Soul Standard

by Richard Thomas

  “I’ll keep an eye out, Jules. I promise. I never stopped.”

  He stands there with the picture in his hand, his other arm falling to the side. I’d rather he move on and let her go. It breaks my heart just a little bit more to see him out here on the streets. She’s gone, I want to tell him. In one way or another, she’s gone.

  It’s still early so I take a slight detour, two streets over and down some steps once again. Ruby can wait. She might even still be sleeping—I’ve never done a drop-in before, I could be setting myself up for a disappointment. The script over the large glass window carves out the letters “Myopic.” I pull on the door and bells jingle, the smell of musty books and a hint of cat urine drift to me and I walk through the bookcases toward a massive desk that I know lurks in the back of the store.

  A small man hunches over the desk, one pair of spectacles on the bridge of his nose, another pair still stuck in his wiry, gray hair.

  “Jordan,” I say.

  He looks up, his mouth open, putting down the black felt board, the tweezers, and the handful of scarred blood diamonds, staring at me with horror.

  “What in the hell are you doing here, Trevor? You got a death wish?”

  “Good to see you too, my friend.” He shakes his head. “I’m okay, Jordan, this is strictly social.”

  A slow grin worms its way across his face. He leans back in the chair and crosses his arms. “Thought you were dead,” he says. “No offense, but kind of hoped you were. I mean, if they see you here, it won’t be pretty. No quick shot to the head for you.”

  I pull up an old wooden chair and sit down. “I know. I was on the way to see a lady friend and I thought I’d pop in and see what you knew. I’m a bit out of touch these days. Can’t say where I am exactly, but if you drove in any one direction until you fell off the edge of the world? That’s where I would be.”

  He places his right finger on his nose. “Gotcha.”

  “I don’t have much to offer up,” I say, rifling through my pockets. “There’s this,” I mutter, dropping the plastic on the desk.

  “How much is on it?” he asks, picking up the platinum card, flipping it over, and then back, running his thumb across the glistening surface.

  “Don’t know.”

  He leans over, and out of the top desk drawer pulls a small black plastic device. Flicking on a button, a green light turns on, and he runs the card through the slot.

  “Still works, yeah. Nice clearance. Not bad, bit of coin on here, little bit of credit over at Delilah’s. All in all worth a little something.”

  I eyeball the diamonds sitting on the black felt. “Straight up?”

  Jordan looks down. “No, not enough. Not even for one.”

  “How about this,” I say, reaching into my coat pocket. I pull out a slender plastic envelope filled with what looks like clear plastic discs. They float in a little bit of translucent fluid, and I lay it down gently on the desk.

  “Corneas?” he asks.

  “Yep. Still relatively fresh, couple days old. I thought they might come in handy, so I brought them along for the ride.”

  Jordan runs his tongue along his teeth, sucking at them. He picks up the packet and counts the slivers to himself. There are six in total.

  “One more thing,” I say. I reach back into my jacket pocket and pull out a small silver flask, maybe half a pint. In the center of the metal is a clear glass window. And in the window floats a thick purple liquid.

  “I didn’t know there was any left on the free market,” he says, reaching out his hand.

  “Not for you, right?”

  “No, no, no,” he mumbles, licking his lips again, blinking. “Is that concentrated, the mother source, the tar?”

  I nod, hand him the flask.

  He takes it with both hands and unscrews the top. He give it a sniff, holds his finger over the top of it and tips it over and back real fast. He places his index finger to the tip of his tongue and smacks his lips. “Good stuff.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, Jordan.”

  He cackles. I’d lie to anyone, my own mother. But he knows it’s legit.

  “Juice, corneas, plastic. All right. Pick one of these beauties, not the big one,” he grunts, pushing a four-karat stone to one side.

  I pick up a sparkling diamond that is maybe one karat, if that. I know Ruby will love it.

  “Anything I should know?”

  “Same shit, different day,” he says. “Give Ruby my best.”

