by Ray Cluley
S
She was at the window, looking out through the blinds. The light coming in was early morning and neon. It made her look hazy.
“You can go now,” she said.
She had dressed back into her jeans and vest, her arms folded over her chest and a cigarette between her fingers. He had seen that chest, kissed it, squeezed each breast. Even remembering Ann, what she had become, he felt little regret. He wanted to do it all again. He hardened under the covers thinking about it.
“I want to stay here for a while.”
Outside, the motel sign flickered and blinked out.
Amber brought the cigarette to her lips and blew smoke into the weak sunlight coming in between the blinds. It curled and spread there, grey and slow. “Maybe this is my fault,” she said to it.
He tried to sit up, to say something.
“No,” she said. “You should go. Be a rock star or something.”
He brought his arm out from under the covers to reach for her but knocked a lamp down and it smashed. He felt clumsy, like his arm was too long.
She merely glanced sidelong at him and smoked some more. “Too late,” she said quietly, and pulled the cord at the window.
The blinds gathered up in a rush and bright sunlight streamed into the room, blinding him. He cried out and crossed his arms over his eyes, thinking this was the worst hangover he’d ever had until he felt how horribly bristly his flailing arms were, how slender. Maybe it wasn’t a hangover, maybe he was still drunk or still dreaming or remembering or something, but oh that fucking light hurt!
He rolled from the bed, marvelling at how easy it was; there was a strange new curve to his back and, oh God, he’d seen something like it before, hadn’t he? He slid into the darkness beneath the bed, the shade like cool water on his thickening skin.
She was saying something about how he’d had a chance, but it was hard to hear the words over the high noise he was making, and when she said something about his chance or choice or whatever, he had no idea what she was talking about because all he could do was hiss and turn on the spot as his back split and opened and new spiny limbs burst from old ones.
I’m a moth, I’m a moth, I’m a fucking moth!
But of course he wasn’t, he never had been. It was easier to hide from the light than to seek it out, easier to blame others for his lack of happiness than to risk being burned in the pursuit of it. The bed above shifted and bumped with him as he changed, but it grew more distant as he diminished and decided and became what he’d always been.
“I guess you’ll stay a while,” someone said. Someone who knew the way, once, but lost herself on purpose to avoid choices. She’d never be anyone or anything.
He didn’t care. There were things with him beneath the bed, nudging the dust and scavenging waste. They had faces, these things. Human faces, looking down at the ground as they bumbled around. He’d never noticed them before.
He remembered, then, the one he’d crushed from room 8. Had it a face like these? And whose face had it been?
He flexed the wings he’d never use and scurried back to his room to find out, hoping whoever he found there would accept him for what he was.
Behind him came the call of tiny voices he pretended not to under-stand.
No More West
He was as old, worn, and weary as the barren landscape, and just as dusty. So was his horse. But whereas the rider sat tall and alert, the horse was flagging, head hung low with every slow step.
“C’mon,” the man tried, but his throat was as parched as the cracked ground beneath them. Then, because his tongue was too dry to cluck encouragement, and his spurs little more than blunt silver coins, he took off his hat and swiped at the animal’s flanks. He steered with his thighs, heading for a rock formation the sinking sun had made silhouette. They’d rest there.
As the sun dipped and bled its last into the sky, rider and mount were finally amongst the rocks. The shadows felt like damp cloths on the cowboy’s skin and he relished them. There was a standing pool of water, too. Not ideal, but when your skins are empty it’s plenty good enough.
He dismounted without flourish and crouched close enough to wet his knees. He cupped water to his mouth slowly but swallowed with greed, lowering his water-skin into the pool. The horse lapped at it without enthusiasm.
“She looks about ready to die.”
The cowboy turned and drew both guns in one motion, but he didn’t fire. There was a woman, sitting on the steps of a wagon he hadn’t noticed. The shadows, maybe. His eagerness to drink, most likely. She wasn’t startled by his swiftness, though at his age it must have been surprising, and she didn’t shy from his aim neither.
The horse made a weak whinnying and fell into the dust and shuddered. The cowboy went to the animal quickly but it was already dead.
“Told you.”
He straight-armed his aim, suddenly superstitious, and took steps forward. She was unconcerned.
“Weren’t me,” she said.
He looked at the water, then the skin he’d filled. He kicked it into the pool.
“Weren’t no poison, neither.”
The woman stood, smoothing her hooped skirt, and came down from her wagon. Travel Trade and Cure Alls, it said on painted boards. She was dressed more for trade at Kitty’s than for travel, all skirt and lace and sweat-wet cleavage. She waved his guns away as if swatting flies. “Ain’t no good on me, you know that.”
They were empty, but at this distance how could she know? Still, he holstered them.
She nodded. “Got food if you’re wantin.”
S
They sat around a fire, him spooning beans and meat into his mouth, she simply holding her food and watching. The only sounds were his; slurping, chewing, swallowing. That, and the crackle of the fire.
