Love in Vein

by Poppy Z. Brite

  * * *

  In the Greenhouse

  by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg

  Stamen, anvil, pistil, stem: Lying in something approaching state, slow moist respiration, slower thud and rhythms of her heart causing only the most silken of movement, slight, slight the motion of her lungs and of her dampened breasts; she could be dead, she is all but dead, lying within the greenhouse her rooms have become. Flowers surround her: plants, foliage, bonsai and bouquets, staggered floor to ceiling, wall to wall, heaped like coverlets upon and beside the refuge bed; their exhalation is gigantic in the room, their scent the smell of anguish and desire.

  Lucia lies quietly amidst the flowers, each bouquet—roses and orchids, baby’s breath, iris and bonsai—bearing an impossibly white card and the name of a donor, some inscribed with messages in a private lovers’ argot, others blank of words and bearing only the impressed image of heart or lips, the delicate signature of origin. Once she had been able to look at those cards, had if only haphazardly matched the flowers with their givers but that was a long time ago, the early days when the first tentative rustlings had begun, the flung, crushed orchids, mute roses slipped under the door, the riotous gladioli like some boyfriend in a cheap new suit; then as her life seemed to open, split like a seed to fill rapid with flowers as if in time-lapse, bud to bloom in panting moments, she lost as well as the illusion of command all ability to evoke the identity of the givers: men and men, name and name and what did any of that mean, what could any of that mean to her now?

  On the bed, her nostrils and respiration steaming in the slow, baked odor of the flowers, some dying, some dead, some just achieving their first fine putrescence, she feels as if it might be possible to recall her life against the screen of her consciousness and in so doing achieve if not meaning then at least a reason: but in another, firmer part of mind knows that this is impossible; she is suffocating under the flowers, subsiding into the heaving rattle of Cheyne-Stokes. The flowers smell like flesh, flesh like sex, sex like love but it is the love she cannot precisely recall, cannot retrieve as she tries to rise to that screen of memory: and failing falls, falling fails, shifts under the heaped flowers a hundred times as the stink and the sweat move like animals across and over her motionless flesh. Lucia: our lady of the flowers, of the Bronx and Staten Island too, our lady of the greater and lesser boroughs, our lady queen of the night. Against the apartment door drifts in static rhythm the jungle burst of philodendron, of dour English ivy and other, less identifiable vines and farther off, through some odd chink of light in the green, some dazzled version of the Willets Point bridge, twisted akimbo in the dying light, the bridge of chain, recollection, desire and darkness.

  Lucia, my lady of light: “Lucia, my lady of light,” he says and leans against her, tilts her against the wall, gives her a long, slow, openmouthed kiss as her hips nudge his, deliberation and encouragement as she feels the pathetic shadow of his rising, the insistent press of his little genitals against her. “Oh,” he says, “oh, oh,” and attempts timorously to put his hand on her breast, clumsy and she shrugs and the hand droops away without protest as again she eases into the kiss, then as easily back and away.

  “We can’t stay here,” she says, “it’s too cold. Let’s go.”

  “When,” he says, “when—” and he wants, she knows, to say When do we make love but he cannot properly articulate his wants, cannot say what he means and so how is that her problem? “When is when,” she says, taking his hand to move him farther from her, as the petal lies far from the stem, the lovely bloom from the stiff extending root.

  Walking then, and then another wall, less his impetus than hers now and she allows him to achieve a long, slow, heaving motion, coaxing him along in the winking darkness, traffic murmur to the left and right of them and just as he seems to have yearned himself into some growing rhythm which approaches the arc of true completion she breaks from him, pushes him back and away: away, get away, get lost.

