The shame and horror at what he had done hadn’t hit him until, driving home, he had looked at his hand on the steering wheel and seen the mark of Ann’s teeth. Tiny beads of blood were welling up from the imprint, which circled the base of his thumb. What had he done to make her bite him that hard?
Get home, his mind had chanted. Get home, to Ghost. Just get there and you’ll be okay. He had. They hadn’t talked much, but Ghost had sat up with him until he could sleep.
The next few weeks had dragged by. He missed her, he ached for her; he hated her; he pictured her making wild sweet love with her schoolteacher boyfriend. He called her house and hung up twice. Then one time her father answered, and he worked up his courage and asked to talk to her. Surely she wouldn’t have told her father what he had done. But Simon only informed him in accents more clipped than usual that Steve was not to try to see Ann, telephone her, or communicate in any way. This was the only warning, Simon told him. On his second attempt Steve would be disposed of.
Arguing with Simon Bransby was like smoking a big joint of killer grass and then trying to take an exam in Nietzschean philosophy or organic chemistry. You had no idea what made sense and what was bullshit; Simon bombarded you with words faster than you could sort them out. Steve had hung up again.
He had not seen Ann since then. Until now. He was very high and more than a little drunk, and here she stood before him, come to see him and Ghost play at the Sacred Yew. A few minutes ago he had been thinking about getting her name tattooed on his arm.
The crack in her eyes closed, and she smiled what Steve recognized as her most guarded smile. “Hey, Steve. How’ve you been?”
Steve wanted to grab her, to bury his face between her breasts and sob for all those lost nights, even the ones that had ripped both their souls open. He wanted to wipe that fake glossy smile off her face. He couldn’t stand to see that smile on the lips he knew so well, the lips he had nudged open with his tongue, the lips that had brought him to the forbidden zone between pleasure and madness. The betraying lips. Were they printed with the kisses of the teacher from Corinth? He wanted them for himself, wanted to reclaim them.
But even as drunk as he was, he could not. To do that, he would have to show his desperation. He would have to apologize or cry or something. Such raw openness, with its possibility of scorn, was not in Steve. Ghost had it, but Steve’s dark eyes hid his soul as Ghost’s pale ones never could. So he only smiled back, as easily as he was able, and offered her his half-full bottle. “Wanna beer?”
“Natty Boho, huh?” she said. Steve winced. She liked Rolling Rock, he knew that. But her voice was the same as ever, that tender voice roughened by too many Camels, with the hoarse little catch in it, like a fingernail on a jagged piece of tin.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. Jesus. Brilliant repartee.
“Oh well.” She took a swallow and managed not to grimace. “Ghost brought me a copy of the tape. Oh, wait, did he tell you he came over?” Her hands played nervously with the tattered veil of her hat. Obviously she didn’t want to get Ghost in trouble.
“Yeah, he told me.” And it was no big deal, not like I yelled at him or nearly decked him or anything…
“It made me want to come see you play again. I’m glad I did. That was a damn good show, Steve. You two are getting too good for this town.”
Terry slid off his bar stool and hauled R.J. down by the back of his collar. After testing his balance, R.J. managed to remain precariously upright. “We’ll catch you later, man,” said Terry. “Hey, here—you want these?” He put a fresh beer in Steve’s hand, and another in Ann’s. A Rolling Rock and a Bud. Before Steve had a chance to thank him, Terry had dragged R.J. off through the crowd.
“You think we’re too good for Missing Mile?” Steve said. Another scintillating reply. Jeeesus…
“Yeah. I mean, Kinsey’s great, but how much farther can you go playing at the Sacred Yew? You ought to take it on the road. You could get as big as R.E.M. or somebody like that. You could travel. You could get to be famous.”
Steve looked at the beer in his hand. He popped it open and drained a third of it in one swallow. Then he opened his mouth to answer Ann, and what came out was “You really want me out of town, huh? I guess your boyfriend over in Corinth can still get it up for you.”
OH, JESUS. He hadn’t meant to say that. It was the demon. He should have stuck with sparkling wit like “yeah” and “uh-huh.”