“What’s your name, cowboy?”
He looked up from his food but said nothing.
“Mine’s Delia. Madame Delia, here to deal ya. I got anything you need, from bullets to balms.”
“Got a horse?”
She laughed. “No more than you have.”
“How’d you get here?”
She patted the wagon steps behind her. “You blind? Too much sun can do that to a man, bouncing off this damned dry dirt.”
He scraped at the bottom of his tin, then ran his fingers round the juice and licked them clean. “Got no need for bottled miracles,” he told her.
She laughed. It had the sound of blown desert sand. “Miracles? No, no miracles. Where you headin?” She offered him her own food by way of encouraging an answer.
“West.”
“Ain’t no more west.”
He looked at her but said nothing. He ate.
“No more cowboys. No more west. It’s all gone,” she said. “Few more miles that way, then nothin. Go. You’ll see.”
“What will I see?”
“Nothin.”
He finished eating, cast the tin down, and patted at his pockets.
“Need somethin?”
He looked at her. “I need to go west.”
She stared at him. He returned it. It was like staring at the darkness of the sky.
“I got what you need,” she said. She got up slowly and climbed into the wagon.
If he was meant to follow her, she’d have to wait. He’d smoke first. He rolled his tobacco, tapped it firm on his thigh.
She returned soon enough with a shawl and something else. The shawl she cast around her shoulders, stepping down from the wagon steps. The something else she held out for him. Something on a chain. Jewellery? No. He leaned to see. A watch? It looked the right size. Right shape.
“Compass,” she said, pressing it into his palm. He hadn’t realized he’d reached for it. The chain coiled on his wrist like a
small silver serpent.
“What do I need a compass for? Stars ain’t broke.”
“Open her up. See where she’ll lead you.”
He did. It pointed west. It pointed back the way he’d come. He turned it in his hands. It pointed west. He looked at the sky and thought maybe the stars were broke after all.
“It’ll take you west for as long as you want.”
“How much?”
She smiled. “They say men are for killin ’n commerce, but the female form has its uses, too, don’t it? And sometimes it needs a man.” She shrugged her shawl away and unfastened the corset she wore beneath to show him what she meant.
“How much?” he said again, pocketing his new treasure. He wouldn’t pay for more than the compass.
“Give yourself to me and it’s yours.”
“I’m old enough to be your grand-pappy.”
“No you ain’t, and it don’t matter none.”
He went to her and pulled at the rest of her clothes. She pulled roughly at his. He took one of her breasts in his mouth and she held him there, laying down beneath him with a satisfied sigh. His hand went between her thighs.
“Open her up,” she said into his ear. “See where she’ll lead you.”
He spread her legs with his and pushed inside and didn’t care for anything else she whispered.
He fucked her, then he slept.
S
He woke by the ashes of the fire. The sun wasn’t up but the colour of the sky said it was coming.
A horse snorted. A black one was harnessed to the wagon. The sound of hooves behind him made the cowboy turn but there was just a man with water-skins in his hands. They bulged full and steamed where he gripped them. “Mornin.”
The cowboy grabbed his clothes not for modesty, not for his guns, but for the compass. He felt the reassuring weight of it in his pocket and with less haste shook it into his hand.
“Where’s Madam Delia?”
The man made a show of looking around. He held his arms out wide. “Just us.”
“What’s your name?”
The man smiled Delia’s smile. “Pick one.”
The cowboy didn’t care to. He dressed himself.
The stranger clambered up to the seat of the wagon. “Heading west, I hear,” he said, scooping up the reins. “Going somewhere else, myself, but I’ll take you with me now if it suits.”
The cowboy looked to his compass. It was warm in his hands. “No.”
“Well, you come back when you’re done,” the man said. “Part of the deal. But you knew that.”
The cowboy nodded. He slapped ash from his hat but didn’t put it on.
“Here. Somethin else for your travels.”
The cowboy expected one of the water-skins but the man tossed him a belt of bullets. That was the way of the west. He strapped it on without thanks.
“Been some pleasure,” the man said with a grin, then—“Yah!”—he was trundling away, a cloud of dust rising behind.
The cowboy looked to the rising sun, opened his compass, and was pleased with what he saw.
He headed west, loading his guns as he went, eager to make dust of his own.
Beachcombing
The day was grey when Tommy saw the man looking out to sea, the sky either cloudless or made entirely of one large cloud without end or beginning. It seemed to Tommy that even the sand was grey that day, dampened by a drizzle that fell in the night and by surf the colour of old washing-up water. Slow waves lapped at the shore, leaving long wet curves in their wake, constantly renewed. This was where Tommy liked to walk, leaving his prints behind where others had before and knowing he could do it again tomorrow without getting confused.
The man was standing within the limits of one of these wet curves himself. Occasionally a wave would wash up around his ankles and drag away again, pulling at the cuffs of his trousers. The man didn’t seem to notice. He clutched the collar of his long coat around his throat and looked out to the thin horizon where grey sea met grey sky, a pencil line on tracing paper.