  “No,” she says, “no, no, what do you think you’re doing? What do you think you’re doing?” Staring at her, moist mouth a little open and in the darkness she can sense his panic, his confusion and his flight. “Just take me home,” she says. “Take me home right now.” Hearing the arch, the ragged edge of his breathing she understands without articulation the skittering thunder of his heart, his hands unsteady as they press random down his shirt, smoothing and straightening, hands without touch and “Take me home,” she says, “right now or I’ll—”

  “No,” he says, “no, Lucia, don’t,” and tries to take her arm but she steps away from him, back and away in the secret arc of the smile he will not see and now his walk uncertain, motion tentative and dry and she imagines for an alien moment the pain he must be feeling, inside and out, in his timid heart and aching balls; she no longer bothers even to smile; is it her problem? His wrist is thin and glazed in her grasp as she leads him along and after a while she drops it to let him follow her stuporously like a dog, like a mendicant blessed by no favors, a broken stalk trailing the senseless ground but she is not interested anymore, she knows now how it has all come out, the ending. The climax.

  He sends her daffodils and jonquils, one rose a day then several, then bouquets, then at last the emptied contents of the bonsai store. In the onrush and annealment of his pain he leans toward pretty bonsai and a multicolored field of flowers, flowers to loop and strangle, their fuses clambering toward her throat and into her thighs, the stink refracted, the secret folding and unfolding of petals and of lips.

  He begins with mixed bouquets: She marries at last because quite simply there is nothing else to do that year, no way around being twenty-nine years old in a foolish, dead summer and he is rich or at least says he is coming into some money and that was the summer that her two best friends married the men with whom they lived and left her feeling sullen and vaguely cheated. She keeps her side of the bargain, wifey-wife and even lets him try to get her pregnant (pistil and stem; seed and blossom) but one Saturday morning, emerging from a hangover and no fun at all in August’s Saratoga she knows that it is all over, that she cannot bear any more of him and so, because she prides herself on being honest, because she has never lied to men unless she had to, she tells him that things between them are finished and she wants a divorce as quickly as possible. Alimony is not a permanent consideration, but some rehabilitative settlement is definitely in order.

  He looks at her from the rustle of dry blankets, the weeping finished, eyes wide as if now poison must come past tears. “Lucia, oh God Lucia, how can you do this to me, how can you dismiss me like this? You lied, didn’t you? That’s all you ever did. You lied.”

  She does not know what to say to this and so says nothing, only watches him as he gathers the bedclothes, wraps them like gauze for the wounded, wraps them around his stricken groin. Lied? How so? She has never pretended to great passion, deep feeling, a heart to break or burst; it is not her way, that way, not her style at all. After a few moments, attenuated so profoundly that even she is made uncomfortable by their racklike stretch, she turns to leave the bedroom, to leave the apartment; to leave him there in his crouch and his fresh weeping until such time as the papers are readied, are finally prepared; when she needs him again.

  But he surprises her, he is resourceful and cunning and so he begins with mixed bouquets of gladioli, chrysanthemums, the usual prom stuff, two or three of them a day and then moves on to potted plants and cacti, in the coda of their conjoinment he sends her pots and bags and prickly, extinguished vegetable things which glow in the dark and smell round and huge, which seem to pant secretly as dogs in the empty places of the apartment. And meanwhile, meanwhile, fecundity ferox and flowers and flowers, more and more but even as the bouquets pour in, hungry as kudzu, flagrant as base gold from a hundred men it is the peculiarly meaty and ugly aspects of his plants, his flowers, the steaming lumpy stink of their stems which seems somehow to wrack her the most; she is not sure why this should be. Perhaps because he w
as her only husband, the only one to whom she made the promise formal; perhaps it is for reasons she in her honesty cannot guess as she slips and tumbles, moving gracelessly, relentlessly down the walls of consciousness as a tear runs down a cheek, as blood runs down a window: as the silent water of rain runs down the broad green leaves of a plant.

