There're three of them. They're just barely visible, more glinty flashes of silver thread in the half-light. The lines describe three tall bodies crouching along the floor. Hyacinth lies on her back in the middle of them, her mouth open, her breath coming in irregular bursts like a dying fish. The takers have their hands on her, holding her old body down, although she's so far gone I don't even think they have to. Their heads are nestled against her ribs like suckling pups. They're sucking her stories out, emptying poor Hyacinth of all the hard work she's done over the centuries.
I don't bother being quiet. Anyway, the rage is in me; I don't think I could creep if I tried. The first one rises, all sluggish from so much feeding but still fierce like a cornered street-hound. I narrow my eyes, find where the glimmering contours insinuate something solid and drive my open hand into it. Catch the thing full across the throat and hear it gasp. Those invisible hands reach out towards me so I throw myself forward, feeling my old body crackle and grumble as I go. The taker is thrown off balance and we collapse across one of its still-feeding companions.
On the way down, my leg brushes against Hyacinth's. It's cold and I know if she's not gone yet, it won't be long. I can't be troubled with that now. The two takers are pinned beneath me; it feels like a horrible breeze, writhing up from the floor against my chest. They're pathetic, these wraiths, given over to their gluttony and barely able to stand, let alone fight off a nice old lady like me. So they don't put up much struggle when I place my hands over their faces and press down, releasing all my power to destroy through my palms and whispering fevered prayers.
They squirm, twitch, begin to give over to nothingness. I feel the last raging gasps reverberate through my slender body. An echo clatters along my bones, rattles me, and then they're gone. The third one has wrenched itself away from Hyacinth and is stumbling towards the door. There's so much crap on the floor, the taker has to keep throwing his weight from one side to the other to sashay around things. I walk slowly towards him, watch as he pitches forward and lands in a nebular heap.
It's so easy, I almost feel bad. Then Hyacinth gasps again. The rage wells up inside my chest, a red rising tide. It swooshes through my arm and explodes out my hand and into the back of the taker's head and annihilates him instantly. I rise, scan the piles of laundry and old newspapers. I'm about to take care of Hyacinth when a tingling voice in the back of my head whispers one word: Window.
The lookout. I turn towards the window as it cracks and then shatters. I hear the bedroom door swing open behind me and like an asshole, I turn around. Of course it's Ben. But when I realize that, it's too late: The lookout is on me. He's not fatigued and fatted out like his brothers. Those long arms hold me fast from behind and his cold lips are on my skin.
"Ms. Cortázar!" Ben is frozen in the doorway. I must look like a crazy person; I'm sure he can't see the taker. I open my mouth but a sudden shock of pain erupts through me. The taker has sent some sliver of itself inside, is burrowing through those precious stacks of stories. I wait for the panic but instead an unsettling complacency comes over me. The pain subsides and a pleasant haziness takes its place.
"Ms. Cortázar?" I'm sure my eyes have glazed over. I'm not really focusing on anything in particular, because why bother? Everything is taken care of. The boy in front of me suddenly looks at the floor and gasps, "Oh my god!" He runs past me. I think I might turn, at a leisurely pace. Maybe see what the excitement is about. I do, slowly because I'm a little dizzy and the room becomes a blur when I move too fast. Something heavy is weighing on my back but I'm very, very content.
A foot. A woman's bare foot, grey brown and calloused, with overgrown toe-nails. It's all I can make out because Ben's crouching over the rest of her. He turns, in slow motion, and shoots me a terrified glance. That's when I see the woman laying on the ground. The whole situation seems so familiar to me, like I saw it in a movie once. Or perhaps it was a story someone told me as I fell pleasantly asleep. Then I see her face.
Hyacinth.
Just a whisper. That voice. That's my voice. My whisper. Hyacinth. I know her. She is my friend. My sister. Just then, the sad old face trembles slightly and a hoarse breath escapes her open mouth. Hyacinth. And I see it: She's full of stories. Well, not full anymore, but there are still some, dancing in there like children left at school after all their classmates have been whisked away.
