Wetware

by Craig Nova

  Kay guessed she felt something like homesickness. She realized that another human being could give her a sense of warmth, and not just in the moment, but deeper than that, as though her existence could be hotter, lighter. In fact, she felt being alone as lack of heat, as though her cold toes, the sting on her cheeks, were the manifestation of separation. Why had Briggs done this to her, left her on the ice, facing such a vista? Cold, harshly lighted, indifferent. What could she do about being made to exist like this, isolated, frozen, as though this place were the expression of the emotional landscape she had been condemned to?

  On the ice now were some other people, men mostly, who were wearing shirts with round collars and pants that were tight at the ankle. As the men skated, they kept coming closer to Kay, one of them glancing over his shoulder at her. He said to one of his pals, “Hey, look at that, will you?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “All alone.”

  “Not for long,” said one of the others.

  Kay shoved off, back onto the ice. Up ahead, in the swirl of skaters, in the rush of them, she lost sight of Jack and the woman. She guessed it would be all right. She went around once, listening to the music. She turned around on her skates, went backwards, and saw the men in the tight pants and white shirts.

  “Say,” said one of them to Kay, “how come I haven’t seen you around?”

  Kay went on skating.

  “It’s my first time,” she said.

  “Oh, the first time. Say,” he said to the others. “Her first time. Well. Isn’t that something?”

  The others couldn’t think of anything to say, so they just kept on skating on the ice, like a dark squadron.

  “You know there’s a first-time tax,” said the one who had spoken. He turned to the others. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Oh yes. The first time. The tax,” said one of the ones who skated in a group. The others just went along grimly, blinking into the wind. She wished they would say something, anything, which was better than dumb and stupid silence.

  “I’m just trying to have a good time,” said Kay. “All right?”

  “Well, that’s what I mean about the tax,” said the first. “Say, my name is Freddy. What’s yours?”

  “Kay,” she said.

  “Isn’t that nice,” he said. “Kay.”

  He said it as though he was trying it on for size.

  “Well, Kay, let me tell you about the tax,” he said.

  “That’s okay,” she said.

  “I’m the tax collector and you’ve got to give me a kiss,” he said. “See, we go back under the stands there and you give me a kiss.”

  Kay went over the ice. Why had they come here, anyway? She looked up ahead, but Jack wasn’t there. More people had come onto the ice, and the accumulation of them all moving, some of them falling down, contributed to Kay’s sense of disorientation, which now came to her not just with the sense of being alone or abandoned, but with a general apprehension. She was in the wrong place and she knew it.

  “Just one,” said Freddy.

  He pointed.

  “Over there,” he said. “At the end of the grandstand. See? Right there under the speaker.”

  “You can’t hear nothing because of the music,” said one of them from the pack. “It’s noisy, but it’s kind of private for all that.”

  Kay started counting. One, two, three, four, five . . . Then she looked up ahead, but didn’t see Jack. Now his absence seemed like a betrayal of some kind, although she knew that this wasn’t his fault. He was just trying to flirt a little with that pretty woman, but now she wished he hadn’t. She wanted to go back to the hotel. Tomorrow she’d have to go to practice again.

  “Over there, see?” said Freddy.

  The others, the ones behind him, spread out a little, and as she went one way they herded her like sheepdogs, pushing her toward the door of the rink closest to the grandstand. As they went toward it the music seemed louder, since they were getting closer to the speaker. The cone of it had a black and shiny membrane.

  “Don’t you like my shirt?” Freddy said.

  “Sure,” said Kay. She looked around at the others. They didn’t smile, didn’t smirk, didn’t do anything but force her in the direction she didn’t want to go.

  “Well, I’m glad you like it,” he said. “That shows you have good sense.”

  “It’s a pretty cool shirt,” said one of the young men at the back of the pack.

  “You got to be cunning,” said Freddy. “Now, that is the first thing you’ve got to remember. Like a wolf.”

  One of the men put back his head and yowled, and the others laughed now. Then they yowled, too. They all came up to the door of the rink, and the inertia of their speed helped them jump over the small lip there onto a rubber mat beyond it. The mat was like a piece of licorice the size of a flag.

  “Just one kiss,” said Freddy. “That’s all. Come on.”

  The others stood there, blank-faced.

  “Only Freddy will have one,” they said. “See?”

  “Sure,” said another. “Just one. That’s all.”

  They moved between her and the ice, but it was so bright that the men seemed like shadows in front of it. She had been trained for this, but that sense of weighted isolation got in the way. She felt her need, even her hopes, as nothing more than fatigue. She even thought for a moment of whether she should just go and give the jackass a kiss and be done with it. Who cared? But she knew it wasn’t going to be taken care of that easily. She looked at their necks, at the vulnerable spot.

  “So,” said Jack, as he stepped over the lip of the door. He was taller than the others. “I see you made some friends.”

  “They aren’t friends,” said Kay.

  “No?” said Jack. “Then what are they doing here?”

  “Who are you?” said Freddy.

