way. At six hours to this Alto’s noon the two reach the saloon of an out of the way hotel. Entering the lobby just as a fat charcoal suited balding business man inhales something squidish thing from a large soup cauldron between his knees. Breathing heaving grunts with each chomp of his slurping shark mouth. A Slender blonde sits opposite the feasting fat man, looking meagerly fed. Starved for a father's love as a youth, who then starves herself for the idyll affections of hideous strangers with money.
“We need to rest,” Cider says to the stork faced lobby girl standing behind a cedar desk, before a wall of door keys, and beneath a black hat that slightly too big for her small head.
“Some rest will be some money,” squawks the clerk with bended neck, squinting to Anna.
“Is this place open?”
“Yeah hun, the money.”
“How much?” Anna asks.
“Don't worry about it, I got a thing.”
“For two rooms.”
“We have only one left,” the clerk says.
“With two beds?” Anna asks. Cider digs through his pockets for a wallet, then his wallet for a stack of cards, then the cards for a blue one or a green one.
“Here ya go,” he says handing her a green one.
“No.”
“Okay, this one.”
“It's a different name sir.”
“So, charge an extra hundred or who cares.”
Cla cling! the register pops and chings closed.
“Third floor, somewhere,” the clerk drones pointing away, just away.
“Thank you,” Anna says.
“Go away sir,” the clerk says sternly, then smirks and lets out a daffy laugh. The two walk across the lobby's wooden floor, a room resembling a large bar. The fat man is splashing his meal onto the starving blonde sitting next to him. The call button dings and lights up as Anna yawns toward her reflection in the polished and scratched brass elevator doors. Their room is at the end of a hall with red and gray checkered floor tiles and agitating blue lights highlighting scuffed beige paint and water stained walls
“This is it,” he says, putting the key into its hole and jiggling it without result.
“Number nine-three,” she says. The door opens to a dingy feeling room with teal paint peeling off the ceiling. Sparsely furnished by only a mirrored dresser, and a table, and rocking chair at an open window as furniture. Wrought with the smell of mildew and a feel of melancholy that they'd have to accept to be ever comfortable in. She collapses fully clothed on the bed, and rolls herself in its sheets. Not even getting the sneakers off her throbbing tired feet before she falls fast asleep a minute before sunrise with the moon standing bright in the sky.
Anna yawns awake in the comfort of an empty room and an empty bed, sliding her sneakers off her feet.
“Did we?” she asks, though is answered only by the ceiling fan creaking and lazily the wafting the air, sounding like the ticking of an uneven clock.
“How will I get home?” she whispers her first wakeful thought. Then again reliving how she got to be in the bed she’s been laying alone in for the last few hours. Bathed in sunlight ebbing through the dancing dust that fills the room. A smoke yellowed curtain wavers in the window she's been sitting at from sun up to sundown for the last several days. Prowling her view for the pedestrians passing in their daily habits, finding it much different from her standard. Thinking of it as a quiet river town, though having not left the room since she's been here. Knowing nothing of anything but what she can see through her caged bird’s eye view from a fourth story window. When asked about the wanted picture in the papers he told her he’s wanted for the minor violation of unlawful InterAlto transit, akin to hopping a turnstile, and that she is wanted as well. Telling her that to leave one's own Alto when it and she is supposed to have been washed out is a crime to nature, and the laws are after her for it. Unable to mount an argument against what she doesn’t fully understand, she settles for the explanation, thinking it was likely why they tried to snatch her.
She's told by him sternly with wagging finger that she is to stay indoors and out of sight or she might be captured. And to order as much room service as she wants, for her own safety of course. Being new to experience of traveling and having no context for where she is other than how sure she is that she's actually experiencing it. She plays it safe, placing the do not disturb on the door knob at all times. He's usually on his way out, and when she asked about the weapon on his waist he just said “Watching the weather can be dangerous” on his way out.
The light of the sun isn't constant here, it glows dim and bright at a rate of ten times per minute. Constantly throbbing through the clouds and coating the trees and streets in its ebbing and flowing light of day. It's both cold here and damp, each a bit to her disliking. Rolling across the ground like tremors are the jollies. Un-gravity waves that rush through the Alto for miles at time, miming the movement of a droplet into a puddle, though spreading seismic waves through solid earth and structures. Whatever thing they pass under, for the moment the jolly passes under it, is free of gravity and thrown several feet into the air, and brought back down to the ground just out place of the place it came up. Because of this weather almost everything here is fastened to the floor. She can’t help but think what their kitchens must be like when one of the jollies strolls by, conceiving it to be a lot like hot wack-a-mole with pots and pans, to be a soup chef one must be able to catch falling boiling hot fluid before their shoes touch the ground.