  Pistil, anvil, stamen, stem: She does not know why they hate her so, or seem to hate her; once they had seemed to love her, and who is dishonest now? Who are the real liars, the ones who groan and weep, clutch and cry Lucia Lucia as if she were an opera, as if she were some movie they had seen as teenagers, horny boys falling openmouthed in love with some larger-than-life representation, some skyscraper tit, some vast enormous smile; and what does any of that have to do with her? She is the one, the real one, the real woman; she is the one at the end of these glowerings and tears, these rages, these pathetic cards and notes; these flowers, helpless as a victim on her bed turned now to funeral slab, narrowed to coffin confines by the creeping encroachment of green and white, pink and yellow, life and death and if she could have screamed, fled, attacked or attempted to attack that time is over, past, she had somehow let it get away from her—the flowers perhaps had done that too, had stripped her attention, had robbed with visions of the past any hope for the future, any possibility or engine for escape. But I didn’t love them, she wants to cry, wants to shout not as apology but defense, I didn’t love any of them, I never wanted to love any of them at all! Is it my fault? How is it my fault that they loved me?

  Now in silence or perhaps on the most delicate cusp, the balanceless tip of death she lies: in the redemptive and carnivorous, the plangent and murmurous, the devouring and incarcerating stink of her admirers’ bouquets, their plants, their buds, all of them most fully and finally prepaid, all of them looming over her. Dwindled then in the darkness they impose, the heavy indoor green of their stance and last, most last and final approach Lucia takes herself through the growth of meaning to be a plant, a vegeaceous being brought now through rot and stink, through mulch and agony to a new and primordial consciousness. The flowers, the stiff and crackling stems continue to arrive, ribboned and carded, ferocious and unknown they flood the apartment, they stream through the windows, heave and batter from beneath the floorboards like an earthquake, a steaming riot of unstoppable growth; pour in and pour in, the flower of the hour club, embracing and smothering and at last, pistil, anvil, stamen, stem, the submerged cognizant Lucia begins in growth to move slowly, slowly under the earth: herself to sprout, to bloom, to bring forth the faint green shoots of redemption from that pope’s staff of herself, all forgiveness, all prayer in the warm and loamless chancel of the night.

  * * *

  Cafe Endless: Spring Rain

  by Nancy Holder

  It was spring in Yoyogi Park, and not a rain, exactly. Cool mist floated in the air, drawn to the heat of the thousand milling bodies, clinging to all the things that lived: girl groups dressed in black lace and garters, thirty young boys dressed up as James Dean, pompadours and chains and black leather jackets. The perennial hippies in black velvet hats and tie-dyed dusters. Ointen Rose, the most popular Sunday street band in Harajuku, their pride and joy a black bass player who was actually quite good.

  It would have been a perfect day to go to the empress’s iris garden in the Meiji Shrine complex. If you stood still long enough and stared across the fish pond in a tranquil state, you could see Her Majesty’s spirit shimmering in the mist that was not mist but gentle spring rain. But Satoshi’s charge for the day was Buchner-san, the American agent for Nippon Kokusai Sangyo, and she had asked to be shown the famous street-dancing kids of Harajuku.

  She had made the request boldly, knowing it wasn’t the polite Japanese thing to do. That was no problem; no one in Ni-Koku-Sangyo expected Buchner-san to act Japanese, and they would never have hired her if she had. She was their American, their contact with the States, and they wanted her as bold and brassy and utterly unsubtle as she was.

  “These are great! This is great!” she kept exclaiming as they traversed the closed-off boulevard. As they did each Sunday, the groups had set up as far apart as possible, which was not very far at all; and the din was so great that you couldn’t hear the generators that powered their electric guitars. Satoshi had never heard the generators.

  The fan clubs of the more popular groups invented gestures and little dances to accompany the songs of their heroes, and as they shouted and pointed and shoo-whopped, Buchner-san shouted in his ear, “It’s like Rocky Horror! Do you know about Rocky Horror?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said politely. With the arrogance of her countrymen, which he found so charming, she always assumed his ignorance. That there was a fundamental lack in his country. In fact, he had seen the original stage play in London, and had owned a bootleg laser disc before Americans could even purchase laser disc players. “It is very interesting.”

