Weatherhead

by J. M. Hushour

  She came back. She looked new. “Boston,” she replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She looked winded. She blinked more than usual and she was darker, redder, and less fragile.

  “What the hell were you doing in Boston?”

  She shrugged. “.354.”

  Why was she speaking in numbers—

  “There was,” she jumped at the sudden flame in front of her, she was out of breath, almost panting with fever, “a team—okay, all the teams—“ she drew in a sharp breath and he counted to thirty before she went on, “all the teams.”

  “All the teams what? What were you doing in Boston?” His nails digging into the door jamb made a curious, unearthly enemy’s sound.

  “Look, I’m back, ain’t I?” and she wanted to leave it at that and she turned away and she couldn’t help smiling larger than he’d ever seen and he stared down at the back of her neck angrier than he could have ever guessed he could be and he suddenly wanted to pound his fist on that nape, reach down into that burgling throat and seize the answer. She started shaking and it took him a pathetic moment of atonement to realize, no, she wasn’t crying. She was laughing silently. He once loved this about her, one of those secret things we see in the people near us, secrets that we love but never tell them that we know. Maggie’s was that she’d, in conversation where tact demanded untruth, a white lie, lower her face, not her hair, just her face, just the expression, turned it down, down-tuned it so no one could see what was usually the opposite of what you’d think. She’d hidden her ruddy, burning face and was laughing.

  “What’s so funny, goddammit?” he shouted at her. “Who was it?”

  She turned her profile to him and the red hiding-hood faded. “You’re an asshole.”

  He knew she was telling the truth. But she wouldn’t hear of him giving in so easily. Her wizard-wreath polluting her wake, she raged away and reappeared moments later with one of his satchels. “Wanna check?” As he watched, dumbfounded, in a single, practiced movement, long familiar, now alien, she stripped naked and dumped a whole bottle of fingerprint powder down over her head like a rain of ash, smearing her limbs with it roughly, her thighs, her buttocks, her breasts and then she just stood there with her stove-pipe pipping out from her autumn jaws and dared him check her, legs planted apart, arms thrust out to the sides. “Go on, asshole. Do it!”

  But he couldn’t bring himself to, thus condemning his nature before her. If he had looked, would he have found fingerprints on her? Even his own? He knew—no. She pirouetted slowly, ringing her face with noxious ghosts.

  “Do it,” she growled. He’d pushed her too far. His own violations were being paraded before him now. She looked down and he followed her eyes. She was patting out a tattoo on her crescent-moon navel, sending puffs of ejecta out into the room. His eyes went lower and he saw a triangular scarlet grove dusted with snow, that brilliant trap that unties men more than whiskey, the wireless, and war.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in surrender. He had the urge to kneel. He couldn’t.

  She took her sleepy, blue-fire eyes, always too close together, off of him and went to dress. She left on the powder.

  He stood there for a long time. There was before him a history of the fist and a history of the kiss. Illiterate in both, he had nowhere to go: he could move in no direction. Recasting his guilt in anger would only make plain his futility; recasting his guilt in love would only make plain his scarecrow life: he a bag of foul ashes still keeping a sweeping watch over the fields as the fires advance across them. No one will eat and the autumn will be red with open mouths. Why didn’t he cry out? Warn them? Because his mouth was painted on? He’d done nothing to save her, salve her. Yes, when it came to Maggie Mechaine he was a big bag stuffed with ash, something she’d tap out off into an ashtray with that red river stare of hers beating down the crows below him. Yet, she’d left him up there on the pole, hadn’t she? Ol’ scarecrow heart. Was it crucifixion or to keep him guardian over her?

  She’d done nothing wrong. She never had. She loved him, he thought, despite her mercenary affections and affectations; hers was a gentle storm—what had Mal called it? An unquiet choreography?—the kind that lulls one to sleep despite its destructive nature, the kind that can’t recede, you don’t want it to, just hover there over me, stiffen against the wind, show those terrible eye-whites of the leaves turning over—let me down from time to time and rag-doll waltz me through the oblivious corn, Maggie Mechaine, my dear ol’ Maggie, and I’ll keep the fire away from ye.