She gets up, checking the door, making sure it's bolt locked so she’d know when he comes. A jolly strolls past as she sits in the tub, in air seeing her own face in the mirror of another existence, spurring her mind to ponder of purpose and perspective, of who she is when out of the context of everything she's ever known. And not forgetting being alone in a room, locked away by the words of a man on a wanted poster in a place she's never been before. Unsure of whether or not to put trust on a man who says he's a weather chaser, with an ankle piece. She plops at the chair next to the window, rocking with the rhythm of daylight. Seeing a mix of steeples and flat roofs stretching as far as her eye can see. On the street below is a butcher shop with a pig winking in the window. A bakery with a sticky sweet smell that seeps from its midday ovens, and a diner on the corner with a neon sign wrapping across its top,
reading restaurant. Afflicted by the introspection of boredom and corrupted by anxious thinking, she takes to taking the feathers from his pillow and throwing them with the tide of passing jollies to pass the hours. Her only other company is a bellhop when delivering lunches of watery looking food that’s barely palatable to even regulars. Not caring for the bland always buttery texture of the hotels room service, she instead goes on seeing the sights through the window as a way to taste the rest of the local scene, for as far as her eye can see anyway.
The bellhop explained that they’re close to a lake of gravity, something tourists prefer to see, to which Anna thought about for about a minute, then just nodded her head. For the past few days crowds of out to lunch middle school kids have been catching her thoughts. Pondering from her perch of who in group most resembles who she was at that age. There’s a brown haired boy who stands with the group, though is less conversational and less forceful than the rest. Always last to follow, almost unwillingly, and often staring into space, amazed simply by what’s around him. The others tease him for it, though she smiles for him.
The doorknob jiggles and she jumps to the peephole. Hiding the room key to catch him to speak to her, as he's been in and out of the room at a mouse’s hours.
“Who is it?” she asks
“It's me, Cider.”
“Talking apple juice?”
“Open up Carrots?” he puts a finger over her enlarged pupil.
“I want out.”
“Let me in,” he says, and she unlatches the door.
“Well, look who's back and in the day at that,” she says as he strolls in with an air of not caring.
“I've been busy.”
“Where's your key?”
“I lost it.”
She plucks the smoke from his lips, then drops it in the water of a flowerless vase.
“No smoking.”
“Why'd you do that?” he says as he sits next to the window in her bird’s eye rocking perch.
“I want to go out like you do, and don't give me that it's dangerous stuff. You can’t keep me cooped up here forever.”
“I can, but I don’t intend to, but,” he says.
“But what?” she asks.
“Did you eat?”
“Not yet.”
“At all?”
“Lunch,” she says.
“Yes, I’ll have a sandwich. Pastrami please.”
“NO!”
“To pastrami?”
“That's not the point.”
“Lunch,” he says stridently, picking up the rotary phone from the night table, and clicking the shaded lamp on.
“Sitting in darkness,” he says “wallowing will make you feel worse, lighten the room up. I bet you’ll feel a bit brighter. Hello. Yes, room service. Yes.”
“No!”
“Excuse me, I’m on the phone.”
“Why can't I go out?” she shouts.
“Because you could get locked up for a thousand years, or worse. Okay, hold on a second please.”
She turns for the door, he leaps away from the phone, grabbing her legs and falling with her heels flurrying against his stomach.
“Stop, hey, what're you doing?” he grunts.
“This is bullshit,” she shrieks and scrapes her way across the cheap carpet for the door. He climbs up her flailing legs and anchors his weight, she shouts from the bottom of her lungs, “Help! help!”
“Stop you crazy bi-”
“What!?”
“Anna, c’mon stop. You'll get us pinched,” he says with rising pitch. The phone's of the hook as they tussle on the ground toward the door. Cider alligator rolls with his arms around her waist as a jolly rolls by, lifting. And dropping the quarrelsome two to the ground.
“Help! Rape, fire help rape,” she shouts.
“Shut up. I'm not doing that.”
“Rape. Fire! Fiiiii-” he muzzles her mouth with his palm, that she tries very hard to bite.
“Ahh, stop, fine. Fine.”
“Today.”
“Whatever.”
“No, today.”
“Tomorrow,” he concedes.
“Okay,” she says after a moment’s pause. He springs to his feet and hurries to the receiver.
“Hello. Yes of course. Of course everything’s fine.”
“She's fine,”
“What? No, no, she's a hooker. Yeah I know, wants to go out.”
“WHAT!?” Anna yells with red faced fury.
“Yea, exactly. It's a shame the work ethic these days.”
“Yup Uhuh.”
