Barking Man: And Other Stories (Open Road)

by Madison Smartt Bell

  It was strong dope, Clay had realized on his way back through the town, but it wasn’t really helping his head all that much. He was just as unhappy as he had been before, only now it was harder for him to think why. His depression had become more of a weight than a thought. Also the dope was making him hungry. Just what he needed right now: a case of the munchies. He was walking down the restaurant strip and it seemed like every way he could point his nose it smelled a little more like food. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he dove into the first place that looked reasonably cheap.

  The scrape on his hand was stinging him some, so he went to the bathroom to give it a rinse. The way things had been going, an infected cut might be enough to finish him off; he’d probably get hepatitis or gangrene or something. He washed the scrape carefully with plenty of soap, trying to avoid his face in the mirror, though his eyes kept floating back to the image. It was no longer the face of a lucky man. The suit didn’t look too bad if you didn’t look close, but the face was whipped looking all over now, and worst of all, he could see, the sea air was taking the treatment right out of his hair.

  But it was mainly the hash, he told himself, so just don’t get too hung up on it, now. He shook most of the water off his hands and walked back through the bar to the restaurant in back. All over the walls were these not-too-convincing pictures of food, and he swung in a slow half circle to look at them all. Couldn’t think of the French for a single thing, though maybe that was just the dope working too. He stared at the chalkboard menu a while, trying to match the words to the pictures, then gave it up and crashed down on a chair. With one damp hand he juggled the change in his pocket. Something was worrying him about that too … Oh yeah, it was all the money he had. Might as well spend it all up quick, because it sure wasn’t enough to bother with saving. A waitress had appeared by his chair, a droopy young woman with slightly popped eyes.

  “Vous désirez?”

  Clay leaned back in his chair and let his eyes close. His tongue rasped over his lips like a file.

  “I would like …” he said. “Just let me have two hot dogs with mustard and onion. An order of fries and a big chocolate shake.” Please, pretty please, he said to himself, but when he opened his eyes he was still there in France. The only difference was that this black-haired chick with purple-rimmed sunglasses had sat herself down at the table across from him.

  “Like me to translate that for you?” she said. Clay heard a slight click as his mouth dropped wide open. He couldn’t figure out if this was somebody he was supposed to know or what. There was something vaguely familiar about her, and he couldn’t tell if he was making it up or not. Anyway, she seemed friendly enough.

  “You can jump right to it, darling,” he said.

  The babe switched herself around to look up at the waitress.

  “Monsieur aimerait le francfort et frites.” She turned back to Clay. “You want the shake too?”

  “Why not?” Clay said. “Anything you can get me.” As long as this wasn’t only the hash working too …

  “Une frappe au chocolat.”

  The waitress marked on her pad and took herself out. Clay tried a slow blink but the babe was still there, smiling at him across the rim of her drink. For a minute he couldn’t quite think what to say. Then the waitress came back with the loaded plate and the sight of it seemed to unlock his tongue.

  “Hey darling, I see you got it all figured out, making all this stuff appear just like magic …”

  Mindy grinned at him and sipped from her glass. “Can’t do a lot about the bun and the onions,” she said. “But other than that, you should come out okay.”

  Clay sat back as the waitress clicked down the milk shake in front of him. “Got no complaint whatsoever, so far,” he said. “So, you like to order anything for yourself?”

  “Nah, not now,” Mindy said, and Clay breathed easier. What was he thinking? He could never have paid for it.

  “Wanna take it outside? It’s cooler.”

  “I’d follow you anywhere,” Clay said, and watched her get up, that white jim-jam outfit running all over her; he wondered if that thing was as cool as it looked.

  Holding on to his plate and his glass, he followed her out to the front of the joint, eyes locked to the working of her hips. She didn’t look bad, and she seemed real easy to get along with so far, though he had no idea yet where it was all going to go. She slid into a chair and he sat down beside her.

  “Have a fry if you want one,” he said. She lifted one from the plate and bit a quarter inch off the end of it while Clay went to work with his own knife and fork. It might not be Sabrett but he still wouldn’t say no to it.

  “Hungry,” Mindy said, still smiling away.

  “Uh … yeah, I was sorta,” Clay said, wiping out his last fry. “You know how the day can get sometimes. You get so busy you forget to eat.”

  “Yeah, I’m the same way,” Mindy said. “My parents are always on me about it.” She coughed a little and covered her mouth.

  “That right?” Clay said. “You here with your folks?”

  “Kinda,” she said. “But don’t worry about it. I’m Mindy Ventura, so who’re you?”

  “Jones,” Clay said without hardly thinking. He was starting to get an idea but he wasn’t sure what kind.

  “I think I would have guessed something a little more … unusual,” Mindy said, sliding down farther in her chair.

  “Oh well, you see Jones is just my first name.” He took a quick glance at the street sign opposite. “My whole name is Jones Partouneaux, you see.”