  Straw is very, very flame-worthy. The relation of appearance to reality had always bothered him.

  The card table was flipped over. She’d been at this for a couple of hours, simmering, cinnamon Cimmerian, moving her puzzle-within-a-puzzle-within-a-puzzle chunk by chunk to the underside of all things, finishing it with a flourish on the bottom of the table. How could she finish the thing so fast? Fluent in the language of the piecemeal, she had now set about gluing it there, save the middle portion which she had deftly removed in one fell block and set aside. Burn stood nearly butt-up in an ashtray beside her knee. Powder-puff obscured her, every moment sent up a little wisp of white and made her seem on fire, fireworks. One of his friends, a classic arsonist, had told him once that fingerprint powder is the same flash powder they used in fireworks. She was already on fire though, his failure.

  “Hey, look,” he was sheepish in the doorway, “I’m sorry—I’ve been—but—where you’ve been? You can’t just up-and-disappear for two weeks and not expect me to ask questions.” Her bare shoulders didn’t move. She had lingering scrapes about her elbows, he saw. What was she doing?

  “Did ya know,” her drawl deepened on thick, hot days like this, “tomorrow’s the longest day of the year.”

  “Okay.” He shifted his lean from one side of threshold to the other.

  “An’ I’m gonna spend it hatin’ you.” She puffed breath up and blew a crimson spill out of her eyes, “all charlie motherfuckin’ day long.”

  He said nothing. He watched her fuss about trimly with her puzzle. An envelope sat on the floor by her knee. “What’s that?”

  “Fuck you.” Their harmony, whatever it had been, scarecrow and milkmaid, had been upset. Despite himself and the uselessness of the emotion, he became anger, fury. He had told his friend Mal, albeit reluctantly, about her erasure. Mal had his own worries and he didn’t want to trouble his friend the imminent father unduly. Mal’s girlfriend was due to give birth any day. Mal, upon hearing of Maggie’s disappearance had been surprised, not that she’d vanished without a trace, but that he was making such a big deal about it.

  “Why is no one bothered by this,” he wondered aloud.

  Mal coughed. Mal, ever practical and as patronizing as best friends should be, had run down every police bulletin board online and in-the-meat, as they called the pre-post world. Nothin’. Missing persons, hospital receptions, anything and everything that might point to the whereabouts of one Maggie Mechaine. Nothin’. “I guess she just wanted to be gone,” was his gentle conclusion.

  “That doesn’t help.”

  “It isn’t supposed to. People are like colors—“

  “Don’t start this shit again, man—“

  “Shut the fuck up and listen: there’s something in the eye of—god, or the universe, or whatever you wanna call it—something in the light hittin’ that eye, it likes the way two shades match, and there’s a harmony there between the two. But sometimes, dude, the light shifts, and one of them suddenly doesn’t look so right anymore, know what I’m sayin’? You and Maggie, man, it’s like I told you at the game a while back, all we are is the sum of our parts or better yet, the sum of all things. Sometimes we split. Maybe Maggie split a little. Look, man, I have no doubt she’s fine. Just shut up. Look, when you paint, you develop an intuition for color, what goes where, what will do what, what goes with what. Sometimes, though, the light hits the canvas in a different way and you’re like, ‘what the fuck! why’d I do tha
t?’ and you have to change it up because you didn’t realize that in a different light it ain’t gonna work.”

  He secretly loved Mal’s analogies. “How?”

  Shrug. “Well, you can just start cakin’ the shit on, but if it still doesn’t jibe right, you’re gonna end up with a mother-lode of layers of bullshit that it gets harder and harder to scrape off. Or you could just scrape it off from the get-go and start over, tryin’ to find that right color. Or—“

  “Or what?”

  “You grab the fucking lamp and change the way the light falls.” Mal looked at his watch. In eleven days, his son would be born without him there and his girlfriend, not even having told him she was in labor, would vanish, too, never to be seen in the world again.

