It’s a short walk from the bus line to a series of steps that descend down into the earth. I stand at a kiosk and run a bit of stolen plastic through the slot, and the turnstile opens when I push on it with my legs. I can feel the rumble of the train below me, and I pick up the pace as it shooshes into the stop. The doors ease open and I find myself a seat. I’m still a bit drowsy, the stress pushing me under against all of my instincts. Mostly I don’t care if I’m found out.
Mostly I don’t care about much.
I’ve made this trek many times before, and I know the danger it presents. Money stolen, drugs that never arrived, women soiled—I’ve committed all of these crimes against my brothers and my seniors and the dark strangers that crouch in the shadows. They assume I’m dead, that’s what I’ve presented to them. Stories and testimonies, legends and rumors, enough bits and pieces, remnants and stains, that the sheer volume of it all certainly must add up to my repeated demise. That’s why I don’t come back. One look, one face, a glance on a crowded subway car, a lonely vision out a passing car window, that’s all that it would take. But Ruby, it’s time she knew some things. Time she knew the truth. I’m unburdening myself as I near the last great crossing. I can feel the end of it closing in around me.
The Juice. That’s what got me here, the Juice. Long before I became a customer of the Slaughtered Lamb, the Juice ran me into the ground right here in the City.
I called it Club X because it had no name. Under the rumble of the el tracks there was an alley, and behind the brick there were concrete steps. A metal gate stood at both ends of the alley, another at the top of the stairs. Ginger used to work the door back then, at least that’s what I called him. Red hair and goatee, the pale little man was full of fire, his diminutive stature a constant burden to bear. Didn’t matter if he wore four-inch boot heels or if he brandished an axe, people tried to wander past him, touching him on the head, patting him and grinning, mutters of wee people and pots of gold. The purple ropes went up a week after he started there, and he started to carry a baton. One end held an electric taser, the other a long, thin spike. There were no more broken hands and teeth marks on thighs. The patrons stood in line and waited their turn.
But not me.
“Ginger, how goes it?” I said, sauntering down the alley, darkness pushing up the brick walls, a stray streetlamp at the other end illuminating puddles of oil and dirt.
“Night, governor,” he said, bowing down. He unclicked the rope to the sullen muttering of the long line, but I paid it no attention.
Ginger’s the one that got me hooked.
Down the long concrete at the bottom of the dark steps was another door, three inches of steel dotted with rivets. No bouncer here, just a tiny retina scan, over to the right of the door. I leaned in and let the red lines sweep over my eyeballs, the light crawling over me, a sensation I’d come to enjoy. A dull beep slipped from the device and the heavy door slid to the left. A digital readout showed my credit, a long number of digits all in a row, and it purred out one simple question to me.
“Juice?” the female voice asked.
“Yes, please,” I said as I passed into the hall.
I didn’t need to dress up here—dark jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt, collars tipped with metal darts, and black combat boots were good enough. Club X was the only place that dispensed the Juice back then, the only place that made it. Once you got on the stuff it was hard to get off, as I would soon discover, but I wasn’t ready to admit that.
A long red carpet extended down the hallway, the walls still made of concrete. Translucent blocks of thick glass were pushed into the walls every six feet. It was the uneasy feeling of drifting down an airport runway, the blocks whooshing by in a blur of yellow light, the dull thud of my own legs walking sending a vibration up my spine.
At the end of the hallway was a simple black onyx shelf. It extended from the wall about six inches, a thin spotlight shooting down from the ceiling and illuminating the shiny metal glass. Across the mouth of it was a single cube of brown sugar, a wisp of smoke drifting into the air, the smell of burnt saffron like hair on fire. I pushed the cube off of the plastic stick and it fell into the gurgling liquid, sparks fracturing the metal, and I drank it down in a rush.
