I put my hand on Leda's arm. She'd nearly drained the bottle of whiskey by then. Her skin shone with it.
“I asked him if I thought she was pretty. He said she was “hot as fuck,” and I felt the heat in his words. I'd been getting to him closer all the while, and before I knew it I was touching his arm and asking him if he would do to me what he did to her. There were cat scratches on the inside of my chest. Seizure marks. He dropped his cigarette and grabbed me by the shoulders. Shook me until I stopped grasping at him.
“'Baby,' he said, 'oh baby, you're just not pretty enough for me to waste my time.' Then he left me there, propped up against the wall. I can still feel the static of his jacket clinging to my hair, my makeup smeared on the back of my hand. I think that's when I knew it didn't really matter if we were sinners or not, good or bad. We were all cursed the same.”
I took the bottle of whiskey from between her knees and set it on the nearby bed stand. I gathered her up in my arms and she folded in my lap, each of her limbs a strand about to fall away.
“Leda,” I said, “You shouldn't think of that anymore. You're beautiful.”
“It's still there,” she said, “It never goes away.”
“Leda,” I said, “I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve been there. I wish I could’ve done something.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
She grasped my hand and breathed into my palm. Kissed it. Whiskey soaked each of her syllables.
“No it doesn’t, do you want to know why?”
Without waiting for my answer, she grasped my leg and pulled herself up straight so that we were eye level.
“It’s what I told your sister the night when you first brought me to the house.”
And just like she did to my sister, she buried her fingers in my hair and rested her mouth in the crook of my ear. Then she whispered:
“Because the voice from the ocean whispered it to me, a long time ago. I stood in the surf as a child and the voice told me to not be afraid. It told me that help was coming, and we would all be saved. So we shouldn’t be afraid.”
She rose from my lap and crossed the room. When she reached the window, she rested her forehead against the glass and reached out, as if trying to push her fingers straight through. Her face reflected through the frost, the storm, back to me.
“They’re out there waiting for me,” she said, “one day they’re going to find me. Then it’ll be all over.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Can’t you see it out there?”
“I can’t see anything in this storm,” I said.
I lay down in bed, tilted my back so that I could see Leda in full view as she pressed herself against the window. The blue cold spread back into her skin and turned her veins into webbed crystal.
She turned back to me. She climbed on top of the bed. I jumped up and held her shoulders to keep her from falling over.
Kneeling, she kissed me with the storm lingering on her mouth.
"Draw me," she said.
"What?"
"Draw me. I'm giving you permission"
Downstairs the front door slammed open and the windows burst. Leda jerked her head back, eyes rattling. I gripped her hands. The storm barreled into the living room and kicked its legs, knocking over furniture and portraits on the wall, beating the stairs, shaking the television.
“Not again,” I said, and I sighed, stay here.”
I went down the hallway and stood at the top of the stairs for a few moments, shivering, all the blood drained out of my head, as I tried to make out Momma and Sissy somewhere below in the snow and fog. Momma howled like a rabbit, her voice trapped in ice. I ran back down the hallway, grabbed my father’s jacket from the closet, and then descended downstairs.
I found Momma and Sissy on the floor in front of the television, clutching at the screen with hands like bird scapula. Their IV stands were overturned and half buried in the ice. I pressed my hands to my ears as the cold pelted me, and shouted out their names. No response, except for the lazy movement of their eyes following the Apocalypse Brigadiers marching on the television screen. Their stoic faces sunk further and further into the carpet.
I hauled Sissy and Momma out of the ice and dragged them upstairs, my limbs burning with their weight. They lay down on the bed without protest. I waded downstairs and slammed the door shut, nailed the windows shut with boards we kept underneath the sink for that purpose. By the time I got back into my room, Leda had already fallen asleep.
I sat down at my desk and watched her for a long moment, trying to breathe with the cold enmeshed against my lungs. I got out my sketchpad and my charcoals, but my fingers were so stiff I couldn’t control them. I threw the sketchpad back against the desk. I accidentally dropped the charcoal onto the floor and it rolled underneath the desk and hit the wall. I crawled into bed with Leda, trying to pretend I couldn’t hear Momma’s screams.
That night we lay intertwined together. Leda slept as if falling from a great height, her hair wrapped against the iron bed rails, her fingers and toes braced against the sheets. I listened to the television static swelling outside our door. I wanted to wake her up and ask her when this help would come, because I could see God outside pulling down the stars to end the world. Instead I traced the scarred skin Leda's shoulders as she slept and I waited to die.
The bedroom door swung open and Momma and Sissy entered the room. As the noise from the television rose, I thought I saw Teddy standing at the foot of the bed with his slicked black hair and grey suit. Delilah stood in the corner and rose up on the balls of her feet to keep the black moon from slicing off her heels. She bashed her head into the wall until blood dashed her pretty curls.
Teddy clicked his shoes together and said, "are you afraid of what's coming for you, sir? Are you afraid of death, sir?"