  And? “So what do I do if she comes back?”

  Mal sighed. “When she comes back. You grab the fucking lamp. You know what? The way you’ve been to her—” Mal knew about Summer, too. They all did. “—if I even knew where Maggie went, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  Back now, he smiled at her back. “Do you wanna go to a movie?”

  “No. I want you to give me a bath. No—first—“

  The lamp didn’t shine directly in her face—her hoodie was pulled down level with her eyebrows and the black crescent effect there the shadow cast, hid her expression. He liked her like this, sullen, the lightdark making her face seem glower and hallow—she looked like a truth as disquieting as those old gods birthed out of incest: offensive in their origins, but necessary contraband for the suckling of celestial miracles—something smuggled out of the filthy act and let float all crime-manna down off of Olympus to come to rest here, looking for all the world like a teenaged juvie-bound tough n’ ruffian. She’d somehow managed to handcuff herself to the table. Her palms pressed against the tabletop. A pack of cigarettes rested next to her hand. She was filthy with the white soot (ash?) of the finger-finders.

  He cleared his throat, unsure where to begin. Maggie never dreamed out loud and her laughs were affairs between airs and lips. “Name.” “Margaret Mechaine.” “Known aliases?” “Red October.” “What?” “Red October.” “What?! Why?” “Silent. Deadly. Stolen.” “Who calls you that?” “Her name was Kathy.” “Any others?” “Fox in Socks. Country Mouse.” “That’s what I—your husband calls you.” “Mhm. Not for a long time, though.” He looked at the wall. “You forgot your weather when you went to wherever.” She looked up at the barometer. “Naw. I knew the weather there real good. I knew it better than before.” They began. “And where was there?” “Boston, like I said.” “What can you tell me about Boston, Mechaine?” She sat up straighter, swayed like insulted. “I can tell you all kinds of shit, copper, about all kinds of things,” she growled. He could see her teeth. “I want to know what you were doing there.” “I already told you. How many different ways do I have to say it?” “As many as it takes.” “Maybe you’re just not doin’ your job right? Not lookin’ for the right clues.” “What clues?” “Under the table,” her hand flapped at him, “the first thing you do when you walk in a room is you’re supposed to look unner the tables.” “For what?” “Guns, gum, maps, bugs, skirts, knees—“ “That won’t work on me, Mechaine.” She was confounding him. “What will, I wonder?” She shifted to one side and crossed her legs. They were bare, he saw with a shiver. The powder made her ghost. “Did anyone know you were leaving?” She nodded. “Who?” “I told your sister.” He cursed. “Who else?” “Mal.” “That black fuck—“ “He lied for me. You just lied to me. There’s a difference, see? One’s like, noble, maybe? The other is fuckin’ criminal.” “So, this is all because I cheated on you.” “All those times.” “All those times.” “Nope, it ain’t, actually. I am your—my own person.” Despite being handcuffed, she somehow managed to produce her bag of weed and set to rolling a joint while he fumed above her. “I don’t feel like I have your full attention, ma’am,” he growled. “You don’t. My back itches—“ She drew a hand free and promptly scratched it. “How—“ “I can escape whenever I want.” Defiance stared back at him. “You don’ get it.” “You sound more rednecky than you did—“ “There were a lotta girls there from the south.” He leaned forward all ominous, “Where?” but she just snorted. “You were with another woman.” She made a retched face. “You ooze stupid.” “I like your redneck side.” “Do ya. You’ve never told me that before. All you did was make fun of the way I talked—“ “I was kidding around.” “That’s what you always say.”

  “Then why fuckin’ come back, then, Maggie? What’s the fuckin’ point?” He banged his fist on the table. She smiled. “Stop lookin’ at me like that! Why? Why not just stay gone if it’s so miserable here?”