  “You’ll get out of here if you know what’s good for you,” said another.

  “Look at his shirt,” said one.

  “What’s wrong with my shirt?” said Jack.

  The others just smiled. The music was very loud as they stood underneath the speaker. The black material of it looked like the ocean under moonlight.

  “We’re just going to take Kay back in here for a minute,” they said.

  “Oh yeah?” said Jack.

  “They have a tax or something,” said Kay. “A kiss.”

  “Just to get things started,” said Freddy.

  “A kiss?” said Jack.

  “That’s right,” said Freddy.

  “Come back with me,” said Jack. “I want to tell you something. Back in here. Under the bleachers.”

  The four men in the tight pants stood on their skates, looking at each other.

  “Okay,” said Freddy. “Let’s go back in there.”

  The woman in the white skirt came by, and as she did, she glanced over at Jack. She smiled and waved. Her arm rose and the hand came up and wagged from side to side, the entire gesture having about it an air of a pretty girl on the deck of a sailboat, waving to a friend. It was as though every summer, every warm day and blue sky, every bit of youth and cheerfulness and sweet desire came down to this open hand and the smile of those vermilion lips against the ice.

  The young woman reached into her pocket and brought out a black band, which had a small piece of metal attached to it. She reached up and put the band on, the velvet strap making her neck seem longer, whiter. Then she skated off. She made the first turn and went along the far side of the rink, her speed increasing, as though she just wanted to come back again, so she could wave at Jack. And so he would see her velvet strap, which made her neck look so long and white. She seemed to know how cheerful and seductive her wave was. But as she came to the end of the straight part of the rink, Kay strained to see what it was on the black velvet ribbon. Even from a distance, Kay saw that it was made of silver, a pendant of some kind, like a drop. She heard the sound of it, too. She was reminded of Russia, of something specific: the sound of a troika,
of three horses, with bells on them, pulling a sleigh through the snow. She had never seen this, and yet it seemed to be right there as though she had: the horses blowing plumes of steam, the harness black and brutal as it went across the horses’ backs, the lines of bells on the harness, silver and tinkling in the snow. It announced the horses’ arrival, the sound carrying so perfectly on the subzero air. Kay stared at the young woman, and in the flash of the blades of the skaters, in the clutter of their movement through the spray of ice, she heard the bell, still diminutive, but all the more piercing for that. Jack turned to listen.

  “Jack,” she said.

  “What?” he said. His voice was matter-of-fact.

  “Jack,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “No,” said Jack. “Wait.”

  Overhead the speaker played “Summertime, when the living is easy . . .” The young woman came along this side now, smiling, shaking her curly hair, her neck up, the bell tinkling. She waved again, the quick movement of it just like before: sunny days, sails, water, a blue lake, puffs of white clouds . . .

  Freddy and the others went first, and Jack followed.

  “Oh, Jack,” Kay said. “Please listen . . . ”

  “Later,” he said. “I’ve got business.”

  He turned and went back into the shadows under the bleachers. The dark clothes of the men were absorbed there, and their awkward locomotion as they walked on skates only added to the clutter of the space under the stands, where the cross supports made of black wood could barely be seen in the shadows. The men receded into this black, angular conglomeration, awkwardly to be sure, like men in black who walked on frozen feet. The music got louder. Kay went around to the front, so she could see under the seats, but the space there was impenetrable, nothing more than darkness on darkness. She heard a scuffle, and one short cry, and some other sounds, clunky, heavy ones, like sacks of wheat being dropped from a loading platform onto the ground. She sat down. How did she ever get to be so tired, and yet so alert to her own state of mind?

  The woman in the white dress passed by, her legs pink in the tights, her hips moving under the short skirt, her eyes flashing in the lights over the ice. Kay wanted to be like that: just skating along, flirting with someone, without a care. The woman came around, close to the rail, her eyes searching Jack out. Then she stopped, skates scraping, coming up to Kay in a shower of ice.

  “Where’s Jack?” said the woman, her curls bouncing.

  “Jack?” said Kay. “Oh, he’ll be back in a minute. Can I see that?”

  She reached out for the velvet strap and the bell.

  “This?” said the woman. She reached up to her neck and undid it. “It’s just some old thing I found in an antique shop.”

  “Really?” said Kay.

  The woman dropped it into her hand. Kay closed her fingers around it.

  “Do you like it?” said the woman. Her voice was just what Kay had imagined it to be, one that went along with the wave and the red lips, the blue skies and white clouds. Kay couldn’t believe her luck. The girl was going to give it to her.

  “Yes,” said Kay.

  “Keep it,” said the girl, with an air of frank generosity. Then she looked around. “I’ll catch up with him later.”

  “Okay,” said Kay. “Good. I’ll tell him.”