The heat hit me and I stepped into the open room. The dance floor was filled with young starlets and whores, gyrating up and down next to each other, most of the men to the side. They liked to watch here, let the ladies do the work, leaning up against a mahogany bar that wrapped around the outside of the room. There were slots on each wall about three feet wide, ringed with red neon, a block of the red glowing next to each opening. There were no bartenders here. The girls made more money as hired help for the evening, sometimes nothing more than an extra body to dance with on the floor. Sometimes they were taken home and the rate went up for that. This was a private club. You could only get in three ways. You could marry in: the trophy wife of a connected man, a public figure, a chemist, a pimp, or a thug—anyone that had enough pull. You could be hired in: working your way up, as I did, until you knew enough secrets, had been on enough jobs that management now preferred to keep you close. And you could pay your way in: supplying enough of any one substance, drug or liquor, cash or organs—the Juice man, the entrepreneurs, they all had a shot at a membership here. These were the people that surrounded me.
Bass vibrations shook the floor and the women were slick with sweat. I knew everyone and no one, nodding my head to the beat of the music, eyes scanning the crowd for an easy lay. A brunette stood next to me, tall and quiet, holding two drinks, watching the dancers.
“Travis, right?” she said.
“Trevor.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Here.”
She handed me another metal flute of the Juice.
“Thanks. Do I know you?” I asked.
“Friend of friend. I’m Jade.”
We stood there watching the dancers, their skin trembling, and she inched closer to me, leaning into my neck, breathing, whispering in my ear.
“I don’t have much time.”
I looked at her and away. I knew what she was saying. The babies: one of the most profitable arms of the whole racket. It was still in development back then, a branch of the business I tried to avoid.
“I don’t know. That’s quite a request.”
“I know,” she said, her hand on my back, up and under my shirt. “I have an hour before it wears off.” She sipped her Juice, eyes glowing in the dark, her hand still on my bare skin, and I felt myself growing hard. “Why don’t we just dance?” she whispered. “If you’re not feeling it in thirty minutes, we’ll call it a draw.”
The lights faded in and out, the smell of patchouli oil and musky sweat filling the musty air. I downed my drink and turned to soak her in. Her body was iridescent, skin-tight dress and long legs. She smiled and spun around, her muscled body irresistible, cleavage pushing up and out of her top. She leaned in and pushed her mouth onto mine. Her wet lips were slick and bitter, her salty tongue slipping into my mouth. I was sold.
I didn’t think about the injection worming its way through her body. I didn’t think of the smattering of eggs headed for her uterus. I certainly didn’t think about the escalation, the litter she would create, the six months it would take for them to gestate and evolve. None of that was sexy. None of that was on my mind.
Black market babies were nothing I found arousing.
The room was a thick dark canvas—bodies all around me—legs and arms intertwining. I watched her move, her hips swivel, staring holes into me the whole time, glistening. It’s not love, I told my-self—it’s the Juice. But she pushed the vibe my way. She shimmered and glowed and the rest of the room fell away. Every time she bit her lower lip, every time a droplet of sweat trickled down her neck and between her breasts, every time she ran her hands down across her flat belly, and down her thighs, back up again, her hips moving, her body pushing toward me, I weakened a little bit more. And I was already weak
to begin with.
At the periphery of my vision was a long row of shadows, men with red auras, their arms crossed in defiance. Their eyes were not on me, I hoped, but on the girls. We were kin, and yet, we were strangers. We were family, and yet, there was no substance. A sharp blade pushed up and in, between the ribs, or a twitchy finger flinging flesh and blood and bone shrapnel to the winds. These were the dances the men here did, these were the ways we stayed alive.
She leaned over when the next song ended, two seconds of silence before another song would erupt, and she asked me one simple question.
“I don’t have much time. You in?”
I nodded and took her hand. The dumbest thing I ever did.
Down the tunnel and back toward the door, this flight is taking off once again. She is laughing, holding my hand as she looks over her shoulder, eyes filled with a blinding white light, her warm hand slick with sweat, her mouth parted ever so slightly. There is so much noise, the music, my heart thudding, that I cannot hear a thing. I am underwater, packed in cotton, a shaky breath sucked in slow, and then exhaled, and her body is calling to me, every inch of her soft, warm flesh. The Juice has blinded me with lust.