  “This is why,” she laughed. Suddenly the handcuffs were around his wrist. She indicated that he sit. She put on his mirrored sunglasses. “Name? Also-known-as?” He struggled against his bonds. She perched herself a deliciousness on the corner of the table and flicked on her lighter. Its others danced over her shield-eyes. “Angry and accusatory—I’ll be blunt. Why did you kill your wife?” He smirked. “I didn’t kill my wife.” “Who did, then?” “She killed herself.” “And why would she do that, pray tell?” “I dunno—she was—angry—she was always sad—“ She laughed along the light before her. “Why do so many people mistake content for sad? Why is it that the less that I need from anyone else the more in need I supposedly am?” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. She puffed in silence for a moment, then: “What if,” she swung around to face him, “I told you your wife weren’t, in fact, dead.” “Where is she, then? This is ridiculous. I demand—“ “You are in a position to demand nothing. We, on the other hand, will demand many things.” “Like what?” “Baths, shoulder massages, eatings-out, and goin’ to restaurants. Do you even know your wife’s favorite restaurant?” “Where is my wife?” “In a safe place. Tell me, detective—“ she stood and walked across the room, “—how many nights do you reckon you spent fuckin’ other girls?” He spluttered. He stammered. Maggie never talked about this. “More than two weeks’ worth, I bet.” “This is fuckin’ unfair. I was right. This was all about Maggie pullin’ even—“ She became angry and slipped into her first, rare person: “Do you think that things I do for me, the one goddamn time I do somethin’ for me, this is all against you, somehow? Automatically? That ain’t fuckin’ fair. I ain’t the one out there—well, you know what you did. I ain’t like you, though, I don’t pretend I’m the longest game in town. I don’t pretend I win at nothin’. Nothin’. I ain’t gotta pretend. That’s what you do. Who the fuck are you anyway?” She was shouting now, shouting in his face. “You see what you gone n’ done? Given up the longest day a’ the year to me for hatin’ your stupid-ass.” She shoved him off his chair and cut through the room. The air bled where she passed. “You ain’t never gonna lissen, are ya? Not to me and not to you! Why don’t you fuckin’ leave? You done dipped your dick in every goddamn hole from here to Miami. What the fuck am I? Nothin’! Nothin’!”

  “No, that’s not true—“ he cried.

  She stormed over and loomed above him with a fist. “You shoulda been there. You coulda been there with me. You coulda driven, driven me up there, watched me outside of my cage for once. But you never listen, you don’ get it, but I’m gonna tell you somethin’” She softened suddenly, knelt down, he could see madness in her eyes. She patted his cheek. “I can be real foolish right beside you. I’ll always be there to pull you up outta your wrong, see?”

  He looked down and studied his handcuffs. How strange they looked from the other side. “Sometimes I think you’ve hated me because of the baby thing.”

  “Don’t do that. You ain’t gonna define me by my function. Don’t.” He asked, “How many nights was it then?” She shrugged. “I lost count. It don’t matter. What’s done is done.” He’d never seen her so triumphant. This is what it must’ve felt like, he thought, to stand panting, leaning on a bloody sword, staring at the victorious general calmly surveying the landscape o
f corpses strewn about. Comes the spoils. “Now I want you to give me a bath and wash this stuff offa me.”

  And he did, for what he was pretty sure was the very first time ever. They never used the bathtub that whaled up their second bathroom. You could barely scoot around it to the toilet. Fingerprint powder is afraid of water, he told her. Hydrophobic. He drew the bath. She undressed without a word and daintily dipped a foot in, then stepped in and stood there, one knee slightly bent, arms at her side, eyes closed, and let him pour warm water down over her bruised and battered body. He poked his eyes into hers as he prepared the fixings for her washing-up. She looked tired, she said it’d been a long bus ride back, but her eyes, her sleepy, wan eyes were fixed and focused with a clarity and serenity he’d never seen at work behind those blues. Working up a steady lather into the sponge on-hand, at first he gently daubed at her but she, clucking her tongue, seized his wrist and demanded roughness, so he complied, scrubbing her down all inmate. Then she sat and let all pool around her as he washed her hair and they talked of simple, stupid things as they should.