Kiss Me, Judas

by Will Christopher Baer

  My body is so cold. The sun comes and goes and the light that lingers is lifeless. Nothing has a shadow. I lift my hand to my face and there is no definition. The skin is smooth, transparent. As if I’m wearing latex gloves and the real skin glows through them.

  I’m a scarecrow gloomily watching over a cornfield in winter. The goose bumps along my arm are painful to the touch. There are insects beneath my scalp, in my veins and teeth. I think I’m going to faint. I sit on the cinder block, muttering. I twist sideways and wrench the fragile, newly healed skin of my wound. The pain is an electric shock, and soon the insects subside.

  Laughter. And a pack of kids swerves down the alley, their movements spidery and sudden and I think they are looking to torment the cripple. Bludgeon the drunk, the homeless man. One of them picks up my fallen baseball cap and hands it to me. I grunt and smile. They spew something in Spanish and float away.

  *

  Hundreds of eyes and the chirp and giggle of voices, the drone of engines. The urge to flee is a high-pitched whistle and I stare into a black cavity of space that stinks of urine and dead flowers. Of rotting oranges and leather and spray paint. I crawl into the space and find a corner. I stare into the shadows and I see several corpselike figures, coiled in burlap sacks around me. Sleeping drunks with the faces of dogs, of horses. I blink and they’re not there.

  I sit very still, until I am sure I won’t vomit. Then I walk slowly around the building, to the front of the restaurant. There is a faded mural sprawled across the wall near the entrance, depicting a surreal bullfight. A cartoonlike bull paws at the earth, fire spewing from his massive nostrils. The body of a dead boy lies before him. A police car with a flat tire circles the scene, a rodeo clown at the wheel. In the foreground is a matador bearing a guitar. The audience is made up of young girls, howling and tearing at their clothes. I peer through the windows of the café, shameful as a beggar. A busboy with bright red acne scars wearily mops the floor. I’m reluctant to go inside. I’ve been in the shadows too long, speaking to no one. I’m afraid of the faces.

  I take a seat at a booth in the corner. I’m glad to see the cushions are plush red vinyl, in case I feel faint. Through a mirrored window I can see the Seventh Son. A young man comes to take my order. He is very young, perhaps sixteen. He has the beginnings of a mustache, soft as a baby dog’s fur. He looks at me nervously.

  What’s the matter? I croak.

  I’m sorry, sir. The owner says you should go.

  Why?

  He turns to look at a fat man with a belly like wet cement, leaning on the bar. The owner, presumably. He could break me in two with his little finger.

  You don’t look so good, the boy says.

  I have money, I say. I want a steak and a bottle of wine.

  The owner wants you to leave. Please, sir.

  I throw some money on the table and stand up. The fat man comes around the bar, his movements surprisingly fluid. His eyes are impassive as pools of ink.

  I’m sure you don’t pay this boy enough, I say.

  Get the fuck out of here, he says. You piece of trash.

  On the street again, staring at my reflection in a shop window. I need new clothes, clearly. I need something. When I was with Jude, I might have passed for an eccentric junkie. A suicidal cancer patient with a beautiful wife. An extraterrestrial with a credit card. Without her I’m a leper.

  I walk into a men’s clothing store and drop five thousand dollars on the counter. The nearest salesperson is a thin man with wispy blond hair and bright pink skin. I’m sure he’s an albino and I just can’t deal with it right now. It’s hard enough to try on pants under normal conditions. But in my state of mind, under the silky cold gaze of rat pink eyes, I think I might come to pieces. I might tell him about the inevitable death of the sun and how those of us that are used to living in shadows will be the new gods. But I look closely at his eyes and they are an ordinary brown. I realize he only has a sunburn.

  His lip curls slightly but he shrugs when he sees the money.

  I need some new clothes, I say.

  The salesman hesitates, then smiles. I should say so, he says.