  Night is pushing into the City early, and a shiver runs over my skin. Don’t like it here now. A long black car turns the corner up ahead, and I duck into an alley to my right—too familiar. They all look the same, but this one makes my skin crawl. I stop at the first chipped dumpster I see and duck behind the green monster. The black sedan rolls slowly on down the road but for a second it stretches out, the driver’s window disappearing, the black metal continuing for two seconds, three, on and on, the rear tire never coming, and a greasy shape tightens in my belly, a small moan escaping my lips. I shake my head back and forth to clear it—residue, maybe. The car keeps stretching—black expanding to fill my line of sight, and finally the rear wheel appears, the back window easing down, a shadow lurking in the back. I have to get my head on straight.

  I’ve heard stories, rumors, voodoo in the courthouse, chicken feet dangling from taut wire over the arched doorway of public buildings. I used to dismiss the markings that I saw on the sidewalks, even while I stepped around them. Pentagrams painted in back alleyways in dried blood, French and Latin phrases nothing more than scratches in the dirt, Egyptian hieroglyphics painted with lipstick on broken windshields. Myths. That’s all they were.

  When the car is out of sight, I cross myself, muttering under my breath.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

  It doesn’t make me feel any better.

  I’m eager to get to Ruby’s now, and I hoof it out of the alley as a drizzle begins. One street over, I can see the doorway now, the dull glowing orb of red at the front door, the stone gargoyles sitting watch with their wings spread wide and their teeth bared. It gives me comfort nonetheless.

  It’s another world inside. Soft and warm, tapestries hanging on the walls, the foyer is lit by candlelight, sconces of wrought iron, beveled glass reflecting a pale glow into the air. Steep stairs curl up and out of sight. An opening to the left and an opening to the right, identical if you haven’t been here before. Thick drapes the color of eggplant hang in gaping splendor, faded gold tassels and fringe running down the edges. Over the door to the left is a copper letter M, with an arrow curling around it pointing up. Over the door to the right is a tin letter S, with an arrow pointing down.

  I walk straight ahead instead.

  Behind the small mahogany desk is a girl dressed in nothing but skin-tight PVC. She is filing her nails and chomping on her gum and I want to tell her to ease up on the bit. Her black hair is cut in a severe bob, pale skin and crimson lips, dusted white cleavage pushing up from her corset. She hardly moved when I walked in the door, but I know there are cameras everywhere. I don’t need to look. Security is not an issue at Delilah’s.

  “You new?” I ask. “Don’t recognize your face.”

  “You neither, mister. If new is two years, then I guess I am. Been gone awhile?” She looks up, with green cat eyes, slivers of what they should be. “Contacts, relax,” she says. “You here to see somebody special?”

  “I am. Is Ruby in?”

  At the mention of Ruby’s name she goes rigid, sitting up straight. She puts down her nail file and one hand slides under the desk.

  “Oh, Ruby. Yeah, sure,” she says, her hand under the desk, a sick smile pushed across her face. “Everybody loves Ruby.”

  In the distance I hear a buzzing noise, but I can’t seem to move my feet. I can hear chairs tipping over, muffled voices, as the girl reaches for the black rotary dial that squats on the desk. “Let me just give her a buzz, she wasn’t exp
ecting you, Mr…”

  “Trevor,” I say. “And, no, she wasn’t expecting me. Is that a problem?”

  “Oh, no,” she says, her hand still pushing at a button that I can’t see, my feet still stuck to the ground, waiting for what comes next. I am so focused on the door down at the end of the long hallway that stretches out in front of me that I don’t see the man step out of the shadows with a syringe in his hand.

  I come to in the basement, my jacket off, my shirt off, jeans and boots all I’m wearing in the dark concrete lair. Shoulders stretched back, my arms are handcuffed behind the metal chair, and in a haze I see two yellow eyes push out of a scowling black head.

  “What do you know about Ruby?” he asks.

  My mouth is dry, a dull throbbing at my neck, a thin point of light burrowing into my temples, a massive headache coming on fast.

  “Ruby? What do you mean?”

  His open hand is across my face before I even see him move. My head cracks to the right, the slow burn of his stinging palm seeping across my cheek.

  “Man, easy, I don’t know…”

  “I’m going to ask you again. Ruby,” he says. “How do you know her?”

  “We go way back. Honest, we’re old friends.”

  His face is pushed up against me, his nose bending into mine. He’s all sour breath and crooked teeth.