Tommy stopped where he was. He didn’t like to get too close to people in case they touched him. The man was still far away, but Tommy would wait until he was gone. Instead of continuing to where the rocks curled into the cove, he examined the stretch of beach around him, looking for treasures.
A bottle peeked from a shallow grave of sand, its neck outstretched and filling with water as the tide washed over it. Usually Tommy wouldn’t collect his treasures until the return journey so he didn’t have to carry them to the rocks and back again, but as he was waiting and the bottle was there, he pulled one of the plastic bin liners from his pocket and went to it.
The bottle was brown. There wasn’t much label showing but it was red and Tommy thought it was probably called Bud. He shook out the bin liner, letting it parachute full with the tang of salt air, and knelt in the wet sand. He dug around the bottle first, it was Bud, and then he took it up into his hands and closed his eyes.
Before Tommy, the bottle had belonged to a teenage boy. He was happy, slightly muddled because of Bud, coming to the beach with a girl with red hair. He had held the girl’s hand and it was warm. He had tried to hold other parts of her—Tommy didn’t know why—but she had slapped him away laughing—Tommy didn’t know why. When Tommy brought his fingers up over the lip of the bottle he felt where the boy’s had been. He had touched the girl and he had kissed her and sometimes she liked it and sometimes she didn’t and he had left the bottle behind afterwards.
It wasn’t much and it wasn’t all good. Tommy put the bottle in his bag and carried it in his right hand because it would be the rubbish bag.
The wind smacked the plastic bag as he walked around in a circle where the bottle had been. It made a thwicker-thwicker-thwicker noise that sounded in a hurry but Tommy took his time. The man was still there and it was still early in the morning so he had ages.
He found a polystyrene food box but it was soaked and gave him nothing so he put that in the rubbish bag as well. He liked to tidy the beach when he looked for treasure because Sally said neatness showed a strength of character and although he didn’t really know what that meant he knew it was good and that Sally admired it and so he was tidy. Anyway, if he didn’t pick up the rubbish as he went he would only pick it up again tomorrow and waste time.
Sally was nice. She looked after Tommy and the house he lived in and she knew not to touch him but he wouldn’t have minded if she did because he knew she was nice. He had touched some of her things. The only time he felt anything bad was when he touched one of the wrappers he found in the bathroom. Sally was scared and confused and ashamed and he felt those things even if he couldn’t explain them and he’d cried like she had done. But later, when he went to the toilet and tore off some paper to wipe himself he felt from the first square that she was happy again and relieved and disappointed too, which was confusing but better than before.
In the sand at his feet was a key ring. Tommy was excited. Keys were good, keys were definitely treasures, and even though he’d have to give these to Sally to hand in he could hold them for a while first and find out all sorts of things. He dropped to his knees and dug a trench with both hands, letting the weight of the bottle keep the bag from blowing away. He made neat piles with the sand he dug because neatness showed a strength of character but quickly discovered the key ring was just a key ring. There were no keys. He shook sand from his hands and rubbed them together and looked at what he’d found.
It was a chunky pink plastic heart with a short length of chain and a double hoop of metal at the end where the keys should be. Tommy snatched it up grinning because hearts were good and what he felt made him laugh with joy. A man had given this to a woman because he knew he loved her and he had put a ring where the keys were supposed to go. The man thought it was a funny kind
of joke. The woman had smiled politely when he gave it to her, pleased and disappointed like Sally had been, and then she’d seen the ring and screamed but wasn’t frightened. She had taken the ring off with trembling fingers, even though she wasn’t frightened, and said yes with a trembling voice, and the key ring had been forgotten.
Tommy hugged it close to his chest and pretended the man and woman were his parents. They couldn’t be because if the heart was theirs it would be washed empty by now.
He put the heart in his pocket. It was the best treasure in his collection so he didn’t want to put it in a bin bag.
The man on the beach was gone. Tommy smiled again and ran the length of the beach before the man could change his mind and come back. He was so happy with the heart he didn’t think about the man’s footprints and when he remembered on the way back they were already gone.
S
The man was there again the next day. Tommy could see him even before he got to the beach. Climbing over the little fence at the end of the car park, he saw the man standing and looking at the sea. The sea looked the same as yesterday, grey and mostly flat, and Tommy wondered what was worth looking at. Maybe he had better eyesight and could see a ship or something. Or maybe he couldn’t see at all, like the man with the special dog Tommy had petted once.
He went down the few steps to the sand by standing on the very edges and without touching the railing because it had too many people on it. Pavements were the same, even with shoes on, but if you walked carefully a car park was okay. He jumped the last three steps to the sand. The sand was always okay because the sea came and washed it everyday.
The first treasure was right there at the bottom of the steps. It was a little spade, bright green like a jelly bean. Even though the sun stayed away yesterday someone must have come to the beach to make sandcastles. Tommy picked it up and closed his eyes.