by 19
Zillah was in the living room, out of sight, laughing at that one. –Quite, We're smoking. You're missing out.
Then, there was a new voice. A girl's voice, from the back of the house. –John?
–Shit, Spectre muttered, and got up and hurried into the back.
–Who is that? he asked Jordan. Danger. He was tired, so fucking tired, and he just wanted to find a bed somewhere and sleep for days.
–Some girl. Who knows. Come back in, Jordan said. Zillah was already dragging him back inside.
–In a minute, he said, lying. He didn't want any more. Of anything.
He sat out there alone. Picked up Spectre's hat. Put it on, took it off again, and set it back down. Dug in his pocket until he found the little cellophane with four hits of acid, and ate two of them. It was more of an escape attempt, than an actual decision to trip. He was distantly sorry once he had taken them. It was too damn late now. Outer space, dead ahead.
–Hi.
He nearly climbed out of his skin.
She was standing right there, in the doorway that led out onto the screened-in porch. He hadn't even heard her footsteps.
A girl. A girl that made his mouth go dry and his lungs malfunction and his brain go blank.
She was wearing a worn terry-cloth bathrobe that had once been white. Her hair was long and black, like his, clinging wet to her collar. She had an angel's face, and her fingernails were short and pretty, painted black, a little no to let the right kind of eyes know she was one of the outcasts, or at least a sympathizer.
She smiled, standing there slim and new like a hallucination.
He tried to say hi back and managed the "h" noise. He tried smiling instead, and it felt all wrong, but he couldn't remember how to quit.
–Are you okay? she asked him. Her voice was intolerable, low and sweet and gentle. She had such dark eyes. She was Byzantine. He was afraid of her.
–I just dropped two hits, he said, as either small talk or an excuse for his idiotic behavior. He made a mental note to find a brick wall as soon as possible and smack his forehead into it repeatedly.
She let go of the neck of her robe. It only gave him a glimpse of her collarbone. It was enough to crisp any functioning synapses he had left. And then she posed for him, stepped back and poised her hands like a dancer, moved them in slow underwater shapes, still smiling. –Is it working yet?
No, which means I probably only have about forty-five minutes to live. If I could see trails of you doing that it would snap my spine. –That's beautiful, he said. He amended smack repeatedly to smack very hard repeatedly.
–I'm Mary. I'm John's cousin.
–You can't be more than sixteen, he blurted out. He was really doing an excellent fucking job today. Such subtle, charming dialogue.
–I'll be seventeen in two months.
–Oh, he said. Mary. The kid who had been crying during Elizabeth's rape. He could see Spectre in her face, in her cheekbones and the set of her mouth, even though their coloring was so different. Both angels. Both terrible and wonderful in their singularity.
–I have two more. Hits, I mean. Do you want them? he said. There was a kind of drug protocol, where you shared when you had something to share, period. Because if they didn't help each other, nobody would help them at all. Escape attempts.
She stepped closer. Her feet were bare, and her toenails were painted black too, and a silver chain was around her right ankle with a tiny charm hanging from it, a Greek letter. Like a deer, that's what she's like, that's how she moves, like a deer. What the Hell is this growing inside my chest?
He unwrapped the acid again, and she opened her mouth like someone waiting to take communion. His fingertip brushed her tongue. Wet silk. He set the paper there, his hand shaking, so aroused that his spine was trying to rearrange itself. –If you bite it, you'll go to Hell, he said.
–Which? The acid, or your finger? she asked, her voice slightly muffled. His fingertip was resting on her bottom lip. He couldn't remember how to move it.
–The acid. You know, body of Christ and all that.
She grinned. Mischief. He would have to be careful around her. –Would I go to Hell if I bit your finger?
–No, he said. He had lost control of this joke with stunning speed.
–Well, what would happen?
He drew his fingertip down her chin, tapped the tip of her nose. Her skin was like expensive paper, smooth and fragile and vicious.
Stop it, you idiot!
He thought about it. –I guess...I...would...cry?
She raised her eyebrow at him. He tensed, expecting her to bite him. She stepped back reflex-quick, sat in the chair Spectre had abandoned. He still had his hand in the air, like a mime. Someone in the living room, probably Jordan, made a silly whooing noise, followed by an explosion of giggles in stereo
–I think about Hell a lot. What do you think it's like? she asked him, with no hint of illusion or mockery in her voice. Just curiosity. A dangerous student, with the professor all to herself, and she knew just where to needle him. Philosophy.
–Hmmm. You know, I have this rebellious streak. I used to think I wouldn't give much of a damn about a lake of fire. I figured you can adapt to any level of pain, since you couldn't die from it. Then, I wondered if Hell might not be a little more clever than that. Maybe it's subjective. Maybe it does to you the one thing you could never adapt to.
Her eyes widened. She was actually listening to his prattling, and she was either interested or a very good actress. –Like what?
–It would depend on you. Mine would be too easy. Just to be locked up in a cell. Alone. For eternity.
–You could go insane. Fill your cell with the ghosts of Napoleon and Elvis, she said.