  The young woman skated into the sound of that old music. Kay watched her glide away, skates flashing, hips driving, and as the young woman went, Kay turned back to the darkness under the bleachers. It held a fascination for her, like some forbidden pleasure that she always tried to pretend held no attraction for her, but was actually something she lived for. Then she felt the cool air of the ice. It occurred to her that she didn’t have the pistol, and how was she going to take care of this if she didn’t have that? She guessed that she could borrow Jack’s, since he wouldn’t suspect anything. He didn’t know that she had a cue, too, did he? Kay started shaking. She put her hand to her hair, tried to think clearly, but instead what came to mind was the most profound irritation, as though she couldn’t restrain herself for a moment more and all she wanted to do was to slap Jack, but she knew it wasn’t just a slap she was thinking about.

  Beyond her, in the black clutter of the bleachers, she saw some movement, slashes of dark on dark that seemed to be someone not only falling down, but to one side too, as though being thrown.

  “Jack,” said Kay. She raised her voice. “Jack. Please . . . Ah, Jack, don’t do this . . . ”

  The music seemed to get louder. Kay walked to the end of the bleachers where she could get inside, or underneath, and from the end she saw the regular supports, which from there looked like the latticework of an oil derrick. Up ahead she still saw that movement, downward and to the side, and as much as she hurried, it was difficult, since the beams and dark wood were close together and anchored to the floor by four-by-fours that had been fastened to the concrete. She guessed that men in the bleachers who had been here for hockey games had urinated into the dark space below, since here it had the smell of an overflowing toilet, and as she went through it, the stink seemed to make it harder to work her way around the gussets and beams. When she turned toward the rink she saw the ice between the seats, the surface of it impossibly white, and for an instant she was transfixed by the diamondlike spray of chips from the blade of a skate, and the sleek movement of women in pink and white tights. Then she came up to Jack.

  He stood so still that she recognized him by the whites of his eyes, which were filled with the luminescence of the ice. On the ground she saw the dead men, all of them lined up, side by side, like some display of desperadoes who had been killed and laid out for people to see. He glanced down to the men on the ground, and as he did, Kay shook her head, as though she had come to a point of such bleak comprehension as to give her the sensation, at once horrifying and claustrophobic, that the darkness here was simply absorbing her. It seemed to her that no one would ever be able to comfort her. The skin of the men seemed white, although there were some stains, like black silk, that ran out from their noses, hair, ears, mouths. Jack looked from them to her and said, “We better get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” said Kay. “We should go. Someplace private.”

  He nodded.

  “I can tell you one thing,” he said. “They aren’t going to give anyone any trouble.”

  “I guess not,” said Kay.

  “They were asking for it,” said Jack. “That’s all there is to it.”

  The two of them came out from under the bleachers, and as they emerged into the light, Kay had the sensation that she couldn’t quite shake the darkness there. They sat down in front of the rental counter and took off their skates. The music was “Buffalo girls won’t you come out tonight, and dance by the light of the moon . . .” Kay took her feet out of the skates and put on her shoes. She looked over at him.

  “Hurry,” said Jack.

  Then he picked up her skates and his, and put them on the counter. They turned and went through the entrance, out to the front, emerging from under the marquee into the light of the street, which was bright and left them blinking. On the sidewalk was a trash can, and into it Kay dropped the velvet ribbon and the bell; they fell into the darkness without a sound.

  She knew what she was supposed to do, but as she stood there, she felt the deepest sense of dissonance, of wanting two things at the same time. She had responsibilities here, in this moment. She should get rid of him and she knew it. But she thought of those times when they had spent time together or used the language for the first time as though they were naming things; she thought of his dependability, his quiet trust, as he slept next to her each night. Could she just dismiss this as though it didn’t matter at all?

  “Let me have it,” she said.

  “What?” he said.

  She reached over and touched his pocket.

  “Oh,” he said. “That.”

  He looked around. There was no one else on the street. Then Kay closed her eyes.
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br />   “Here,” he said. He took it out and offered it, the thing looking enormous on the street.

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t you want it?”

  “No. You keep it,” she said.

  “Hey, don’t look so worried,” he said. “You’d be surprised what people get away with.”

  “Would I?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Jack. “Who’s going to say boo?”

  CHAPTER 4

  April 21, 2029

  WENDELL BLAINE’S chauffeur, Jimmy, woke up and looked at the cracked ceiling. Sometimes, when he was feeling bad, the cracks looked like a map of the Amazon, and through his feelings of discomfort, he would imagine black canoes paddled by men with bones in their noses, or with bright feathers on their arms, the whites of their eyes bloodshot with the effect of a drug they took when it was time for war. That was how the ceiling appeared this morning. The cracks forked off and curved around, going upstream into a realm that was all green and brown shadows, animated by creatures that the vegetation concealed perfectly. Then he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. What did he know about stock, or economics?

  There was a pool of warmth next to him where his wife had been, and now he put his hand into it. He opened his fingers to feel it a little better. Outside, in the kitchen, he heard the lonely sounds as his wife put a cheap spoon, which rang like a tin bell, on the table along with a cup of coffee and a piece of toast that had been made out of stale bread. His wife didn’t know anything about stocks and bonds, either, and her one economic strategy was an ironclad thrift, which became more intense with each passing year.