He opened up his closed hands and showed me the wire spider he saved for me, clicking and trembling in his palm. All the while the television hummed and the floorboards rattled to the rhythm of Delilah's beating head. Momma dragged herself to the foot of my bed and her drool left a powder trail behind her.
I then realized my fingers were ticking like bombs and would soon obliterate me. I cried out, turning my face away from my hands.
Leda awoke and saw me about to burst. She pulled me close to her and pressed my fingers into her ribs.
"No. Don't," I told her, "you'll kill us both."
“Breathe,” Leda said.
“See them? See Delilah in the corner? And there’s Teddy, waiting for me.”
"Just breathe, Charles. Learn how to breathe."
She encircled me in her arms, drew me into her gravity. She held onto me until my fingers stopped being bombs and Teddy and Delilah disappeared from the room. Momma and Sissy finished their slip implant advertisements and left to go watch television amidst the melting snow. I lay down in bed with the sweat peeling off my forehead, sick to my stomach.
"You don't have to pay any attention to that anymore. It doesn't mean anything anymore," she said when we were alone, "Just learn how to breathe."
She held onto me and wouldn't let go.
Chapter Four
The girl in the wolf mask and the old man visited me again. This time they brought a lie detector and my high school algebra teacher. The old man hooked me up to the lie detector on the porch, his hands shaking so badly that he could barely tighten the straps around my fingers.
My algebra teacher took out my school records from his briefcase and read off my grades for every test, notes from my conduct for every semester.
“Quiet, and unusually restrained,” he read, “Completes all of his homework on time. Good grades, but never pushes himself. His only deviant behavior seems to be associating with Jeanine Hart, the delinquent sister of one of our graduating prophets.”
“Is this really necessary?” I asked while the girl in the wolf mask took out her interrogation notes.
“I feel we didn’t get to know each ot
her under the best of circumstances,” she said, “Holland, will you tighten those straps? They look a little loose.”
“Have I done something wrong?” I asked.
“Of course you have,” the girl said, “we just don’t know what it is yet. Comfortable?”
I turned my head, but from where I was sitting in the chair I couldn’t see the graph behind me. All I heard was the thin scribble of the mechanical arm moving against the paper, reading my nerves. My pulse. My heartbeat sat on my tongue.
“Now, we’re going to start out with a few test questions,” the girl said, “what is your name?”
“Charles,” I said.
“How old are you, Charles?”
“Twenty-five,” I said.
“What is the town called where you live?”
“Edgewater,” I said.
It seemed as if I spoke not from my mouth, but from the mouth of a gravelly, stone-edged creature living inside of me. I felt it press against my lungs, the inside of my eyes. Everything became blurry, even sounds and texture. The swamp trees blurred into the background, and my ancient algebra teacher stepped inside of his silhouette. I couldn’t feel the straps of the lie detector on my arm, or the wooden boards underneath my feet. All I felt was the creature, and the heartbeat.
“I really have to be going,” I said.
“Negative,” she said, “We went to the town hall and checked your records. We know you don’t have a job. And, well, look at the graph. It says you’re lying.”
With hardly a pause, she continued her list of questions.
“What is the nature of your association with the prophet Ezekiel?”
“What?” I asked.
“Just answer the question, all right?”
“Under what authority are you doing this?”
“God’s,” the girl said abruptly.
“As I recall, God appointed a government for this sort of thing.”
The old man spit yellow phlegm into his hand and wiped it off onto his pants.
“Listen, we’re not the ones on trial here,” he said.
“So I’m on trial now?” I asked.
“Stop it! This is nonsense!” the girl said.
She stamped a foot down, rattling the porch. Her wolf mask slipped down past her eyes. She grabbed the mask in both hands before it fell and pushed it back into place.
I laughed. My heartbeat receded from my mouth and absorbed itself back into my ribcage. Everything came back into focus, and the three people standing in front of me suddenly lost all their hard edges, looked silly and tattered and sad.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll stop. I’ll answer your questions.”
“Something tells me you’re not taking this seriously, young man,” my high school algebra teacher said.
“No, no, I’m taking it seriously. I’ll hear what Missy has to say.”
The girl flinched when I spoke her name.
I thought of Leda several nights ago, whispering to me what the ocean said to her. Her whispered, “don’t be afraid.” I laughed again. I couldn’t hold it back. Behind me the lie detector scribbled my nerves down on the paper.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s not important,” I said, “what was the question again?”
The girl looked down at the paper once more. She paused, heavy limbs, breathing through her mouth, and for a whole minute her eyes searched the text.
“What is the nature of your association with the prophet Ezekiel?” she finally said.
“He’s a friend,” I said, “we met in grade school.”
“Have you ever had sexual relations with Ezekiel?”
I burst out laughing.
“This isn’t funny!” The girl said.
The old man’s head snapped up. He moved with spastic, almost convulsive motions. I thought his bones might pop out of joint and dance straight out of his skin.
“Control yourself, Missy,” the old man said.