  He isn’t a bad guy, the sunburned salesman. His name is Alexander. He’s reluctant at first, but he agrees to hold on to my money. There’s no one else in the store, thank god. I can’t stand the artificial silence and shared humiliation that seep from the mirrors in a room full of expensive, empty clothing. Alexander takes me gently by the elbow, as if I am his blind girlfriend, his arthritic mother. He helps me pick out some gray wool pants; they are cut like military pants, with multiple pockets and fat belt loops and those small, riveted holes in the crotch that will prevent them from filling with water if I have to slog through a river. I come out of the dressing room and stand before him.

  These are some nice pants, I say.

  They are fantastic, he says. He turns his head sideways.

  I glance at the price tag, I could get six pairs of pants at the army surplus store for that kind of cash. I sigh and realize I don’t care. Money has been irrelevant to me, lately. Alexander crouches before me to tug at the hem of my pants. I wait for him to notice the gun at my ankle, and I can’t decide if I will shrug and smile or kick him in the mouth like a dog. He doesn’t notice it.

  I need some new T-shirts, I say.

  Alexander raises his left eyebrow, but says nothing. He shows me where the T-shirts are. They seem to be plain cotton T-shirts. But they are apparently designed by a French clothing guru and woven of silver thread. They cost a hundred dollars each. I choose two of them, one black and one green. Alexander coaxes me into taking a white dress shirt as well, in case I need to wear a tie. I laugh weakly at that, and he laughs with me.

  What else. Does it get cold here?

  At night it gets quite chilly, he says.

  A jacket then. And shoes, I think.

  Alexander smiles. He disappears for a moment and returns with a long, sleek jacket of heavy brown calfskin. I slip it on and the weight of it feels good. It feels like armor. I realize that my old jacket has been clinging to me like the skin of a dead rat. This jacket will give me the heart of a lion, the penis of a horse. It will cost me the price of a small Japanese car.

  Alexander reaches to adjust my lapel, then trails his fingers softly, slowly down my arms.

  I’ll take it.

  Excellent, he says.

  I try on several pairs of boots, and finally settle for the simple black ones that zip up the side. I’m glad I won’t need to bother with laces for a while.

  Alexander looks at me awkwardly. Don’t be offended, he says. But you smell like death. I really think you should have a shower before you wear these new things.

  I shake my head. Nothing offends me. But I’m a little bit homeless at the moment.

  There’s a shower in the employee bathroom, he says. I insist.

  It can’t hurt, I say.

  He shows me to the little bathroom and I feel like a holiday houseguest. It feels good to trust someone, if only for a few minutes. The shower is a small box with a sliding glass door. I stand under hot, pounding water and stare down at the stitches in my skin. They coil around me like the rotting skin of a snake, and I wonder if they will dissolve before my eyes. The door to the bathroom opens and I can see Alexander through the steamed glass. He has come to shoot me. Or else he wants to get in the shower with me. I don’t really like either idea.

  I brought you a towel, he says.

  There is another customer in the shop when I come out of the bathroom. A woman, her back turned to me. She has gray hairs and a thick web of blue veins on the backs of her legs. She’s no one, a stranger and still I flinch. Alexander cocks his head and puckers his mouth as if to whistle when he sees me. It’s foolish, but the new clothes have changed the way I walk. They have given me a temporary sheen of confidence that will be rubbed away in a few hours. Alexander hands me a stack of bills and a leather shoulder bag. The extra shirts are inside, he says. And the money i
s what’s left of my wad. It feels too thick and I thumb through it. A little more than three thousand in matted hundreds and twenties.

  I gave you a discount, says Alexander. And I threw in a pair of silk boxers.

  Thanks.

  A smile creeps across my face and I reach to touch his hand. Kindness from strangers is rare and strange, it makes me weak. I want to tell him that I don’t wear boxers, that I don’t wear any underwear at all.

  twenty-nine.