She was quick, and her mind moved in directions he liked. –Or Jim Morrison. The conversation would be better. I don't think you'd be able to go insane, though. It would be worth a try. Or maybe going insane is Hell. I don't know.
A crash from the living room. More giggles. –Do you want to go inside? she asked him.
–Do you?
They looked at each other for a minute.
She said, –No.
They sat a moment, in something that was not at all true silence.
–Can I ask you, why do you think about Hell, and not Heaven?
She didn't smile at that one. –I think Heaven would be worse than Hell ever could be. An empty cell.
She watched him think about that, and said, – Did you bite yours?
He followed that one. He didn't smile either. –I chewed it. I always chew it.
She considered that, and made a big show of pushing the acid around in her mouth and chewing it up triumphantly. –I guess I'll see you in Hell.
–You win. I surrender, he said, laughing, his teeth beginning to ache from the LSD.
She made a gun out of her hand and blew away imaginary smoke, holstered it in an invisible gunbelt.
–I like you, he said. –Sorry. That was totally a weird thing to say. It's the trip.
–I like you too, she said. –Why would that be weird? You want weird?
He realized he did, and always had, and nodded.
–How about this: you don't have to apologize to me. For anything. Ever again.
That got him, hard and quick like a blow, deep in the pit of his stomach.
–Oh, he said, because he found he couldn’t say anything else.
They were both quiet again, with invisible things moving between them.
They both moved to get up at the same time. He stood first, held out his hand to her. She took it. And she took his sunglasses from the collar of his shirt, and put them on herself. They looked damn good on her, he noticed, with resentment and delight.
–I like your eyes, she told him, over her shoulder. – They’re weird.
(9)
They sat in the living room on the couch, too close to one another. It was early evening. Jordan was sitting in the floor, with Zillah's head in his lap. Spectr
e was in the chair, playing an antique guitar and singing an old Led Zeppelin song very softly, mimicking under his breath the guitar sounds he couldn't play.
They didn't really talk, except when Mary asked him if he wanted a drink. He said yes, and she brought him rum, with water and sugar, without needing to ask what he liked. The scary thing was that he wasn't surprised that she knew. An even scarier thing was how easy it was to feel her next to him, how warm she was, how badly he wanted to lean his head on her shoulder.
Their hands kept tangling together, and he got halfway into a conversation about changing from major to minor with Spectre when he realized he had his hand on her leg. He turned to her, horrified, already apologizing, and she laughed at him, took his hand and held it again.
The trip was rolling along pretty quickly. The room had taken on a greenish quality, like sunlight drifting down into a rainforest, and was swaying gently.
Finally, Spectre told him, –Can you come in the kitchen and help me roll a joint
That was obvious bullshit. He got up anyway. Mary clung to his hand, briefly, tripdazed and thinking he was leaving the house. –I'm going in the kitchen. I'll be right back, he whispered to her.
She kissed his fingers, igniting his entire arm. –Okay, she whispered back, and let him go. Well, she said either that or hurry. He thought about asking her and decided they amounted to about the same thing, anyway.
He made it into the kitchen without falling over anything.
Spectre already had a joint in progress. –I'm not mad. Believe me. But if she's going to be yours, take care of her.
It had that crystalline clarity that acid lent to things, those words. He immediately perceived their entire meaning, the future he was suddenly going to be a part of. He was grinning again. –I will. I swear to you. She's...
–I know. She doesn't know. About you. She has no idea. She's never been anywhere to hear the legend.
–I don't think she can know.
–Just try... Spectre started over. –I mean, try and keep her from as much of the pain as you can. You know?
–Nothing is ever going to hurt her, he said, with that animal ferocity that sometimes happened. –Never. Not ever.
–Not even You?
He didn't like the magic those words made. –No, he said. He wasn't sure.
–And there's another problem, Spectre said, blowing smoke through his teeth. –Ask her about where she lives when you both come down a little.
That made his insides cold. –Where? He hit the joint too hard, too deep, making his lungs burn.
–Ever heard of a township called Calvary?
He didn't answer.
He went back into the living room, back to her, almost running. She saw his face, and stood up, her hands out. –What happened? Is he mad? I'll kill him.
–He's not mad. Let's go outside. Please, he said, pulling her towards the door.
The dream: he was looking at himself. The other him was naked, and he was taking off his clothes to give them to himself. And the new him, the real him smiled, and kissed him with icy lips, and put his hands around this perfect copy of his throat, and whispered, it's not murder. you were never real anyway.
There was a mirror, and he was looking over the real him's shoulder, and he could only see a single reflection, and he had his own hands around his own throat, and he couldn't stop, couldn't breathe, couldn't...
Mary was shaking him hard, screaming for Spectre.
Spectre and Zillah were hurting him, pinning him to the ground, kneeling on his arms to keep them spread out. He drew in his breath and
–Hey.
He was sitting on the front steps of Spectre's house, with Mary beside him. She had just stepped out the door and sat down, he realized. All those things had been a hallucination and had only taken an instant.
–Was I just staring off into space? he asked her, terrified.
–You stopped in the middle of a word. She laid her hand on his cheek. –Are you okay?