“No, I’ve never had sexual relations with Ezekiel,” I said.
“What would you consider your sexual orientation?”
“I suppose I’ve never thought about,” I said.
“What do you mean you’ve never thought about it?” the girl said.
“Well, have you?” I asked, “I just never thought we had a choice one way or the other.”
“You better move onto the next question,” the old man told Missy.
“Yeah, okay. Fine,” the girl said, and she cleared her throat loud enough to swallow the noise of the scribbling lie detector.
“What’s the question?” I asked when she didn’t speak.
“I’m getting to it, all right,” she said.
“Tormenting a poor child,” my high school algebra teacher, “this won’t look good on your final judgment, you know.”
The creature inside of me laughed with my voice. I covered my mouth with both hands to try to keep it from escaping, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“It seems like you’ve already decided that I’m guilty,” the creature said.
“I think that’s enough questioning for now,” he said, “it’s clear that we won’t get very far with this today. Come along, you two.”
The old man ripped the straps of the lie detector off of me and tucked the huge machine underneath his arm. The girl in the wolf mask burst into tears, and my algebra teacher put his arm around her shoulders.
“There now, dear. I’m sure the hell shuttles will take him away soon. He was always a fucked up kid. Nobody liked him in school. Not to worry.”
He touched her on the cheek, her breast, and led her away as she cried inside of her wolf mask. The old man lugging the lie detector followed after.
***
Right before nightfall Leda came over to my house with a suitcase. It’d been the first time I’d seen her after the night of the ice storm. She looked wild, eyes ready to eat me alive, hair in static knots.
“I thought I’d stay a while,” she said, “if that’s all right with you.”
“Yes,” I said, unsure if she was being serious or not, “that’s fine. You can put your suitcase in my room.”
When we got to my room she placed the suitcase up against the wall and then lay down on my bed, her arms over her head, her dress riding up her legs.
“I think they’re going to get me soon,” I said.
“Who?” she asked.
“The Apocalypse Brigade,” I said, “or the monsters outside. Or God.”
I lay down beside her on the bed.
“I think I might’ve scared them, isn’t that strange? Because I remembered what you said to me the night before, and suddenly I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
“It wasn’t true what I said,” Leda said, “it just sounded good at the time.”
“You’re scared right now,” I said, “otherwise you wouldn’t say that.”
Leda touched my arm. Her hand was slick with sweat.
“Charles,” she whispered.
“What is it?” I asked. I touched her stomach, her face.
“I think I could learn to trust you,” she said.
She took my hand in my own. She kissed each of my fingers, one after the other.
“All that I can think about is you,” she said, “You’re a good person, you know? Do you know how rare that is?”
She touched the ends of her hair and laughed.
“Let’s not talk anymore,” she said, “when I get nervous I say things that have been said too many times.”
Leda knelt on the bed in front of me.
“I shouldn’t have said any of those things to you that night. I don’t want you to go away,” I said.
“I won’t,” she said.
She touched my face, and dropped her hand again. Then she grasped the bottom of her dress in two fists, so tightly that her knuckles protruded from her hands with the strain. She pulled her dress up, slowly. In the light of my room the cotton looked like cast-iron.
She threw her head back. She pulled
her dress up over her legs, her thighs. Scars like little birds crisscrossed her skin.
Her name lingered on my tongue, though I hadn't even realized I'd spoken it. I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to do this for me, lay out her past quivering and raw. She didn't have to show me the skin of her inner thighs, criss-crossed with scars like little birds, or the edge of her cotton panties, out of place and vibrant on her heated skin. But I couldn't move, couldn't speak. All I could do was keep holding onto her shoulders.
She tried to pull the dress up over her head.
“Help me,” she said, “don't you know I'm in love with you?”
I unraveled her out of her dress and tossed it onto the floor.
“Leda,” I said.
I grasped her waist to pull her closer to me, but instead of skin I touched something dry and crumbling. I looked down. A chain of daisies, browning, almost dead, were tied around her waist.
“Don't touch,” she said, “I have three more flowers to lose.”
“What?”
“I want a nine flower waist,” she said.
I paused. My hands hovered in the air next to her waist.
“I know, it's silly, but I can't stop,” she said, “nine would be the perfect number.”
I opened my mouth to speak but she grasped the back of my head and pulled my mouth into hers. The motion was clumsy, almost violent.
“I just wanted to be beautiful, but look at me now,” she said, “feel this. I'm hardly human anymore.”
She took my hand in her own and guided me to touch her cheek, her nose, her neck.
“Enough of that,” I said, pulling my hand away and “you're beautiful. I don't want to hear any more of this.”
I pulled her into me.
She was softer than I imagined, even though her body was disappearing underneath me, swallowed by flowers. She spilled into me. I’d never been able to touch her like this, grasp her, and take whole chunks of her. I kissed her neck, her stomach. I knelt down and I kissed her between the legs. She tasted like I thought she would.
The Crooked God Machine Page 10