  “Ruby ain’t got any old friends left, mister. Not after what happened to her face.”

  He pulls back his fist and levels it into my left eye, and the lights dim for a second.

  “Marcus, stop it,” I hear, a high-pitched screeching coming from the top of the stairs. Ruby. I can hear her coming down the wooden steps, one heavy foot after another, and in a haze, her body shifts and expands. She stands at the bottom of the steps in a long flowing sheer robe over a massive black teddy, her thick pale legs stretched out below her curves and rolls, long patent leather boots tight across her calves. Her breasts push up into the sky, a creamy white expanse that defies gravity. Her long red hair cascades down her back, her freckled face flushed in the cheeks. Her cheeks, something is wrong. A long angry scar runs up one side of her face, her blue eyes filling with tears.

  “He’s okay, Marcus. You can go.”

  “You sure, Ruby?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She kneels down in front of me, one hand reaching out to touch my face, the other nestling into my lap. A cool sensation, sharp and foreign, runs across my skin. Where her fingers used to be there are metal digits, complete with sharpened fingernails.

  We lie in her enormous four-post king-sized bed on the third floor. There’s an old freight elevator that runs up the back of the building, but I didn’t know that until just now. She is propped up on a mountain of pillows and I’m resting my head in her lap. I stood in shock as she undressed me, so tender with those metal claws, cooing to me that I had nothing to worry about, nothing to fear from her hands. The thin curtains hang over tall windows, the sky outside darkening as rain pitter-pats against the glass. A silver tray of earthy candles rests upon a dresser, orange and leather filling the room.

  She places the diamond I give her inside a platinum locket, intertwining snakes around a ruby apple shape. It made her cry again, the stone, quick to dab at the scar, the salty river running down her face, her lower lip trembling out of control.

  “You want to tell me about it?” I ask.

  She caresses my head, my hair, and somehow I’ve regressed. She’s my mother, and yet she’s not. She’s my lover, and yet, she’s not. Sister, siren, pale goddess. I have no idea what she is to me right now. She shifts in the pillow and I raise my head a bit. She settles in and I lay my head back down.

  “By the time Marcus could get to me, it was too late. I have a schedule here, you know. If fifteen minutes is up and I haven’t buzzed down, they call up or knock on the door.”

  “No cameras?”

  “I had them taken out years ago. One of the girls was recording things here, blackmailing anyone she recognized. I couldn’t let that get out into the world.”

  I nod my head. She smells like fresh linen and I want to lick the inside of her thigh. Outside thunder rolls over the building and a flash of lightning cracks the sky.

  “You can stay tonight if you want,” she says. “I’m not working right now. I haven’t since, well, since that night.”

  “I’d like that,” I say.

  She takes a deep breath and I nuzzle her soft skin.

  “New client, and I should’ve known better. He wasn’t a freak, nothing weird. Clean, well-mannered. Even dressed nice.”

  There’s a knock on the bedroom door, the muscle no doubt.

  “You okay, Miss Ruby?”

  “I’m fine, Marcus. Thank you.”

  The heavy footsteps in the hallway disappear.

  “He became a repeat customer. That’s what I didn’t get. I thought he liked me. Took a while to set it up, but I figured it out. Time to ease the powder into my system, time to get the eggs to multiply and expand, time for him to plant his seed. The window for success was very small. He was a strong man, that’s for sure. To pick me up, carry me back to the elevator and out the back door to his ride. Weeks of loving on me, spending time with me, and then he booked that one session after hours. He knew what he was doing.”

  Ruby leans over and grabs a glass of water from the nightstand, takes a healthy drink.

  “Nine days. I don’t remember anything, thank God. No idea how many babies they got, or why they wanted me to do it. There are plenty of whores out on the street willing to sell a few eggs. Maybe it was somebody I stopped seeing…maybe they just liked my DNA. I don’t know.”

  She pauses for a moment.

  “It was Marcus that found me. He didn’t believe the note. Said I wouldn’t run off without saying goodbye to him. Kept telling them to turn on my chip.”

  There are footsteps in the hallway, a girl laughing, a door far away closing with a click.