–I think I'm going into a bad trip. I need help, I need...
She took his hand, put his finger in her mouth, and bit it. Hard. He snatched his hand away, which hurt even more. He stared at her as if she'd grown a second head.
–You didn't cry, you liar, she said softly. She took his hand and kissed his bitten finger. –Better?
He opened his mouth to say no, and realized he was better, except that his finger hurt. The dark doorway he had stumbled into was closed and locked again.
–Yeah. Better.
He took her hand and bit her back. Hard. She squealed, flailed at him with her other hand, and fell off the steps, dragging him with her.
–You know we're probably lying in chicken shit, he gasped out, still laughing.
–Yeah.
–If you ever bite me again I'll hold you upside down till you puke.
She bit him again, on the side of his hand, before she scrambled to her feet and ran.
He sat back on the steps, discovered he was holding Spectre's joint, relit it.
She came back, four drags later, panting, indignant. –You didn’t chase me!
He held the joint out to her with a perfectly straight face. She fell for it, reaching out her hand. Then he had her. He grabbed her around the waist. She screamed so loud that by the time he got her upside down, Spectre and Jordan were watching.
He carried her inside and deposited her on the couch. His hands were burning, physically burning from the soft illegal feel of her flesh under the terry cloth. He had been careful to keep her modesty intact. She rearranged her bathrobe anyway, giggling, blushing.
He wondered, if anyone had played with her, since she was small. She looked like she'd needed it.
–I said you could date her, not bash her head in, Spectre told him, laughing.
He mimicked bashing Mary’s head in with some kind of pseudo-kung fu punch, making her mock-cringe and giggle again. –She'll live, he said back to Spectre. He didn't take his eyes off her. –Did I win that one? he asked her.
–No, she said, pretending irritation. He made as if to lunge at her again. –Okay! Okay, yes you won!
They were tied. He sat down beside her again, said very casually, –What do you think of Nietzsche?
(10)
He woke up in the kind of bone-deep pain that always followed a trip. He was lying on the couch, covered up with the quilt, with two pillows crumpled under him. He groaned. Stretched. It didn't really help. It just moved the pain around.
Someone was moving around in the kitchen. He knew it was her before she even came out. She had showered again. Long sleeveless black dress with red rhinestone buttons. She handed him orange juice in the dinosaur glass, and set a plate on the coffee table in front of him. Breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon, everything. And a fork. He could barely sit up, and she was up cooking.
–I know you're hurting. I can tell by the way you're walking. I can't believe you made me breakfast. You must be insane. He drank half the glass of juice at once. –Thank you. Why do you live in Calvary?
–Good morning to you, too. Do you always have six conversations at once?
–Usually. So tell me why.
She ran her hand through her hair. –I live there because...it's my home.
–Why don't you live here?
–Because it isn't a good idea for a sixteen year old girl to live in a safehouse. You guys are nice. Not everybody who comes here is. Spectre couldn't take three guys. He probably couldn't take even one. He's not violent. It's not in him.
And his mother was raped in front of his eyes when he was ten, running this safehouse, until yesterday he hated himself for hiding instead of trying to pull some John Wayne shit and getting himself killed.
No wonder he doesn't want you here.
Do you have to be so beautiful and live in fucking Cavalry?
It was a dictatorship, and it was incredibly repressed, even compared to the other townships. There was no jail, only a holding cell where you waited for your
execution.
–Why are you here now? he asked her.
–Spectre lets me come around and get a break from town whenever it's slow. I guess he knew you guys were okay.
–Why Calvary? I just...I hate to keep asking that.
–Dad left me a house there. The town wasn't as bad when he was alive, but once Aaron took over...It's a trailer, really. It's...it's somewhere to live, she said, flustered.
–Aaron? he asked.
–I can't afford to move the trailer. I don't even think it could be moved. It would fall apart. It's ancient. It's from 1970 or so, and I can't keep it up the way he used to.
–What needs doing?
–What doesn't?
–Well, I'll help you.
–She stared at him, looking almost offended. –Why?
He thought about that. He wanted to say you know why. –I just want to.
She stared at him for a long time, the pride leaving her mouth and her eyes,. –I don't think you should ever set foot in Calvary.
–Why not?
She was sitting beside him. He had taken off his shirt at some point. She could see the scars. She was pretending not to.
He tried to never let anyone see them. Not even Jordan.
She reached out, smoothed his hair away from his face. –Your eyes. They'll hate you for those eyes. They’ll think you’re a witch.
I am a witch, he thought.
So she'd heard the fucking legend, somewhere. Those, eyes. He knew she was talking about more than just the colors.
–You could give me back my sunglasses, he said quietly.
–Your hair.
–I pull it back, usually.
–And these? She took him by the wrist, showing him the tattoos that covered his arms, strange eyes, dark twisted faces.
–Long sleeves, he said. He couldn't even remember where he'd gotten the tattoos, or when, or why.
–In the desert in the middle of the summer?
He only looked at her, and said, –Mary, I'm not going to let you win this one.
–I don't want you to go into town to work on that damn house. I want you to go into town to see me, she blurted out.