But it was too late. Ann’s face had snapped shut, her eyes hardened. “You bastard,” she said. “You couldn’t wait, you couldn’t even talk to me—”
“Listen—Ann—”
“Shut up! You had to get a jab in right away, didn’t you? Like you were the one who should be pissed at me. Like I raped you, not the other way around!”
“Dammit, shut up for a minute—”
“Shut up? Keep my voice down maybe? That’s real good, Steve. That’s so good you can shove it up your ass.” Now she was turning away. She thought she was so tough, but she was turning away to hide her tears. Before he could reach out and stop her, she was pushing her way through the bar crowd, her head down, making for the door. Steve started to follow, but the demon spoke up again: Wait a second. She started all this, she fucked around on me. What the hell is she pissed off about? Let her shove it up her own ass.
He turned back to the bar and met the cold eyes of the new bartender, who must have seen the sordid little melodrama from the beginning. But under the coldness in those eyes was a strange sympathy, a look of solitude and wisdom. The bartender raised one shoulder in a tiny shrug: Such is life, friend. And in his long thin hand was another can of Budweiser, cold and frosty and waiting for Steve to grab it.
Ghost prowled around the club for maybe fifteen minutes, staying in the shadows, saying hello to people he knew but not stopping to talk to them. Instead, he watched Nothing. Right after the show he had found himself wanting to talk to Nothing, though he wasn’t sure what he wished to say. Maybe only to offer a word of kinship. To say I can’t heal your pain, but I can see it. And you don’t have to be lost. Not forever. So he waited and hoped that Nothing would move away from his three friends, if only to go to the restroom or something. But they huddled in a tight little knot passing a flask with a Grateful Dead sticker on its side—Ghost could just make out the roses and the grinning skull.
The two larger friends laughed a lot and sloshed the liquor in their mouths before they swallowed it. But Nothing and Zillah were quiet. Zillah always seemed to have his hands on Nothing, touching the sleeve of Nothing’s raincoat, speaking occasionally (with his soft, untorn lips—but Ghost would not think about that, not now) into Nothing’s ear. Leaning in close, protective or predatory or both. Zillah probably would have followed Nothing into the restroom. Nothing stood silently, looking very young and a little nervous, his face lit orange by the glowing eye of his cigarette.
After a while the air inside the club began to press on Ghost’s face. It was heavy with smoke and the neon-bright energy of the kids. A girl in black silk shimmied to the music piping over the PA system. A boy with long unruly hair played air-guitar furiously, miming a Steve Finn lick for his friends. Other kids shouted back and forth, fluttering hands stamped in ink with the many-boughed Yggdrasilian logo of the club. Ghost passed them on his way to the door. His head swarmed with their conversation and their stray thoughts.
Outside, in the night, the air felt as clear and hard-edged as slivers of ice. Ghost breathed it in deep and blew it out. Pale steam plumed from his mouth and his nostrils. For a minute he stood on the sidewalk in front of the club, his hands deep in the pockets of his army jacket fumbling with the objects he found there. Rose petals. An old ace of spades he had found in the dead grass at the end of their driveway, water-marked and crusted with dirt. A guitar pick, the lucky one Steve had given him. Then, his hands still in his pockets, he crossed the street and stood in the middle of the empty block.
Missing Mile was not a large town, but it was big
enough to have a couple of run-down areas. The Sacred Yew was right in the middle of one. The kids didn’t care, and Kinsey liked the cheap rent. Some of the shop windows were boarded up or broken. Ghost stood in front of a building that had last been a dress shop. Magic Marker signs in the display window still announced GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! and ALL STOCK 75% OFF! and, optimistically, BEAT XMAS RUSH!
But between the signs the window was soaped in great cakey swashes. Looking through one of the gaps, Ghost saw a pink torso splashed with moonlight and shadow. Above it, a smooth, featureless oval of a head gazed back into the dark recesses of the building. A mannequin, left behind to preside over ruin.
He did not turn when Ann came silently out of the club, her hair flying like a banner behind her, cold tears dripping off her chin. He stood looking through the window of the abandoned dress shop for a long time. The only voice in his head was his own, and his thoughts drifted like the clouds up by the moon. Then, sometime later, he sensed a presence behind him.