  I nearly ask Alexander to have a drink with me. My tastes don’t really run to thin, fair-haired men. It would just be nice to drink with someone who is normal, who isn’t lying to me with every breath. I have had the odd moments, though. Some men are disturbingly pretty. The dark, heavy lips and knifelike bones and the feline muscles in their shoulders. Lucy used to drag me to one particularly damp museum in Denver. She loved a lot of postmodern shit, and I would follow her around, generally stoned and indifferent. After an hour or two I would drift away from her until I found the torso. It was a headless fragment, the broken remains of an early Roman statue. The chest and belly of a dying man, dying or twisting in pain. It was carved in marble so smooth it looked wet, and I always wanted to touch it.

  I’m coming to pieces and I want to go home.

  I wonder if I can pull myself together and hitchhike back to Denver. Then I can get myself a nice job at a gas station, maybe a video store. I can change my name to Freddie and I can mutter to myself and chew on my hair and tell outrageous stories to anyone who will listen. I can meet Eve for coffee and maybe a movie. I can write bad poems for her. I know she has a girlfriend but there’s always hope, there’s always boredom and the goofy bliss of unrequited love. But I’m far too weak. I’m feeling the first tug of chemical loss in my belly, in the palms of my hands. A stomach full of bland, heavy food will dull the need. I drag myself back to the café that banished me before, hoping the new clothes will do their thing.

  The fat man still leans against the bar. His eyebrows twitch when he sees me, but that’s all. I sit in the same booth, and this time a girl appears. I tell her to bring me a plate of beans and rice, a shot of tequila and a pot of coffee. The girl is perhaps fourteen and she seems to walk on her toes. She brings me a glass of fresh orange juice, on the house. She says I look very pale. Her only words to me. I drink the juice, and it sloshes around with the coffee and tequila. The beans and rice sit before me, untouched. They are barely warm when I begin to eat. I chew each bite monotonously, tirelessly. And the food stays down.

  I am drinking my fourth shot of tequila, feeling slightly damp and bloated and staring out the big glass window as if it’s a television and I can’t be bothered to change the channel. There is nothing to see. A thousand cars pass, blurry and colorless.

  Jude appears from the west, the orange sun falling behind her like a ring of fire. Her face is a shadow. She is light on her feet, as if she couldn’t be happier. She carries the icebox and a dozen roses, and a tickle of guilt rises in my throat. Jude disappears around the corner to our room and I hold my breath. I count to five and she comes out of the motel at a half run, her hands empty. She looks up and down the street, and for a moment she glares right at me. I’m sure she sees me. But I shrink back into my booth and she looks away. Finally she turns and returns to the room. I finish my drink and sit there, smoking.

  Time shivers and Jude is on the street again. She has changed into fresh clothes: black jeans and a tight silver shirt that barely covers her stomach, a black trench coat that appears to be made of velvet. Heavy boots and a little black hat that clings to her head. Her backpack is slung over one shoulder. She stands on the street corner for a moment, her face gray as stone. She still holds the icebox. Either she is about to burst into tears, or she is patiently waiting for a bomb to go off. I can never be sure. A car whips past her, then a man on a motorcycle. In their wake, Jude holds out her closed fist for a heartbeat before the torn rose petals tumble away from her open hand. She walks down the street, away from me.

  I drop some money on the table and walk out of the café into bruised light. Jude has vanished. I turn in widening circles. She was never there and I don’t even feel myself collapse.

  Lucy and I were married one year after she fell from the roof. I knew she had leukemia, that I was borrowing her. I should have taken her to France, to the moon. But we tried to shove our lives into a box. Lucy packed away her paints and brushes and let her hair grow. She became a teacher. She begged me for children. I went deeper and deeper with Internal Affairs, until I disappeared. I was underwater. I couldn’t be trusted. Lucy was a meteor, burning up as she entered the atmosphere.

  I spent nine weeks as a mole with Vice. I was posing as an involuntary transfer from Narcotics. I was posing as another fuck-up and it wasn’t hard. My name was Stephen Crow. I had a green convertible and a little apartment two blocks from home and Lucy knew little about it. She called it my artificial life. She was teaching math to snotty kids with penetrating eyes and rapidly mutating bodies. The kids were itching to fuck each other, to kill each other. Lucy was trying to keep a straight face about death. I was supposed to get close to some rogue from Internal Affairs who was selling expensive protection to dirty cops in Vice. Of course, I never found him.

