Purchase

by Christopher K. Doyle

  XVII

  The blaze ~ To the darker corners for gambling ~ That mean midget ~ In their individual fugues ~ Of fire and war and Man’s eternal conflagration ~ Dousing it with ether ~ The matter of Ms. Clara May ~ The rosy sparks ~ Surrounded by scoundrels and fire ~ Catullus ~ An otherworldly summons

  A LARGE FAT MAN IN A BLACK HAT AND A SHORT STOUT ONE in a blue coat stood by the bar directing people to different parts of the house. But before I could stand there long enough to see if maybe they knew me, or I them, Ms. Clara May had already pushed her way up to inquire about A.D.’s whereabouts—but I don’t think they heard. Or at least, they preferred not to hear her, not above the din of voices calling and shouting in their ecstasy across the room. For they thought she was a woman already working for Ezra Lee in the upper rooms, and were confused by her long suede dress and brown wool sweater, which was much too demure for that business.

  The blaze, the midget said and smiled as I stepped closer. He winked and made a swift motion like drawing a knife across his neck and it sent shivers down my spine to think of whatever fiendish purpose he had in mind. I turned to look at the people streaming past, as if to make some appeal for my safety, but no one seemed to notice. They just filed on in their blind revelry to the darker corners for gambling. Or to the wide lacquered bar along one whole side of the room to drink. Or to the two red doors in back where women and men and the periodic jolt of some somber singing emerged as they were opened and closed and swung on their hinges like in some backwater saloon. Send him to the blaze, Macon, send him.

  Macon bent closer to his friend and whispered something pointing at me, and as he did, I touched Ms. Clara May’s arm to pull her away from those two gentlemen. But she was so determined in continuing with her present endeavor, she just sloughed me off and leaned down to the face of that mean midget to ask him again if he knew where her man could have possibly got to.

  His name is A.D., she said. He came here with a guitar. He came to see Ezra Lee.

  Everybody’s here to see Ezra, he said. The midget’s face was greasy and shined in the heat, and for a moment, I thought he might reach up with his fat meaty lips to kiss her, she’d bent so close he might have done it if he’d tried. But he just sniffed her once and turned his face as he struck another cigarette and blew the smoke up to mix with the other emissions drifting about in a fetid brew of stale beer and vomit and spit that made a perpetual smog inside the room like its own shifting weather pattern. O it was something vague and grotesque the air, and acted as a substance that stretched and morphed the vision of most, and transfigured the shapes of others, so that I watched people stagger about in their individual fugues. I waved my hand, as if to waft it all away, and as another rush of people went past, Ms. Clara May and I were momentarily released from the inspection of those two gentlemen, as a line of people separated us from them. To find some distance between us had me breathing a bit easier, and I scoured the depths for A.D.’s tall lanky shape, but didn’t have long to ease into any kind of comfort. From the back of some table, I spied something large and wavering and elusive rounding into view. Something that seemed to part the waters of the people milling about in their revelry. I had to watch then closer to believe it to be true. For as if on cue, they stepped from their positions of gaiety and mirth and quieted up considerable as the ritual procession of a man with a high burning wheel, balanced in his hands, walked through their midst.

  The blaze. I could hear the midget giggling as the man brought the high wheel forward. It was attached to a platform studded with bolts and nails with various strings and feathers dangling from it, and as he set it on a small porcelain-topped table in front of me, another group of folks were being led across the room by one man in particular. A man with the blondest hair I’d ever seen. Hair so blonde it was almost white, and picked up on its gleaming surface the glinting flames that shimmered and danced and twisted in his short straight mane as of a fire embedded in the broad marrow of his skull. I could plainly see he was a man of much importance, for as he proceeded, the gathered customers swooned and preened and even held up their hands in reverence, as if to convey it was all they could do in their lives to finally touch the red velvet smoking jacket he wore, or the slender gold cigarette holder he clenched in his sparkling teeth. Or to point at the beautiful brown orientals he had attached at either arm. (Though I never did ascertain if they were man or woman or both, the orientals, the haze and stench of the place was such that the burning wheel relegated everything else to ruin.) Everything else seemed to pale in comparison to his high regal arrival, and to those wavering white flames—which stood stock-still now in their oiled positions. So that I knew the man approaching with a wry smile and powdered face would address me and me alone, for I could look at him level now through the center of the wheel and catch his each intention.