I have stories in me. Sweet Jesus!
That weight on my back. The taker. The situation flashes back to me and I'm suddenly consumed by panic. Ben is standing, staring with wide eyes. I drop to my knees, my arms are flailing. No. No flailing right now. I will my arms to reach behind me, find the thing, the...
Everything is so pleasant. My hand catches something in the air behind my head. A form. I'm sinking towards the floor. Ben reaches out to me. Behind him is Hyacinth, my sister.
This old hand finds its mark and my brain shoots a trembling blast of death through it. And something releases inside of me. Terror floods back up; the room is suddenly crisp. I wrench myself free of the taker's grasp and whirl around, still on my knees. He's shaking his head, trying to rally for another grab at me. I put my hand on him and when he looks up I let the death out, let it crease through him, watch him crumble and dissolve at my knees.
"Jesus!" Ben says. "What the fuck is going on?"
I try to stand but it's not working. This combat shit wore me out. Ben offers his arm and I clutch it, pull myself up. Hyacinth takes another breath. I kneel beside her, my whole body trembling, and have a look. She's mostly gone, my sister. As I gaze over that unkempt, tragic body, her withered hair and dry skin, I understand. They've been here for a while now, weeks maybe. That gnawing wrongness I woke up with was just Hyacinth's death knoll. Too late. She didn't even have any fight left in her. The takers found their way in, poisoned the air with that sweet-sensation morphine-type stuff they have, and feasted on poor Hyacinth's stories at their leisure.
Amazingly though, there's still quite a few stories in there. I can sense them twirling and tingling as I get close to her sad old face. She's been around a lot longer than I have. I can't even imagine how much traveling and collecting she's done. The sorrow of the moment suddenly rushes up on me. Hyacinth, for all her pain-in-the-ass perfectionism, taught me so much. There was a time that she was the one I went to when the pressure of all that living felt too burdensome to bear. Her face would crease into a smile and those eyes would glint a little and she'd spit out some silly old aphorism, more potent for its tone than meaning, and I'd feel somehow revived. I'd walk out fresh and the air would seem chilly and crisp around me and the world wouldn't be closing in anymore.
I let it pass. This isn't the time for century old recollections. Hyacinth really only has another couple moments left and I need to figure out what to do with her stories. I can't keep them all, I know that for sure. The suddenness of that overload, the two collections colliding, would be a shock to my system that I may never recover from. I could just let them go: As soon as her mortal body expired it would release them like spores out into the world. Most would evaporate. Some might carry off into the early Autumn wind and become dreams or fits of inspiration. But all that work, all that collecting... It seems a shame to let them go.
"Should we call 911?"
Ben is crouched across from me, staring intently at my face. I must have let my sadness slip out. "No, Ben. There's nothing they can do for her."
He nods like he understands. I suppose, in some way, he must've figured out by now that I'm not your average abuelita next door. I study his face for a second, blocking out all the chaos and carnage around us.
It's an intriguing third possibility, but I have my doubts.
Not because he's white, mind you.
Well, partially because he's white, yes. I've never seen a white storykeeper. I'm sure they're out there, they must be, but they're probably part of a whole other network than me and Hyacinth. Who knows? Also, he's a man. Never seen one of those keep stories, eithe
r. Again, I'm not saying... Well, let me stop apologizing for myself. Men don't necessarily have that same impulse towards nurturing the inner garden, so to speak. Particularly not the pale ones. At least, none of the ones I've met.
It's not just that though. He's very flimsy, Ben. I don't know if that little body could handle the sudden influx of stories. Even then, long term, there's no telling what would happen.
"What is it, Ms. Cortázar?"
He's genuine, I'll give him that much. Not trying to be anything but his own strange little self. Maybe, over time, he could develop some more spine and grow into the tremendous responsibility. Maybe. It's cruel, in a way, but crueler things have been done for much worse reasons.
"Ms. Cortázar? Why are you smiling?"
"Lie down, Ben." I say very gently. "Here, next to Hyacinth. This is how it all begins."