When he turned, Zillah and Nothing were across the street, standing by the club door. Zillah was still for a moment, seeming to scent the cold night air. Then he started down the street, walking fast, not looking back at Nothing. Nothing hurried to catch up.
After a moment, Ghost followed too.
Christian turned away from the rangy guitarist without asking him to pay for his beer. He had learned to know when a customer needed a drink on the house. The boy nodded his thanks and walked away, already raising the beer to his lips.
As Christian pulled the Michelob tap forward and began drawing another beer, he glanced up at the bar clock—and his breath caught in his throat. The glass clockface was reflecting three lights at once: the purple glow of the ancient TV set that flickered all night up in the corner; the green luminescence of a beer sign across the room; and the yellow of someone’s striking a match. That was all, but for a second those three colors flared together, and in that circle of glass Christian saw the tawdry splendor of a hundred Mardi Gras nights—the fire, the liquor, the beads, the burning glow of Chartreuse—all up there in the dusty clockface.
A wave of homesickness such as he had never known shuddered through him. It did not matter that his bar had been way down Chartres, far from the heart of the Quarter. In that moment he saw only Bourbon Street, the neon carnival going on all night, the glitter that lit up the dawn. And he thought suddenly that New Orleans was his home as no place had ever been—not in all his years. He must go back. Better to face the dry danger of Wallace Creech than to stay in this dark little town serving endless cups of bad draft beer through every endless night.
Then, with an effort, he stilled his thoughts. Of course he could not go back. He had abandoned his bar. When no rent check was sent to the owner, the bar and supplies would be seized, would no longer belong to him. And did he wish to die at the hands of one such as Wallace, to die for the dogged obsessions of a sick old man, or to have to kill him and his endless string of true believers?
No. He would stay here, where fate and the highways had brought him. He would serve beer and sell roses as long as they grew. He would put away money. Someday, when he knew Wallace had to be dead, he could return to New Orleans. But for the present, as soon as he had enough money, he would go north to look for the others.
He drew another beer. Above the noise in the bar a loud voice said, “Hey, Count Dracula, can we get a drink?”
Christian turned, his shoulders stiff, his eyes frigid. But the two faces before him were familiar and as comically surprised as he must look. The ridiculous smudges of kohl around the eyes. The masses of ratted hair framing pallid cheeks. One of them held a sticky red lollipop in his hand. They had let their hair grow longer and wilder, and their style of dress was now tinged with punk. One wore a studded leather collar around his neck; the other’s black denim jacket seemed to be held together chiefly by hundreds of safety pins. Otherwise Molochai and Twig had changed not at all since Christian last saw them, waving goodbye from the windows of their van on that Ash Wednesday night fifteen years ago.
His first clear thought was What happened to Zillah? beautiful green-eyed Zillah? he must be safe. He blocked that thought, and his second one was They are here, they are really here; the time passed as if I were asleep and they have found me again.
Then Christian did something he had never done before, not once during a long, long bartending career. He dropped the cup of beer he was holding. It foamed around his boots and made a huge puddle on the floor. Kinsey came out from the back and saw it and glared at him, and Christian could not have cared less.
Nothing gazed around at the kids in the club. They were all so beautiful. He loved their choppy hairstyles, their costume jewelry, their ragged black or multicolored clothes. He loved the way they all somehow looked like him, and he wished he could make friends with every one of them. Most of them smiled at him, and a few said “hey”—they all seemed to say that instead of “hi” or “hello”—but he didn’t dare talk to any of them. He couldn’t make friends now. Not when they might end up like Laine, alone in a culvert with rainwater washing through their hair.
Not yet.
He was content just to be among them, watching them talk, smoke, dance. Zillah was beside him, and the others, so he wasn’t alone. And he had the show to remember. The songs. Ghost swaying at the microphone, bathed in golden light. Steve bounding across the stage, playing guitar like the devil was chasing him. Ghost’s hands like pale birds shaping the music. Nothing stood still, trying to absorb every detail of the club—the smells of clove-smoke and sweaty perfume; the mural sprawling across the walls, some of it faded or rubbed away, some bright as the fresh blood on the walls of the van.