  You have been called out most particular, he said, and stood there finally, after sauntering for what seemed like ages through the room as people bowed and shuffled away, as if asking with their own humility his final approval. And for that reason alone, I knew it was Ezra Lee, even though I’d never seen him before nor heard but tale and rumor concerning his name—a name which always sent up shivers and an uneasy air through the ranks of all assembled wherever it was mentioned.

  I have been called out for nothing, I said.

  O but you have, and with a subtle motion he nodded and the two orientals drifted off from both sides and I could see for the first time the black polished holster he wore at his hip—just under the edge of his velvet smoking jacket— with General Robert E. Lee’s silver harmonica sticking out from inside it. The top embroidered plate had caught the stunning glare of the burning wheel and seemed to sing in its beauty about fire and war and Man’s eternal conflagration. While as if held in stark contrast to the beauty of that instrument, Ezra clutched a blue handkerchief that he brought to his nose and breathed from before sighing and looking back at me as if through a new collection of eyes. Eyes which receded and dulled and brightened again, as he breathed deeper still more, as if tasting the wet cloth more truly. His lips parting deliciously. His shoulders slumping with a soft practiced release. And if I hadn’t seen it myself I wouldn’t have believed it in a million years, but the wee pink tip of his tongue edged out as he tittered and giggled as a lamb or baby goat might in a high whining dither.

  A general wave of laughter rose in accordance across the room, but then fell silent just as quickly, as his body trembled and shook with spasms before he straightened his doughy body again, touching his jacket here and there as if to smooth it all away, his whole deranged self, before looking back at me. (At this point, he’d let the handkerchief fall and one of the orientals had picked it up as if gathering in a holy shroud to revere and esteem, before dousing it again with ether. I’d seen the brown bottle glide out effortlessly from a purse the oriental held before disappearing again as quickly.)

  You have been called out for your impudence, he said and trailed a ruby-ringed hand along his pale white cheek. If I was meant to look at him, it worked, for there was nothing else in that room as far as my eyes were concerned. He was so striking in his white greasy face paint and rosy red lip gloss, and yet devilish to behold too, for the surreal profile he evinced in his each dramatic movement. Even the sounds and smoke that had so bombarded me before had dispersed. It was just him and me then, eyeing each other through that ring of fire, gauging what each might do.

  Niggers don’t walk the floor, he said, after what might have been an hour, for all I could tell. But I looked then to the bartender and dealers at the gambling tables, and even to the attendants at the red doors in back, and saw they were all black like me and in tuxedos that were too tight or uncomfortable for each. But they each to a man looked down after I’d caught their glances and I knew then I’d stepped where none of my color had dared step before.

  I’m just looking for a man, is all. Just one. Ms. Clara May was at my side and shivered a bit. Her long thin arms were right
up against mine and Ezra must have seen her in the shine of the flaming wheel, for his blackened mascaraed eyes moved from mine to hers as he closed his lips before opening them with a slight puckering sound to behold Ms. Clara May in all her beauty. Even in his condition, he could tell straight away she wasn’t one of his girls roaming the crowd for tricks. Nor would she ever be.

  You’ve been to a mortuary before, he told her.

  Hesitating, she breathed deeply to see him concentrate on her and to my surprise did not look away nor subjugate him in the least with the quill of her sharp tongue. Instead, she seemed to melt beside me, melting right there into the floor, and dripped from all her previous rigidness. I have, she said.

  And in the country like this, he fluttered his long black eyelashes at her. Out in the dark with the tombstones. Rummaging amongst the dead. O how it frightened you, and he shook his sharp narrow head as he watched her.

  Yes, sir, it did.