Tall Walkin' Death
1
In the back room of El Mar, the walls around us bumpy with fake coral reef and starfish, the drinks strong and ongoing into the night, we make light of every topic known to man. It's a machine gun strategy – any of these awkward taboos could be the one to a lay us low in a dark, too-much-thinking hour, so we rat-tat-tat through each with slick comments and useless insights. It's a thing we do. Sex, death, crying, true love, growing up, not growing up, sports, drugs, politics, race, sex, – we take it all on but tonight's discussion is about the secret pleasures of women.
"Look," Riley announces. "It's all about this." He wraps a translucent arm around his face, peers around to make sure everyone's watching and then enthusiastically slobbers all over his elbow pit.
"Snorkeling?" I suggest.
"No, Carlos. Head. Head!"
Gordo chimes in: "I agree, actually, with Riley. If a man does not give head, he is really not being considerate to the woman."
"Why'd it get called head anyway?" Jimmy asks.
"'Cause if you do it right the chick's head explodes," Riley explains.
"That's fucked up," Jimmy says.
"It's true," I confirm.
"Only in a manner of speaking, yes," Gordo puts in.
Cyrus Langley is characteristically quiet. Cyrus's one of these slow moving strategic ghosts, right up until it's time for war, and then he's all fire and fun. After more than a hundred years being bottled up in his own grave, watching his fellow forgotten and enslaved ghosts rot into ether, the man's gonna need his time to readjust. Tonight he looks content though, a serene smile pasted across his face, his fingers wrapped around a glass of pure absinthe. "Head," Cyrus says with a soft chuckle. "Don't know where you modern day Negroes come up with this shit."
I order another round of rum and cokes for me and Jimmy (Gordo's still nursing his) and a vodka shot for Riley. The table is littered with empty glasses and ashtrays full of stumped out cigar butts.
"You working tomorrow?" Riley asks.
I nod solemnly.
"Say fuck you to the Council for me."
"Done. Anything else?"
"Getting a new assignment?"
Nod.
"Anything we can cause trouble with?"
Shrug.
"Well what is it, you cryptic motherfucker?"
"I dunno, Riley. All I know is I'm working with Big Cane."
Riley splorches his drink across the table. "Big Cane! No way, that ol' ghost been around, like, two thousand years. He doesn't even work much anymore."
"Well, he's working tomorrow."
"Who's Big Cane?" Jimmy asks, wiping vodka and ghost saliva off his glasses.
"Seriously, Jimmy," Riley says, "you're underage and fully alive. If you wanna hang you're gonna haveta do better than just sitting there asking questions all the time. You need to contribute to the conversation too."
Jimmy puts his glasses back on and glares at Riley.
"You ever work with him?" I ask.
"Nah but he's a legend. Supposed to be quite the ol' badass."
"Why he called Big Cane?"
"'Cause he's tall and white. Why you think?"
I doubt that's really it but it gets everyone chuckling again. The waitress shows up with our drinks. She's short, round and delicious. I try to tell her how much I like her whenever she comes back with another round but it only comes out in stupid grins.
"If you don't let that young lady know how you feel," Cyrus muses after she hustles away with a wink, "I'm going to do it for you."
I roll my eyes.
"If they bringing in Big Cane," Riley says, "that means something has got The New York Council of the Dead truly unnerved. 'Specially if they pairing him with you."
Cyrus hovers up into a wavery standing position. "Gentlemen." The old conjurer's soft, squinty eyes are watery from the absinthe but his glow is fierce as ever. "Friends." He raises his glass to the center of the table. "A toast, to our unruly band of supernatural warriors, spies, magicians and griots." Our five glasses meet with a ruckus clank.
"Who's the warrior and who's the spy?" Riley asks.
Gordo says, "I am the griot."
"We're each all of them," Cyrus says gamely. "And a toast to a future where our destinies, in life and in death, are not governed by some foul sprawling bureaucracy but rather by our own collective passions and morals. This is the future we fight for."
Another clink and a chorus of here-heres and tell-ems.