Out the door, past Ginger, his eyebrows inch up. The cool of the alleyway and the real world is a sharp sting, a slap in the face. Jade means nothing to me. But she’s connected, you see—that’s how she got in. Married to a scientist, tall and skinny, bushy black hair with a sharp angled nose, a man I’d seen only once: the Juice man. He is legend, and he is real. Her husband is a biochemist, a man sucked under by complex mathematics and test tubes, solitary confinement where liquids and powders and concrete bunkers void the rest of the world. He grinds the pills and stirs the liquids, folding Clomid into steroids into a string of initials—hCG, FSH—none of it making any sense to me.
He will not impregnate her. He knows the risks of the kitty litter babies. He has no time for this hot piece of ass now, because he stands on the brink of greatness, of eternity—he will not be dragged down by mere pleasures of the flesh. In his absence Jade has grown bitter and lonely, seeking out men from the club to give her time, attention.
She has flitted about the club for weeks now, she tells me, as we disappear into the night. The smart men, the ones who still have lifelines carved into their flesh, they have avoided her at every turn. They smile and wink, maybe they even dance with her for a minute, afraid to refuse her, to ignore her completely. But they disappear the moment she turns away. All it takes is a trip to the bathroom, a new drink pushed out of the wall, a cigarette in the alley sucking in fresh air and tobacco and desire. They bow out and she moves on, but not me.
No, I’m oblivious. I follow her home without hesitation, and Ginger is happy to turn me in.
“Two blocks,” she says, as we turn out of the alley and down the street. “I have a condo just up the street.”
At the door she raises a bracelet to a small panel and there is a low beep as the doors swing open. Again, at the elevator doors, a ding as they open, the doorman glancing over from the front of the marble foyer, the intricately carved metalwork that is splitting in two, none of this registers with me. It should. She is not some city Trixie out for a good time. This is where management lives, and if I had half a brain, if all of the blood hadn’t rushed to my crotch, maybe I’d see what was happening.
Maybe if it had been the penthouse, I would have woken up. But it wasn’t. The twenty-fourth floor is high up, for sure, but certainly not the top. In the elevator I don’t see the cameras, but they’re everywhere these days—especially here. No, I lean into her, melting into her soft curves like a hot knife into butter, my tongue buried in her mouth, her hands on my neck pulling me in deeper, pushing up against her as she spreads her legs open, pushing up between her legs, rubbing up and down. Another ding and the doors open.
“We have to hurry,” she says.
Two doors down and she runs her arm over another black panel and the door clicks open into the darkness. She pulls me in, the City sparkling through the floor-to-ceiling windows, dots of white scattering across the night sky, lines of red and blue shooting out in all directions. They are cars, I assume, but to me, they are nothing but neon streaks expanding out into the void.
“Bed? Couch?” I ask.
“No time,” she says, pulling me to her as she fumbles at my belt.
My hands are on her neck, pulling her mouth to mine, my tongue and hers slick and hot, stabbing, pushing, our mouths hungry, insatiable. I pull down the top of her dress and her pale breasts are like marble. My mouth is on her tiny pink nipples sucking and biting, pulling at them, suckling as she moans and writhes in my grip. She pushes my pants down, grabbing me with her hands, squeezing until I am hard as a rock, a slickness leaking out of the tip. I push her up against the glass windows with a dull thud and drop to my knees, pushing up her dress.
“No, there’s no time.”
I don’t listen. I push her legs apart and my mouth is on her, licking, sucking, drinking in her wet perfume, as she leans against the glass moaning yes, oh yes, her hands in my hair pulling my face deeper into her, burying my tongue in her slick folds.
She pulls me up, begging me.
“Stand up, hurry.”