  But I did get tangled up with a male prostitute. His name was T. and he had the soft, liquid brown eyes of a German shepherd. The kid was dangling on a hook between good cops and bad cops. Everybody was squeezing him and the pale brown shit was running out of his ass and mouth. The bad guys were feeding him bogus information and he was selling it to the good guys, and some of the good guys were getting killed. I casually decided to look into it, as if I were trying on a new hat. I had nothing to lose. My own assignment was dead, it was a stuffed animal. This prostitute could have been big for me. He could have been huge. I thought I could tie a string around his toe and follow him to a nest of filthy cops.

  I got close to little T. without any trouble. I had some heroin I was willing to share, and all it would cost him was a little love. I shared a needle with him and we nodded for hours together in his shadowy room. He tried to feed me some of his bad information but I wasn’t listening. I was staring at his long dark eyelashes, his perfect nose. He had the skin of a baby and I knew he would be dead soon. T. was arrogant and rude but not entirely stupid. He smelled the badge on me and still he gave me the most stunning blow job I ever had. He left me nearly in tears. T. sat back against the wall in a yellow splash of sunlight that fell over his bare futon and rolled a lumpy cigarette. He was pleased with himself. There was a gold fleck of tobacco on his lower lip.

  He eyed my wedding ring and said, Does your wife know?

  I stared at him without smiling. It was fascinating, really, that I could be so stupid, so careless. Stephen Crow was surely not married.

  Does she know what? I said.

  He grinned. That you like boys.

  I drank flat beer from a green bottle and resisted the urge to pluck the tobacco from his lip, to twist the lip until it turned white between my fingers.

  It isn’t about that, I said. You could be a little girl or a dog.

  T. blew smoke rings, his mouth dark and pouting.

  It’s about alien flesh and misplaced sympathy.

  Why don’t you speak English?

  My wife is dying, I said. And she’s so close to me that I can’t touch her. I don’t know you but I can see her in you. I see death in you and it’s so much easier to give myself to you.

  T. flicked his cigarette at a withered aloe plant.

  It’s a terrible feeling, I said.

  But I’m not dying, he said.

  I can see your dead body when I close my eyes, I said. And it makes you glow a little more brightly.

  T. pulled a blue plaid shirt across his lap. I’m not dying, he said.

  But you are, I said. You have fucking killed yourself. If I don’t kill you, someone else will.

  He threw my shoes at me and told me to get the fuck out.
I marveled at how easily tenderness became cruelty and took the stairs two at a time, manic and cheerful. The kid was dead two days later. One of the good cops decided it was no fun being good all the time, and little T. was found in bed with both brown eyes gouged out and a bullet in the back of his head.

  I went home to Lucy and made frantic love to her on the floor beside our bed. The sun fell in shreds. She wrapped her legs around me and told me outrageous stories about her students. Lucy told me how the kids looked at her, how she felt naked before them. She told me that she was never going to die. I couldn’t tell her anything. I still had an apartment two streets away. I want to say: I saw you. Two weeks ago, when my name was Stephen Crow and I was barely awake, smoking a cigarette at my window. You walked right past me and I was a ghost behind glass. Your car must have died and you had to catch the bus. I stared at you so hard that I could see through your clothes. I could see the cancer in your blood and I was made of tin.

  Lucy never asked if I had other lovers when I was undercover, when I was artificial. There’s a bumpy road beneath me and I wake up choking. I blink my eyes and I’m in a fucking ambulance. I’m strapped down like a bug, my poor skull rattling. The funny thing is that no one is busy trying to save my life. I’m hooked up to no machinery. In fact, the paramedics are studiously ignoring me. The siren is off. I twist my neck around and peer at a female medic sitting in the jump seat, a clipboard in hand. She has dark skin and cropped black hair, a weirdly muscular face. She wears navy blue pants and a white shirt and polished black desert boots.