Jimmy takes a swig and passes his drink to Riley.
"What's this?" Riley says.
"For my homies who passed away. I was gonna spill on the floor but you right there. Just take it."
"Har har," Riley says.
Cyrus just smiles.
* * *
At dawn we stumble out into the stilldark streets in that sprawling mess of houses and shops where Bushwick meets East New York. Cyrus and Riley float off together, singing some ol' time conjurer song in careless, slurred howls. Gordo watches them disappear, chuckles his goodbyes and then waddles off towards his cramped apartment by the train tracks.
I look up at Jimmy. He's just seventeen but his face has grown so serious in the few months I've known him. I wonder, for the thirtieth time this week, if I'm making a mistake in bringing him under my wing. "You drunk?"
"Nah," he waves the idea off like it's an angry moth and then relents. "A little."
"Me too." We head towards his bus stop, him with that long loping stride and me with my half gimpy grace, cane clicking along. "You know you can back out any time you want."
"I know, and if I'da wanted to I woulda, Carlos. But I don't. I'm in it regardless. Gonna be seeing ghost ass mothafuckers floating around the city, I might as well know how to deal with them." He's right. And he's getting really good with the short blade I gave him. And I really don't want him to stop, because somehow showing Jimmy the ropes makes this whole mess-with-the-Council-from-the-inside idea a lot more bearable.
"Alright," I say, lighting the night's final Malagueña. "It's the last time I'm gonna ask. What's this?" Jimmy has passed me what appears to be a miniature graphing calculator. "Thanks but I'm not taking the SATs any time soon."
"It's a phone, asshole."
"Ah."
"I swear, man, sometimes I really do wonder what century you were alive in."
"A mobile phone?"
"Look, I have one too." He reaches a long arm into his jacket and produces an identical phone. "This way, we can talk to each other. When we're not around each other. It's brilliant."
"Yes, I grasp the concept."
"It's to thank you," Jimmy looks somewhere else, 'cause that way it's easier for two men to be nice to each other. "For teaching me and everything. It really means a lot to me. I set you up with a plan, it was no big deal."
All I got is half sentences. "Jimmy, I... You didn't have to...really this is...wow." It's just that I haven't gotten many presents since I resurfaced. And the most important one is a cassette tape haunted with too many good memories of a woman long gone. And the rest of my life is a big erased blackboard, so that makes this the
best present anyone’s ever giving me. I can't quite put that into words though, so I just reach up and pat his shoulder in a way that I hope conveys how I feel.
We walk along in silence for a few blocks. The beginnings of gray creep along the eastward sky, a gentle glow over the houses. Little particles of rain flit in the morning air around us and the sleeping city stirs with the first chills of approaching winter.
* * *
Death always wins. Life is just a blip. It's a shiny, hyperactive blip, but a blip nonetheless, and no matter how strong or wily or rich a life may be, the slippery slope always leads to the great nothing. That's why when the dead see some clothes they think they might look slick in, they simply gank 'em and sit with the shit nonstop for a while. And since death always wins, pretty soon the threads'll take on that eerie translucent quality and start feeling nice and comfy against shiny barely-there flesh.
The girl sitting next to me outside of Botus's office looks like she stripped a whole military platoon and then went t-shirt shopping at a Metallica show. Her desert storm fatigues are fashionably huge and tucked into steel tipped boots. An angry winged skull grins out from her chest, haloed by the words ANGELS of NO MERCY in neo-gothic sprawl. She's about Jimmy's age; heavyset with dainty little glasses and a Mohawk. She's also cradling what may very well be a bazooka, or perhaps a rocket launcher, against her shoulder. Its butt rests on the ground. The business end features a red and white projectile of some kind – looks like it probably explodes on impact, whatever it is. I stand up and put a few seats between us.
The girl raises a mischievous eyebrow and grins at me. "Whatsamatter, halfie, Greta here bother you?"
"Greta looks temperamental."
"Nah, she got the safety on."
"Either way..."
"You meeting with Botus too?"
Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection Page 15