She turns around and places her hands on the glass window, her dress now nothing but a wrap of fabric around her waist, her taut nipples pressed against the cold glass, her legs spread wide, back arched.
I stand up, struggling to breathe, and slide inside her with ease. My hands are on her hips, pulling them to me.
“Hurry,” she gasps, her face smearing saliva on the glass, her head banging into the thick window. I pull her to me and then push her away. I pull her to me and then push her away. Faster and faster, the glossy tension working its way up my stomach, across my back, and up my spine. Sweat drips off of my forehead onto the small of her back, running between her ass cheeks and down to where we join. Again and again we meet, a shudder and a twinge every time we close the gap, and I feel myself slipping.
“Yes,” she moans. “Hurry.”
Faster and faster, arms trembling, legs numb with heat, I let go. I empty myself into her as she pushes back against me, driving me deeper, and the lights of the City turn to black, the waters out in the distance washing over the land, and there is nothing but cold, nothing but space.
“I have to lie down,” she says, and we recline to the carpet. There’s carpet, I see. We lie there gasping, sweating, and she lifts her legs up and pulls them to her, rolling onto her back.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Shhhhhhhhh,” she says, still out of breath, still shaking, her pale skin turning ruddy, blotchy in places where my hands held onto her flesh.
She is humming now, and for some reason it upsets me. It’s a tune I know, something familiar. It’s a lullaby.
“What are you…”
“Shhhhhhhhhh, I have to sit like this.”
The babies. I forgot. And her watch goes off, a tiny beep, beep, beep.
“We made it,” she says, still holding her legs to her chest.
Beep, beep, beep.
I reach over to the watch and push one of the miniscule buttons on the side—and the beeping stops.
“Thank you,” she says, her face glowing. She turns to me, seeing me for another moment, but I know this will slip away soon enough. “For everything,” she says.
I don’t say a word. She will forget my face soon enough, the face of their father, the litter.
“Can I tell you something, Travis?” she asks.
“Trevor,” I mumble.
“If I were you, honey,” she says, “I’d run.”
I do. I run to the Outskirts. I leave her there on the floor, lying on her side now, still naked, in the fetal position, a smear of her outline left on the glass. I leave at that very moment, eyes darting around the room, the little details slipping back into focus, the photographs and still-life paintings, the paperwork lying on the low table at the couch, the
glass shelves lined with one bottle after another of various shades of purple liquid. I pull up my pants, take one look at the black expanse that is the City below me and the lights slam back into focus, they shimmer and vibrate.
I run as fast as I can.
I’m on the el train now, pulling into the station. Ruby. I wake up and rub my eyes, the memory of Jade still filling my head with visions of her eager body. I step off the train and onto the platform. A scraggly man, pulling at his hair, approaches me with a picture in his hand.
“Excuse me, sir, have you seen this girl?” he asks.
“Jules, it’s me—Trevor.”
The man pauses, stubble dotting his doughy face, and takes a step back to appraise me.
“Trevor, you say,” he mumbles, rubbing his chin with his free hand.
“It’s okay, man. We’ve been through this before. Look at your pictures—I’m sure I’m in the stack someplace.”
He stares at me and hesitates. He pulls a mangled bunch of photos out of his jacket. Some of them have words on the back; some are inked black magic marker in all capital letters. One of those names in capitals is Trevor.
“See here, Jules? TREVOR. That’s me. We set this thing up a long time ago, back in the beginning. Your daughter, right? Remember?”
Jules stares down at the picture as if it’s the first time he’s seen it. He looks up at me, his eyes wide, trying to remember my face, trying to capture it again. He has trouble with faces—they slip away like leaves in the wind. He has forgotten the face of his daughter. Of us all, it seems. Sometimes I’d like to trade places with the man, his daughter for mine. His knowledge for mine—void for void.
“Right,” he says.
I lean over and give him a hug, and it’s like grabbing hold of a sack of potatoes, motionless and dense.
He tenses up. I’m a stranger to him, I forget.
Soul Standard Page 17