  And so you swore never to come back. His voice trembled now a bit from the ether, and from his invocation, and as I listened—as everyone did—we heard his breath rise an octave in accordance with the thin penciled eyebrows outlining his face. So that after he spoke his lips kept moving and jiggled a bit as he shook slightly his head watching her. For your father, he said.

  Yes, sir, Ms. Clara May whispered, and kept her head bowed a long moment. For my father who’s dead and gone now, sir.

  But you’re here again, he said and smiled a slight leading smile. Against all asking. Against even the darkness and the fear.

  Yes, sir, I am. Even after I swore to him I wouldn’t. Even after I promised I would never come back to see the places of the dead.

  I watched then as the tears filled the barren spaces of her eyes. She was trembling and as soft as I’d ever seen her, and it was curious that all the sass in her had left at mention of her being in a place such as this, with her reluctance of ever returning for her father. She had opened up to Ezra Lee so easily, as if accepting every notion in his high, lilting voice, and stared directly at him through the brilliant ring not teetering nor blinking nor moving an ounce. Her short curls dazzled and shimmered in the heat as the crowd hushed to hear her confession, moving in that much closer to be near her, pushing almost on top of us so that I feared her being so close to the fire, and it reminding her of her first death, as it were, the one A.D. and I had thought she’d suffered at the Peabody. But now she only seemed tempted by Ezra Lee. It was as if he knew something about her just by looking and waiting. (And maybe that was his game all along, that insight into the shadows of others?) He had a way about him for sure, of focusing his eyes with a depth and deliberation I’d not seen. Something mesmerizing and dark played out beneath his gaze, for even as he performed his prophesying, I could hear my heart beat as Ms. Clara May took another step forward to be near him.

  You’ve been touched by fire before, he said.

  I have, and she turned once for all to see the skin on the back of her neck. As she did, and the crowd gasped, it did not stop one of the orientals from grabbing and guiding her head inside the wheel of fire, which was turned now on its edge so that Ms. Clara May stood inside it as the flames ascended around her on all sides.

  I know, he said and stepped closer. His blue eyes narrowed in the shine of the heat. His red lips glistened as he licked them. Ms. Clara May was only a few inches from him, the wheel barely separated them, and his breath rich with ether alighted like a soft glimmer in the darkness. The flammable breath of the man. The rosy sparks. Fire, he finally said, so that all leaned in closer to hear. A delicate fire. In the flesh.

  Ms. Clara May brought her hand up to her neck and it was as smooth as could be and yet there she was, surrounded by scoundrels and fire and that hypnotizer himself, swallowing whole her body and soul with his voice, and I didn’t have the first notion as to what to do, to bring her back. There has been fire on me before, she said, her voice soft, her eyes fluttering in the white shine and then closing of her own accord as Ezra leaned one hand out and touched a candle flame. Trailing his fingers there for seconds and seconds, the crowd marveled to see how calmly he stood as if the flame was his only companion.

  O my dear, he said, leaning in closer. I knew there was fire in you. I could practically smell it, and as he sniffed her ravenously the crowd sent up another wave of laughter, even as he hushed them with his powdery face. And yet it is in everyone from the first, he continued, but in you most particular, and as he pulled his hand out finally, he touched his steaming palm upon Ms. Clara May’s forehead as a backwoods healer might to the lame and penitent. Everyone close could hear the sad sizzle of her skin and smell the slight acrid burning, like a few hay straws lit by the summer sun, and gaped to know she’d been marked by the great man and auger. So this will be your new beginning, he continued, your true birth. And just so no one can be jealous of us, he said, as he smiled and turned to the crowd that laughed at every little thing he did, he kept his hand there as he leaned even closer to her soft white face and recited some secret verse. His eyes closed now as if consumed by the devilish rite, whispering with his lips to her cheek, before speaking louder as he finished, as if commencing the passage of some prophesy and pact, reciting for all to hear: When he finds out how many kisses we have shared, and we sleep a never ending night.