“Right. Anyway, can I get a pastrami sandwich with mustard and pickles. Yes, a lemonade.”
She stands ready to pounce, glaring at him gravely with straight stiffened shoulders. Her horrified expression leaps out at him in a second of static aired silence.
“What do you want to eat?” he asks.
“A prostitute?” she snarls.
“And a prostitute,” he says to the receiver.
“What color hair?” he asks.
“No…a soup,” she utters, utterly giving up.
“And a soup” he adds, “Eh, ah, oh, a no go on the other. Right,” he says. Anna nods in contempt of him.
“No, thank you. You have a pleasant day,” he says then clunking the clerks voice to the dial.
“I hate you.”
“What? I had to say something,” exchanging sneers before she swipes at his head and misses.
He finishes his sandwich, as she slurps down her soup. Wiping his mouth he walks for the door.
“Why do you have a gun?” she asks. He says nothing, then takes the weapon from his ankle, checking to be sure it’s loaded, and holds it handle first out for her to take.
“What's this?”
“A gun.”
“I know but why are you giving it to me?”
“So you can see that I mean you no harm. Take it, if I threaten you, shoot me. And if someone shoots at you, shoot at them, but don’t just shoot at them,” he says softly. Anna takes the token comforted in knowing she can point it at him anytime. Heavy to her hand so she sets it on the dresser. Smiling, as he steps close enough for her to smell the whiskey he's bathed in. He reaches out to feel her face, softly stroking her cheek as he speaks, to lift her from her sorrow filled face.
“You’re safe with me, I promi…”
“Oww!” she shouts, wincing away from his touch. “You burned me,” she snaps slapping at him like a cat, but missing. Forgetting the lit cherry of his smoke between his fingers he’s singed her face.
“Oh sh, sorry,” he says.
“It's fine. Really,” she sighs trying not to touch her stinging singing red singed cheek. She takes her seat on the rocker, resting her elbow on the windowsill thinking of tomorrow while watching for him to disappear the next intersection over. Left back to the view of her perch, of rooftops and water towers, and people straggling past through another night in, of watching the world go by. Peering out in anticipation of the breaking calm, and breathing in the breezy air. Rubbing her cheek that burns like a bee sting hours later. Swimming in the sensation of thriving, feeling alive in wondering what tomorrow will bring. as she sits over the streetlights brightening to suspend the descending dark of dusk.
He comes back inebriated, spilling money onto the counter, then tipping onto his side, and sliding off the bed with a flat thud.
“What time is it?” she asks.
“You awake?”
“I am now.”
“Go to sleep,” he mumbles face down in the old carpet.
“We'll test the waters tomorrow.”
“Where will we go?” she asks.
“Somewhere...safe,” he says, falling fast asleep as she lay awake, with her nose under the blanket and her eyes wide open. So excited that she's getting scared even in the safety of her sheets. Anticipating what lies in what she sees from her perch while safely counting sheep, that jump each time the fan creeks.
CHAPTER FOUR
/> Like a hole in the head
Throwing a paper airplane at the brunette desk clerk is the bag boy, as the two pass through the raggedy hotel lobby. Cider's happy to tell her the ins and outs of blending in and getting around.
“Do whatever they're doing, the locals. And always move as though in a bit of a hurry.”
“To get around quicker.”
“No. So if you do get noticed acting odd, odd to them anyway, they’ll think you’re in a hurry and not out of place,” he says.
The two spill through a revolving brass framed glass door into the open air, onto stairs, then the sidewalk. He looks back with an animated stare, holding his hand out welcoming her to join him. She’s standing stiff for a second on the last step, then moving as though statically charged and readily striding down the Alto's small city sidewalks. Her mind drinks in the scents and textures fresh to her senses, she delightedly buzzes around as a bee in a flower shop. Sipping the scene while nearly skipping through the street, when hopping from street corners to storefronts.
Already afloat in the thought of the fresh air of another dimension filling her lungs, she's swept into excitement as though in continual déjà vu and slight vertigo, everywhere she looks she almost remembers something she hasn’t yet had in her head. Her buzzing about brings back some memories, of his old self. Of when he was green to the Altonevers, of the youthful freedom of passing the street corner on a bicycle for the first time. It's a jolly day, with the waves of un-gravity rolling by every few minutes. Making the bricks jump and the people hop to stay on their proper paths. Inhaling the bakery whose cakes and cookies she'd been lusting over from her perch. The flesh of piggish beasts hanging in the butcher shop window rise and fall, flailing around as though they're living for seconds when the jollies roll by. Next door a man floats up from his chair with half a face full of lather as the barber’s razor sharply swipes his face clean, each oblivious to by the habitual hop of their weather’s habit.
The Altonevers Page 4