  “I love Tim Curry.” She flashed a smile at him. He was getting tired, but would never let her know. All the English, all her talking and questions. Her energetic curiosity. Not that he was complaining; he was happy to show her this amazing Tokyo phenomenon, and pleased if she enjoyed their Sunday afternoon together. He was Ni-Koku-Sangyo’s representative today, and entertaining her was his responsibility. Satoshi was a Japanese man, and fulfilling responsibilities with good effort gave him a sense of pride and accomplishment.

  After a while he steered her to the food booths and bought her some doughy snacks of octopus meat and a beer. When she discovered what she was eating, she laughed and said, “I’m eating octopus balls!” and Satoshi laughed back, although other Americans had made the same joke. He didn’t mind. He never found their humor offensive or insulting, as some of his colleagues did. Americans to him were like puppies, eager, alert, bounding and fun. Although not to be dismissed as unintelligent or lacking in shrewdness. They were tough businessmen. Business people.

  “Do you believe in ghosts, Buchner-san?” he asked her after they finished their snack.

  “Hmm. Do I believe in ghosts.” She looked at him askance. “Why do you ask?”

  “If you look across the iris garden at the Meiji Shrine, you can see a ghost.”

  “If you’re Japanese.” She grinned at him. “I’m afraid I’m far too earthbound for that, Nagai-san.”

  “No. Anyone can see it. Because it’s there. No special abilities— or genetic traits—are required.”

  “Then let’s go see it.”

  He inclined his head. “Unfortunately, it is now closed. But you must come back if you have free time before you go. Tell the taxi Meiji-jingu.”

  “And the subway stop?”

  How he admired these American women! “Meiji-jingu-mae.”

  “Got it.” She was writing it down. Abruptly she frowned and looked up. “God, it’s raining harder.”

  Perhaps that was her way of hinting that she would like to go, and not an indirect rebuke that he had not thought to warn her that it might rain, or to bring umbrellas. Or neither; Americans didn’t think like that. It might simply be a comment about the weather.

  “Shall I take you to Roppongi? The Hard Rock Cafe is there.” She had made mention to Satoshi’s boss, Iwasawa-san, that she would like to buy a Tokyo Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt for her nephew. Although she was almost forty, she was not married. Iwasawa privately called her “Big Mama.” Satoshi thought that was hilarious.

  “Oh, the Hard Rock! That’d be great. I want to buy my nephew a souvenir.” Obviously she had forgotten she’d told Iwasawa. A Japanese would not have. He—she—would have taken it for granted that the request had been made, and now was about to be fulfilled. And a small notch on the chart of indebtedness was now made in favor of Ni-Koku-Sangyo, to be be paid at the proper time.

  They walked back down the boulevard, taking one last look at the bands. The rain was falling not harder, but more like gentle rain now than mist. Perhaps the Harajuku kids would have to shut down; all that electricity could not be safe.


  He began to hail a cab, but she asked to take the subway “if it’s not too much trouble.” Then she would know how to come back if she had time to “visit his ghost.” He acquiesced, content to do as she wished, although he was a little disappointed. While with her he was on his expense account, and he far preferred cabs to crowded subways.

  He showed her how to walk to the station, pointing out landmarks, and explained how to buy a ticket. In Japan there was no stigma attached to ignorance, only to not trying one’s best. They went to the trains and he explained how she could tell she was boarding the correct one. With a sense of fearless joy she absorbed all he said. He was very sorry she would not meet Tsukinosuke.

  But of course, she would have quite happily informed him that she didn’t believe in vampires, either.

  The ride was not long but it was crowded. He could remember a time years ago when Japanese people stared at Americans and Japanese men groped American women on the trains as everyone stood netted together like fish. Now it was Tokyo, London, New York, the three big cities of the world, and such days of primitive behavior were over.

  As they ascended the Roppongi station, the rain was falling like strands of spiderwebs catching dew. Satoshi’s chest tightened. He took measured steps as they turned the corner past the big coffeehouse, Almond, pretending he was scanning for umbrellas.

  Resourceful Roppongi merchants kept supplies of cheap umbrellas on hand for sudden thundershowers.