  Catullus? You cannot use Catallus against us! The voice was loud and cut across the ghoulish ceremony, so that all turned to see the red doors swinging wide as A.D. strode tall and otherworldly toward us carrying his black guitar gleaming. His eyes were ablaze to see the crowd so hushed and his own Clara May stranded in the wheel of fire. In truth, I was not sure what he might do. There was an air to him of something invincible, as if he’d been returned to the words and verse he loved most, after drifting these past months since his studies at the Peabody, that to hear them used against his love was a betrayal of everything he was. So, he said, as his long lean face scowled in the light, let us judge all the rumors of the old men to be worth just one penny. And then he was there, standing at the wheel, and as Ezra eyed him, A.D. flicked from his thumb one shiny coin in the air so that Ezra had to stand back shocked and awestruck to see the object hurtling in the room above all the gathered heads before falling in its perfect arc straight upon him until—PLOP—it landed on his greasy forehead and the crowd stared to see it stick there as if glued immortal to the man’s hot skin.

  You! Ezra gasped, and he made as if to grasp the coin from its firm place but couldn’t get hold of it and just smeared the paint into his hair and eyebrows and lashes. You come here to steal songs from me—and then even after what I saw in you—you do this? Usurper! Dilettante! You know she’s not yours any longer. She’s not even of the same substance.

  A.D. had gotten Ms. Clara May out from beneath the wheel before I knew it. Then with one quick thrust, the flames shot up bright and unwieldy as the crowd fell back and the wheel lurched unhinged from its tether, before spinning like a top on the floor. There was a great shouting behind us, as the greasy leather coat of that mean midget caught fire, and the crowd froze in an amused stupor to watch dumbfounded and inert as that short ridiculous man flailed about and twisted in a frenzy of flame. There were only faces then. Hard inquisitive eyes emerged from the dim recesses of the room. A.D. was before me, and I watched as he pulled Ms. Clara May, grabbing her car keys before we even reached the door.

  There was no one to stop us. No one even conscious enough to try. There was just Ezra Lee silhouetted in the dark glare of the room. Ezra Lee furious, bending above the smoldering form of that midget, breathing his bright ether breath upon him, the rosy sparks mingling in the air, the shiny coin still wedded to his flesh. As if he’d been paid down for something, paid some otherworldly summons or decree, before leaning back and laughing to the ceiling, then finally reaching down to lick the wheel of fire.

  XVIII

  From the house of the dead ~ Those red swinging doors ~ The mark that stayed with her ~ The bleak augury of the man ~ Some
thing sparse and nebulous ~ Our next pressing engagement ~ The black creosote and oil ~ Raspberries and some kind of fruition ~ The taste of memory gone ~ That one divine note

  GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS. That was all I heard from then on from those two. Or Sappho. Or Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Or even Rumi and Juvenal and about the sad, wandering visionaries Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire on the gay streets of Paree! O they poured through their piles of books like they hadn’t in ages and I might not see A.D. lift his head for whole hours while I tried to get him to pick up his guitar and play.

  It was a curious time. Even though we’d escaped untouched as it were from the house of the dead that Ezra Lee had concocted on that dark-rimmed land, at night all that week and even for years after, I had visions of those red swinging doors, of the women I’d seen in their gaudy face paint and skimpy lace stockings roaming the crowd. I did not think my Annie would have had to succumb to such downhearted ways to provide for my Lucy girl, but I couldn’t be sure, and so Ezra Lee’s greasy white face haunted my dreams. It was no premonition nor harbinger for his returned presence into our lives, but its image would surface as from a black lake, or burning pulse of sky. Most nights I couldn’t tell if it was him or not. But then I’d see a line of girls disappear as cattle through a red-tinted maze arranged like sweep chutes where the men lined up to take their turn branding them with their hot glowing irons, and I’d know for sure he’d come back to haunt me. I’d sit bolt upright from my pallet and have to wipe my sweaty brow to remember the single acrid singe of Ezra’s burnt fingers on Ms. Clara May’s forehead.