  “Now that’s kinda interesting.” Mindy said. “Sounds kinda French, but you’re American, aren’tcha?”

  “Yeah,” Clay said, and glanced over his shoulder. All the waitresses and things seemed to be way in the back. One giant step and he’d have had a free meal, but he thought this option might be worth sticking around for. “Well, you know, I come from New Orleans,” he said. He hoped he’d be able to remember this stuff if he had to; when he got stoned he sometimes forgot things as quick as he said them. “I wonder how much you ever heard about the octoroons?”

  An hour or so later he’d steered her all the way through the best octoroon fantasy he’d ever dreamed up in his life so far, with ribbons and gravy and anything else you could want. It had slave ships, plantations, alligators, whorehouses, duels and all, and it went from the Civil War all the way through the Depression, to end up in the rough neighborhood of the Theresa Hotel. By the time he got near the end he’d forgotten the middle, but he wasn’t worrying about that anymore because he’d already started to feel lucky again. Mindy, the babe, was lapping it up, and she’d been throwing more and more of her weight on his arm the farther they made it down the beach. He’d had almost enough of walking that beat, but he had a feeling he might have a real destination this time. When he got through talking, they walked a way longer. Nobody at all but them was down on the beach. The dark was so solid a knife wouldn’t have cut it, though if you looked up you could see a few stars. They’d come most of the way to Cap Martin, where not too much light leaked down from street level.

  “Hey, you got one terrific life story,” Mindy said. “I don’t think anything like that ever happened to us. So, you wanna sit down a minute?”

  “Sure, no problem,” Clay said to her. He’d clocked enough miles on these rocks for the night.

  “Hang on a sec while I put down the towel.” Mindy was rooting around in her bag. Clay could hardly see what she was up to, it was so dark. After a minute her hand came up from the spectral float of her sleeve and pulled him down to land with a bump on the gravel.

  “I see you travel with everything, huh?” Clay said.

  “Everything you could possibly imagine,” Mindy said, and leaned into him. “Look what a beautiful night it is.”

  Clay glanced toward the water. What little he could see of it was pretty enough, though the hash had worn off and left him with a trace of a headache. He stroked one finger down th
e back of her neck, and the next second she was stuck to his mouth so hard he thought he was getting artificial respiration. Man, but these modern chicks were different; they came at you fast and hit you hard. In fact, she’d toppled him completely over, so he was lying laid all the way back with his head propped up against a rock, with her straddling him almost like a wrestler. He’d never known the fairy tale treatment to work quite so well; it was enough to make him wonder how old this girl could be. She was going over the inside of his mouth like a little kid licking out the cake mixing bowl, with both hands clamped tight to the back of his head. Well, go ahead, sweetheart, chew face if you like it. His left hand went to work kneading the small of her back while his right crawled crabwise over some gravel and into the mouth of her bag. He couldn’t find more than a little clutch purse, though, and when he got it open it held nothing but change. Was it a bill she’d used to pay his tab? It didn’t disappoint him all that much; it was just curiosity, really, not the main attraction. He snapped the purse back shut one-handed and started to pay more attention to what she was doing. Didn’t seem like she was wearing too much under those jimmy-jams, and it seemed like in about another minute she might rub them right off. He could feel warm skin plastering all over his front. If he didn’t do something quick there’d be nothing left to do. He forced himself up onto one elbow, rolling her off onto the crook of his arm.

  “I can tell you’re a very passionate person, Mindy,” he said. “You know, I really like that about you a lot. But maybe we better not go quite so fast.”

  “But sometimes I like to go fast,” Mindy breathed at him. “Sometimes, you know, I just can’t wait to get there.”

  “Uh, don’t worry,” Clay said. “We’ll get there on time. But let’s go the nicest, most comfortable way …”

  “Yeah, these rocks do get a little rugged sometimes,” Mindy said. “But I think we might have to do it at your place.”

  “My place?” Clay said. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Why? You got a tough concierge or something?”

  “That’s exactly right,” Clay said. “That old concierge is really a bear.”

  Mindy shrugged in the dark.

  “Well, maybe you could sneak me in past her or something,” she said. “Or I could go try to get a blanket out of our place, but you know, I might run into trouble getting back out.”

  “Oh,” Clay said. “Is that kind of a problem?”

  “Not always,” Mindy said. “But sometimes, like if I stayed out all day.”

  “Really,” Clay said. “You got any smokes?”

  Mindy passed him the pack of Gauloise. “You’ll have to come up with the matches, though,” she said. “Light one for me too when you do.”

  “Hell, I don’t have any either,” Clay said, and handed her back the pack.

  “Yeah,” Mindy said. “I don’t usually smoke.”

  “Me neither,” Clay said. “I been cutting down recently. Hey, I forgot how old you told me you were.”

  “Well, I don’t have all that many gray hairs yet,” Mindy said. “I just turned twenty-one last month.”

  “You’re keeping your figure too,” Clay said, and began to pat all his pockets for matches, hoping he might have missed some on his last few hundred looks.