  “Got one of them chips put in me years ago. Just in case. Marcus finally got them to turn it on, told them they could fire him if he walked in on me with my new romance. He didn’t believe any of it was true.”

  “Ruby, you can stop. You don’t have to tell me all of this.”

  “No, I want to. I haven’t told anyone yet. They stay away from me, the girls. They’ve always been jealous. Now they just think I’m a freak. I’m not going to be reduced to some sort of pain fetish. No razor-tipped fingers and bloody cocks for me. No, sir. I won’t be the one to spill fresh blood all over my fine linens, running these nails down some backside glistening with sweat. Grosses me out.”

  A shiver runs across my skin and I contemplate what that might be like, under her gentle abuse, her patience and motherly attention.

  “I was bleeding out when Marcus found me, my fingers cut off, this gash across my face, my torso splayed open from the harvest they took. I don’t know how he did it. He cauterized my fingertips with a blowtorch.” Ruby shudders. “He sewed me up with some fishing line he found in a locker. My face, he couldn’t do much. Said he didn’t want to ruin me.” She laughs. “Ruin me. Doctors took care of me just fine. It’ll fade in time, they say.”

  The candles are burning down and I’m falling asleep.

  “I haven’t been with a man since,” she purrs. “Can you do me a favor, hon? Help a girl out, throw me a little charity here?” she says, tears running down her face.

  In the morning she is gone. It was too much, I suspect. I wanted to tell her what I knew, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t do any good. I never said her name, never pointed a finger at her—only in this general direction. It was a mistake. Maybe she sensed that shame on me.

  A diamond won’t buy her fingers back, or her dignity.

  Pulling on my jeans, her musky sweet scent clings to me. I’ll bring it home to the farm. In time it will fade but for now it smells like life, ironic birth, and the least I can do is honor this slice of time, this memory. I have so few left to hold onto.


  Up the gravel road to the farm and nothing seems to have moved. I grab the duffle bag at the end of the driveway like I’m picking up a sack of mail for Santa. I can’t take much more of this, the not knowing, waiting for them to come. I may just have to go to them instead.

  The rain picks up and I head toward the hogs, the muddy road sucking at my boots. I untie the green canvas sack and upend it into the trough. I don’t even care what it is—severed tongues from those afraid to speak, clipped-off ears from those that refused to listen, the pale white orbs of those that didn’t want to see. I don’t care. The bones and flesh and sinew tumble into the trough, slick and wrapped in blue viscera and globular white fat and I fall to my knees and vomit black tar into the mud. The rain pounds down on my back, on my head, soaking me through to the bone. It is not baptismal, nor does it cleanse me—but I pray to a vengeful God that something will.

  Let me be clear about this part: I got her out years ago. Rebecca. I paid for her in my own sweat and blood. Took every assignment that was given to me, took out our own people when I was asked to, disposed of more bodies than I can count. Whatever was left of authority, whatever organized police were left untainted, they never got a whiff of what I was doing. I turned a blind eye for my entire life. I begged Rebecca to get out, to leave. I offered her money, a contact on the West Coast, everything that I could think of.

  But she didn’t want out, she wanted in. I couldn’t stop her.

  She always found a way out and up, back into the mix, back into the heat of the action, and her perseverance didn’t go unnoticed. I gave up. That’s my cardinal sin. I gave up and let her stay.

  Exhausted from the trip back to the farm, the rain pouring down on the leaking roof and dusty hayloft, I surrender and head over to the barracks. I can’t remember the last time I slept here. It is nothing but one small room pushed up against another, cinder blocks stacked ten feet high—three square apartments in a row, a couple more rows leading off into the corn. The barn, the house, the loft, Ruby’s—nothing feels like home anymore.

  I pull out a ring of keys from deep in my jacket pocket and stick one in the keyhole of the last apartment in the last row. The thick metal door sticks so I nudge it with my shoulder and it opens up with a splintered creak. There are no windows, just thin slits toward the top of each wall, glass blocks that barely let in any light. I don’t care. There is a metal desk with nothing on it, a gray folding chair covered in cobwebs, and a full-sized bed with a torn and dusty patchwork quilt on top, from a lifetime ago—the last visible remnant of my wife. Still, I won’t say her name out loud.