Then Molochai and Twig stumbled off to the bar in search of some drink called a Suffering Bastard. Zillah disappeared with them, but a few minutes later he was back. He gripped Nothing’s arm and nodded meaningfully toward the exit.
Outside, Zillah turned without a word and stalked away from the club. Nothing stared after him for a moment, then ran along the sidewalk to catch up.
All day it had been like this. Ever since slinking away from Steve and Ghost’s house—that was how Nothing thought of it. In broad daylight they had slunk away. Now Zillah’s face was completely healed, and Zillah had managed to be nice to him all night. But now Zillah was acting as if he had been disgusted with the show. Had the music bored him? Was the club too small, too unglamorous? Or did Zillah just harbor an unshakable hatred for Steve and Ghost?
If that was the case, Nothing wanted to retrieve Molochai and Twig and get out of town. He’d seen Missing Mile; he’d seen his show. There was no place for him here, not with his new family. Nothing caught up with Zillah and walked alongside him. On their right was a block of abandoned stores. On their left was a line of parked cars, windshields reflecting the moonlight back at Nothing. Up ahead he could make out a figure hunched on the hood of one of the cars. As they walked closer, he saw that it was a girl. Her long hair spilled down over the back of her sweatshirt. Closer still, and he saw that she was crying.
Zillah pulled him toward the girl. Surely he couldn’t be hungry again, not after last night—but Nothing put that out of his mind. He couldn’t do that again, not yet. And Molochai and Twig weren’t here. When Zillah touched the girl’s shoulder and asked, “Can we help you, my dear?” Nothing thought he understood. He had crossed Zillah, and his punishment wasn’t over.
But Nothing didn’t care. Zillah could have this girl if he wanted her. Or any girl, anyone. Because now Nothing knew something he hadn’t known before: Zillah wasn’t just angry because Nothing had gone against him, or even because Nothing had hurt him. Zillah was jealous too, jealous of Steve and Ghost, of Nothing’s love for them and their music. The new knowledge coursed through him, making him feel weirdly powerful, like the time he had shot heroin with Spooky. He could make someone jealous, even someone as beautiful and charismatic as Zillah. It was a heady feeling.
He could g
et used to feeling like that.
Ann’s head jerked up when the man touched her shoulder. She hadn’t heard him approaching, probably wouldn’t have heard the march of Sherman coming up the street. At a better moment she might have welcomed a stranger’s attention, but right now she knew her bangs were plastered to her forehead, her eye makeup smeared across her cheeks, the pale complexion she cultivated flushed and blotchy from crying. Damn Steve Finn, she thought, damn him to death. But then she saw the man who had spoken to her, and she forgot about Steve; she even forgot that she probably looked like a bag lady on crack.
She was transfixed. Her stare flicked over the boy beside him, dismissed him as a high school trendy, and went back to Zillah. The eyes were amazing, the first thing anyone would notice. The rest of him wasn’t bad either. He was shorter than she usually liked her guys, and a little more muscular—Steve and Eliot rivalled each other for the Ichabod Crane Bodybuilding Award. But the bones of his face were like a mask carved out of moonstone, perfect and faintly cruel, the face of an aristocrat. His skin was smooth and flawless.
As he reached out and took one of her hands, dwarfing it in both of his, Ann noticed the dark tracery of veins beneath his silken skin. After a moment she realized that these were noticeable because the man had almost no hair on the visible parts of his body—none on the knuckles or the back of his hand, none at the open collar of his shirt. She wondered if he was so smooth elsewhere, if she was about to find out. Those green eyes gave her a reckless feeling. How could you turn down a man who looked at you with those eyes?
“We were going back to our car to smoke a touch of opium,” Zillah told the girl. “Would you care to join us?”
For a moment Ann was almost afraid. If he had said “pot” or even “hash,” she would have thought nothing of it, but who had opium in Missing Mile? She thought of serial killers, of girls found rolled up in rugs with their arms and legs sawed off, of toolboxes and power drills.
Lost Souls Page 21