  Twenty-one was not a conceivable age anymore; real people were twenty or twenty-four. This chick could maybe have passed for nineteen, but twenty-one was just out of the question. How old had she really looked in good light? Christ, he hoped she wasn’t like thirteen or something. Her hot little teenage hand was sketching a spiral pattern on the inside of his thigh, making it harder and harder for him to think clearly. He wondered if they had anything like the Mann Act in France. Obviously it was time he put the plan in phase two.

  “Mindy,” he said. “You know, I’m really getting to like you a lot.”

  “Well, I like you too, Jones, or I wouldn’t be here.” Her hand was working a little higher, more or less on the path of his femoral artery. “Hey, I don’t do stuff like this every day.”

  “I feel so close to you right now …” Clay said. “I don’t want us to do anything that might spoil it. A feeling like this, it’s like a little flower, you have to treat it very careful, know what I mean?”

  “Oh, I’m all taken care of, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mindy said. “You don’t have to worry, it’s under control.”

  “No, baby, no no no,” Clay said, hitching his leg a little way out of her reach. “Listen, darling, I don’t think you’re hearing me quite the right way. What I’m trying to tell you is, I got this definite feeling of respect for you too. I mean, we got this beautiful kind of a thing started up between us here. I don’t want to ruin it getting all carried away.”

  “I don’t get it,” Mindy said, sitting up straight. “I mean, like, are you nervous or what?”

  “Nervous?” Clay said. “What you talking nervous, girl? I don’t think you hear what I’m saying at all. I’m saying like how we don’t have to rush things. Like how I want to do it real slow and real proper and get to know you a lot better first. You know, like go meet your family and stuff.”

  Once the night had turned completely black, Ton-Ton Detroit walked down the beach to a dark place from which he could look up to see the stars. There was a triangular area between three large boulders that lay pushed up against the supporting wall of the promenade, and he settled himself into it and tipped his head back. Tonight the sky was resonantly deep, and though the darkness was equally profound he felt that he was seeing into it a very long way. The luminescent shimmer that streaked a part of the bowl of stars was not a cloud but the Milky Way. He felt hopeful that tomorrow would be clear.

  Away from the shelter of his rocks, the beach was spattered here and there with stains of light spilling down from the street lights on the promenade above, though no light reached quite all the way to the water. Beyond a low lip of gravel the sea had pushed up during the day, a single wave repeated itself, swelling slowly to curve over in a precision-tooled arc and slap itself lightly down on the strand. Ton-Ton Detroit watched it for some time, admiring how it built a sleek glossy silence toward the neat punctuation mark of its break. When he felt himself moving in time with the wave, he reached down and began to assemble the silver sections of his flute, with his hands still hidden inside the bag. Once he had got it together, he hesitated, fingers lightly trying the response of the keys, awaiting the moment when if he raised the flute to his lips there would at once be music, no wind-broken hissing, no false note to sour his tune as it went on. Although he remained patiently expectant for quite a long time, the moment did not seem to want to come. Now and then his mouth worked drily. The wave continued to mark the same steady interval in his mind but he could not bring himself to make anything of it. When he heard the gravel grinding under someone’s footsteps farther down the beach, he let the flute fall quietly to the bottom of the bag and zipped it shut so gently that no sound at all was made.

  Some time before they came into view, he could hear the sweet piping of the little pickpocket as he cajoled his familiar. The sound made his back abruptly stiffen, pulling him completely straight. The dog was the first of the pair to materialize, snuffling meticulously along the edges of the nearest splotch of lamplight. The red leash tightened and then relaxed, and the little pickpocket came into the light, still crooning his monotonous rhymes:

  “… viens ici, monpetit chou, sois sage, sois sage, petit cachou …”

  Ton-Ton Detroit began to consider the location of his various valuables but he made no move to secure them now, not wanting to show the little pickpocket where they were kept. Although his head was lowered and he seemed to be watching only the dog, Ton-Ton Detroit was quite certain that the child would be well aware of any move he made. He was sitting in total darkness, and partly concealed behind the rocks, but he knew that the little pickpocket had a number of special abilities. Therefore he remained altogether still, hearing the drone of the child’s sy
rupy voice, watching the dog sniff over every pebble within the oblong pool of light. For a long time it had been certain beyond any doubt to him that the little pickpocket controlled the dog’s every step with his mind. When the creature crossed the boundary into the dark and began to move invisibly in his direction, Ton-Ton Detroit smashed down on it with his most deadly thought beam. However, the stroke seemed to have been utterly without effect.

  “C’est assez tard pour les mômes comme toi,” Ton-Ton Detroit said. “Vaut mieux, je pense, si tu rentres chez toi.”

  The little pickpocket was still standing where the light could fall on him. He raised his head to look toward Ton-Ton Detroit, but his face had no particular expression and he did not make a direct reply. After a moment the leash tightened in his hand and he took a step forward so that his face fell in shadow.